It’s time for the weekly photo series I have been participating in, called Take Tuesday and hosted by Shakti (who no longer blogs). Today’s prompt was Favourite Dish.
In order to select my most favourite dish I imagined myself seated in our living room, and then hearing something hit the floor. Which plate or bowl would make me the most upset, were I to go into the kitchen and see it being picked up from the floor in tiny pieces?
I cheated a bit and chose a few things that might elicit a tear if they were to break. My sadness would have nothing to do with the monetary value of the items because I didn’t pay much for any of them, but rather with the level of difficulty I would have replacing it if it broke.
Aside from loving their shape and colours, these Hazel Atlas glasses also have some sentimental value. I bought them some years ago when my sister and I took a little walk, a break from sitting with her boyfriend who was in the hospital. We wandered into a little antique store near the hospital and I found these.
Thankfully, my brother-in-law recovered fully, but a few years later he and my sister broke up. I got along with him well and miss him. So these glasses, displayed in a glass-front cabinet, remind me of him.
The bowls with the handles are made by Fire King, and what is particularly special about these ones is that they are painted in solid colours, with the paint in perfect condition. Yes, this shape of bowl is not all that rare and a search on ebay will yield quite a few, however it’s hard to find one ridged like these are and painted in solid primary colours. I’m pretty sure the original set of four would have included the red, blue and yellow ones, plus a green one, making it a ‘Primary Colour’ set, like those nesting bowls and refrigerator box sets you’ve probably seen. The brown one would have come from a different set, but I’m not sure which one.
We have six others in this shape but in more common finishes (four in peach lustre, and two in avocado) and we use them all the time. As in constant rotation. We just wash them in the dishwasher and keep them right on the shelf with everything else we use on a daily basis. Unlike these ones in the pictures which are kept in the ‘only with careful use’ area.
Finally, we have the Duraline Grindley Hotelware bowls with the leaf pattern (not sure of the pattern’s official name). I still can’t believe that when I first began using ebay, I got this whole set of four chili bowls (that’s what that round shape is called), and six custard cups, for only $9.99 plus delivery charge. At the time I didn’t really realize how rare they were and because I had gotten them so inexpensively, I didn’t treasure them and put them into regular rotation. But after searching for plates to add to the set I realized that my lucky find was exactly that, a very lucky find. So up on the ‘treasures to be used with extreme care’ shelf they went.
These types of dishes were originally made to be used in coffee shops and are very thick. They would have received heavy usage back in their day, so somehow the ones I have survived the decades unscathed by a single chip. I think they may have never been used, certainly not in a restaurant setting.
Now back to the Take Tuesday photo challenge, the prompt was ‘Favourite Dish’, not favourite dishes, plural. So I have to pick one. And that would have to be the red Fire King handled bowl at the top of this post. Red is a real favourite colour of mine and I simply love the shade of it on this bowl.
I’d love to hear what your favourite dishes are, be they of the food variety or crockery.
Thank you for dropping over.
xo loulou
