China, silver, crystal, and the table . . .

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Bushey, run, don't walk, to the super and buy "Oxy-clean". You add one scoop to your wash, and stains are GONE. I use it on antique linens all of the time.

We spend most of our leisure time at antique events, and tableware is my passion. I'm really a sucker for French "lapkins", the huge (approx 27"x30") linen napkins, usually with massive embroidered initials. I just brought home a group that are the classic country French natural linen with red bands woven on the four sides, with 6" red initial cartouches in the center! Wild!

We use our stuff, not holding back "for good". We have mostly switched from using "sets of china" to more interesting settings. When I am shopping, I frequently see something and try to think of a use for it: a particular food or dish, a theme for a dinner. I just came home (from Brimfield, Bushey) with sardine tongs and two groups of strawberry forks. (How do you like the idea of 5 or so small farmer's market strawberries in a martini glass, jigger or so of grand Marnier and a drop of heavy cream? I'm still working on the setting for the sardine tongs. One of my favorite finds was a group of French silver cheese forks.

We have several groups of chargers, 12-13" plates, that are our workhorses. Some are all white; some art glass; some white china with clusters of vivid fruit on the rims. I love the latter for dramatic fruit desserts that involve a sauce.

I picked at a house sale a couple of dozen Perrier-Jouet champagne glasses, which I adore because they are so foolish. They are painted with the same apple-blossoms as the bottle. They, more than the champagne, make me laugh whenever we use them.

[Priscilla]

Wow Margaret your Perrier-Jouet glasses sound just hilarious. I'm exceedingly envious.

Check on the Oxy-Clean, do you have any advice on candle wax drippings?

And woven-in borders are a good thing in the world, I think.

[bushey]

Check on the Oxy-Clean, do you have any advice on candle wax drippings?

Check here on the Oxy-clean, too, which I;ve just started using. Will have to try on table linens once I've acquired some decent ones.

Candle wax!!!!! On Rosh Hashannah eve I lit a few pillar candles on a tray on the sideboard. Toward the end of the evening we noticed that an additional pillar candle had been lit by my daughter. I started to say that I had purposely left it out because of a huge "hole" in the wax when I realized that it had dripped copiously all over the mahogany sideboard (it had been on a glass coaster). We got most of it up right away but there are a few drips and smudges left and I can't remember the Martha Stewart or Heloise tips for removing wax. Can anyone help?

Thanks for all of the suggestions and encouragement on collecting old china. Unfortunately the September Brimfield fell on a busy weekend for us so I had to miss it. I'll probably go with a burgundy and gold theme since our dining room walls are burgundy and we have a (mismatched) collection of china teacups and saucers that my mother-in-law collected during the years she worked in Fine China at a department store.

I've also noticed that Target and Pier 1 have interesting chargers, rectangular plates and Asian influenced pieces.

[Wilfrid]

Oxy clean is on my shopping list. I have major problems with napkins, especially cute little cocktail napkins, getting stained almost as soon as you look at them. Thanks, Margaret.

If anyone is turned on by size, when it comes to napkins, I noticed Illuminations (see link in my earlier post) have some huge lap napkins in their Fall collection. They also have some "moss and bark" table mats - almost like collages. Maybe for Hallowe'en, although I immediately found myself putting together a rustic menu around the idea.

[Marlene]

In our house it depends. I have joint custody of my son, and I have him every other week for a week. During the weeks I have my son, we tend to use Corelle for every day, and we almost never eat at the same time since my husband's hours can be unpredictable. I'll feed Ry first usually and if Don's not going to be too late, I'll wait for him, otherwise I'll eat with Ry. On the weekends, particularly on Sunday's I generally try to make a nice meal, using the dining room and setting the table with a nice tablecloth and the good china and silver. Linen napkins. For just us, I don't worry too much about garnishes, but certainly when having company, I always do and the china, silver and linen as well as a nice centrepiece of some sort is standard.

I have two sets of china, one of them 100 year old Limoges I inherited from my great grandmother. The other is china that we received for our wedding. I almost never use the Limoges anymore, because they don't go in the dishwasher, and the plates are much smaller than the plates today so they don't plate well. My ex used to say there wasn't even room for food on them.

When Don and I are alone on the weeks I don't have Ryan, we usually eat out two or three times a weekand on the weekend when we entertain a lot. Occasionally, I will go all out and set the table in the dining room with the good stuff for just the two of us with some candles.

[maggiethecat]

I have never in my adult life eaten without candlelight....unless I was eating outside my home. As a matter of fact, my dining room has no light fixture, so it's a necessity. Ikea has nice candles cheap.

My silverwear is sterling, English and all over 150 years old...all thanks to Mum. It is all I use. Beautiful and indestuctible. Linen napkis, tablecloth...sure! Hell, life is short. Use the stuff.

[Kim WB]

Wow, what a great thread, I've really enjoyed hearing about the effort and interest that goes into setting the table. Alas, we have 1 set of boring lenox china, corelle, and lots of paper cups and plates. We have a big screen TV that spans the lengthof our family room, however. Can we start a thread on living with men who feel effort and interest belong to football season and not tableware?

edited to add that we do not watch TV while eating a family meal...its in another room. We might use Corelle, but we're not TOTAL barbarians!

[Wilfrid]

I used to forbid the switching on of the television while we were eating together. I have had to compromise a little, as it's sometimes necessary to have the Yankees game on with the sound down.

[g.johnson]

I have had to compromise a little, as it's sometimes necessary to have the Yankees game on with the sound down. 

Race traitor.

[trillium]

Check on the Oxy-Clean, do you have any advice on candle wax drippings?

Candle wax!!!!! On Rosh Hashannah eve I lit a few pillar candles on a tray on the sideboard. Toward the end of the evening we noticed that an additional pillar candle had been lit by my daughter. I started to say that I had purposely left it out because of a huge "hole" in the wax when I realized that it had dripped copiously all over the mahogany sideboard (it had been on a glass coaster). We got most of it up right away but there are a few drips and smudges left and I can't remember the Martha Stewart or Heloise tips for removing wax. Can anyone help?

Goo Gone works on candle drippings (and those annoying bits of adhesive left on things from the price tag). I've used it successfully on some hand done batik that got red candle dripped all over them. Do check for color-fastness, however. And in spite of the lack of warnings on the label, it chew up my fingernails when I use it without gloves on so you might want to keep that in mind.

regards,

trillium

[Priscilla]

Goo Gone works on candle drippings (and those annoying bits of adhesive left on things from the price tag).

Thank you, Trillium, on behalf of an especially nice pink linen damask tablecloth.

[Wilfrid]

I have had to compromise a little, as it's sometimes necessary to have the Yankees game on with the sound down.  

Race traitor.

Small-minded jingoist.

[g.johnson]

BRIT!

[Vanessa]

!!

[Steve Martin]

The plating and tableware is an essential part of the hobby for me. I cook every day, often twice, and every meal is the full monty. The silverware is used every day with tablecloth and cloth napkins.

Most of my tableware can be seen on my website.

My Webpage

You will see some snazzy modern Viners cutlery there as well as the silver.

It is mostly Villeroy & Boch, with some Denby. Glasses by V&B and Riedel.

I like plenty of light while dining so the candle stays in the bedroom.

We don't own a dishwasher because, in my experience, they ruin good china and glass and do not clean to my satisfaction.

No TV during meals, but always music.

Wouldn't it be nice if restaurant style tableware was easy to buy retail. Why is the workable area of a domestic dinner plate so miniscule? I suppose as long as people are eating off paper, things are unlikely to improve.

[oraklet]

though we almost always have meals all 6 together, it is most times very informal: the table is a huge old working table from the french embassy's kitchen, plates are semi-antique finds as are spoons. and knives/forks are victorinox. wine glasses are cheap ikea. no table cloth, and paper napkins. but music, tv or radio is banned - even if my favourite football team is playing.

12 years ago, before the arrival of our first kid, things were different. lots of inherited stuff (some of it 200 years old), lots of small candlelit dinners with friends etc. - but it slowly became more and more difficult to be civilized...

these days, only christmas or similar occasions will make us dig out all that stuff from whereever we hid it. and perhaps this is mostly to live up to our families' expectations of continuing their tradition of formality in dining.

i must admit that i kind of miss it.

[bushey]

Oraklet, maybe you could add some additional special occasions to the calendar when you can put out the good stuff. We do our birthday dinners in the dining room with tablecloth, linen napkins and candles. The kids really enjoy it and see it as special. Plus, their table manners are always better in the dining room and they try harder to make interesting conversation. Once in a while we do Sunday brunch in the dining room as well.

Funny, when we have small gatherings we tend to have nibbles/drinks and sometimes starters in the living room where we can sit around and be relaxed, then main course at the dining table. Dessert is usually in the living room as well, or sometimes if it's just a party for four we hang out in the kitchen for dessert.

TV is banned during all meal times -- it's not even close to the kitchen. Telephones are also during our dinner hour. That's what answering machines are for.

[mixmaster b]

I am enjoying this thread so much!

I am a product designer and work for an interior designer who does several lines of various types of home furnishings: crystal, china, and table linens, as well as furniture, lighting, textiles, rugs, bedding, and tile. My background is textile design, and I have really enjoyed working on the tableware lines, as they blend my food obsession with my real work!

My significant other and I are in our early thirties, no kids, just a few years into heavy domescticity. I think our relative youth informs some of our choices (i.e. no high-quality stemware for waine, as most of the wne we drink is very basic stuff). I am hoping the next few years bring increased storage space and a nice, formal wedding registery to fill in the gaps.

Right now, we have a real mish-mash of stuff, given to us mainly by relatives. My mother-in-law to be is a flea-market junkie and has a great eye for silver. I have more pie-servers and fish-forks than I know what to do with! We also have various types of china, some formal and some casual. The casual stuff was mainly purchased by us at Ikea (some of their products are quite decent, and the prices are so low you can play a little), Crate & Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma. There is some Frankoma from my grandmother--the simple pieces are quite tasteful--that I have augmented with E-bay purchases. I have also ended up with a great variety of prototypes from work--thankfully all plates in sets of 6 or more, and some lovely serving pieces (platters, veggie bowls, tea & coffepot, etc). These designs are understated modern/transitional--not too contemporary or colorful, and are made in Limoges, so the quality is good. I have a few sets of espresso cups that I love to use after nice dinners, too.

Glassware has to be inexpensive because my darling fiancé is very hard on it. Again, we have some neat stuff from relatives (my favorite is Blenko stemware with swirls of air in the stems), but mainly our glassware is from Ikea. I have also taken to buying sets of interesting glasses from E-bay.

Table linens are the same story- many lovely linens from my grandmother, cheap but passable linen cocktail napkins from Chinatown, white and off-white cotton for everyday, as well as some embroidered prototypes from work. All are white or cream, a few have colored embroidery.

One of my favorite serving pieces is a beautiful hand-made cutting board from Simon Pierce. Some slices of baguette, a few cheeses, and a small dish of olives or cornichons, when laid out on the board with some silver cheese knives, make a wonderful presentation with no effort.

I love to make the table with a mix of stuff. I think that necessity is the mother of invention here, to some extent; when I don't have the right piece, I just use whatever is closest. But it sometimes ends up being more personal than a perfect table, and certainly creative. It's fun to mix very refined things with casual ones, Euro centric with Japanese influence, etc. This system seems to work best when you mix whole sets of different things (E.G. a place setting might include a Limoges charger, a simple white plate from Ikea, a tumbler for wine, and great, ornate silver, but each place setting has to match--I suspect it would seem too chaotic otherwise.) Also we think carefully about what is the best for the presentation of each dish.

We usually only go to all of these lengths for company. I am afraid I will be barred from e-gullet, but most nights we eat in front of the TV. We often make nice table settings on the coffee table--candles, cloth napkins, etc, and eat carefully prepared, multi-course dinners while watching a movie or an episode of something, with the dogs curled up next to us. However, the posts here have inspired to make more of an effort to sit at the table with music and candles instead of the idiot-box!

Presentation is important, too. I was much less aware of this before seeing how great my fiancé's efforts look--as long as it tasted good, I was pretty happy. I now do simple garnishes with herbs, or sauce the plate, or use one of those metal rings to make rice (or whatever) look nice and architectural. I think it makes a big difference, even if it is destined to be consumed while watching West Wing!

Thanks for starting this post, Fat Guy-- I am definitely looking at it from a professional standpoint as well as a personal one!

[stellabella]

If you own fine china, silver, and crystal, how often do you use it and for what kinds of occasions? And what kind of stuff do you own?

How often do you use a tablecloth? Placemats? Nothing?

What kind of napkins do you use?

i try always to keep a cloth on the table, primarily for aesthetic reasons. when i have a dinner party, i often choose one of my favorite cloths and make sure i have enough matching or complimenting cloth [ONLY!] napkins for each diner. i choose dishes accordingly. i have five different sets [3 of which are incomplete] , as well as many odd pieces that i mix and match. for example i like to mix blue willow pieces with fiesta ware.

i use silverplate, mostly odd pieces, or every day. i don't take care of it but it still looks better to me than my husband's pre-me stainless. although lately i have been noticing some stainless patterns that i really like--nonetheless i doubt i'll ever make the splurge.

i am in the process of amassing silver. i don't use it very often simply because i don't have enough for more than 7. sometimes when i do a small dinner i get it out. and it isn't engraved yet, which bugs me. it's old maryland, and when i get the set completed i am taking it to my girlfriend to have engraved all at once.

not that i'm obsessive-compulsive, or anything.

[stellabella]

Thanks for starting this post, Fat Guy-- I am definitely looking at it from a professional standpoint as well as a personal one!

i enjoyed your post, mixmaster. i don't think you're a heathern for eating in front of the tv. i am married and childless, too--i really pressure my husband to eat with me--i think it's an important ritual--but we often eat together while watching a movie. i mean, we're married--we don't always feel like talking to each other . but i absolutely WILL not answer the phone during supper. watching tv or not, we're still having time together.

sometimes we sit out on our screened deck and eat--this is our favorite place, even preferable to the tv, but the weather prevents my husband being outside in the summer. he can't stand the heat. it's just starting to get really nice outside again.

[Ed Hamilton]

When my wife and I moved aboard our boat my ex-mother-in-law gave us a set of cute plastic plates, cups, saucers, bla, bla, bla and I felt like I was at a picnic instead of at home. Then I acquired, through garage sales, a set of matched hand painted plates and saucers. They broke one by one over the next ten years. No problem. Ceramic is easier to clean than plastic and is nicer, even if my plate doesn't match yours. When my ex left, I gave the plastic to another boat family that liked the plastic plates, which they still have ten years later.

In the meantime I lost that boat and inherited, on the next boat, a set of 14 more plastic plates with fancy rubber rings on the bottom to keep them from slipping around on the table. They look great at boat shows, and don't break. But they do stain although you can bleach them. It should go without saying that I don't have what you would call a dishwasher. On a boat it's called my turn or your turn, which I don't mind since I get to put away the left overs and mix the after dinner drinks while I'm in the galley.

Drinks are served in special glasses some of which are rum bottles cut to 3 1/2" high and polished. Great balance and they don't spill easily. We also use logo embossed glasses from the Ministry of Rum store but they tend to get broken since they are clear and can't be seen easily in the dark. Lighting is important, I use a low wattage bulb in a nice shade made of bamboo woven by an artist friend who used to sail with me.

Silverware is actually stainless, but heavy stainless without any pattern so that it's easy to maintain since we use a lot of saltwater to prewash after most meals.

I only carry place settings for four, which isn't a problem at all. If we have friends over, which is often, since I have plenty of room in the cockpit or foredeck, the guests bring their own plates. We have silverware and glasses for a small navy.

Most meals are served on deck and to hold the plates we have an assortment of nice hardwood lap trays. Anyone who lives on a boat quickly adapts to holding their plate in their lap. There is a folding cockpit table but it is usually full of food since to have a dining table would take a lot of space and crowd everyone into a smaller space, which can be uncomfortable in the tropics.

There is usually music in the background since we've graduated to CD's. Unless there is a weather report on the Side Band Radio when everyone better be quiet, but everyone always listens when there is weather in the area.

Candles are all but forbidden since fire is the third biggest danger on a small boat. Running out of food and drink are first and second but not necessarily in that order.

[jaybee]

You had to ask....I'm a real nut case for how a table looks. We have maybe seven or eight dinner services and three or four sets of flatware, four or five sets of glassware. Our everyday dishes are a set of classic blue-rimmed white bistro dishes we bought in Paris years ago. I change the dishes based on the type of meal, the colors of the food, the mood we are in and the "formality" or informality of the meal. I even have a set of black plates I use to serve black rrizhaato. When I visited Giverny, I went nuts for the yellow, blue and white dishes Monet used and found an inexpensive set here. (Crate & Barrel now is selling them). Setting the table is like a stage set for me. Lighting, mood, color, flowers, linen are all important.

I just bought the "bistro" flatware from Williams Sonoma (blue and white porcelain handles) they are great for country lunches. I am looking for an old set of heavy large scale forks and spoons such as they use in Paris bistros.

My problem is that I am completely out of places to store dishes and glassware. But that doesn't stop me from buying more.

Then again, I often eat a salami sandwich on a paper plate.

[Malawry]

I am astonished at the care with which so many of you set your tables. It's inspiring!

At my place, we use Williams-Sonoma's everyday restaurant ware in plain white for everyday and for casual entertaining. The dishes are amazing. They take a lot of abuse, and believe me I'm hard on them. I take them from oven to table to dishwasher and they get banged around a lot, but they never so much as chip. I love 'em. We use my esteemed housemate's simply-patterned stainless for flatware most of the time, and we drink from cheap Arcoroc tumblers and old-fashioned glasses. Wine is served in a simple, inexpensive swirly-balloon shaped wineglass set from Crate and Barrel.

On nicer occasions, or just for us sometimes when I'm in the mood, we use my partner's family china...Royal Hostess "Connie." It's white with blue flowers and silver rims. We registered for Williams-Sonoma's Croisiere stainless flatware and we use that when we entertain. I like how big and heavy the forks are especially.

We always have a tablecloth on the dining room table, and it's the only place we eat in the house with rare exception. (There is no kitchen table.) There are two fairly generic tablecloths with a paisley-type pattern embossed, with matching napkins and some pretty leaf-shaped napkinholders. I have a gorgeous sheer white leafy-patterned cloth I use sometimes for dressier occasions. I have something like 20 cheep Ikea votive holders which I sometimes set out on the table. The table itself was inherited from my deceased grandmother and it's gorgeous, but since we eat on it daily we keep it covered with the table pads I also inherited plus a cloth. Sometimes, we eat on the bare table just for effect. The table came to me with a tea cart which is in poor condition and which serves as a bar, and an etagere (sp?) which holds assorted serving pieces. The dining room also has a china rail, where we display the aforementioned Connie pattern.

[jaybee]

Thanksgiving dinner is a lot of fun. We eat on a large oak trestle table that my wife's late father (a psychiatrist) made in his woodshop. It seats ten, and we have a drop leaf table that fits right next to it to extend the table to seat fourteen. If need be we can add a second table to make it to eighteen. Thanks to our late in-laws we have a large set of beautiful patina'd yellow pine step-down Windsor chairs and a pair of high backed Windsor arm chairs. When the table is set for such a crown, with candles glowing from crystal shaded holders it looks really magical. It usually takes us two weekends to set everything up.

In summer, I also like to set tables up on the lawn under trees. Our old terrasses have that look of gentle decay of decrepit Italian places (good excuse not to spend money to repair them). Moss lines the stones like an old carpet. Here I like to use bright pastels for the table linen, bright colored faience plates and lots of cut flowers.

This is a fun thread. It evokes wonderful images when I read what the other posters describe.

[mhadam]

Dinners, saturday/sunday breakfasts/lunches we eat at the dining room table. There are four placemats (handmade with a beautiful design of the coast we picked up in Cape Cod) on the table when there isn't a tablecloth.

We use fine paper napkins and our usual plates (ikea -- white with a blue trim) and normal stainless steel silverware.

If it's a holiday or special event or on those random 'let's be festive' occasions, we whip out the china (Noritake white porcelain with a plantium band) and my grand mother's silverware and two of a dozen linen napkins.

Any other meal is in the kitchen on our blond wood table that is covered with a large fruit basket, a bread box we don't use (husband likes it for show) and a large vase filled with tea bags (in the wrappers). Looks very nice with all the different colors of the wrappers.

There is a table runner on the table though.