Your day to day dinner ware?

Mountain Cat

Mountain Cat

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I just purchased a set of new stoneware to eat from. My old stuff was a conglomerate of three different things, not one of them a complete set. Sort of, well, you keep things from when you first set up, and just add on going from there.

I do love one of the old (partial) sets, but the price online to attempt to complete it (and there was nothing out there to really complete it) was more than I wanted to pay, especially since there was no guarantee I'd ever complete it.

So: Here is my new set: The underside of the new plates matches the almost-black of the interior of the mug and the bowl. Stoneware style is casual, but the material is hardy. Gibson Elite, Casa Gris.

stoneware-set-.jpg


Flatware is from Sherill (Liberty Tabletop) and is made in the US. Pinehurst pattern. I bought that set about a year and a half ago as the old flatware was in even worse shape (missing and all) than the plates! I was using what I'd call "mutantware" - maybe three pieces out of twenty utensils might match. Maybe.

So.. show us a day to day setting? (Okay, I don't put out placemats or all the stuff for just me, that's for certain! The photo is staged.)

Not staged, my first meal on my new dishes (a filet of grey sole with a sunny side up egg, the yolk gets to run into the fish once I start to eat breakfast).

stoneware-first meal-.jpg
 
I use plain white porcelain for every day. As simple as can be. I'm really not a fan of patterns on plates because they interfere with the look of the food. I particularly dislike patterns on the part of the plate where the food is placed. For food photos I have a lot of individual plates, mostly designer, minimalist and quite expensive (by which I mean it would be expensive to buy a whole set) - and when I use them for a photo we eat off of those too.

I can just about tolerate a patterned rim on a plate but usually only if its minimalist. There are noted exceptions for food photography though, when a vintage patterned plate can feature.
 
One of my favourite dinner plates for eating from and for photography is this one. It wasn't in fact very expensive - it was sold as a pizza plate. Its perfect for all sort of meals because it doesn't have a margined edge and allows therefore plenty of space to arrange the food. I have one in black too.

35038
 
morning glory said:
I use plain white porcelain for every day. As simple as can be. I'm really not a fan of patterns on plates because they interfere with the look of the food. I particularly dislike patterns on the part of the plate where the food is placed. For food photos I have a lot of individual plates, mostly designer, minimalist and quite expensive (by which I mean it would be expensive to buy a whole set) - and when I use them for a photo we eat off of those too.

I can just about tolerate a patterned rim on a plate but usually only if its minimalist. There are noted exceptions for food photography though, when a vintage patterned plate can feature.
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Understood. I don't really like plain white for a dinner setting, but I do have some one-off (sometimes more) all white ones for food photography. YES, anything I take recipe photographs on - I then eat from. I'm seriously not going to be cleaning more dishes than I absolutely have to!

One reason I got the pattern on the rim only, is so I can sometimes zoom in on a food dish for a photograph, and crop out the rim. Depending on what I'd made. The old plates I have/had here (I've already gotten to donate some elsewhere) did not really give me that much of an option.
 
Well, I do have some all-white dining ware. I admit I got turned off of purchasing it as a main color set due to seeing just that in college.

But anyway, this is what I have: (for the cats, their spot in the kitchen - they have metal bowls in the basement.)
white cat bowls-.jpg



Except for the IKEA bowls (12, at $0.99 apiece) the other dishes here were bought specifically just for food photography.
white foodie dishes-.jpg

I use the IKEA bowls regularly. I didn't get the IKEA portion for photography, but because I really had no bowls for guests to speak of here, then. There are 5 fish-shaped plates, one serving plate bottom right, and supposedly two square plates to the left - but I can only find one!

The only other two solid-white bits of dishes are my two egg cups (for soft boiled eggs). I got them simply for the better ease in eating soft boiled eggs!
 
morning glory said:
I use plain white porcelain for every day. As simple as can be. I'm really not a fan of patterns on plates because they interfere with the look of the food. I particularly dislike patterns on the part of the plate where the food is placed. For food photos I have a lot of individual plates, mostly designer, minimalist and quite expensive (by which I mean it would be expensive to buy a whole set) - and when I use them for a photo we eat off of those too.

I can just about tolerate a patterned rim on a plate but usually only if its minimalist. There are noted exceptions for food photography though, when a vintage patterned plate can feature.
Click to expand...

I use plain white IKEA 365 dishes. Being cheap, I bought more than I needed, and put a whole box (four settings?) away in a closet, so when I inevitably break some, i have perfectly matched replacements.

I used to have some really nice Wedgwood Earthenware. When I broke something, it cost me an arm and a leg to replace it, and it wasn't a perfect match, being from different batches.

Like you, In my studio, I have a few stacks of plates I bought one-at-a-time for food photos. That's all I use them for.

CD
 
For every day I have an all white Mikasa set.

Two sets of “good” china - one is Noritake pattern called Asian Song and then a set of Lenox holiday pattern. Shame that the “good” china only gets used a few times a year. Even more of a shame it should not go in the dishwasher... hmmm.. maybe that’s why it only gets used a few times a year :)
 
Backbay said:
For every day I have an all white Mikasa set.

Two sets of “good” china - one is Noritake pattern called Asian Song and then a set of Lenox holiday pattern. Shame that the “good” china only gets used a few times a year. Even more of a shame it should not go in the dishwasher... hmmm.. maybe that’s why it only gets used a few times a year :)
Click to expand...

When I was married, we had a big house with a formal dining room and an eat-in kitchen. We had 12 place setting of Royal Doulton China, and twelve complete sets of Waterford crystal. We used them once or twice a year. What a waste of money.

The fine china market has really collapsed in the US. Formal dining rooms are not in fashion, either.

CD
 
Our daily is Corelle pattern Abundance (retired), visible on most of the plated food pics I post.

Our wedding stoneware is Noritake Raindance (also retired), which I've posted a few times. It's a southwestern US motif - I have no idea why we chose that pattern. Seemed a good idea at the time.

Our third set is the standard blue willow pattern that is kind of the Budweiser of china patterns - very recognizable. We usually just use that for afternoon tea at the house.
 
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These are our everyday porcelane "blooming" plates/dishes/bowls. There are also cups and saucers and serving dishes.

35079


We have a couple of white plates and dishes which have slightly different capacities.

However, my favourite is this one.

35080


For Thai/Chinese food which only require fork and spoon or chopsticks we tend to use "Melamine" tableware.
 
morning glory said:
I didn't realise this - do you mean that people don't have dining tables?
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Most people I know do have a dining table, but it's not in a formal dining room. It's usually (with open floor plans being so popular now) just off the kitchen, but with no walls or anything to divide it, it's like it's still part of an extended kitchen space. Our house is like that (built 2004).

I'd be hard-pressed to pick a year, but a some point in the last few decades, "average" American houses seemed to drop the concept of the formal dining room altogether. Our first house, built in 1980, had one. My brother's house, built in the '70's, had one. My folks, the least "formal" people on the planet, they even have one, and they built their house themselves; it's just that the blueprints they bought had a separate dining space, so that's how they built it.

My wife's family's house - log cabin built in about 1978 or so, it had one, but they used it, because they entertained a lot and because they always ate meals at the table.

Nowadays, I'm not sure how many people eat at the table. The table seems to be more of a catch-all for junk mail and car keys and stuff like that. The only time we eat at the table is for special meals, like afternoon tea or Thanksgiving.
 
caseydog said:
When I was married, we had a big house with a formal dining room and an eat-in kitchen. We had 12 place setting of Royal Doulton China, and twelve complete sets of Waterford crystal. We used them once or twice a year. What a waste of money.

The fine china market has really collapsed in the US. Formal dining rooms are not in fashion, either.

CD
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Yep, yep, yep on the good China and formal dining rooms. Picking out formal dinner/ silver/crystal patterns was all part of the wedding planning. .If you didn't get a complete service set for the wedding it became Christmas / anniversary presents in the years following. At least in my family.

I can remember my grandmother promising her "good" china to one of my sisters and we all laughed because she would be the one least likely to use it at the time.

Time moves on - we used to have a "china" store in our small town that probably closed 30 years ago. Wedding registries certainly have changed - my best friend's daughter was married about 5 years ago and I asked her about china patterns she laughed at me (all in good fun).
 
Backbay said:
Wedding registries certainly have changed - my best friend's daughter was married about 5 years ago and I asked her about china patterns she laughed at me (all in good fun).
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I know for all the weddings we've attended in the last decade or so, registries have been big on experience-based gifts over items, or at least an even mix of the two.
 
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