New cookbook and German china - fun with classic dinnerware and modern American cooking
Lunch at Chef Lynn Miller’s house is all about great dishes, both tasty food and classy tableware. We met recently, and our conversation began with her new cookbook, Flavor Secrets: Back to the Basics, A professional Chef’s guide to delicious home cooking. We talked about the food, and we talked about the china and flatware. I’m a confessed dish flippe

Select colors and themes for a spooky Halloween table setting
Orange and black, the traditional Halloween colors for decorations and tableware, have been joined in more recent years by purple and lime green. Halloween is second only to Christmas as the most-decorated-for holiday, so it’s not surprising that dishes and dinnerware dedicated specifically for October 31 are becoming easier to find. Some of your vintage china favorites, especially dishes in

Ah, garden fresh tomatoes - a simple vintage dish
Twenty-four hours before this photo, these beautiful red tomatoes were still on the vine in a friend’s garden. Gotta love Early Girl. There is nothing like the flavor of vine ripened, fresh sliced tomatoes. Years ago at home, we served ours sliced on a plate with just a bit of sugar. Gourmet recipes with 30 ingredients are wonderful, but simple dishes also hit the spot, especially when the ingredients are th

Kitchen canister as cookie jar - repurpose me
Canisters double as cookie jars Don’t get me wrong. I love cookie jars. I’ve had my share over the years, including the blue Cookie Monster. At home we had one of those 1950s crockery jars with A B C on it, and grandma had the classic Little Red Riding Hood cookie jar. Never used any of them day-to-day. I love to use my vintage dishes, but don’t want to risk li

Soup mug or sundae dish - repurpose me
When the weather turns colder, I get a hankering for ice cream. Go figure. Then I found a funky, 1970s soup mug and inspiration arrived. The dish is probably USA or Japan made, but there is no maker’s mark. It just screams retro, both from the motif and the colors. I was in a home just this week where, when you walked into the family room, you went back about 35 years. It was a wonderful experience.