When my sister visited recently from the UK, I made several of our old family favorite foods, including orange gelatin dessert. Some products that we take for granted here, like fruit flavored gelatin, are difficult to obtain in other countries.
And it’s the food that sometimes makes a place feel like home.
Of course, we had to [...]

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Think of New England, Early American or traditional design, and your mind can easily conjure an image of a comfortable home with rooms filled with folk art and rustic antiques from more than 200 years ago.
This look is not for everyone, but for those who own homes that fit this style, setting a traditional table [...]

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Winter cold outside means time for chili indoors.
Frigid weather has arrived in many places. Keep warm inside with a hot bowlful of your favorite casserole, or have some hot chili, soup, stew or chowder. Comfort classics, like apple crisp also serve up well in bowls.
Things you always wanted to know about bowls:

Cereal bowls are deeper, [...]

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Can you really use your vintage china — or find vintage china — for a special Father’s Day dinner? Oh yes, you can! There’s still time to tweak your table setting for Father’s Day, coming the third Sunday in June.
Fathers don’t usually have the same interest in dishes that mothers do. Even so, adding some [...]

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Remember those large round china plates that tend to end up at the back of your china cabinet - the ones that look like they’ve hardly ever been used, because they haven’t been?

When we hear Chef Alton Brown talk about multi-taskers, this is the piece of vintage dinnerware we think of: the round platter or [...]

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Remember the tag line, Love Leads to Lenox, used in print advertising during the heyday of department store wedding registries? Lenox fine china and crystal were so associated with weddings, that if you were in love, registering a pattern and, ultimately owning Lenox, was deemed inevitable.
Today the fine china market has softened, and Lenox china [...]

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Ben Seibel, that is.
Small towns in the American Midwest might not be the first place you’d think of to find modern design classics. But Ben Seibel Design dinnerware has been around for more than 50 years, and you never know…
On the dish trail last week, we found a bit of Ben in one of those [...]

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There’s always more to love when it comes to dinnerware designed by Ben Seibel. One of those patterns is Lazy Daisy, from Iroquois China Co. of Syracuse, New York. The Iroquois “Informal” line is just that, both in shape and decor.
Lazy Daisy was one of the first patterns made in this funky, 1950s dinnerware. [...]

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After visiting the cider mill (see last post) I went out and found a favorite dinnerware line, Mikasa Potters Art.
Thirty years ago, there was another “green” trend in the marketplace. One of the results was the Potters Art line by Mikasa. This is heavy dinnerware with a handmade look and feel. The dinnerplates, for example, [...]

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Over my kitchen cabinets, I have a display of chicken things. Mostly dishes, but a few other pieces as well. I have some other chicken-related things around the house as well. I’ve just chosen to collect because they’re fun, and then…
My grandfather raised and showed bantam chickens for many years. He passed before I was [...]

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