Devonne Brown

The ladies of the family have a disease. We are besotted with the collecting of pretty vintage dishes. Cheap dime store ceramics, thrift store cut crystal, hand me down depression glass and more fill not one but three china cabinets in my little old lady school teacher’s home. Actually, there are four if you count the glass corner cabinet filled with wine glasses in the kitchen.

Each piece is dishwasher safe whether it’s meant to be or not. 

My everyday dishes are Fiestaware, a combination of those I inherited from my mother, and those I collected before she passed. I’m surprised one kitchen cabinet can bear the weight of the two sizes of plates, three sizes of bowls and cups and saucers. That’s not counting what I can’t reach.

 In the cabinet above the refrigerator are the heavy holiday platters. My great grandmother’s crackle-finished white platter is large enough to hold the whole meal, including a big bird, the stuffing, cranberries, and green beans.  I prefer that platter over the larger glass one from Walmart I purchased years ago, even though it has raised leaves and berries around the edges. There’s something more elegant in the antique pieces. They tell a silent story about the weight of the meals they bear. I don’t put Grandma’s platter in the dishwasher.

I have the boys trained in the use of the right glass for the right drink. Last Christmas, Nick moved from cabinet to cabinet to choose the perfect glasses for wine for the table for dinner. He chose the set with the etched leaves and grapes, the oldest of all the stemware in any of the cabinets, my favorite as well. 

Pretty dishes aren’t just for looks, they hold sustenance on deeper levels than appearances.