Dinner Parties and Dinnerware

Last night we had a fabulous dinner at a friend's house.  We made a shrimp pizza to bring over, and they provided a delicious mushroom pasta.  The shrimp and the mushrooms were local. For dessert, they also brought out local pears, served on Kathie Winkle side plates.  Which reminded me that I thrifted three dinner plates during August, but never posted about them.  Remember from this post, that I was going to keep my eye out for them?  Here they are...

 I won't start using them until I have collected a few more, but one thing that strikes me about these dishes is how small they are compared to modern dishes.  These dinner plates are probably 3/4 the size of the ones I am currently using (which are almost two decades old themselves!), and the side plates we used last night are about half the size.

On a sort of related note, we are hosting a dinner party tonight.  Lately, I've been caught up with watching the UK's "Come Dine with Me" and Canada's "Dinner Party Wars."  So, I've decided to make a three course meal as an homage to these shows - but don't expect my guests to rate me!  For a starter: Harvest Salad with goat cheese and pears; for the main: Panko-crusted oven-fried Halibut with homemade Tartar Sauce, new potatoes and an heirloom tomato salad, and a plum cake with whipped cream for dessert.  We are eating quite early, so I can shoo the guests out to watch the season premier of Dexter - but hopefully it won't be that obvious to guests!  I guess I'd better get at it, since my viewing of these TV shows have taught me that a dinner party requires sufficient preparation!