September 26, 2010

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!

1 comment:

Carpe Diem said...

We've been watching "Come Dine with Me" as well... I haven't heard about the Canadian one. I'll have to look out for it.

I've been looking everywhere for that vintage dinnerware, but haven't found one piece for you!

Have fun with your dinner party.