I need to join AA!

Antique-a-holics Anonymous, that is!!!!!

*teehee*

Okay, so it'll sound weird, but I swear food served on antique or art deco platters and plates just works so much better than it served in any other way. Perhaps it's because the chinaware is so different and unique or something like that, but it makes it all kind of special.

I have a total love of antiques anyway, so maybe that's what makes me think this way, but perhaps not.

Anyways, within the past week, I've spent a mere $19.50 on antique/deco chinaware, which is pretty damn good if I may say so myself *lol* On Friday last week, I picked up an old-fashioned serving bowl from an op shop for $1. I think it's a soup tureen or something like that - it's one of those double bowls with room for air to circulate between the two layers of china. Of course, it was love at first sight with it, so it had to become part of my life! In a strange way, it inspires me a lot to do all sorts of cooking that revolves around its use. And it's a perfect size for a salad... and the colour of it compliments green really well. Jelly will probably be the next thing to get tried out in it :)

Then today at lunch I went down the street to do some stuff and popped into the antique store while I was there because it's always just a little bit too tempting to go past! Having spent a lot of time checking out antique stores in my childhood and having a number of antiques on the family property, I'm mostly used to knowing what to look for. There were quite a lot of nice things in the antique store today, and the horrible thought, 'Some old person in the district must have died and their philistine children didn't understand the worth of these gorgeous art deco plates...' popped into my head.

My treasures for today were a WH Grindley art deco serving platter for $14 and a Johnson Bros deco plate (with the most adorable silver and green decoration) for $4.50. The Johnson Bros plate was something I immediately thought of serving fruit on and I knew $4.50 was far too good a price to pass up (considering that the op shop down the road was selling a similar styled thing for $8.50... funny the antique store is cheaper!). Had to do a circuit of the shop before I decided on the WH Grindley platter, though. But then when I was looking at it closely, I thought, yup, I can use this for all sorts of things... So there we go.

If I wasn't a vegetarian, I could definitely see the platter working with a roast duck, surrounded by roast veggies and sprinkled with curlings of green spring onion (to highlight the green band on the edge of the platter). As it is, I'm envisioning layered salads on it. Or stewed rhubarb with a generous dollop of cream piled on top and garnished with a few leaves of mint. Hmm...

You know, I think it's the colours used on the old chinaware that work so well with food.