Dish Love

I love dishes. Some people loooooove dishes and have 17 different interchangeable sets, and I don't love them that much. But I still think they're swell.

When my husband and I got married, I we picked a china pattern and a regular everyday set of dishes. I am ashamed to admit that we have used the china a grand total of twice in the six years of our marriage, and both occurrences were in the last six months. Oops. I'm going to work on that, I swear... but china is a topic for another, fancier day.

I can't even remember what the everyday set we registered for looked like, only that the pieces started losing their finish the first time I ran them through the dishwasher... not okay with me! And before you email me about it, they were marked dishwasher safe, so it definitely wasn't my fault. I took those puppies back to the store and bought some Fiesta dinnerware in plum, shamrock, turquoise and tangerine.

Those were and still are fun dishes. Do any of you collect Fiesta plates? I love that you can play around with the different colors, and it would be a fun way to introduce bold splashes of color into a neutral or white kitchen. However, there were a few things that always bothered my neurotic little brain about them:

• Flat bowls. I don't like my bowls to have corners, is that too much to ask?
• The dinner plate was big, but the small plate was absolutely itty bitty. Too small for lunch, definitely more of a salad plate, which rendered it pretty useless in my house. I make eleven million lunches around these parts, and if I can't fit a sandwich and a sliced apple on the same plate we're gonna rumble ('cause I'm hardcore like that when it comes to defending my plate choices.)
• Here's where I embarrass myself. I don't like serving food on similarly colored plates, or plates that 'clash' with the color of my food. Salad on green plates? Preposterous. Spaghetti on an orange plate? Um, no thanks, I just lost my appetite.

I toughed it out like a champ for six years, and this year I melodramatically decided that enough was enough. I had eaten my last monochromatically plated meal, darn it!

I asked for these plates for my birthday last month. 

I'm no plate snob, but if I can get the same look for less money then I'm happy and my husband is happy, and if our lives were a movie this would be the point where a heartwarming musical montage would begin.

These less expensive plates my husband bought for my birthday gift are almost dead ringers for these other plates which rhyme with Shmottery Shmarn Shmemma Shlates. Did you get that? Oooof course you did, I'm sure you're fluent in shneaky talk.

So why did I choose white plates?

• I think white is a classic choice, but the beading on this set adds some charm and whimsy and keeps it from veering into restaurant dish territory. 
• No more monochromatic or clashing dinner presentations! Unless I serve white rice and vanilla ice cream, and then I'm sunk and should just close my eyes and start eating.
• I only have to supplement my one collection with fun salad plates to completely change the look for holidays or different times of year -- no need to buy 17 different sets of dinnerware!

I waited a couple weeks before writing about these plates, because I wanted to be sure, but I am thrilled with them! The beading detail is fabulous, plus they wash nicely, the lunch plate is the perfect size, and the bowls are round... be still my neurotic little heart.

Now that I have found a great classic set of dishes, I can't wait to go find some fun accents like salad plates or dipping bowls to throw into the mix for an entirely custom look.

Do white dishes make your heart go pitter patter, or do they make you want to yawn?