See, there's been a whole plate saga going on here, when you thought I was just fretting about writing and teaching and other serious stuff. When I first moved to Chicago, I brought my cobalt blue plates with me. They're perfectably serviceable earthenware, and all of my serving accessories are also cobalt blue, because as my sister says, I have a sick fascination with that color. They went pretty well with Kevin's black stoneware plates (courtesy Bed, Bath & Beyond, I think), and we went along with those for the last three years. But he's never really liked his plates; they have such a sharp dip in the middle that they're hard to cut your food on. So recently we gave them away. And sadly my blue plates have a bunch of chips and several have simply cracked over the years. So we were down to not very many plates at all. And we had people coming over for brunch two weekends ago. So clearly, we needed plates.
And I spent way too much time perusing dinnerware on various sites. Not china, just regular plates. And oh, there are some lovely ones. I fell madly in love with three kinds, the Artesian Road pictured above, and the Imari and Kyushu collections. But none of those were practical, because all my servingware was still cobalt blue, and we didn't want to replace all that perfectly good stuff. So in the end, we bought some plain white porcelain plates from C&B, home of surprisingly affordable glasses and plates, if you're willing to go for plain plain plain. And they go nicely with my cobalt, and it was a totally functional and sensible choice.
And I thought I was happy with my sensible-ness. And then yesterday, I was having a bad day, and in a mad impulse, I went and bought the plates I'd really been longing for. I got two plates, mugs, bowls, salad plates. Just enough for me and a friend to sit and indulge over brightly colored feather and flower patterns. And it made me ridiculously happy. Goofy, but there you are.
*Beautiful plates. I am all in favor of beautiful things “just because.