Summer crockery that is cheap and nice
because lunch outside is coming, even if it doesn't feel like it
This post might get chopped on email but will work fine in the app or desktop.
We have to have faith that any day now these mad gales and showers will make way for glorious weather. I am waiting like a coiled spring. My next food post is going to be about my so-called ‘outdoor kitchen’. This is a huge misnomer - it is the most cobbled-together arrangement imaginable - but also, it is fantastic. If the weather is decent, we eat outside from May-October.
So consider this post an outrider to that one, because I do think that serving and eating food from summery crockery is very different to eating it from lumpen, porridgey-looking stoneware, which is what I favour in winter. This is because the older I get, the more I am drawn to domestic items that remind me of childhood, in this case the 1970s.
I think - without wanting to sound overly woo, though I am quite woo - that it’s because five years of therapy (and counting) have put me back in touch with the child I used to be, as opposed to the person, or persons, I felt I had to become. I’m going to write about this properly soon because it’s been a life-changing and liberating process - like coming home, which is one of the reasons this newsletter is called what it is.
ANYWAY: crockery! In an ideal world you’d while away many a happy hour sourcing charming summery crockery from junk shops and brocantes, but that assumes a certain lifestyle, quite a lot of leisure time and maybe an open-topped sports car with a silk scarf to protect the hair. So here are some affordable High Street options instead. Not everything has to be a hand-thrown masterpiece. Also, as per the picture above, not everything has to match - I personally prefer it if it doesn’t. You don’t have to buy six or eight place settings unless you want to and can afford to - just one, jumbled in with what you already have, will have an effect. I also like the mix of tablecloths, which is a lot easier than finding one the right size if you have a long table.