jmcquown
broken china 1467On Mon 26 Dec 2005 08:36:43a, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Melba's Jammin'? I totally agree, Barb. I have two sets of good china, an extensive set of Wedgewood...
You are sweet. I missed this thread earlier. (Or I've been offline partying). Looking up what this stuff is worth - I know you aren't going to give it away, Jill. You should sell it and fund your IRA for the next couple of years. Seriously. It's twice as valuable per place setting as my humble Lenox. (Royal Scroll, not *that* humble)
broken china 1468On 26 Dec 2005 17:16:25 +0100, Wayne Boatwright I like your idea, Barb. I inherited half of my mother's...
broken china 1470The Bubbo Bummer. There is nothing quite like an inheritance to bring out the worst in siblings. I have seen several families fall apart from fights over their parents' estates. It's a...
Just as well. They're happier with you...
I was raised with left-liberal college prof parents so we did a lot of straight lines (except for the Persian rugs & Middle Eastern gew-gaws). Then as a teenager I began to crave stark, Zen-like minimalism. I went for not just straight lines but austere, bare, industrial; or "downtown" with recycled materials made into sculpture or everyday objects. Not that I owned many things like this. But that was my aesthetic. I rejected anything Victorian or elaborate or Rococo. Reminded me of bed and breakfast decor in the South, or the over-decorated villas of rich Lebanese I had known.
Then somehow in my mid-30s my taste changed, and I began to crave the baroque, gilded, over-the-top look of the Mediterranean bourgeoisie. A china set with soup tureen in Seville beguiled me. Chandeliers started looking good. I went to supper at the home of a New York artist who put 20 mismatched Victorian china plates on a long table covered with butcher paper. They looked great. I haunted the 18th century American silver and china section of the Brooklyn Museum. I got engaged and shopped for china, settling on the previously referenced Lenox pattern. So my taste has evolved from that super-modern look that seems dated now (although Zen austerity never goes out of style)
However I live in a rather small, rather pokey California house, built as a workingperson's cottage 80 years ago. So English country house style, or Mediterranean villa style, would look over-fussy here. One must strive for balance.
I netted blue crab on Edisto Island with my brother one summer. But nobody offered us sausage. We were young and didn't know about that low-country cooking, and on the beach nobody mentioned it. It was the summer Bill Clinton ran for pres. the first time. Now my brother lives on the West Coast and there's no chance we'll be going to the Carolinas for a beach week any time soon. Too bad I missed out on the really good food...
Leila
