Williams-Sonoma was one of my favorite stores back in the day when I was a corporate wife and rarely gave a thought to how much I spent and where. Not the sort of place where you’d expect to find a bargain. But…miracles happen.
Yesterday I had to traipse to the Apple store, located (where else?) in one of the city’s ritziest shopping centers. While I was there, I wandered into the Williams-Sonoma to see if they had some salad plates in the type of pattern I favor. They didn’t — my taste is now royally out of style — but they did have some in a plain navy blue that would do the job.
These plates are for the dogs. The ones I had, from an old set from Pier 1 that looked great in the store but not so great on the table, have been dropped on the floor and chipped so many times, it was getting time to replace them. Both dogs, being corgis, feel compelled to hoover up every molecule of dog food off their plates, which means they vigorously lick their dishes so clean it’s hard to tell the things haven’t been through the dishwasher. So a chipped rim risks slashing a doggle’s tongue.
So anyway, as you can imagine, I was not thrilled at the prospect of spending much on dog dishes.
Williams-Sonoma is having a 20% off sale on everything in sight…including things that are already on sale. In the back of the store, they have a clearance section. Some of the things there, mostly odd items, are quite pretty.
Lo! On the clearance shelf, there were a half-dozen coupe-style salad plates, very handsome and very un-clunky, already marked down to something under six bucks apiece. Though not exactly what I had in mind, they would do the job.
Couldn’t believe it! I got six for $23 and change! That’s less than $4 apiece. That’s on a par with the similar but much cheesier dishes available at the Fry’s or the Target.
Blue plate specials!
I used to get plates for the cats food at the dollar store. Can’t beat a buck.
I got so sick of chipping stoneware plates and bowls that I switched to plain, white Corelle dishes several years ago. Picked them up open stock at the big outlet store in NW Indiana when I lived in Chicago. I guess I’ll to find an online source if I end up breaking anything, but so far, so good! *touch wood*
It looks like Melamine is roaring back into style. At Pier One, the only really pretty designs are in Melamine. My peculiarity is happen to prefer stoneware and glass. Don’t chip them often, though, although that may change as age advances. One of the many fun things about getting old is that you become butter-fingered.
Oh yes! I have already started the butter-fingered stage, and I’m blaming it on the hormone imbalance. 😉
I think the reason there was so much chipping of stoneware was because at one point there was one of those nice Kohler sinks that is cast iron covered with enamel in the kitchen. We had no dishwasher at the time so we had to hand wash everything, resulting in lots of chipped dishes when one was tired or a bit sloshed from having wine with dinner. Once I switched to a stainless steel sink, the amount of chipped and broken glassware went down considerably. I’d already switched to Corelle dishware at that point, though.
Oops! That’ll do it!
Yeah, I have one of those sinks: it was the first thing I had installed after moving in here. Love it…but really, I think the next one will be stainless: easier to keep clean and doesn’t chip or scratch.
SDXB has some kind of moral objection to dishwashers. He used to _insist_ on washing the dishes by hand. That’s why I still have all those heavy Mexican bottle-glass drinking glasses: harder for him to break them! 😀