For some folks, a dish is just the landing pad you sling the hash onto. Not so for Nancy Leson.
Nancy loves something called Franciscan Desert Rose dishes. She asked me if I knew about it, and the only Franciscan dishes I could think of were the ones they're serving to the patients at Franciscan Hospitals.
Most of our dishes were made by potter friends, like Jamie Brook, Loren Luken and Reid Ozaki that my wife, the Lovely and Talented DeGroot, has traded with. The rest are straight from the Goodwill. Howz 'bout you?
For my money the last word on dishware obsession was spoken by Jean Shepherd in his Ludlow Doppler and the Great Orpheum Gravy Boat Riot. And it is a laff riot. I was fortunate enough to hear Shep do it on WOR back in the day. You can hear it on the Shepherd's Piecassette or read it in his collection In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
Haiku Alert
Deadline for entry in the Food for Thought Haiku contest is Friday, Aug 23 at 11:59 p.m. You can enter as many different haiku as you like. And you can vote for as many different haiku as you like, but only once per haiku. Thanks toUwajimaya, the Pacific Northwest's Asian Grocery and Gift Store, for the prizes: $200, $100, and $50 gift certificates.
"The very marks on the bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering ecstasy."
– Mark Twain
