Unexpected Uses for Glamorous Kitchenware

This is my one and only teapot, a wedding gift from Lauren. I know this violates the important law of using your best china, clothes, manners, etc. on your husband/family, but when I begin to entertain (formidable thought), I will use the pot for its intended purpose. For now, we are microwave-to-cup sort of people with regard to tea. Besides, the pot makes a wonderful container for my husband’s favorite (and for a while now, only) breakfast: cream of wheat. As such it can be a functional and elegant counter decoration, cheering me up everytime I reach for it in the morning hours as my coffee is brewing and my husband’s milk is heating for his breakfast. (Aside: he jokes that we ought to fool our children into thinking that “breakfast” means only “cream of wheat,” so that they never expect anything more extravagant; and when they order “breakfast, please” at their first restaurant outing, we’ll all have a good laugh at the ensuing confusion. I like the idea for the economic benefits, for sure. . .)

And this is a gift from Heidi, an antique milk glass dish. I have no idea what milk glass dishes were primarily used for, but I like to use it for storing produce, which contrasts with the immaculate white of the glass. These are lovely striped tomatoes (heirloom, maybe?) from the local farmers market. Cook’s Illustrated did an experiment to test this claim, and proved it true: if you store tomatoes (that are off the vine) with their stem end down, they tend to last a little longer—something about the stem end being an entry point for bacteria that speed the fruit’s spoilage.