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Does morning coffee not taste the same unless it’s in your favorite, faded, feels-great-in-the-hand mug? Do you have an unshakeable desire to put every dessert on that funny-looking vintage cake stand you found at a yard sale? Is using that wooden spoon with the smooth, tapered handle the pre-requisite to a good day? An irrational obsession with a particular piece of dishware or flatware seems like the most rational thing in the world… right?
I’m particularly attached to my thick-walled ceramic tumbler, festooned with lucky cats of all shapes and sizes, that I bought for a couple bucks in a cavernous warehouse on NYC’s Canal Street. And my bright orange Kuhn Rikon paring knife reminds me of that hazy party in which a chef friend gave me this very tool as a utilitarian house-warming gift. (It even comes with its own cute little sheath.) They’re fun tools in my arsenal, giving bits of joy to even the most everyday kitchen chore.
We asked around America’s Test Kitchen for fun stories involving favorite dishware. Here are a sampling:
I have a small pink spoon that I used as a kid that I loved. I used it all the way though high school as the perfect ice cream scoop, peanut butter delivery device, and portion controller. I loved it, but who brings a spoon with them to college? And now, it’s gone. I never even got a chance to say goodbye.
I once had a dinner guest who refused to eat from my favorite fork because, and I quote, “It’s too skinny.” It was this bad boy here. He ended up using a spare plastic fork from a takeout restaurant.
A big tomato-red deviled egg plate that a former editor gave to me for Christmas one year. It’s modern, minimalist, and utterly useless to anyone but the most fervent egg fan. I was sincerely touched that she would know I would adore this ridiculous object.
And now for the Silly Question of the Day…
What’s your favorite piece of dishware?
Leave your silly answer in the comments!
(Photo: Isabel Bloedwater)
About the Author: Christine Liu
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I have a very nice piece of pottery I got at an art show that I use for cereal. I like using real art for everyday use.
My “Obey The Siamese” coffee mug. No other will do.
I have a striped blue ramen bowl that’s been my staple piece of dishware throughout college and beyond. It’s a great size for ramen, rice, and oatmeal!
this perfectly-sized white ceramic bowl i found in a pile of mishmash
I have some large thumb print style goblets of my grandmother’s – my sisters and I used to eat ice cream floats in them and they’re the only thing I use them for that now.
A candy dish that was my late grandmothers
I have a watered glass three-part dish from Crate & Barrel that I must use every time we entertain. Sour cream, salsa and Guac? OK. Onions, pickles and tomatoes? Gotcha. Cherries, nuts and whipped cream? You’re covered.
we have a couple of iced tea spoons that i love using (for everything except iced tea!). i hide them in my daughter’s utensil drawer hoping that no one will use them.
our two adorable “fishy bowls” … glazed clay fish-shaped dishes that I think are for pouring soy sauce into for sushi, but we use them as candy bowls.
I have a yellow 4-quart pyrex bowl that is part of a 4-bowl set called “the primary colors” set, manufactured during the 1940s. My mom originally got the bowl from my great-grandmother when she was teaching my mom how to cook, back in the mid-60s. Now I have the bowl, and I use it to infuse love and flavor into everything from salads to baked stuff. It’s called the “Sitti Bowl” because sitti is the arabic word for grandmother. It’s probably worth abut 50-cents, but it’s priceless, if you know what I mean.
I have a very old Starbucks mug that is very sturdy, has a thick rim, and is the perfect size for soup.
My turkey platter! It’s big and yellow and has a giant turkey painted on it. I use it year-round for carrying things back and forth from the barbecue on the deck.
This one cheesy mug that says “I love you” like a billion times all over it, that my wife got for me for father’s day
An odd patterned potato masher that I have never used for potatoes. I only use it for peanut butter cookies
a tumbler with 60′s batman on it which i hide so no one else can use it haha
I love the teeny tiny tea spoon I got from my grandparents when I was young! It brings back good memories.
My Garfield mug which I’ve had for well over 20 years now. Because it’s been around forever and I have a spot for Garfield!
It feels so weird for me to eat ice cream from a bowl without my “big spoon”…even to this day!
I have two really cute bowls with blue outside. I love them!
I prefer eating my oatmeal with anything but a metal spoon. The heat was way to much for me so I switched to plastic and haven’t gone back since.
I have a couple of ceramic mixing bowls I got at a flea market 40 years ago. I use them all the time.
Do chopsticks count? I have a pair of pink ones with Hello Kitty on them!
I have a large serving platter that is hand painted like a Rainbow Trout. Sure enough, I get it out everytime I serve whole fish.
I have a set of colorful painted mixing bowls that we got for our wedding that came from the local grocery store for cheap, but I seriously use them every day, and they’re handy for everything from mixing to serving.
I have a yellow “smiley” bowl that came with my parents’ cabin when they bought it when I was 3. It has been my weekend cereal bowl ever since. The plate and matching mug that came with it have long since broken but I’ve managed to protect that bowl from harm for 27 years!! Weekends at the cabin aren’t the same without it.
A Tom and Jerry juice glass that jelly came in. Perfect for a small sip of water or juice.
I love my Armetale platters for grilled foods and meat. They are indestructible and look nice, too.
I have an adorable Rosanna tall Christmas mug with a green reindeer, pink Christmas tree and pink inside the mug. The pinks and greens and the adorable reindeer just make me happy. I use it all year round.
My Corelle bowls are a favorite of mine. They may technically be “soup” or “salad” bowls, but I love them because they’re the perfect moderate size for my morning cold cereal.
My favorite is an old beaten-up wooden spoon I (used to) use when preparing Kraft Diner at my parents’ as a teenager. After I moved away, my mom threatened to throw it away because of its looks. Now it’s mine, and I use it for everything
The vessels that carry the love from the cook to the tummy are often on par with or elevated beyond angels. They are the constant – the only constant – in a hectic, disorganized world. Mine? A cheap serving bowl in which my salad does not fall over the edge when tossed, and sits amiably in the cross of my legs on the couch. It was one of the first setting-up-house purchases many, many, many memories ago.
I have a set of blue and white wide shallow bowls that I always use for serving pasta and shrimp or risotto or polenta.
The first summer after my freshmen year in college I landed a Physics research position and didn’t come home. Though my mom was heart broken, she bought me a really nice serrated knife to help me prepare food for myself. While most of my college years I ate fast food and didn’t appreciate cooking flavorful food, I am now a passionate cook who adorns his knife magnet with my very first kitchen instrument ever received from my mother. Thanks mom for getting me started in the kitchen long before I ever knew I would love being there.
I love using the glass cake pedestal that was my great-grandmother’s.
The knife comment threw me off. I was about to rhapsodize about all my favorite kitchen tools. For dishware, though, it would probably have to be the hand thrown serving bowl with leaf patterns fired into the glaze (from real leaves) from a local craft commune. It’s a slightly grayish green, and fits my hand marvelously.
A glass grandmother bear jar that held Kraft peanut butter is my favourite piece of dishware. Collecting a set of these jars, which were also purchased filled with jam and honey in various sizes, became an obsession for me, but the grandmother jar is my favourite, with the baby jar a close second. I use them to store bulk foods (flour, sugar, dried fruit, cocoa etc), and they are beautiful as well as useful, and add a touch of whimsey to my kitchen.
I eat my morning oatmeal in a ceramic vase that my husband gave me years ago. It came with flowers in it and is not a conventional cereal bowl by any means. It works though!
sharonjo at gwtc dot net
A depression glass plate that my mother gave me when I was first married in 1984. She thought it would be pretty when serving cookies. I keep it on my dining room hutch between uses and remember my mother every time I see it.
I have a small oval stoneware platter passed down from my maternal grandmother that is perfect for my once-a-week indulgent breakfast. It is white with little blue leaf pattern around the edge, and it makes my breakfast of bacon or sausage with home fries and a fried egg look like an old fashioned diner order. Somehow breakfast tastes better on this dish.
I had a mug growing up that I would just love to have now – one of those cutesy things with a little ceramic animal on the bottom of the inside, so it peeked out at you while you drank your hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.
The single “jelly spoon” that came with my silverware. It’s the perfect soup spoon, but we always have to arm wrestle to see who gets it!
I love my History Channel small soup mug. I don’t make soup in it, but I do make the best microwave single serve brownies in it! Best thing is, it’s black, so when the kids try to steal a bite of my brownie, I quickly show them the dark inside to the mug and say “all gone” and they believe me! (don’t worry, they get their sweets as well, I just like to savor mine, lol).
A formica and silver metal serving tray that looks like an escapee form the set of Mad Men but actually belonged to my parents in the 1960′s. I remember my mother serving all sorts of stuff on it when Bridge Night was at our house.
My favorite mug which has a picture of my dog on it
It was the very first Christmas gift I got from my boyfriend… who is now my husband. Seriously, who wouldn’t marry a guy who put your dog on a mug?? 
<3
A small, oval, white, china (I think) serving platter that was my grandma’s. It’s not super-fancy, but it’s classic and classy, doesn’t take up a lot of table space, and is perfect for cookies or a small pile of dinner rolls or chicken or serving up grilled sausages. Even hot dogs can be special when served on a special platter.
Growing up watching the millions of ads they played during kid’s cartoons engrained in me an undying fascination with the phrase “part of this complete breakfast” and and obsession with the gorgeous way that the toast/orange juice/cereal was always laid out onscreen. This is why I get inexplicably happy when I get the chance to eat cereal from one of my set of glass bowls – when you fill them up you can see that picture-perfect line where the milk stops & the cereal begins, just like on the commercial! It’s my small, daily opportunity to live the dream.
My favorite thing to drink out of is a glass that I got on my 12th birthday from a spy-themed restaurant called The Safe House. I actually went there recently just to get another one because mine is pretty worn out from constant use but they don’t sell that same kind anymore
Thanks for the mini trips through your cabinets of sentimentality, if not functionality. Congrats to this week’s random winner, viggianoa, who has a very pleasing oatmeal-spooning routine indeed. Everyone, be sure to check out our newest giveaways at http://americastestkitchenfeed.com/topics/giveaway/