Placesettings: After the feast

Thanksgiving: the Day After edition!

After the turkey, after the mashed, after the marvelous pies, after the dishes (LOTS of dishes!), after the sitting around watching Bringing Up Baby with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant (the kids’ choice—clearly we’ve done at least one parenting thing right), it finally dawned on me that I’d never snapped a photo of the table. Rats!

So here’s the day after.

The dishes are vintage Pyrex in a pattern I have never seen anywhere else. It’s officially called “Scallop Burgundy.” I call it “My Favorite Cranberry Scallop-Border Pyrex Holiday Dishes.” I have a complete set for 8 plus a couple serving pieces.

They turned up years ago in a vintage shop, and the dealer was asking what at the time I considered an exorbitant price. I visited them weekly for a couple months, fingering the teacups and putting them back down. Then one day I went in the shop and the dealer had marked them down 50%.

Mine! Mine! All mine!

And there’s my lone butterscotch Bakelite knife, since all the rest of the pieces are still packed away somewhere in this almost-finished house renovation.

The tablecloth is cranberry-colored leaves on sky blue, an unusual color combo. The texture is unusual too: tiny honeycombs instead of plain weave.

And there’s all that’s left of the cranberry & dried cherry relish! If you like the taste of sweet and tart together, you will love this. The super-easy recipe is here. Yum!