The mystery teapot

In the late 18th, early 19th century, a certain style of teapot came into fashion in England. It was modeled after a pot brought back from India by a Lady Cadogan and was made popular because George IV admired one. Thenceforth everyone absolutely had to have one.

I want one too, not because I am a follower of George IV, but because the teapot is just plain cool. This teapot has no lid. There is no apparent way to fill it.

The way it works is this: If you invert the teapot you see that running up into the pot from the bottom is a tube. You fill the pot through the tube, turn the pot rightside up and the water.....aaaah, too hard to explain. Look at this glass version of the pot and you can see how it works.

You can look for antique Cadogan pots (like the top photo) manufactured by the Rockingham works in England or you can buy the modern glass version shown here (called the Mystery Pyramid Teapot) for $30 from a site that also sells Klein bottles.

Just in case you don't know what a Klein bottle is, it's a bottle that, like a Moebius strip, has a continuous surface. Enough said. You can check out the Klein bottle site to learn more.

Salt cellars

I was reading a post on a random blog in which the author referred to salt cellars as being a "hip new trend." I find this at once hilarious and extremely nostalgic. My grandmother always had salt cellars on the table. Her family had emigrated to this country from Ireland in the 1890s and I think there was always a need to prove gentility. Cut-crystal salt cellars on the table were clearly a part of that effort.

What I liked best about her salt cellars (and they were scattered about the table so that no one had to ask to "pass the salt") was that they came with the cutest little pressed glass spoons for ladling out the salt. This obviously appealed to my miniature-tea-set, dollhouse mentality.

So, what's out there now, in this hip new trend? Well, mostly larger containers, often with lids, intended to be in the kitchen, not on the dining room table. Not a salt cellar as I understand it. (In a skim-search on the InterWebs, I discovered that what I'm calling salt cellars, collectors call "open salts.") But I pressed on and found a few things my grandmother might have deigned to have on her table.

This nesting hen salt cellar has been around forever. I found it a couple of years ago in the Walter Drake tchotchke catalog (only $9), but it's more likely these days to be found on Etsy or eBay.

 

 

 

 

Or, how about this little guy? $22 from Uncommon Goods.

And when you think about it, a salt cellar (OK, open salt) is no more than a little bowl. So create your own by looking for little sauce bowls in Asian markets. How about a set of fish bowls for $2 apiece from Pearl River Trading?

Then just look around for little spoons to go with. Maybe some old unused demitasse spoons (remember demitasse? very '50s) or look for wooden salt spoons. Just search on Amazon; a number of choices, though I'm kind of partial to these spoons made of palm wood.







*The salt cellar to beat all salt cellars was designed by 16th-century Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini in the 1540s. La Saliera (as it is called) was commissioned by Francis I of Austria and is made of gold, enamel, and ivory. It was stolen from Vienna's art history museum in 2003 by a thief who, in classic Hollywood-plot style, was an alarms system engineer. He kept the piece under his bed for several years, then eventually demanded a $10 million ransom (the piece itself is valued at $50-60 million). He was finally undone by a text message he sent to the police.
So . . . . he was smart enough to dodge the alarm system in a museum, but not smart enough to know that cellphones can be traced. Ah well.

Bee all that you can bee

Napoleon liked bees. Do you know why? When Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor, he and his inner circle needed to choose appropriate emblems of his sovereignty. There was much discussion. Some wanted a lion, some an elephant, some an eagle, some an oak tree, some the honey bee. There were two winners: the eagle and the bee.

The eagle because of its association with military victory (and the days of Roman emperors). The bee because it had been the symbol* of France's earliest rulers, the Merovingians (credited with founding France in 457). The Napoleonic advisers thought it wise to ally the Corsican upstart with France's true origins.

Both the Napoleonic and Merovingian connections are why you find lots of stuff from France with the bee as a design motif.

For example, there's the bee glassware from a glassworks in Passavant-la-Rochère, Haute-Saône, in eastern France. The glassworks has been in almost continuous operation since its founding in 1475. The pink La Rochère Bee Tumbler at left holds 8 ounces, is 5-1/2 inches high, and is $10 from A French Addiction. The La Rochère Bee Bowl (photo way above) is 5-1/2 inches in diameter, and is $16 from Terrain. (La Rochère makes tons of other Napoleonic bee glasses and serving pieces. I just picked two of my favorites.)





More bees: There is a town in the South of France called Laguiole. It is known for beautiful hand-forged knives, and a cheese. Unlike the cheese, which can only be called Laguiole if it really comes from that region, any knife can be called Laguiole if it has been made in the general style of Laguiole. The classic Laguiole knife has a bee emblem at the joint where the handle meets the blade.
P.S. There are those who insist that it's a housefly and not a bee, but I'm going with bee.






Laguiole knives (and forks and spoons) can be quite costly, especially if they're made with exotic woods or horn. Just in case you have some extra bucks you don't know what to do with, check out the Laguiole website. The set of 6 ebony-handled forks at left is $364.



 




*The assumption that the bee was the symbol of France's earliest rulers is based on the discovery of 300 gold-and-garnet bees (see below) in the tomb of Childéric I, the first of the Merovingian kings. Though commonly accepted as bees, they are more likely golden effigies of the cicada, which was a symbol of resurrection--perhaps because the cicada nymph lives underground for years (up to 17 years, depending on the species) before emerging as an adult. It would certainly look as though they were rising from the dead, if you ask me.

Babushkups

My grown-up side tells me that nesting glasses is a bad idea. You want the middle one and you have to undo the whole stack of glasses to get it.... Or how about those times when bowls or glasses mysteriously refuse to come apart when you've stacked them on top of one another.

But the kid side of me wants these nesting Babushkups. They're from my favorite crazy designers at Fred & Friends and sell for $18 from Perpetual Kid. The 3 glasses hold 8, 10, and 14 ounces.

Salad servers

The mild weather in New York is putting me in an ohmigod-summer-is-not-faraway mood, which is very similar to my time-for-big-salads-again mood. This cute salad set from Fred & Friends (the masters of the whimsical everyday object) is made of brushed stainless steel and is 11 inches long. InSet sells for $15 from Perpetual Kid--another monument to whimsy.

Buddha bowls

I've got a little bit of a bowl fetish. I like them in all shapes, sizes, and materials. I like itty-bitty silicone prep bowls and giant British stoneware gripstand bowls, and everything in between: cereal bowls, soup bowls, pasta bowls, ice cream bowls....There is something extremely satisfying about eating food out of a bowl. (And key to the satisfaction is matching the bowl size and shape to the food you are about to eat. There are no rules for matching: You just look at your bowls and pick the one that feels right. You'll know it when you see it. It's a personal journey.)

So although I have more bowls than I know what to do with, it doesn't keep me from lusting after new bowls, like these Buddha bowls designed by California artist Elan McPherson. The Buddha bowl holds a respectable 18 ounces and looks like the love child of a bowl and a coffee cup. Use it as a bowl for soup or cereal, or pick it up and use it as the French would for chocolat chaud or café au lait.

The bowls sell for $30-ish at Uncommon Goods.

Siliskin glass

A company called Silikids creates silicone items called Siliskins that slip over glass baby bottles to make them safer--as in easier to hold onto and protective in case the bottle falls. Siliskins are for those parents who have opted for glass because they are are worried about the safety of plastic baby bottles (especially when heated in a microwave).

There is also a Siliskin that comes with a 6-ounce glass for toddlers who have graduated to the big-kid category.

Now here's the thing. I no longer have a toddler in the house, but I want these Siliskin glasses for me. They're just cool looking. Siliskin glasses come in aqua and lime green and cost $7.95 from Amazon.

Bunny bowl

A bunny bowl. Brilliant.

The bowl comes from a ceramic artist in Texas whose day job is middle school art teacher. The stoneware bowl is 5 inches across and is ridiculously cute. Adrienne Speer (the artist) sells a white version of the bunny bowl at The Clay Studio. There used to be an Etsy shop with all manner of other colors as well as other animals, like foxes and elephants. But the Etsy shop appears to be closed now.

Pig mug

From Japan, a country where Hello Kitty is a National Treasure, comes this porcelain pig. Now you can drink a giant mug of tea brewed in your piggy teapot.

You can get the pig (or one of its friends, a panda or a black cat) for $20 from fredflare.com, a website whose mantra is "Stay cute!"

P.S. Of course you know this mug is upside down, right?

P.P.S. The Japanese word for cute is kyuuto.

Wine charms

I have no long-winded (or even short-winded) explanation for why I like these wine charms. I just do.

The beaded charms, which wrap around the stem of the glass, come in a set of six for $12 from ChefTools. If you have more than 5 friends, you can buy a second set of Stylish Stems with darker colored beads.

BLT candles

From The Grateful Palate--a website that celebrates bacon (their tagline is "It's a bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon world)--comes BLT Candles. The clearly impassioned inventor explains why he/she (unclear authorship) felt the need to create votive candles that smell like a sandwich:

I love the smell of bacon cooking. I fantasize about having bacon grilling on the stove day and night. In my philosophic musings I asked myself what is better than a BLT? As much as I try, I can't eat a BLT at every meal and I can't grill bacon 24 hours a day.

As the candles clearly indicate, one smells like bacon, one smells like tomato and the third smells like lettuce (????).

If you're not willing to spend $34 on the BLT candles, you should check out their Bacon of the Month Club (I'd mentioned this before when I was discussing a book called Seduced by Bacon).

Inside-out salt shaker

I'm on a salt shaker roll.

From designer Jason Amendolara at the wonderful Fred & Friends comes this salt shaker called SaltSide Out™. The classic cafeteria salt shaker shape is housed inside a handblown glass cylinder, and the salt goes outside the shaker. Perfect for April Fool's Day.

You can get it for $14 from perpetual kid.

Salt & peeper shaker

So just because I ranted about salt doesn't mean that I don't like it. After all, salt gives us the opportunity to dress up our tables with impossibly cute gadgets like this Salt & Peeper Shaker.

If you turn this little guy's head to the right, his blue eyes turn white and you can shake salt out of his beak. If you turns his head the other way, his eyes turn black and you'll get pepper.

It's $11.50 from bibelot.

Soldier on at breakfast

On the other hand maybe you're a soft-boiled egg person, in which case surely you need to have this egg cup. These little plastic soldiers look completely daunted by their task. Too funny.

Check it out on firebox.com.

Lily Bird soy sauce dispenser

A couple of years ago, Alessi, the Italian kitchenware company, and the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taiwan began a design collaboration that was intended to be a melding of Eastern and Western sensibilities. The result has been a line of fun tabletop and kitchen items grouped under the name OrienTales.

Many of the items are monkey-themed, and there are lots of tropical fish and flowers, but I was quite taken with this little bird-shaped soy sauce container. As with most Alessi stuff (which is "Designer" kitchenware), this cute little bird does not have a cute little price tag. It's $32. But hey, a girl can dream.

If you want to window-shop some more of the OrienTales line, visit the Alessi website.

And I want to brew my hibiscus tea in this

Potter Judy Jackson, who lives in New York City (actually I think somewhere near where I live) makes really cool pottery, and I absolutely love this teapot. I feel that its calm beauty could contribute to the blood pressure-lowering attributes of the hibiscus flower.

The teapots are dishwasher and microwave safe and come with a built-in infuser. You can find them at Salubra Teas for $44. The cream color is in stock, but with 1 or 2 weeks lead time you can get one of the other beautiful, muted colors like cobalt, grape, sea green and weathered green.

Whimsical teacup

Many years ago I discovered the "Jeeves and Wooster" stories** by British humorist P.G. Wodehouse. In one of the stories, the protagonist and upperclass twit Bertie Wooster is asked by his Aunt Dahlia to steal a silver cow creamer from a rival collector.

It had never occurred to me before reading this that a creamer could be in any shape other than a pitcher and I was amused at the thought of the milk pouring out of the cow's mouth and into a cup of tea. This set me on a course of collecting pitchers in the shape of animals. I have a sizable collection, ranging from pigs and cows to penguins.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I favor whimsy in my tabletop items. This is precisely what attracted me to this wonderful little teacup. This hand-glazed earthenware cup from Argentina has an itty-bitty chair in the middle. I'm not certain that I would pay $30 for a teacup for myself, but I would absolutely love to get this as a gift. It's from a website called LAMA, which stands for Latin America in the Modern Age.

**In the Jeeves and Wooster stories, lovable numbskull Bertie is always rescued from misfortune by his exceptionally intelligent (and patient) valet, Jeeves. Although many actors have played the parts of Jeeves and Wooster, my personal favorites are Stephen Frye (as Jeeves) and Hugh Laurie (as Bertie). I thought that since there are undoubtedly a lot of "House" fans out there, you might enjoy seeing a clip of Hugh Laurie playing the ineffably stupid Bertie. Watch it to the end to hear a reference to the cow creamer.

Fancy pizza plates

In early December, I posted an entry on some fun plates that were designed for serving pizza. They were cute, but not serious dinnerware. Then I stumbled across these plates in the Museum of Modern Art store.

These "Slice Plates"--which are 9 inches wide at the wide end and 10 inches long--are the creation of a French designer, Jean Sebastien Ides. They're on the pricey side ($15 apiece), but would make a really nice gift for someone who is big on pizza--or pie or cake.

Champagne glasses

And one more thing you might need for Valentine's Day...a pair of champagne glasses. But not just any champagne glasses. All of those shown here are double-walled, which means they keep the champagne colder longer.

1 Beginning with the most modestly priced glass, this Manhattan 6-ounce champagne glass from Bodum costs $5.40 from Green Beanery. The glass would also make a really nice parfait dish.
2 Stepping up to a more sophisticated look, these squarish handmade glasses by Welmade are $32 for a set of two from Urban Living.
3 And finally, the luxury model. These designer InsideOut glasses come in a set of two for $60 from Charles and Marie.

Valentine's Day breakfast in bed

Breakfast in bed is one of the most charming gifts you can give someone, but why not really put on a show?

1 This Chef's Choice 830 WafflePro waffle iron makes 5 heart-shaped waffles. It sells for $50 from Amazon.
2 Or keep it simple with this cute toast stamp for $4 from Perpetual Kid.
3 For a mere $6, you can express your love with a heart-shaped egg. The nonstick form from Archie McPhee can also be used to make heart-shaped pancakes.
4 And to drink? A nice cuppa brewed with this wonderful little tea infuser. $4 from Anna Tea Shop.
5 Don't stop there. Serve the tea (or coffee) in this great heart-shaped cup and saucer from Molla Space. The cup and saucer are $18, but you can also get a mug for $16, a juice class for $13 or, if you really want to go crazy, there's a whole heart-shaped tea set for $140.
6 And what to spread on the waffles, or toast, or pancakes? Why a heart-shaped pat of butter of course. This pink silicone mold from Fauchon in Paris makes 20 little butter shapes. The mold can also be used to mold chocolates or for baking. It's $15 from Sur La Table.