Tea at Trianon: How To...Update Your Everyday White Dishes

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, October 24, 2025

How To...Update Your Everyday White Dishes

From Lane Scott at Matriarch:

Chances are if you have your own household and you live in America, you have some of that trendy and ubiquitous white dinnerware.
You know the kind I’m talking about: It’s white. And it is innocuous in every possible way. The pattern’s curves and shapes render it impossible to place in any one time or setting; it offends no one and projects nothing other than a kind of chic awareness of “timeless pieces” and “non-fussy silhouettes.”
ou likely bought it because it “can be dressed up or down” and is “so versatile.”
If you’re happy with your white dinnerware and it’s performing well for you; that’s awesome.
If, however, you’re looking to upgrade your tablescape for the mid-2020s and have something more sophisticated for the upcoming holiday season, I have a few suggestions.
I think maybe people pick dishes thinking ok. this has got to hold up for years and years, so let’s get something really strong that will last. And for some reason that means chunky pottery or earthenware.
And so they go and buy dishes roughly from Luke Skywalker’s Home Planet. Because nice or fancy = not durable in their minds. (Read more.)