Yesterday I went to The Calistoga Pottery to buy something to take home to England with me.
I visited once not long after we moved here and kept meaning to go back so I took the chance while I was down in the Valley getting groceries.
It's a tiny little place, packed with treasures and it was really hard to choose what to get.
What I really wanted was something that had been ash glazed, because they use ash from local vineyard trimmings, which I thought would be a great thing to remind me of our time here. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot of choice of items in the ash glaze but I ended up getting a shallow dish, meant as a wine bottle coaster, which would work perfectly to put oil and vinegar in for dipping bread.
I bought Evie a lovely cereal bowl and then I was snagged by a butterkeeper. Butter kept in the refrigerator is too hard but leaving it out risks the butter turning rancid, so the butterkeeper uses cold water to keep it fresh but still soft. You pack the butter into the lid, put water into the pot and then set the butter filled lid into the water. When you want to serve it you just pull the lid out and place it upside down on the table. I love little things like that so I couldn't resist.
Here are the pieces I bought - the butterkeeper has the lid on in this one.
And here it is with the lid off, as you would put it on the table to serve.
I visited once not long after we moved here and kept meaning to go back so I took the chance while I was down in the Valley getting groceries.
What I really wanted was something that had been ash glazed, because they use ash from local vineyard trimmings, which I thought would be a great thing to remind me of our time here. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot of choice of items in the ash glaze but I ended up getting a shallow dish, meant as a wine bottle coaster, which would work perfectly to put oil and vinegar in for dipping bread.
I bought Evie a lovely cereal bowl and then I was snagged by a butterkeeper. Butter kept in the refrigerator is too hard but leaving it out risks the butter turning rancid, so the butterkeeper uses cold water to keep it fresh but still soft. You pack the butter into the lid, put water into the pot and then set the butter filled lid into the water. When you want to serve it you just pull the lid out and place it upside down on the table. I love little things like that so I couldn't resist.
Here are the pieces I bought - the butterkeeper has the lid on in this one.
And here it is with the lid off, as you would put it on the table to serve.
LOVE that butter keeper idea, but I've only seen really ugly ones. :) Beautiful stuff Wendy - you'll always be glad you did this. (I still treasure my pieces I snagged when I was leaving England. The ones Torbjorn hasn't broken...)
ReplyDelete*Sigh* ... I had a lovely little butter keeper once, very similar to yours except it was all green instead of two-toned. Sadly, I broke the bottom when I stacked it on the top of a precariously piled rack full of dishes (many of my dishes and glassware have been lost this way, and do I learn??). I kept the top part around for a very long time, but finally chucked it because it just doesn't work on its own. Oh, and make no mistake, butter can go rancid - moldy even - in those things if you don't go through it fast enough :S
ReplyDeleteStill...
I'm the one in my family who breaks things so I'm keeping my fingers crossed (and wrapped tightly around fragile things).
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