My previous “New Things” posting (on 5/11) was about replacing household furnishings that were difficult, painful, or actively dangerous for me to use with more suitable items. As it happens, the replacements were well-designed aesthetically as well as functionally.
This morning, noting Target ads for melamine plates for picnic use — it’s the season — the colors of which offended her, my daughter Elizabeth was moved to suggest to me that I might think about replacing the thin apple-green plastic plates I’d been using, whose virtues were that they were super-lightweight (crucial for my seriously disabled hands), durable, microwave safe, and really cheap (they’re still available: Preserve® Plateware, in #5 plastic, recyclable too). Alas, cheap in both senses: inexpensive and of inferior quality. And I hate the color.
In my kitchen cabinets I have a full set of handsome stoneware plates and dishes that Jacques and I bought for everyday use, plus a full set of elegant china for when we had guests, but now it’s all way too heavy for me to handle, and far too breakable. I can deal with a bowl, because I can hook a thumb and forefinger on the rim and then carry it safely, but plates are out of my range.
Now Elizabeth had planted in my mind the idea of replacing the cheap greenies with something better — not melamine, because it doesn’t microwave safely — but something more aesthetically pleasing, and maybe even on sale, since it’s the picnic season.
And so it was. Half an hour of searching, and I homed in on GreenandLife wheat straw plates: lightweight, unbreakable, microwave and dishwasher safe, especially recommended for children and the elderly. And on sale for the picnic season:
4 deep plates, purported to come in green, yellow, pink, and blue, but in their picture with grey instead of yellow:
(#1)
6 flat plates, in those colors, plus grey and beige (though the pink in their picture looks pretty red, and the yellow is on the greenish side):
(#2)
Amazon will deliver them tomorrow. The actual colors will just be our little surprise.
Added information on 5/21, as I await delivery of the plates. Wheat straw material is made of wheat straw fiber, starch, and food-grade polypropylene. Polypropylene is a #5 recyclable plastic.
And now on 5/21 after a 1:30 delivery. Oh my, they are light! That’s wonderful, ’cause they’re also elegant.
The actual colors as delivered: deep plates in green, blue, pink, and beige; flat plates in green, blue, pink, greenish yellow, beige, and grey. I have found a place for them on the kitchen counter where I can reach them easily. I would love to get a photo of them in their new home, but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get someone with a camera to come by and take the photo. Though I can offer visitors a tour of the visual delights of my condo.
May 20, 2023 at 2:18 pm |
Post a picture of the actual items if they are interestingly different from these?
May 20, 2023 at 2:35 pm |
I will. Stay tuned. (Getting pictures now takes some days, because I no longer have a way to take pictures myself, so you’ll have to be patient.)