BS: Where to keep Crockery

Subject: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 06:48 AM

This week when out with a mate having a pint or two and talking our normal "boys bollocks" the subject came round to where crockery was normally kept in the house.

That is which room.

I said I would put a thread on Mudcat to try to determine which of us were correct in our disparate assertions.

So over to you were do you keep your crockery.

PS Not the special stuff that comes out when Aunty Mabel comes round, the everyday stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 07:05 AM

Well, my mom used to keep the Sauerbraten crock in the garage. I found a salamander in it once....

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 08:23 AM

My now ex wife kept cockery in an overhead cupboard in the kitchen [ I still do ] all very neat and tidy, plates stacked very neatly, largest on the bottom and so forth, unfortunately for me the logic of stacking large to small falls down at every mealtime because the plates used most were always at the bottom and you had to move all the rest to get at them.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 08:31 AM

What do you mean by crockery, Raggytash? To me, crockery is heavy duty earthenware. My only item of heavy duty earthenware is a big purple crock next to the kitchen sink, into which we put dirty items (rinsed) until they can be washed.

The dishes we eat off of stay in upper cabinets in the kitchen - not very convenient.

In my dream house, the wall between the kitchen and the dining room is made of cabinets which open on both sides. One puts washed dishes into them from the kitchen side and takes them out from the dining room side to be set on the table.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 08:40 AM

What on earth do you call your dinner plates, side plates, cups, saucers then Leeneia.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 08:55 AM

Kitchen/ dining room has u shaped kitchen at on end with central island.
Large plates are stacked on edge in plate racks either side of the cooker. Smaller plates and bowls in cupboard opposite the cooker, in the central island. Work surfaces both sides of the cooker. Freezer built into one end of the island with fridge facing it. Other end of the island has bottle rack and lowered work surface for baking/pastry mixing, particularly by the grandchildren.
Sink and dishwasher are on opposite side of the room. Easy to transfer cleaned plates etc. to the island and put them away from there so the design triangle is not so violated as you might think.
We spent a lot of time designing the kitchen and decided that we have come up with a better one than the three "experts" that we consulted presented us with!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 09:05 AM

Vaguely, at one of the kitchen. More precisely, cups in overhead cupboard to the right. Plates in overhead cupboard to the left. Larger pots like pizza plate and baking crockery to the right, but below waist height. 'Overflow'cups and plates if we have more than about six people are below waist height on the left. Other stuff gradually gets further and further from the kitchen with, for example, pressure cookers some 15ft from the oven ...

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 09:09 AM

Sorry Guys and Gals. A simple kitchen, dining room, bedroom or even bathroom will suffice if that's where they are kept.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 09:14 AM

"..dinner plates, side plates, cups, saucers "

Well, the kitchen is the obvious place for everyday stuff... but we also have 2 display cabinets for nice glassware & pottery dishes in the 'dining room'... which has not been used for dining for almost 20 years. (dining table is now a workspace for my wife's pyrography equipment)

It will usually depend on the size of people's rooms. Some don't have a kitchen large enough to actually eat in.... some do. 30 years ago, we lived in a house where the kitchen was a narrow space with barely a space for one tiny table, so we kept only a few 'crockery' items in the limited cabinet space, and most in a room designated 'dining room', which was right next to another space designated 'breakfast nook', but was merely just an extension of the dining room with a very wide arch between them.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 10:36 AM

The problem of large on the bottom and small stacked on top is solved if one uses some of the wire racks available to organize cupboards. My plates are all in the cupboard next to the sink and above them (still within the space of the lower shelf) is a coated-wire rack with the bowls stacked so they don't need to be moved to get to the plates. Same with cups and mugs. Big mugs on the regular cupboard shelf and the wire rack above them is where the smaller cups (the 6oz type "coffee cups") sit. It makes more efficient use of the cupboard.

The big bowls for mixing (mine are clear Pyrex bowls, four of them that nest) are in a cupboard near the stove and on top of those are some much more frequently used smaller bowls. Sometimes I have to take the small bowls out of the cupboard to get to the larger ones, but not often enough to make it worth investing in another wire rack (and I don't think one would fit over the top of these large bowls, anyway).

There are shelves in the pantry and one in the dining area that hold various other Pyrex and ceramic baking containers, platters, pots, and dishes. They're rarely used, but when they are needed, I want to be able to find them easily.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: michaelr
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 10:54 AM

"..dinner plates, side plates, cups, saucers "

We call them dishes, and they're kept in the dining room sideboard.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 11:07 AM

I'm a bloke - I have MY bowl, plate, and mug...

They stay within quick easy reach on the drainer next to the sink..

We have a crockery cupboard over the kitchen work surface and kettle
which smells musty even with the door wedged open..

It's annoying when the wife randomly puts things in that cupboard,
and they need to be rinsed again.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 11:18 AM

Q. "What on earth do you call your dinner plates, side plates, cups, saucers then Leeneia."

A. We call them "the dishes." If we owned thin, expensive, artistic stuff, we would call it "the china."

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Charmion
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 02:40 PM

I call all of it crockery, from the gallon-and-a-half sugar crock on the counter to the Wedgwood in the dining room. The everyday stuff -- plain white plates from IKEA and an amazing collection of beer mugs and coffee cups -- lives in overhead cabinets in the kitchen within arm's reach of the dishwasher.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 02:52 PM

Seldom used things, extra large fry pans. clay pots, Tagines and so forth, bottom shelf in the larder. The rest, every day things on shelves in the Kitchen. Coffee cups and beer mugs on the sideboard for easy all day access. Oh, and fancy stuff in the dining room cabinet.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 03:12 PM

My impression is that this collective term, 'crockery', for china and earthenware eating vessels, is a British rather than a US usage; over there I think you tend rather to say simply 'the dishes' — which, BTW, you 'do' after meals to keep them clean, which we call 'washing up' -- a phrase which has quite another connotation to you guys over there, referring, iirc, to rendering the hands of a cleanliness fit to consume the contents of such 'dishes'. Have I got this somewhat confusing bit of Transatlantic semantic distinction correct?

I once OPd a thread which ran for some time on Transatlantic differences in linguistic usages, and some of the misunderstandings liable to arise therefrom; but I don't think anyone ever postulated this particular culinary complex of meanings.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 04:21 PM

PA: Serving crockery in china cabinet base, and more in a high cupboard in kitchen. Everyday plates, etc in kitchen cabinet above serving counter next to serving island.

OH: Matched set of everday dinnerware (plates, bowls) on R side of kitchen cabinet atop serving counter adjoining fridge. Brekky/lunch ware in L side. Misc larger bowls across upper shelf across both sides. Serving crockery to go in sideboard to come, dividing kitchen from LR/DR.

But I'm also quite happy to leave it all in the dishwasher to use 1 at a time, til it's empty, the soaking sink is full, and THEN reload dishwasher to start over.

In both kitchens, drinking glasses and mugs are near sink cuz water and coffee come from there. Fancy glasses with fancy china.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 04:49 PM

I live in a bedroom apartment with a smallish kitchen (fridge, chest freezer, stove, microwave, benches & cupboards.)

My everyday stuff (cutlery, pyrex bowl for cereal, old saucer for boiled egg, 4 different sized side & dinner plates for sandwiches/sushi, whatever) lives on the bench in the dish drainer. I also have 4 beautiful Japanese bowls (serving size to rice bowl size) that live on a kitchen shelf.

My glasses & mug, everyday china & obsolete good Doulton dinnerset live in my living room, in a lovely 1920's kitchen dresser. The good dinnerset will one day go to auction giving me 2 selves to use. This 8-setting dinnerset sits on 2 wire racks.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Oct 15 - 07:43 PM

Yes Michael, that's the basic differences... but if someone offered to 'wash up' after dinner, it wouldn't confuse me.

I tend to think of 'crockery' as fired stoneware. The only things called 'crocks' in our house are large jars that might be used for mixing or storing.
But, I automatically assumed that the song "Crockery Ware" sung by Nic Jones, Jean Redpath and others included 'general breakable items of tableware'.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 01:06 AM

oops, a little typo

I live in a ONE bedroom apartment with a smallish kitchen (fridge, chest freezer, stove, microwave, benches & cupboards.)

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,A Plate
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 06:19 AM

I live in a crockery cupboard.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,A Cup
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 06:32 AM

Oi plate mate, it's not called a crockery cupboard for nothing !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 06:45 AM

Actually, Bill, in the Nic Jones song,'crockery ware' is a euphemism for the chamber-pot.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 07:31 AM

Difficult, Raggy, as the houses we have had have been kitchen/dining room or eat-in kitchens. Still, if I were asked to define it as a particular room I would say Kitchen.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Oct 15 - 08:14 PM

Kitchen. Where the food is, where the sink is. (Rouge Towers doesn't have a bourgeois dishwasher!)

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 06:46 AM

Kitchen. Every house has one of those, and easiest to keep the necessary vessels nearest to where they're needed and washed.

MGM/Bill: my Irish dad used to say "doing the vessels" to mean "washing up" (after a meal). Not thought of that for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 08:01 AM

Interesting, Noreen; as with various Irishisms, seems to be a French influence. In France, on fait la vaisselle, n'est-ce pas?

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 08:15 AM

When I was married the good china was kept in a sideboard in the dining room. My ex wife kept the good stuff so all mine is in the kitchen.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Janie
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 09:39 AM

In the kitchen. Like Acme, I use the wire racks which nicely solves the bit about having to lift the small plates to get to the larger ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Charmion
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 10:43 AM

Those wire racks are the bomb. I love crockery and have way too much -- it's the only thing I hoard, and I keep my habit in check by not acquiring more cabinets. Then I undermine myself by buying more of those wire racks, and crockery lust strikes again. Of course, Himself is no help: he can't resist coffee mugs with Love Me, Love My Cat printed on them.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 11:10 AM

Hi, Charmion. I have crockery lust too! Isn't it fun?

The latest manifestation is collecting old Noritake with an M in the maker's mark. It is dated 1920 - 40 (about) and has lovely pieces with talented use of orange, green, black and gold.

The pieces are stored in a pretty rack high on a kitchen wall. It takes a tall person to get one down.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 11:14 AM

Google this: Noritake with an M images

and feast your eyes. Be sure to click "more images"

Eat your hearts out, declutterers!

I didn't know they used blue, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 11:25 AM

Ah, as to collections: I have a collection of mugs which live on a shelf above the kitchen door. They range in subject from Pope John xxiii, via Audrey Hepburn, to Basil Brush. One rather delightful bone china one has the verse + illustration, 'A butterfly wondering where to land Came to rest on a fairy's hand'.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 12:02 PM

...which are of course different from the ones we actually drink from, which live on a broad built-in surface near the sink. These range from my "His Lordship" one, with crown above, a Xmas present from Emma, to Mozart, New York City, to Chelsea Football Club (a present from me to her, as she supports them, tho I am Arsenal myself).

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Raggytash
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 01:22 PM

Michael, I now realise your suffering, fancy having to share a space with a Chelsea supporter. You have my sincere sympathy.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 02:50 PM

Oh, I don't know: at least it isn't Tottenham Hotspur!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Oct 15 - 10:57 PM

Thanks for the info about your mugs, your lordship.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: ragdall
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 01:21 AM

My everyday dishes are in cupboards in the kitchen when they are not on the table in the dining room or in the dishwasher, also in the kitchen.

Raggytash, where did you and your friend think that the crockery should be stored?

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:37 AM

More than welcome, dear leeneia. Glad you found it of interest. I feared I might come over as a bit of a mug myself for going into so much detail...

≈M≈ aka just for the nonce "His Lordship"

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:39 AM

...& I didn't mean 'nonce' in that sense, as you well know, so no jokes about narks or informers or abusers please!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 05:15 AM

Ragdall, The omission was deliberate, needless to say one of us said the dining room and the other said the kitchen. This thread was placed to try and gain an insight, albeit not a scientific insight, into the query.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Raggytash
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 04:40 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 10:22 AM

I my brother-in-law's McMansion, the everyday dishes are kept in a cupboard next to the stove and near the dishwasher. The fine dishes are in an elegant cabinet in the dining room.

As I said, our dishes are in the kitchen, but I can add variety by stating that the extras and the huge serving dishes for Christmas and Thanksgiving are in the closet to the guest bedroom.

Ha ha! Fit that data point on yer graph!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,jobsworth
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 11:05 AM

Here in the Great Pacific Northwest when someone is talkin' 'bollocks' it's common to hear the response 'what a crock of sh*t (e)' or simply, 'what a crock'.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Raggytash
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 11:56 AM

Jobsworth, that particular expressin is also used on this side of the pond. Leeneia, I have stuff in the attic that comes out on occassion that too doesn,t sit easily on a graph!

Cheers to you both

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 12:35 PM

Of course, the Cook will be in overall charge of the everyday services, and keep a close eye on how the kitchenmaids are treating it: though the most valuable heirlooms, brought out only on very special family occasions, will be carefully preserved in the Butler's Pantry, accessible only to the Butler himself, or just possibly the Head Footman if the Butler should happen to be indisposed..

That, of course, is how we order things chez-MGM·Lion...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: Raggytash
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 12:48 PM

My faithful old retainer fulfils the same function Michael, except for when the poor man is plagued with gout. I should shoot him really, it would be a kindness.

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 01:13 PM

But then where would you find another to care so faithfully for the Spode and the Doulton and the Royal Worcester? Don't do anything rash, now!

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 05:34 PM

What do I do with my plate? 

Subject: RE: BS: Where to keep Crockery
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Oct 15 - 11:08 AM

That was fun to watch, but don't try it at home.