This was motivated by the open call for mothers day recipes. It doesn’t contain any recipes but it does have some descriptions of food. The dishes here are the vessels themselves.

The dishes that were the most important were the ones that got used every day. They were made by my father when his ceramic studio was in the basement of our home, before I was born. They were not great works of art. They were the work of an artist trying to find a compromise between his art and the need to make things that worked, things that would sell. Some had ugly colors, ugly patterns, nice shapes usually. Truly dated, late fifties work that was still good work, still his work. 

A large bowl with alternating turquoise and purple stripes is the bowl I remember meatballs being served from. Just the right size and although the colors were not the colors of food they set off the dark red of the sauce. Just the right balance of breadcrumbs to meat, worcestershire sauce,  “Italian Seasoning” all in one bottle, dried onions (all too easy but they had a unique flavor), browned in an iron skillet before being added to the sauce. The sauce was from a jar but had tomato paste, herbs, wine, and just the right amount of adjustment. The  Parmesan cheese was from a jar too. Too sweet you say? Yeah.

  Another bowl on a pedestal foot. It looked like it would be tippy but it was very well balanced. A bit too tall for it’s own good maybe but a steady server of peas, Rice-a-Roni, or Julia Child’s green beans: parboiled, quickly cooled in water to revive the color then sauteed with cracked pepper (Lowry’s seasoned salt - which had dangerously huge pieces of pepper corns) and “butter” (Blue Bonnet margarine, only God and Weight Watchers know why)

The spaghetti? Prince (from the North End), Al dente, with lots of olive oil ( The stuff that came in a can then was decanted to stand in a bottle at room temperature in a cupboard for the rest of the year.) served in the only bowl bigger than the sauce bowl. A great grey purple tureen with dark, oval shapes on the sides. 

It all came together on plates that were glazed a dark bronze.

A collection of goblets, glazed green, purple, blue on the outside and white on the inside were the dessert bowls. The same vessels that held the legendary instant pudding of the gods. Unadulterated Jello instant pudding, chocolate, of course, as if anything else mattered. Timed correctly, it would still be hot when served, not quite cooled off yet. You could take a can of Reddi Whip and inject a cloud of whipped cream into its heart or build a spiral ziggurat as a monument to sugary excess. The aroma combining with that of instant coffee served in bronze glazed cups.  Contentment.

These and other things remained when he left. My mother always said he left them because they were defective. That’s why we had them in the first place. They were old. They were of the old life, the family, they needed to stay where they were. Some had “blebs”, bubbles formed during firing, some had sunk in the kiln so that they didn’t stand up on their feet properly, or they were just plain ugly. His signature was on all of them.

She belittled and insulted them but would never think of using anything else to serve from. They had scratches in the glaze and the edges were polished from years of use. Much later, long after the days of family meals, I implored her to stop using them because we all wanted to have them some day. Stone faced she proclaimed their worthlessness, and the fact that they were just the right size. Nothing could take their place. Yeah, we loved him too.