Table Settings; Special Touches for Entertaining

Finally, the last of my Victoria Magazine books.  I think...

This week I read Table Settings, published in 2002 by the Editors of Victoria Magazine, but largely written by Mary Forsell, a Victoria editor who wrote other books about entertaining, flower arranging and berries, topics near and dear to my heart.

The back cover of the book summarizes the contents well.  This book is about collecting, selecting and presenting tableware including china, silver, glassware, and linens.

The book is divided into chapters which inconsistently focus on dining occasions, dining locations, or tableware themes.  The first chapter covers breakfast time, which is often overlooked as a separate entertaining occasion but is often a part of weekend visits and other overnight stays.  I love the idea of this chapter, and often look for excuses to use my toast rack, but this chapter, like much of the book and the previous Victoria books is a great illustration of their issues with picture captions and sources.  The picture below (poorly photographed by me) features this great set of teacups with leaves - maidenhair fern, or maybe parsley leaves, or something like that.  I love those cups.  I would love to have them, or at least take a closer look at them.  But the book neglects to name their manufacturer (only the name of the photographer - at least that's something), and I can't find them on the web.  I think the picture caption thing is about this book being a compilation of Victoria material.  The pictures were likely take for long-ago articles, and who remembers what exactly was included in each image.  I suppose it's for the best, given the over-crowded state of my china cabinet, but I would make room!!!  If you have any ideas about who manufactured this pattern, let me know!

The next chapter focuses on dining alfresco.  Apparently, according to Victoria, at least in 2002, you need the excuse of the great outdoors to shed the formality of entertaining.  Outdoor table settings should be casual, colorful, and use everyday items in new ways.  A blanket can be used as a tablecloth, a washtub as a champagne cooler, etc.  I do love the idea of not worrying about finding a tablecloth that's long enough, but instead purchasing fabric right off the bolt and leaving the edges raw (it's outdoors, so raw edges are also allowed).

The next chapters focus on floral motifs and whiteware as a staple of entertaining, and later chapters cover using tablewares as art and display pieces, and various occasions or events for parties.  The "history" chapter strikes a chord as it focuses on the nineteenth century fashion of table services with huge numbers of very specific pieces.  This chapter articulated the idea that Victorian-era entertaining was more about showing off your stuff and the prowess of your kitchen staff rather than about actually eating very much.  Your dinner may have had nine courses and umpteenth pieces of silverware, but you definitely needed teatime as an extra meal midday.  Like those in the nineteenth century, I also need pickle forks, compotes, celery vases, tomato spoons, and on, and on.

In all, Table Settings is a pretty book, with fine content, flimsy picture captions, and not enough pictures that illustrate the content in the text.  But now all I really want to do is catalogue, display and USE all of my tablewares!!!

Next Week:  Something not published by Victoria!!!

The Essential Tea Companion

This week's book brings us to the last of my Victoria Magazine tea books.  Victoria has since started publishing annual tea-themed magazines, but more on that some other time...

The Essential Tea Companion from 2009 essentially re-purposes much of the content from Charms, Pleasures and Art.  In this volume, there is no one author because it is a compilation and even says so.  I suspect Kim Waller is the main contributor because of her part in the previous volumes, but this is unclear and unstated in the book.  Many of the pictures are of settings familiar from the previous books, but they are different shots of the same setting from those that appeared previously.

In tone, this book is much the same as Pleasures and Art, but there are a few key differences:

-It is very clear that this book is about tea parties and tea things.  It's nice to finally have that out there, and have all of the extra bits gone.  There are no preemptive interviews, no pieces of random text just stuck in there.  Just parties and stuff.  Fine.
-The pictures have captions!!  The captions don't always tell you the name of the china pattern or the source of the thing, but they do relate the pictures to the text, which is a start.
-Recipes are back, and there are lots of them.

But still and all, the book is very much in line with the concept of Victoria Magazine and the idea that life is or can be a blissful fantasy.  For example, there is a section on the prevalence of the silver tea service and how its popularity declined after WWII (which is why you should seek them out at antique stores and vintage sales and snap them up!), but no practical advice on how to polish, clean, store, and preserve your silver tea things, or any of your other tea wares.  It's almost as if covering that topic would break the romantic spell of Victoria.  It's also a lost opportunity to segue into the joy of home organization, natural cleaning products, and, of course, butler's panties, but again, I do appreciate the clear focus on parties and stuff.  And if Victoria or anyone else published a book on butler's pantries, I would buy it for sure!

Next time, I have one last Victoria book to share with you:  Table Settings!

The Art of Taking Tea

This week's book review is a strong echo of last week's review of the Pleasures of Tea.  The Art of Taking Tea was published by the Editors of Victoria Magazine in 2002.  It is again written by Kim Waller (who is again uncredited on the cover).

In much the same way as Pleasures, Art is loosely organized around three themes, but within each section, veers off topic into subjects that are vaguely, but not exactly related.  Part one is sort of about the history of tea including the tea trade and the introduction to tea to the West.  It includes information about the harvesting and the preparation of tea leaves, and then suddenly jumps to a section on silver tea wares and the Victorian custom of having an "at home" day.

Part two is about going out to tea and features three locations in particular:  Tealuxe in Cambridge, MA,  the café at Takashimaya in NYC (now closed), and Laudrée in Paris, most known for its colorful macarons (Does anyone go to Tealuxe?  Will someone take me to Laudrée right now?).  There are sections on tea at an English country house and how to have an Asian aesthetic at teatime at home.

Part three is about different occasions for tea:  tea in bed, tea as a theme for an office party, tea picnics, tea and wedding celebrations, tea dances, etc. 

The book is pleasant, inoffensive, but reads like a magazine in terms of overall flow.  Somehow the title, "The Art of Taking Tea," is just one that sounds nice rather than what this book is clearly about.  The pictures are lovely, but not captioned (I do love that pink Jasperware on the cover).  The interviews are only in passing, and not long enough or in-depth enough to add.  Interesting differences to note in this book, as opposed to Charms and Pleasures:  there are no recipes, and by 2002, all of the businesses listed in the resources section have web addresses!

Next week:  one more Victoria book to go - The Essential Tea Companion