100 Essentials #1 Crockery

This 100 essentials thing has definitely got me thinking about what I both want and need in terms of possessions. I am slowly working through Francine Jay's list of 35 kitchen items and deciding what would make my list. I am not going to post about everything on the list, but thought it might be helpful to think out loud about some of the more important items.

The first two of Francine Jay's essentials are a plate and a bowl. I am cheating - no, not cheating! My list, my rules! - and treating basic crockery as a single item. For me this means a dining plate, a side plate, and a bowl. I can see that a single plate could work if it was the right size. However, we recently replaced some old and chipped crockery with a set that I love, but the large plates are too large to work for everything, and the side plates too small, so one of each it is.

I love the shape of these, square but curvy, and the simplicity of the white. They are stoneware and feel solid without being over chunky. They are part of Marks and Spencer's Andante range, but looking on their website just now it seems they may have been discontinued. 

So, if it was just me, and down to essentials, this set of two plates and a bowl would do beautifully. 

But ... we have far more crockery than just one of these place settings each. How to distinguish what are sensible extras and what are excess?

To start with, we have eight place settings. Extra, but not excess. We usually cook a roast dinner on Sundays and although most weeks someone will be missing it is not uncommon for us to end up with eight - five of us, two daughter's boyfriends, and my brother. So at this stage of our lives, being able to cater for eight is sensible.

On top of the eight place settings, we have another complete set of crockery. M is Jewish and has always kept dual sets, one for meat meals and one for milk. Although in most respects he is far from keeping fully kosher and does in practice often end up mixing meat and milk, he still feels strongly that he wants to maintain the dual crockery. Our "milk" set is from the well known Portmeirion botanic garden range. There are half a dozen dining plates, and anything from two to four medium sized plates, side plates, cereal bowls, and pasta bowls. On top of this are serving bowls, tea cups and saucers, milk jug, tea pot, sugar bowl, toast rack, and probably more that I have forgotten. Some of this should definitely count as essentials or extras, needed for our particular circumstances, but somewhere along the line it is straying into excess. But where? That rarely used tea set? 

And it doesn't stop there. We have a ton of IKEA plastic plates, bowls and cups, essential while we had young children, but with our youngest now almost eleven most (if not all) of these are now excess. Then there is a nice set of Beatrix Potter themed china given to one of our now adult daughters as a child, plus two or three more decorative plates that I can't quite bring myself to part with. Maybe I should keep the Beatrix Potter set and let go of the rest? 

So the bottom line in our crockery cupboard(s) seems to be:

Essentials: Dinner plate, side plate and bowl for each member of the family (dual sets)

Reasonable extras: Dinner plates, side plates and bowls for guests (8 place settings in total); Beatrix Potter child's set for sentimental value; a couple of plastic plates, bowls and cups for cooking purposes (I often use them to rest utensils on, or for mixing small amounts of dressings, for example)

Excess: Most of the plastic plates, bowls and cups; pretty but unused plates. If I am honest, also the Portmeirion tea service, but I can't quite bring myself to bite the bullet on that one yet. The excess would have been worse, but I did have a clear out quite recently and only kept what I thought I needed!