If I say we are going to have a picnic or cookout, most Americans assume paper plates will be involved.
This is due to the American obsession with convenience and maybe a little laziness about washing dishes - (okay - maybe it is mostly about not wanting to do dishes.)
In general, I prefer REAL dishes. Actually, I have a dish weakness. I love dishes and have several different sets of china and everyday ware. More than any one family needs (don't tell the Engineer Extraordinaire I confessed that!) In the few years that I have been away, "they" have come out with Melamine dishes - these are tempting me right now . . .
Williams-Sonoma has some that look like real ceramic. . .
Hmmm . . . no place to store them, but they would look good on the patio . . .
I digress . . .
Anyway, as much as I prefer dishes, there are times that require paper plates, paper towels, disposable items that you can just gather up and throw away in a big black garbage bag!.
My husband's family is quite large. When we all get together there are too many plates to wash - we would be in the kitchen all day if we served every meal on real plates!
Then, there is the COOKOUT. It is SPRING - time to clean the grill that has been undercover on your back porch for the long winter. Please make sure before you start it up that no critter decided that your grill was a nice place to hibernate over winter!
Something about hamburgers and hot dogs cries out for paper plates.
In Antwerp - COOKOUTS are not common. It just isn't their style. Paper plates are NOT to be found there. I'm not complaining at all! Belgians cook the most delicious food on the planet! However, even if they did COOKOUT - paper plates would NOT be used. Belgians serve everything on dishes with linen table cloths and silverware with a utensil unique to each dish served! While I love that about them, linen and BBQ chicken don't go well together!
In Singapore - Grills and COOKOUTS are a little more common, but paper plates - NO! This is interesting to me as there are thousands of Hawker center booths that have take away, but it all is in plastic containers or bags! At one time, our family hosted a cookout at our condo. Rather than lug all my plates down to the grill, I looked for paper plates . . . I searched … several stores, mind you. I finally found some I think at GIANT. They were biodegradable plates made from potatoes and corn!!! They looked like they would fall apart the minute I put food on them. And, they were going to cost more than those Melamine dishes I want from Williams-Sonoma!!!!
To say the least, I carried the dishes down to the grill!
I've ranted about paper plates because it is SPRING and we are going to COOKOUT! We are also headed to Louisiana to my husband's family! In Louisiana, they DEFINITELY COOKOUT. The big thing about SPRING in Louisiana is the CRAWFISH BOIL!!!!
A crawfish boil is a hands on kind of feast. There is no other way to eat crawfish, but with the utensils God gave you!
Paper plates aren't required, but paper towels definitely are…
The Crawfish boil will be a future blog.
Anyway this whole post started with meeting up with the Engineer Extraordinaire's large family and needed to avoid doing dishes morning, noon, and night! - No really - we would be in the kitchen all day!
So these are technically plastic plates, but they have a depth to them so if you put beans or anything with a sauce it won't run off the plate - certainly better than the potato/corn fiasco!
And before you fuss at me - they are recyclable even if they aren't biodegradable!
These are the pretty napkins that will go perfect with the plain, purple paper plates I got for breakfast!
The men folk won't like these, but the ladies will and we all need a little pretty thing to start our day off!
So for those of you expats returning to Suburbia and losing your Helpers - HEB or your local grocery store sells paper plates ($3/100 plates) and don't despair that you'll be doing dishes forever!
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