Ode to Oneida

After a year and a half of Oakwood furnishings and then the welcome kit at post, I have been dying for good silverware.  Perhaps more than most things, I missed high quality eating utensils.  I am fairly particular.  I like flatware to be relatively heavy, but not overly so.  I hate eating off of forks with bent tines.  I like forks with four tines, never three.  I think soup spoons can run a fine line between large enough and too large for one's mouth.  Butter knives need to have some heft and not be too slim at the spreading end.  And you can never have too many teaspoons. 

When I went home for Thanksgiving, it hit me how much I missed good silverware.  I grew up with Oneida flatware; my parents still have the True Rose set they were given for their wedding by my grandparents, and now we have my Grandmother's slightly fancier Oneida set.  So a few years ago, in anticipation of my own kitchen, I bought a service-for-12 set from Oneida, in Flight pattern.  It's a mid-range line - functional for daily use, good looking, but not top of the line.  It has been in boxes since.  So imagine my complete and utter glee when tonight's box contained the entire Oneida set, including hostess serving items!!  I quickly switched out the flimsy welcome kit stuff for my wonderful Oneida.  And eating off it was a dream.  So wonderful.  The little things, eh?

This box also contained some other goodies, including a beautiful tablecloth I bought in Tahiti and promptly forgot about.  It's now on the table :-).  A lot of Easter decorations, including a kitschy deviled egg platter and salt/pepper shakers.  And, completely surprising, some gorgeous beaded decorative flatware I bought in South Africa eons ago.  I'd forgotten about these pieces entirely.  I have two serving spoons, a salad fork/spoon set, a sugar spoon, and six each of dessert spoons and forks.  They're good quality silverware, and the ends/stems (what are those called?) are covered in wire and beading.  Exquisite.  So exciting!  Plus, each set was tied with tissue paper and 'garnished' with a guinea hen feather!!  (If you read my previous post, you'd know about the guinea hen obsession...  I found that tablecloth as well!)

There was also a set of bamboo cooking tools; I am a sucker for wooden spoons, and the rest of my collection is in HHE#2.  These went perfectly into the pottery utensil holder I unpacked yesterday! 

It's past my bedtime, but I just had to write about my silverware.  I am such a kitchen gadget/utenstil geek...  And I've never had all my stuff in one place before.  Most of it is still new in original packaging.  So I'm giddy over my discoveries - not just seeing them again, but finally getting to use them!!