Everyday and old things - my kitchen

"Napery - Napery refers to household linen, especially table linen. It includes items like tablecloths, napkins, placemats, and table runners." Google AI

It's time I continued my kitchen tour, and napery is the nearest word I can find to describe the things in shallow drawers that I am talking about today. I chose the AI definition because it was a bit broader than most which were purely textile related, and I'm including some other things as well today. The word comes from the Old French - 'nape, nappe' which means tablecloth and which comes from the Latin 'mappa' which means napkin. Wikipedia also tells us that:

Historically it was the office in a medieval household responsible for the washing and storage of these items. It was headed by a naperer.

And why Brueghel? And actually Brueghel the Younger - son of the more famous one -who obviously painted very much like his father. The painting is called The Village Fair, and, like his father's paintings, contains a mix of the religious and the profane because the full title is The Village Fair in Honour of Saint Hubert and Saint Anthony - whose effigies can be seen in the background being carried in procession through the village. These paintings are wonderful things to puzzle over and to see all the tiny little things happening everywhere. Why am I talking about Brueghel when really I should be talking about kitchen things? Well first here are two pathetically faded, cheap prints on our wall - the Younger Brueghel's Village Fair at the top and his dad's The Peasant Dance below, which even though large figures dominate has the same mass of tiny things happening here and there. We should really throw them out. They hang opposite the dining table. They were always cheap - glued on to chip board by David, as some of the first decorations on our walls - we were poor. I guess they are still there because of the sentimental attachment to them. A reminder of our first years of marriage.

I'm not sure which came first now - the pictures on the wall - or the set of table mats, shown here that were a rather more expensive purchase when we were first setting up home. And, of course, why I have been talking about Brueghel. They are never used now, just stored away in a drawer. Many are wrinkled, and about half are chipped, or maybe even eaten away at the edges. I'm also not sure whether we bought our 'posh' dinner set - an Arabia one - because of the table mats, or whether it was the other way around. I think the mats came first, and were bought in John Lewis. The dinner service was bought in Australia, although imported especially for us. Which demonstrates that we spent money on some things, but not others. They were a conversation point, however, as our guests awaited their meal. I cannot bring myself to throw them out. My children will when I die however, so why should I care now?

For they are unseen, even when I open the drawer in which they lurk, underneath the cloth napkins - unironed - I gave that up years ago - and anyway they also are never used. The pewter trivets, and the paper napkins, however, get used much more often, although the napkins are not used every day. We do without. The trivets, however are used every day. And above this drawer is where I keep the very ordinary - Aldi bought - everyday placemats, to which I think the blue linen napkins belong. Also not ironed. Indeed I cannot remember the last time I used an iron.

More or less opposite those two drawers is another with yet more placemats within. Most of these are gifts and not used very often, but which are occasionally taken out when we have big family gatherings. The black and white ones, however are our current 'best' ones, although David for some reason doesn't like me to use them. Some square white plates, that I bought on a whim also hide here. I think I have used them. a couple of times for fancy entrées. Next to that is a Wine chill stick, still in its case, which tells you how often that is used. A gift from someone, and we should use it. It could be useful - especially in the summer. And finally a bag of ends of chalks for me to use on my chalkboard list of shopping reminders, and messages from the grandchildren. 'Max was HERE' being the latest.

That last drawer is a sort of overflow drawer but it doesn't end there, because down at the other end of the house, in the laundry is yet another drawer stacked with more placemats, similar to our everyday ones which are used for our outdoor table, tablecloths - never used these days, with one set of matching napkins. The tablecloths include three large royal blue ones which I bought specifically for David's 50th (I think) birthday party, for which I pulled out all the stops by inviting several friends and even purchasing flowers for a Provençal evening. The things I used to do! And there's another bit of memorabilia in there as well - a white damask/linen tablecloth, which I think used to belong to the P&O for whom my father worked. Did he filch it, or was it a gift? Maybe that is actually worth something. It's memories of childhood for me, although I cannot remember how I came by it. Maybe when we married it was given to us to tide us over until we could afford something new.

Moving to the drawer next to the last one and away from table mats, but still on napery, although it's also a bit of an oddment drawer. Oven gloves, in various stages of repair, tea towels - mostly these are of the souvenir, or almost unusable because of tears and fraying, kind. The one on top there was given to me by David when in Italy, which was not at all like him. A tourist kind of map of Liguria. So not David. These tea towels are not used for drying up - they are for squeezing zucchini, covering thins and suchlike. And at the bottom is one which is never used at all, because it is falling apart, but which I keep nostalgically because it lists all the wedding anniversaries - you know - one year is paper, 50 is diamond - that sort of thing. Somebody gave it to me when we were first married I think.

Then there are some oddments - under the gloves at the back are paper bags, there is a silicon oven glove which I never use, some coffee filters - also never used today, and a linen bag for storing the Christmas ham.

Last drawer I promise - tea towels. Next to the sink. Gleaned from here and there. The black one with the writing, was, I think a gift with a matching apron. Some just caught my eye, and some - the plainest - in the Madras cotton kind of pattern - are possibly vintage. I suspect that I bought them when we married. There are also a couple that we bought in Italy because we thought there were none in the house we were renting. So every time I use them I remember that house - above Todi in Umbria. I have a complicated system of circulating them through the drawer, so that they all get used, which David has difficulty grasping. I think he's given up now. I certainly don't need as many tea towels as I have, but it makes life just a tiny bit more interesting, every time I get out a clean one. A different feeling to the texture, a different colour, a different memory... I wrote a whole post on tea towels once - one of my first way back in 2017. There's more than you think to tea towels.

These particular drawers have too much stuff in them. Stuff that should be thrown out, but which for one reason or another - from sentimental, to the thought that I might need it one day - which prevents me from doing so. Theoretically we are looking to downsize. If we do maybe that will force me to be ruthless. We'll see.

YEARS GONE BY

May 20

2024 - Soupçons

2023 - Nothing

2022 - It's one of those days and I have a ricotta problem

2021 - Those pesky labels on fruit

2020 - Deleted

2019 - Exotic back then, but ordinary now

2018 - The shape of bread

2017 - Nothing