Olla-Podrida: tablescapes

Showing posts with label tablescapes. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Reflecting on My Top 10 Posts of 2025

I always look forward to reviewing my most popular posts at the end of each year—it's a fun way to see what resonated most with you, my wonderful readers. This year, 2025, brought some delightful surprises!

For the first time ever, a book review cracked the top 10. I was seriously considering launching a separate blog just for book reviews to keep them off this main site, but seeing one perform so well has me rethinking that idea. It seems you enjoy the variety here—what do you think? Should I keep mixing in book reviews, or spin them off?

As always, beautiful tablescapes made a strong showing, with three landing in the top 10 this year. I'm thrilled that you're loving my table settings as much as I love creating them!

The biggest surprise? Three of the top posts were, in one way or another, about sauces. Who knew? And true to tradition, pumpkin spice never fails to capture that cozy post-summer vibe we all crave with the arrival of pumpkin spice season.

But the undisputed champion, dominating the #1 spot by a landslide, was my recipe for the classic St. Louis Gerber sandwich. This year, I've fallen in love with sandwiches all over again—I've tried and shared more in 2025 than perhaps in my entire life combined. They've been pure joy to explore, so get ready: expect even more sandwich inspiration heading your way in 2026!

Thank you for another amazing year of reading, cooking, and connecting. Here's to more delicious adventures ahead!

So...the slate is now wiped clean, and tomorrow we begin a new year. I’ll be interested in seeing what you all find most interesting.

The top 10 posts for 2025, in declining order of popularity, are shown below. Click on the name beneath each picture to take you directly to the blog post.

The St. Louis Gerber Sandwich

Dashing Hare Tablescape

Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

Cinco de Mayo Tablescape

Old Bay Tartar Sauce

Red, White, and Blue Tablescape

Pumpkin Spice Latte Caramel Sauce

Hearthside Pumpkin Bread

Parm to Table

Spicy Enchilada Beef

To view previous Top Ten Lists click one or more of the follow links:

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Setting Tables Collaging Place Settings of Beauty by Nancy LaPonzina, Reviewed

Setting a beautiful table is very popular these days. You cannot go online without seeing one beautiful tablescape after another; it can be intimidating. We all want to have a lovely table, but do we all need that much dinnerware in order to do it? Me? I’m obsessed with dinnerware, and have so much of it that I have three industrial storage racks (soon to be a fourth) in the basement in order to hold it all. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t set a lovely table with what you already have lurking in cupboards and china cabinets. Nancy LaPonzina is the one to tell you how to do exactly that in her vastly informative book, Setting Tables Collaging place settings of beauty: Joyful mix & match inspiration from your china closet.

LaPonzina has all of her dinnerware in one china cabinet. From that she is able to get dozens and dozens of beautiful tables by simply combining her dinnerware in non-traditional ways. As she points out, with her eight different china patterns, and using three plates plus a charger, she can come up with well over 4000 different combinations. I found that staggering. It also told me that I need to do far more experimentation than I have been doing, instead of largely relying on my “go to” that’s been to buy something new.

With her economical mindset, plus her photographer’s presentation portfolio (divided into sections for each type of dinnerware) that she uses to contain photos of everything she has, she is able to easily, and beautifully, design a table in less time than it takes most of us to even think about it.

I am all about using things in ways other than for which they are intended, so I fell in love with this table setting featuring a majolica wall vase used to hold a lovely striped napkin.

She suggests purchasing only four of any type of tableware – plate, cutlery, stemware, linens – reasoning that smaller parties occur far more often than larger ones. Should there be more than four guests at a table, existing tableware can be mixed and matched with other items on hand. As someone who came from a mother whose main advice in life was to collect service for 12, I found this very enlightening. I also found myself wrapping a lot of plates, cups, and saucers for donation to free up some of my very cluttered, jam-packed space.

This should be the first book you purchase before you consider getting into tablescaping. Many of the pitfalls people fall into — myself included — are covered here, such as resisting holiday patterns (no matter how cute and tempting they may be) because of their limited use. This idea, and many more, can be found in this helpful and practical guide.

Lighting, linens, and whimsy are all covered in this book in addition to dinnerware, making it as perfect for the novice as it is for veteran tablescapers like me who, even as a seasoned veteran, found myself learning something from this lovely guide. The pictures are beautiful and inspiring, the advice is thoughtful, useful, and easy to put into practice.

As well as writing about tablescapes, Nancy is also an award-winning fiction author. She can be found on Instagram @nancy_laponzina.

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