corelle for shabbos: yay or nay?

Chayalle

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:16 pm

A couple of years ago I dropped all of my China dinner plates (Noritake set I inherited from my grandmother.) It's white with a burgundy and gold rim, so I went down to BB&B and bought their solid white w/gold edge dinner plates - they were like $1 apiece - I got 2 dozen dinner plates, and I bought the salad and soup bowls too.

Now, when it's just us I mix and match the cheaper dinner plates with the Noritake salad plates, and bowls, plus the serving pieces...and it looks very elegant. When I have lots of company, I use more of the BB&B set, and I can serve a crowd that way. With napkins in the pretty beaded rings my DD made me at school, and stemware, it can look really nice.

My issue now is that I have only 7 glasses left of my Mikasa Park Lane set, and I can't seem to find more of them on sale. I either need more of these, or I need to choose a new set to start with.....

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:18 pm

We have china for Shabbos and corelle for during the week. BLI AYIN HARA none of our china has broken yet (I don't give it to the kids though) and 2 out of 4 of my unbreakable corelle cereal bowls are broken (though I did let the kids use them... after all, they don't break!)

zaq

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:20 pm

I can see it now--another narishkeit one-upmanship meaningless-distinction shidduchim question, after "what color tablecloth do they use on Shabbos": "do they use china or Corelle?"

FYI, opposed-to-cereal-bowls-for-soup people (I'm blue-collar so I know how to eat soup out of a cereal bowl), the more expensive Corelle patterns have flanged soup bowls. I davka did not choose one of those pattterns, a. because I'm cheap and didn't want to spend more money on a fancier set and b. because my kitchen cabinets are stingy and the oh-so-elegant flanged soup bowls take up too much space. But for people who don't know how to eat soup out of a cereal bowl, there are alternatives.

Google on Corelle rimmed soup bowls or Corelle soup/salad bowls

Chayalle

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:23 pm

kb wrote:

A few years ago I was giving DD kugel about an hour before Shabbos....reached for a corelle plate and it slipped from my hand, landed on the formica counter, and shattered to smithereens. A shard flew up and scratched my eye, and my eye was bleeding. Hatzalah came and took me to a local (frum) eye surgeon who checked me - B"H it was just a surface scratch and the shard was not embedded - and treated and bandaged my eye. They brought me home just in time to light.

So much for corelle not breaking.

PinkFridge

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:25 pm

Butterfly wrote:

Like this pattern allot. Haven't seen it yet. I would definetely use it for Shabbas. But if the soup bowl looks like the typical cereal shaped bowl, it would be a no no for me.

You might be able to get separate white bowls. A bit pricier. Or go to a dollar store and see if there are any glass, etc. bowls in a complementary color.

zaq

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:40 pm

Look, when you have small chldren you have to use sechel. Corelle is not unbreakable, though it is more break-resistant than china. After one of my dc shattered a Corelle dish, I bought Melamine tableware and used it for years until my dc grew up. On Shabbos they got Melamine in a color that coordinated with the grown-up dishes.

BTW, even Melamine dishes can break under the right conditions. Even Tupperware can break. (I have a whole stack of cracked Tupperware that when Moshiach comes will either be reincarnated or I will bring to the Tupperware lady for replacement.) Drop anything with enough force from sufficient height and Nature will do what Nature does. Even a rubber ball will shatter if you freeze it cold enough and then drop it. Which is why Eskimos don't play A-my-name-is-Alice-and-my-husband's-name-is-Arthur...but I digress.

smss

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 9:58 pm

zaq wrote:

LOL zaq. I serve soup in the corelle bowls all the time during the week. not sure what bothers me about using it for shabbos, guess it's just a hang-up. FTR I'm fine with using nice paper goods and do that pretty often Smile

Rubber Ducky

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 10:12 pm

Well, we use the soup/cereal bowls that are part of the Corelle Enchanted pattern — fortunately our kid in shidduchim is a boy. Wink

And our tablecloth is burgundy. It goes beautifully with the dishes. Did I just fail Shidduchim 101?

seeker

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 10:36 pm

Corelle is very durable and they have some very pretty patterns. I would do it (Well, I do do it, but I'm not so classy anyway and only have one set of fleishig dishes which I deliberately got a nicer pattern to be able to double for Shabbos. But what I meant is I would do it if I were you, too) At least I would maybe do Corelle for children and China for adults, in a somewhat coordinating theme/color scheme.

zaq

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 10:43 pm

Rubber Ducky wrote:

Well, we use the soup/cereal bowls that are part of the Corelle Enchanted pattern — fortunately our kid in shidduchim is a boy. Wink

And our tablecloth is burgundy. It goes beautifully with the dishes. Did I just fail Shidduchim 101?

Not in my book. I'd consider a black tablecloth to contrast wth my white-and-black Corelle, if I weren't afraid that it would look striking in a Morticia Addams way.

MamaBear

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 11:01 pm

I, like a PP, use Corelle when it's just us and real China when we have guests. And when we have guests with kids, the kids get the Corelle, which is all white and blends in. Don't give China to kids. Obviously.

I haven't seen it in real life, but I love this set so much! The blue version too is so cute. We need less bulky dairy dishes so I may get it. Seriously how cute are these:

http://www1.macys.com/shop/pro.....zki6a

dr. pepper

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 11:15 pm

zaq wrote:

I. love. Corelle. Period.
If Corelle is blue-collar, then I shall be unapologetically blue collar. It's not a moral failing.
I gave away my wedding china that I hadn't used in years and bought myself all new Corelle. Never been happier.
Some Corelle patterns are more everyday-ish and some are more elegant. Big deal. Choose a fancier pattern if you're going to use it for Shabbos.
I don't own "Shabbos" dishes any more. Corelle for fleishik is quite good enough for me, esp. as we don't have fleishik midweek anyway. So by default the Corelle is our Shabbos dishes and we "borrow" them on Sunday to finish what's left from Shabbos.
Besides being less likely to break, cheaper to replace, and lighter to hold, Corelle takes up half the space of anything else--a big plus in my stingy kitchen cabinets.
I would never go back to china.

Oh my, I laughed so hard! Liking this wasn't enough.
Though to be honest, of someone handed me a gift of china, I'd be more than happy to use it for shabbos. But until that happens, it's just not even on my priority list of things to spend money on.
But, to each his own.

Dolly Welsh

Mon, Nov 24 2014, 11:16 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Perhaps this might be of use:

http://search.replacements.com.....0Lane

zaq

Tue, Nov 25 2014, 12:19 am

kalsee wrote:

I think I'll be the dissenting voice here.
I'm a very plain simple kind of person. But I love my beautiful china dishes for shabbos and wouldn't give it up.

No one has suggested that you should. But some posters have intimated--no said outright--that Corelle is "blue-collar" and not Shabbosdik, and that, some of us have a problem with.

OT, but what's wrong with blue-collar? I'd rather my dc acquired blue-collar job skills with which they could support their families than remain lily-white scholars living on handouts. When did we become too good for honest labor? And how DARE we look down on people who do this honest labor that we are too good to do?

Tue, Nov 25 2014, 12:22 am

zaq wrote:

There doesn't have to be anything wrong with blue collar. But shabbos is shabbos... it's supposed to be nicer, nicer food, nicer clothing, nicer dishes. At least on my book.

BlueRose52

Tue, Nov 25 2014, 12:35 am

kb wrote:

There doesn't have to be anything wrong with blue collar. But shabbos is shabbos... it's supposed to be nicer, nicer food, nicer clothing, nicer dishes. At least on my book.

Yeah, but Corelle can be just as nice as China. It's just not as expensive, that's why people look down on it compared to China. That's what I find infuriating about this attitude. It's not really about what's nicer, it's about what's considered higher status. And that's the opposite of being more spiritual, which is what shabbos is really supposed to be about.