China Fairware.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Our contribution to the feast is dessert. M has a strong idea about a recipe which uses Moscato d'Asti combined with gelatin and some Crème de cassis for its garnet color. The idea is to capture the bubbles from the moscato suspended in the gelatin as it congeals. This beautiful jelly is then capped with Mascarpone and curlings of white chocolate. We don't have suitable glassware for this confection so we headed off to a Boston institution, China Fair. There are two or three stores scattered around the city which are stacked with dusty shelf upon dusty shelf of glassware. One will not find Waterford or Swarovski crystal on those shelves... What is there, though, has in some cases been there for decades. I have been going to the stores periodically over the last thirty years and can attest to this fact. Some things never seem to have sold. Despite it all, the Czech proprietor and his wife seem to keep their business going. In addition to the glassware, they have all sorts of kitchen implements, a range of Sabatier chefs' knives in both stainless and carbon steel in addition to a line made specially for them by a German cutler. The knives are of exceptional quality for very little money. But today's expedition to China Fair was in search of suitable glasses for the moscato jelly. As we wandered through the aisles I came across the shelves of Bohemia crystal glasses which have been there for as long as I can remember. Look at the prices and look at the layer of dust! The company's site is here. After some debate, we settled for some flared, medium-sized spirit tumblers. I hope there will be more of the finished product tomorrow.