Heading for the Holidays

Walking down Main Street the other day, it was 75 degrees and folks were enjoying the sunshine in their shorts and flip flops. But the good folks from the City of Grapevine were putting up decorations for Christmas. It is nearly upon us despite the Texas weather. Inventory is rolling in and we have demonstrations of Breadmaking and Coffee Culture planned for the next two weekends. I am pleased to report that the people of North Texas are tired of restraint and they are shopping again. It may not be up to previous levels of activity, but our customers are as determined as possible that shopping is back on the calendar. We are looking forward with anticipation to the next several weeks, as we finish up our fifth year at Design & Grace. 2010 holds a lot of excitement for us, but we have Christmas to celebrate. And we do that by thanking God for 5 years of blessings.

Grapefest - the sequel

We have just come off the annual weekend of "fun" that is Grapefest - the allegedly the largest wine festival in the south west and one which, according to Grapevine CVB figures, attracts over 250,000 people over its four day run. I am glad to say that we did see a lot of people - how many I could not say and I question how they count them - and we had some extra business through the cash register. But now for the sequel, the follow-up, the spin-off. Hopefully a lot of those who saw Design & Grace and what we are doing will come back and shop - for Christmas gifts, for weddings, for themselves and whatsoever.

We are delighted to announce that we have had a BIG shipment of Rösle products in store. New products include the anti-bacterial washing up brush and the famous locking tongs in 3 sizes, with silicone heads or without. You just have to come by and check it out.

Preparing for Grapefest

It has been a busy summer, despite the soft economy we have been working on plans for the next 5 years. Design & Grace turns Five on September 9 and what better opportunity to celebrate than during a wine festival. There will be no need for miracles in that sense, but we do look to God for his blessing on this event. Last year everyone was washed out by Hurricane Ike, which passed through North Texas on the Saturday of the festival. This year we are praying for a storm of customers rushing down Main Street with shopping bags in hand.

At Design & Grace we have some new products in store that hopefully will catch the imagination of our visitors and also prompt folks to come back and shop for Christmas. We have new items from Joseph Joseph - famous for their folding colanders and Chop to Pot cutting boards. Our favorite is the new Spaghetti Measure which, at $6.99 will make a great stocking stuffer for foodies.

Mason Cash Back to U.S. Shores

This is not as good a piece of news as is suggested.

Pacific Merchants Brings Mason Cash Back to U.S. Shores

Shared via AddThis

The items are made in Portugal, as stated in the article, but many of them have the mark "England" impressed in the clay. That is deceitful and, some may say, fraudulent. Whatever happened to international agreements on marking with the country of origin?

Ravi is back!

This week we received a new shipment of the sensational Ravi - the wine chiller that will ensure you drink your favorite red at cellar temperature rather than typical room temperature of 70+. The Ravi will reduce the temperature by between 10 and 20 degrees in an instant. This Canadian (yes, that's right!) invention has been tested world wide and Wine Spectator said " Serving temperature can be achieved in a few seconds for a red wine. A few seconds longer, and your white wine is ready for the guests".

And the great news is that the price is now only $39.99.

Jura Capresso

Hey! If you are one of those poor folks who have been left out in the cold by the folks at Williams Sonoma - they stopped selling Jura Capresso when the company refused to be suckered with the consequences of an over-generous return policy - then we can help. We can supply the entire Jura Capresso range including filters and cleaning tablets, as well as certain spare parts.



See our current sales on Ebay and Amazon.com and watch out for our new website Designandgrace.com, currently undergoing rebuilding.

Or come see us at 419 South Main Street here in Grapevine Texas - in the heart of the DFW Metroplex - 5 minutes from DFW airport in the Historic Downtown.

Nostalgia

I have always been nostalgic. I love new things but I always want to hang on to what is familiar and what I know to be good. New designs and new products do excite me, but then I have a deep fondness for things of the past, for our heritage and our traditions, our history. I think that was always in my character, but when I joined Wedgwood as a young man, pretty soon after I left high school, I was destined to head down a path that was steeped in nostalgia. The whole foundation of the Wedgwood brand was based on the fact that it had been made since 1759 and throughout its history the company had made china for heads of state, royalty and famous people of the time. That was a selling point. People loved the history of the designs, the shapes and even the factories themselves. And we sold our products as “heirlooms”, a term that itself has almost lost its meaning today. But the set of bone china you got for a wedding present could be passed down to your kids and your grandkids.

In the world of kitchenware, many of the old things I remember as a child have been superseded by new inventions that make the job of cooking and baking easier than it used to be. We now have digital scales, high tech food processors, rice cookers with “fuzzy logic” (whatever that means) and products made from, amongst other things, materials like silicone and titanium which had never even been heard of back then. The very world of cooking seems to revolve around the microwave, instead of the stove. I remember we would make toast when I was a kid using a big brass fork in front of the coal fire. We didn’t have a toaster, even though they have been around longer than even I have. More seasonally, we would roast chestnuts in front of the fire, too.

But then there are a few things I recall we had during my days at home which either have come back into use or are, at least, still around. I used to enjoy helping mum bake and one of my treats was to clean the last remnants of the cake batter off the hand mixer we had. And I mean a hand mixer, not a handheld electric mixer, but one which you turned a handle. Progressive came out with a revival of those last year, much to my delight and we have sold them pretty well. My good friends at Typhoon have enjoyed some success during the last several years with old style scales.

This reminds me of a story. If I can digress a little, at church the other week, a young child asked me the time. I showed her the watch on my wrist and she looked at me rather puzzled, until her parent came to her rescue pointing out that she could only read the time digitally. Do we need to do a class in store, teaching people how to read the weight on a non-digital scale

And then there seems to be a revival here for the good old pressure cooker. In our house, my mum would always use her Prestige pressure cooker to prepare Sunday lunch, cook steamed puddings and to prepare a Potteries delicacy, somewhat like a stew, called “Lobby”. There is a way to go before we can say that the pressure cooker is back in fashion, but there is certainly a lot more interest now in the benefits of using one. Again, we have plans to hold classes for people who might be curious to learn more about it.

Most people know how much I love my knives and, in that regard, nothing changes much. At the end of the day, there isn’t much you can’t do with a good old Wusthof 8” Cook’s Knife – probably Classic, as we are talking about nostalgia here. But I do like another of Progressive’s newer introductions – the potato cutter. This makes me nostalgic because we had something just like it when I was young to enable us to make chips (note: I mean the English version – not what they call chips where I live these days). This well made item beats a good knife any day.

So what I wonder is, having read during the last few weeks of the plight of the pottery industry in England, whether there will be revival of nostalgia for china tableware? I pray that there will, for the sake of the industry and the people of my home area in Staffordshire. It would be a shame to lose names like Wedgwood and Spode after 250 years. Corporate bean counters are treating them like brands and moving more and more to outsourcing in Asia. I do not believe that is what the customer wants. Or am I just being nostalgic? Does it really matter? I hope so.