The Ink-Pot and the Palette

It doesn't sound silly at all. I've gravitated towards itty-bitty plates at home, and I think the whole bento-box and tiffin phenomenon has a similar effect. It's delightful to have a little plate full of food.

(Strangely, the very few restaurants where I still indulge in a meal out--the good ones with the natural local produce and meat and stuff--use those gigantic plates that are like slices off a white porcelain five-foot sphere, and serve those pretty little nouvelle-looking composed salads or duck confit or whatever in the middle of them, with sauce graffiti around them, and that, too, is delightful.)

And as to Bloom's book (which does sound really interesting), one of the biggest wastes of the 3750 calories per person per day that this country produces is that we actually eat them.