File this under: You Get What You Pay For.
Strolling through the 99-Cent-Only store in Cypress a few days ago, I spied this on the shelf: Gold and silver-painted charger plates, for 99 cents.
By the way, I had to be educated by my better half on what a charger plate is. And if you don't know, I'll tell you now: a charger plate is a decorative place holder and base for the plate that you will actually use for food.
Of course, before I knew this, I flipped the object over, saw the following, and decided that there was a price to be paid for cheapness, and that price was a slow and agonizing death by whatever toxins were used in the manufacturing of these plates.
]
Of course, I was more shocked before I knew what it was. I thought to myself, “If you can't use these things for eating, what good are they? They were made of cheap plastic, weren't particularly attractive enough to be displayed in a china hutch.”
So if you are reading this, about to head out the door to a Christmas dinner party, be warned! However, if you do see these charger plates at a table, smile, act like nothing is wrong, but for goodness sake, don't eat any food that touches it.
Or better yet, put the fruitcake on it, then read the warning aloud and proclaim (conjuring your acting talents) that it's a shame that the dessert can no longer be eaten.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.
Plate changes