Holiday tables

• By TOMMY C. SIMMONS
• Advocate food editor
• Published: Nov 5, 2009

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Annie Morhauser, artist and founder of Annieglass, a California art glass company, encouraged Baton Rouge entertainers to start thinking now about how they want to set their holiday tables.

Holidays 2009 will be focused on the home, so hosts and hostesses will have an opportunity to show off collectibles and use their favorite glass, silver, pewter, bronze and china serving pieces.

Morhauser hopes that entertainers will also want to add something new to their holiday serving pieces assortment. Her favorite style of Annieglass for this season is a ruffle-edge tableware, which is handmade using a slumping technique.

Slumping takes place in a fiery kiln where a sheet of flat glass is melted over a mold and fired at an extremely high temperature. The results produce glass pieces that are durable, chip-resistant and dishwasher safe and yet, still delicate in appearance. Morhauser’s tips on holiday entertaining were presented at a program on Oct. 28 at Adler’s in Towne Center, 7445 Corporate Blvd.

Among the ideas:

• Layer serving plates by placing three plates of different sizes on top of one another and placing the food in the top plate.
• Use cake stands as sandwich trays.
• Adapt small bowls to use as wine bottle coolers.
• Remove pastry wrappers from any purchased cakes or tarts before placing the items on the trays — kind of an “only the hostess knows for sure” secret as to whether the desserts are homemade or not.

While Morhauser shared ideas on presenting foods at festive parties for adults, Wilton Enterprises’ consumer affairs director sent the food staff ideas on how to make children happy at Thanksgiving. She suggested having a special kids table with kid-friendly foods and crafts activities to feed and entertain kids. Some of the ideas for the kids table:

• Instead of a regular tablecloth, place an extra large sheet of paper on the table. Take a Styrofoam brick or half-ball and stick crayons in it for a fun centerpiece. Drawing will keep them busy before and after the meal is served.
• Have little ones “give you a hand” in the kitchen when you make a turkey hand at the kids table. Place construction paper, safety scissors, glue, glitter, feathers, pipe cleaners and crayons in a shoebox under each child’s chair. And, if you can personalize their shoeboxes, that’s even better.
• Before dinner, have the children divide up into pilgrims and Indians. Create a character for each child and have them make hats, headbands and accessories with construction paper, markers and feathers. At dinner, have the children get into costume and re-enact the first Thanksgiving. Make this a family tradition.

Here are some easy kid-friendly foods for the celebration.