Kitchen Essential

Formerly music at home was part of domestic life. The middle classes, in the first half of the last century, met with like-minded people to enjoy music in a relaxed atmosphere.

Even if it’s unfashionable now, try inviting your friends to a musicalevening at your home. It would be nice if each guest could make a musical contribution, or if everyone could sing and make music together. Of course, you can book a chamber ensemble whose music will be the highlight of the evening.

What to do:

For this table, simply use musical accoutrements, such as sheet music and instruments which are placed on the table.

Tuning forks are used as napkin holders. Alternatively you could shape bass and treble keys out of wire and then use them to decorate or hold the napkins.

For the menu cards you should copy the details onto sheet music, and place it on a music stand together with other sheets. You could also roll the menu sheet and tie it up with a ribbon, and place one on the table next to each place setting. By the way, it’s not at all difficult to make sheet music look old. Just soak some cotton wool balls incold tea, then pat the sheet music with the cotton wool until it takes on a brownish colour. Leave to dry, the smooth flat.

You could perhaps stand the bust of a musician whom you particularly admire in the centre of the table. Use a nostalgic candelabra, which when decorated with green leaves will bring a fresh note to the table. Use large leaves and single stems of grass, pushed into oasis and arranged in a circle around the candelabra. Oasis is available from florists.

“Keep Cool” Table Decoration

You can also twist small filings into napkin rings, which will surely strike your guests as unusual. Alternatively you can use galvanised copper wire or thick soldering wire, which can be wrapped imaginatively around the rolled napkin.

If you want to extend the use of steel to your other decorations, you can quickly make a flower vase and tray without taking a great deal of time or trouble. You need two cheap sheets of stainless steel from a builder’s merchant (sheet thickness 0.5 mm, 33 x 33 cm square), which you can bend into any shape you like using your hands. To make the tray all four sides are bent upwards asymmetrically. To make the flower vase, two corners are bent towards and to one side of each other, to make an open tube shape.

If you don’t like lace-edged cloths, tulle, silver candelabra and ribbons, but prefer simple and cool design, then there is no reason why you can’t express your own style on the table. “Keep cool” will challenge your creativity, whether you use scrap metal, as shown in the picture here, or other materials which suit your taste.

What to do:

An old sheet of iron is used as a table here. You may be able to borrow such sheets from a metalworker, or have a look in your cellar or garage and see if there’s a sheet of metal quietly rusting away. If this is too time-consuming or “weighty” for you, a small steel or tin tray placed in the middle of the table will do just as well.

A simple chain of Christmas-tree lights laid in an abstract pattern across the table will provide little scattered points of light.

Then scatter steel or aluminium filings across the table so that they emphasise the table settings and, if possible, hide the light cables. You can get thesefilings from a metal workshop. You might even get them for free.

Take care, because steel filings have sharp edges. Use them carefully as decorations, and don’t put them in the dustbin afterwards.

Tip:

Serve a cold drink, which matches the table decorations, as an aperitif — such as iced vodka or schnapps. You can achieve a special effect by rinsing glasses in cold water and then putting them in the freezer. The iced glasses look particularly good when filled with brightly coloured cocktails, such as blue Curacao or Campari.

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