Pair of Vintage Olivades Melamine Trays w/ Les Indiennes Pattern - Ocher

A pair of vintage Olivades melamine trays from the teaching kitchen at Chanteduc, Patricia Wells’s home in Provence. In Patricia’s classes, they served as "mise-en-place" trays, each one neatly filled with the measured ingredients she prepared for every student before cooking together. A cherished tool across thirty-five years of teaching, they carry the spirit of her generous, exacting kitchen and her intelligent, unpretentious approach to French cooking. Light yet sturdy, the larger tray and its smaller companion nest easily, with softly rounded corners and a low, practical rim. Their warm yellow ground is scattered with petite blue teardrops, the Les Indiennes pattern that echoes the Indian cotton prints that captivated Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Olivades, founded in 1818 in Provence, has sustained this heritage by translating it into useful household forms. Well kept from thoughtful use, the trays remain clean and bright. Put them back to work at home for "mise-en-place," to carry aperitifs into the garden, or to corral tea things on a sideboard.