Kitchen kitsch

Top quality kitchenware is a priority for home cooks these days, including high quality knives, good barware and inventive gadgets. But sometimes what our kitchens need is a dose of the old—vestiges from the past that lighten the mood and keep us grounded. Okay, maybe it’s not this neon RC cactus lamp from Alladin’s Lamp on Government Street, but it could be a set of juice or ice tea glasses, funky salt and pepper shakers, cheese plates, fondue pots, deviled egg servers, manual juicers, Premium cracker boxes and the other useful, and often well-made, items found in regional antique stores.

Websites like Etsy and Imm Living have raised the bar on attractive, functional design elements for the kitchen, but shopping for these kinds of things is a tactile experience best carried out in person. Check out the kitchenware that has come through Honeymoon Bungalow, also on Government Street, which itself is a haven for affordable antique stores. Elsewhere in the region, downtown St. Francisville and Denham Springs’s antique and arts district are also troves for food lovers on the hunt for original goods.