When we talk about California classics, those objects or articles or items that started here, or at least gained legendary status here, most people, probably in the 95% range, begin by rhaspsodically describing our regional dishes.
And probably 100 percent of those people cite the fish taco. True talk? Yes.
They're not wrong: A great fish taco, with extra cabbage, is a sublime pleasure. But sometimes regional dishes that are rightly famous can be the actual dishes, as in plates, and not the famous foodstuffs that we place upon them.
Heath Ceramics exemplifies this notion most excellently. Started in Sausalito in the late 1940s, Heath plates and cups and bowls marry mid-century design with the colors and lines of optimistic, outdoorsy living, the kind of unfettered living synonymous with La Vida Golden State. (And, yes, design can be optimistic; we've all encountered fussier, more complicated objects that seem made for a museum and not the kitchen shelf.)
The ceramics company, in honor of the holidays and California and people who want to try their own hand at making something optimistic and display-worthy, throws an Annual Sale at all three of its showrooms across the state, including the plate-tastic place on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Visit the Heath HQ from Friday, Nov. 20 through Monday, Nov. 23 and score 20 percent off your purchases. Can't make it there? There's an online sale, too, featuring 15 percent off Heath-made goods.
Bud-making workshops, and seminars on making wreaths, are also staples during this time, as the creative-minded people behind Heath's celebrated ceramics welcome aspiring makers into the functional-but/and-beautiful fold.
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As with any holiday sale involving functional, use-'em-daily items, the question is whether you'll buy some ceramic pieces for others or for yourself. With 20 percent off, perhaps it can be a little bit of each.
After all, everyone needs a place to put their monthly -- weekly? -- fish tacos, and plopping a California classic upon another California classic, a Heath plate, is Golden State goodness times two.
