Hot Trudie Poppy Red Hand-painted Enamelware Pitcher

An enamel pitcher does two jobs at once, which is why it never quite gets put away. Fill it and it pours at the table; empty it and it becomes the easiest centerpiece in the house, because a decorative pitcher holding market flowers asks nothing of you. This one is hand-painted enamelware with a red poppy pattern, so it is the piece you leave out rather than something you shut in a cabinet.

Against a glass beverage pitcher the case for enamelware is simple: it goes outside. Porch tables, long lunches, and anywhere a dropped jug would ruin the afternoon. As a floral pitcher it holds its own beside plain white dishes, and as an enamel water pitcher it is the one you can hand to a child, a guest, or a helpful neighbor without a word of warning first. Buy it for the pouring, keep it for the way the counter looks when it is sitting there empty.

Can you microwave enamelware? No. Enamelware is built on a metal base, and metal is not put into a microwave, so anything warm is heated separately and poured in at the table.