Grande Dame: The Tale of a Silver Punch Bowl

And Why the Extra Effort Is Worth It

Pulling out the family silver before a party or holiday is not something people can relate to these days. When I was a kid, one of my jobs was polishing the silver. I found this task deeply satisfying as I rubbed away the tarnish to reveal my reflection in the curves of my mom's silver tea service. Now, my youngest daughter has the same affinity for polishing silver.  I don't have as much silver as my parents had, though I cherish the hand-me-down silver plated flatware my Aunt gave me several years ago. Almost 25 years after my wedding, I still lament that I did not receive even one silver fork from our wedding registry.  In an age where people rarely register for fine china, let alone silver, very few of my friends can understand the decades-long disappointment of not getting any silver as wedding gifts. 

This story, however, is about something other than the silver flatware I was never gifted.  It is about the glory of a silver punch bowl I was unexpectedly gifted during the pandemic. I hosted a sweet 16 birthday party for my daughter, and celebrating in December 2021 felt more special than usual. Before the Omicron variant of COVID hit, there was a brief window where mask mandates had been lifted, and people were gathering in restaurants and other public places for the first time after the shutdown. We took advantage of our newfound freedom and hosted a cocktail party. For fifty people. For a 16 year old.  A little overboard, I know. We were admittedly making up for lost time after the isolation of the pandemic. 

In the excitement of preparing for this party, testing tasty cocktail recipes my daughter's friends, ordering decorations, and coming up with a menu, my neighbor rang the doorbell.  When I opened the door, she stood with an enormous box and an enthusiastic expression, saying, "I have something I think you might want to use for the party."  And indeed, she did have something I "might want”: the most enormous silver punch bowl I have ever seen. I felt electricity running through my veins as we unwrapped the box and pulled out this urn-shaped beauty. Glimmering images of Southern Living magazine covers graced with punch bowls of this pedigree flashed through my mind. My elation did not end there: under the carefully packed punch bowl was a piece of foam, and when I lifted it, to my squealing delight, I found 14 tiny silver punch mugs, all still in their original wrapping—these little darlings had never been used. I was beside myself with joy. The universe was smiling down on this Southerner who never got wedding silver flatware. 

The history of this stunning grande dame and her diminutive mugs is classic—the type of story you hear about many great beauties that get passed over and passed around as tastes change, becoming out of style, forgotten, and, frankly, irrelevant. My neighbor shared that this enormous box had occupied a dark shelf in her house for 25 years and never been used. It was a hand-me-down from her mother-in-law, who had inherited it from her aunt. This relic of times past had been passed from storage room to storage room for decades, never opened, and never once gracing the buffet table of a dining room.

Now, the fun began. I dove headlong into my cookbooks for the perfect stiff punch recipe to greet my guests with at the door, and good old Southern Living offered a nostalgic recipe called Montgomery Punch. It is straight from the pages of one of those junior league cookbooks, you know the ones, complete with instructions for a fruit ice ring. If you don't know what a fruit ice ring is, now is your chance to discover the absolute pleasure of seeing one floating in a holiday punch bowl. 

When my guests arrived, I could barely contain my enthusiasm. Everyone was gussied up in party attire; the house wafted with rich aromas, perfume from guests, and booze—one of my favorite smells in the world is this mingling of scents from a festive gathering. The gleaming grande dame was the talk of the town, the bell of the ball standing in all her shinning and stately glory. I was tickled to death. She was drained more quickly than I anticipated, and many hopeful guests inquired if there would be a second batch. “Not if you plan to leave on your own two feet!” I giggled in reply.

Now, the punch bowl is always fondly anticipated at our big parties, which I relish. It is worth the time and effort to get her out, clean her up, and find the perfect seasonal punch and ice ring to fill her. Using silver in entertaining elevates the occasion and is undoubtedly part of the slow movement. It takes time to store silver properly, remove it, and put it away again. Hand washing is, of course, essential. These rituals create memories, and we need those memories, because at some point, they’re all we have.  We need the patience to put extra effort into these traditions to create specialness and meaning in our lives. The rewards for my extra effort live in my warm memories and those of my guests, who are graced with the pleasure of gathering around this grande dame season after season.