Serveware

Platters, salad bowls and the wooden board for bar snacks:

serving pieces divide by what they are made of more than by their shape. Porcelain platters and salad bowls go from oven to table and through the dishwasher, and a plain white one suits any set. Melamine is light and survives a child carrying it out to the patio, but it scratches under a knife and should never go in the microwave. Wooden boards and bowls, often turned from rain-tree wood, guanacaste or teak in Sarchí workshops, carry the snacks that come out with the drinks. Plates and bowls for each guest are under dinnerware, and the jug and glasses for the fruit drinks under drinkware and bar.

Chafing dishes for a buffet at home:

each one keeps food hot over a pan of water warmed by gel-alcohol burners, so the rice never catches on the bottom. What separates one from another is the lid, the pans and the steel. A lift-off lid is cheapest but needs somewhere to go while guests serve; a hinged or roll-top lid stays on the frame. A full-size pan suits rice or pasta, and two half pans in the same frame put the beans beside the rice. Heavier steel holds its shape for years, while a thin frame dents in the car on the way home from its first party. Electric models skip the fuel but need a socket, which a patio or a community hall may not have.

A chafing dish against a platter:

a full-size stainless chafing dish with its lid and burner stands costs around ₡60,000 to ₡70,000 new, real money for something that comes out a couple of times a year, and that is where second-hand earns its place. Stainless steel does not wear out with use, so a used one that has every part and stands level does the same job as a new one, and it usually comes from a family that has already held its big party or a small catering business replacing its kit. A platter, by contrast, is cheap enough new that a used one sells mainly inside a matching set.

A bent frame, a pitted water pan and a split board:

set a used chafing dish up on a flat table before you pay. The frame should stand without rocking and the food pan should drop into the water pan without forcing; a bent frame means it has been dropped or had weight put on it. Look inside the water pan for rust spots and pitting, which come from water left standing for weeks after a party, and for scorch marks from burners lit with the pan dry. Work a hinged lid several times and count the burner holders, which go missing first. On an old porcelain platter, fine crazing in the glaze lets grease soak in and stain. On wood, a pale, chalky surface only wants food-grade mineral oil, but a crack running along the grain, from a dishwasher or a night in the sink, will keep opening, and a board that smells sour was oiled with cooking oil that has turned rancid.

The buffet kit, once the fifteenth birthday is over:

list the chafing dishes together if you have more than one, because whoever is planning a party needs the whole row, and say which take a full-size pan and which take halves. Mention whether they run on gel alcohol or plug in, say so in the listing if a holder or lid is missing, and photograph each one assembled, then the inside of the water pan. For wooden boards and bowls, name the wood if you know it and say whether they were oiled. When a buyer drives in from Puriscal or Siquirres, lay out every part of each chafing dish on the table: frame, pans, lid and holders, so the count is done before anything goes into the car.