Setting your table

I love the simplicity of this table setting:



Or this:



Or the round table setting like this:



Situation: It's all one plate meals. Allows for the beauty and enjoyment of a centrepiece. The hostess dishes the meals onto your plate prior to bringing them out onto the table. The guest then just digs into the meal set before them.



(Or if you're fancy and hoity-toity, you have footmen bringing the dishes around, rather than to mar the beauty of the centrepiece.)

Now... what do you do if you have a rectangular table, cook alot of Asian style dishes that are best served on a lazy susan and contain loads of tablecloth-staining ingredients?? No space whatsoever for a centrepiece. Or anything that blocks your getting the food!

This dining table below best shows what mine's like in terms of colour and look... minus the to-die-for chairs. I've sort of started to gather some stuff for my perpetual centrepiece... instead of the general mess there.



When you entertain, do you show off your centrepieces or do you empty the table for the food dishes? What happens to your carefully constructed vignette? What about everyday dining? Where the meals are simple and unadorned. Do you push aside your centrepieces to the unused end of the dining table, only to drag it back to the middle once the dinner table is cleared?