#pineapples
Just got back from my vacation, where I visited a small local museum and saw this almost*-period-appropriate teapot that Stede absolutely, positively, definitely owns at least one of:
(*It dates to the 1750′s. There was a big pineapple fad around that time, both for actual pineapples–which were quite expensive–and for pineapple motifs in home décor. I’m not sure if the fad had actually started by 1717, but by OFMD standards, this thing is bang in-period.)
The intact teapot is a reproduction; the fragment at the lower right is an actual artifact that they found during an archeological dig at a French and Indian War* site.
Fun Fact: There’s no evidence pointing to exactly who it was who decided he had to bring his pineapple teapot along to a war, but based on the the location, dating, and the fact that it almost had to have been an officer, they can narrow it down to about half a dozen guys, one of whom was a young George Washington.
(*For non-Americans, this was the North American theater of the Seven Years War, and ended about a decade before the American Revolution. The British colonies were fighting the French colonies, and both sides had Native American allies, hence the name.)
It’s healthy to have ambitions at any age.