Last week I was on the N train between 42nd Street and 34th street when I got a text from my friend and stylist extraordinaire Victoria. (It's still surprising to me that I can get a signal in those deep, dark tunnels.) She wrote "Go to Prop Workshop on 30th and Broadway." She knew I was looking for plates to use for one last book photo shoot, and her text was too serendipitous to ignore -- Broadway and 30th street was a 30-second walk from my next subway stop. Even though I was headed way downtown, I got off and five minutes later found myself on the 14th floor of a nondescript building in Herald Square that rented every possible color, style, and shape of plates, platters, bowls, pitchers, pie dishes, cake stands, creamers, butter dishes, pots, pans, trivets, counter surfaces, you name it. If it could be found in a kitchen, it was in this prop house, which was about the size of two football fields, populated by clipboard-wieldling photographers and stylists, and lined with neatly organized shelves like the ones you are looking at above and below. My first thought was the usual