The Gardienne Summer: Vol. 2

Sorry everyone I originally sent this with a paywall by accident. But it’s free for all to read, so I’m resending! Hope you enjoy reading this….

For anyone new here: I borrow the word Gardienne from the French tradition of women, often Portuguese, who care for Paris’s apartment buildings, sweeping the entrance, collecting the mail, keeping small daily routines rather than one big weekly clean. This is about creating beauty and atmosphere. This could mean colourful fabrics on a sofa or bed, shells or driftwood brought in from a beach, branches and flowers on a table, the scent of roses, or the smoke from a wood-burning fireplace in the fall.

I often show items I like for the home, yet none of this is really about shopping lists. It’s about feeling at home…. while at home. Freshly dried, crisp cotton sheets. Doors flung open to the garden. A pot of tea in the afternoon. A home that feels like you, and not something imitated from a magazine.

Some of the most powerful home transformations don’t come from buying new furniture or renovating, but from looking at what’s already there with fresh eyes. I’ve found that letting go of what no longer belongs, and moving furniture into new relationships with each other, can completely change how a space feels.

You’ll find Gardienne Vol. 1 here.

Claude Monet’s dining room is a vision of happiness. Claude ate lunch in his sunflower yellow dining room, every day at precisely 11:30am. Apparently he loved eating and entertaining, almost as much as painting. Guests such as Renoir, Cézanne and Rodin ate together in this room of sunshine. Dining rooms are the best place to celebrate life, and it makes me sad when people say they never use theirs. I also never understand the person who says, “Gosh, I’ve been so busy today I forgot to eat.” That has literally never happened to me. My favourite things are eating, cooking, and entertaining, and our dining room sees a lot of action.

The Italian and French understand separating the kitchen from the dining room. We've been let into the kitchens of our Italian friends a few times, but mostly we keep to the formal dining room. Dinner runs on time. Nine o'clock means be there at nine. Dinner will be on the table.

On one particular visit, our host had prepared beautiful caviar. We arrived on time, but the other guests were ten minutes late. “We eat without them,” he said, already buttering little pieces of white bread. My God, that was a good meal. (This is the complete opposite of a French invitation, where you are expected to arrive 15 min late.)

Speaking of France, when you land in Nice, one of the first things you notice is the smell of jasmine. It climbs up buildings, tumbles over walls, and transports you to a perfumed paradise. It’s very inspiring to plant jasmine at home. The South of France is beauty personified….it’s part of everyday life. If artists can have a muse, then so can I, and I choose Provence. St. Tropez is a perfect vacation for a few days. It’s a delight to pop into the shops and see restaurants where design decisions are carefully considered and beauty is the whole point. Beach clubs, great food, beautiful gardens and architecture.

We stayed at La Bastide d’Antoine, a Provençal country house turned hotel, tucked up the hill above the Gulf of Saint-Tropez. White umbrellas, pink and purple cushions dotted across the terrace. Rooms open straight onto garden and sea views. It’s a great example of indoor-outdoor living and I’m always trying to bring this aesthetic and vibe home. Wicker chairs, white umbrellas and white tablecloths will help create this feeling in your own garden. Also, chairs, like the Beverly, by Michele Bonan, who has a store in St. Tropez and Florence.

One of the things that I love about France, is the cheese selection. We made the plate below for 12 euros, which would have cost $60-$70 at home.

In France, cheese has rules. It comes at the end of the meal, never as an appetizer and never with fruit. For a family meal, perhaps three varieties. For a dinner party, maybe five. Generally you’re working across milks: goat, sheep, cow. You also want texture contrast: a soft rind (Camembert or Brie), a hard cheese (Comté or Tommette de Brebis) and a semi-soft blue (Roquefort or Bleu d’Auvergne). Always serve cheese at room temperature. French cheesemongers generally ask the same question for something like Camembert: will it be eaten tonight, or over the weekend? Camembert has a life cycle when you want to eat it determines the correct selection. I notice that most of the Camemberts being sold in Canada at grocery stores are overripe. Make friends with a good cheesemonger.

One large statement plant does more for a room than dozens of small ones, which make a room look cluttered. Most of us buy plants to fill a corner, but this is an area where we could use some help. There are some amazing plant studios popping up. The Plant Daddies in Southern California source rare plant specimens for indoor tree installations from growers across California to Hawaii. Plants are chosen for shape, scale and their ability to anchor a room. Like a piece of art. Right now I'm looking for a Queensland Bottle Tree, AKA Brachychiton rupestris. This is a sculptural, succulent tree that looks like it belongs in a gallery. I hope I can find a small one, as these can be trained to have interesting trunks. You can check out the Conservatory Archives if you are in the UK.

I’ve been walking around all summer squinting, because I’ve lost another pair of Persols, the glasses my husband gifts me. At this point, I’m simply irresponsible with sunglasses, although my husband would never say that about me. Someone once gave me an incredible pair of Yohji Yamamoto stainless steel sunglasses which I promptly lost at the beach while playing with my children. That was a sad day. They’re all sad days, really. I’m not sure I deserve nice sunglasses anymore, but I am looking at Persols again because you need sunglasses- my optometrist told me so. I don’t like oversized frames, or designer frames, like Chanel or Celine (most of these aren’t polarized and you are paying for branding.) I prefer a small, classic, Italian 60’s style frame. Persols really are some of the best glasses on the market. I’m leaning towards this pair.

Yohji Yamamoto - an interview worth watching. He has real wisdom, and is openly disturbed by trends and where the industry has gone. No kidding..

These are the glasses I wore in the early ‘90s….steel frames, very minimal. These are rare, but I found one pair available: vintage reseller.

I genuinely get excited when Antonia’s newsletter lands in my inbox. She has a very clear sense of style and elegance, which I find quite wonderful for someone so young. Her fashion photos are some of the best I’ve come across anywhere. I don’t feel like I’m being sold a bunch of links to click on, and every outfit is something I would wear and feel good in, never trendy. She’s definitely one of my favourite reads. This is also a good piece.

I’ve been having conversations lately with friends about longevity and how it’s closely tied to how well you can do a deep squat. Apparently it’s extremely important, and we should all be getting down as deep as possible. Babies do it naturally. I must be honest, I’m not very close to the floor. But I can keep trying. Here’s an article on how to work towards this goal.

I bought Maje pale pink kitten heels to wear with my wedding dress, and they were amazingly comfortable and beautiful. I took them to Mexico, and people stopped me in the street to ask where they were from. Now I have a pair in black, and I have to tell you, I love them. Maje always carries the same silhouette, and each season they come out in different colours.

I don’t mean replacing the ones that have holes, but actually choosing to spend some cash on fresh, pillowy ones? There is nothing nicer than high quality thick towels, and I feel like this is an area where people wait too long. Here are some I love right now from Crate + Barrel, not white, but cream coloured.

The garden was eerily quiet this week, no trouble finding parking. They're running low on inventory, so it’s a good time for pot shopping, as everything is on sale. Why are garden pots so expensive?? The garden is in full bloom and I’ve been cutting roses and hydrangeas for the table. Wicker is always nice, and I love these vases from Crate & Barrel.

We like pasta in our house. My husband's ragu and my mother's lasagna are my "last meals." I used to believe I made a pretty good tomato sauce. But once I tried the version from Ella Quittner in her book Obsessed with the Best, I couldn't go back to another version. I should say, I'm not showing the cover. A cookbook cover matters to me: the colour, the type, the intrigue. This one didn't do that for me, which is strange, because the photography inside the book is fantastic. Anyway, the sauce is amazing, and I'm addicted. How can three ingredients taste so good? There's no garlic, no anchovy, no carrot…

Ingredients:

7 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large yellow onion

1 can San Marzano Tomatoes

1 teaspoon Diamond Kosher Salt

Take the onion, cut it in quarters, and place in a heavy cast iron pan with 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Sauté on medium-low heat for about 8–10 minutes, without flipping or stirring. You want it to caramelize slowly but not burn. Turn the temperature down if it starts getting too hot. Once one side is deeply toffee coloured, flip it over for another 8–10 minutes, again resisting the temptation to fuss with the onions in the pan. This caramelizing is going to add sweetness. Then add the tomatoes, the 4 remaining tablespoons of butter, and salt. Stir and let it bubble away slowly for 40 minutes. Done! Serve over pasta with Parmesan. (Apparently you should strain out the onions before serving, but I keep them in the sauce.)

I know there are a lot of readers who love simple recipes, but I love to sink my teeth into recipes that require a little time. The Dinner Party is my go-to for actual dinner parties, not just recipe browsing. The Raspberry Salted White Chocolate Cream is a showstopper…..not hard, but it does require a couple of hours. The Lisbon chocolate cake, Chicken Fat Rice, Salmon with Miso Butter, and Better Than Hasselback Potatoes are all delicious. For an easy night there are easy recipes as well - Negroni Rigatoni and White Bean and Peanut Butter Hummus. It’s a great hummus recipe that comes together fast. I’ve adapted the recipe below. Martin and his wife offer playlists in the book, and clearly love to entertain. Fantastic book — go get it!

I’m a grazer and I think about food constantly. During morning coffee my husband and I discuss what’s for dinner. I wish I could get on board with the French style of eating: proper meals, no snacking in between.

The French day has three proper meals, eaten at roughly the same time every day. I talked about school lunch for French children here. Children are given an hour and a half to eat, a very obvious difference in our cultures. I heard kids used to have a two-hour lunch break. Not like my school days, when we were forced to inhale a mediocre sandwich in five minutes before being tossed out to fend for ourselves in the schoolyard. French meals are treated as an occasion, an important part of the day to sit down with other people, enjoy delicious food and have conversation. Snacking is not an option. If you’re hungry in the afternoon, it likely means you didn’t eat properly at lunch, so you wait until dinner. Being hungry is no reason to snack.

Children are allowed a snack at 4 o’clock, but it’s not called a snack, because that would be “snacking,” which is disapproved of. They’re given le goûter, which sits outside the no-snacking rule and is treated as its own small meal. It could be a pastry, a little chocolate, or bread and butter. There’s no guilt, and this will take them through until dinner.

I like this premise. Three properly prepared meals beats intermittent fasting any day. Structure and consistency may be the answer…

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