The kitchen table: a self portrait

a bulging fruit bowl, the green salad, the martini, red lipstick, a torn apricot half

A dear friend of mine recently spoke about a book idea she has swirling about in her mind that’s centred around the kitchen table in a home. We spoke of what you can tell from one’s kitchen table — the time, the place, the season, the person, the habits, the values, the pleasures. A day or so later, as I’m sitting here writing, I look at my kitchen table, in this Paris apartment that I’m calling home for the month of August. I start to take photos of its slightly chaotic beauty, in the state it is in, and as I do, I realise just how telling the scene is. So, I bring you a little about me, through my kitchen table, as I am and as it is, in this current moment.

The kitchen table: a self portrait

A bulging fruit bowl. To me, a symbol of a feeling whole. You have a home, you have a kitchen, you have a big bowl and you have some fruit. Things must be good. And when the bowl is full of tomatoes of all sorts, and peaches, and apricots. Well yes, things are good. Also an intense reminder that it’s the simple things.

A half-burned birthday candle. I celebrate friend’s birthdays as much, if not more, without them as I do with them. Always have, always will — a result of not having one place I call home, of having spent childhood, and now adulthood, between countries and cities. You come to learn that there are beautiful people in every place, beautiful people to celebrate on their special day. This candle was shoved into a peach for a video sent across a few seas to say happy birthday to a woman I adore. One other thing about me on this: I love birthdays, and I love birthday divas.

Figs. There are two figs. Much to say. Maybe my spirit fruit, although, peaches. But here’s the beginning of one of my favourite poems that I came across about a decade ago. It’s D. H. Lawrence’s words on the fruit.

Figs by D.H. Lawrence

A jug of water. I love water. I love drinking it and I rarely sit down without a glass or jug in arms-reach. Ideally it’s sparkling, at the risk of sounding poncy, but it’s the truth. The first restaurant I worked in, I was on the floor and had a restaurant manager who drilled into me that water glasses must be full at. all. times. This terrified me for a while, prancing around the restaurant on edge that someone’s glass might be getting low, that Martin would notice before me. It was one of the greatest pieces of advice in working in restaurants, in the art of hospitality, that I ever received. It’s a way of being at a table and being available to your guests in an almost invisible way — if they want you or need you, they’ll glance up with their comment or request, if not, they’ll subconsciously feel looked after and carry on with their conversation. When I went on to review restaurants, it came to be a pretty solid marker for how much someone cared about me as the diner in their restaurant. I will always believe that a full water glass is a language of care. Thank you, Martin, for this piece of life advice.

A torn apricot half. A truth, a strong belief of mine: tearing fruit is more pleasurable, and makes the fruit taste better. This piece of fruit reveals my habit of eating slowly, and of snacking. I like to prolong the meal, the food. And I love to snack, or as my mother would say “pick”. When I became a “chef” I thought to myself, wow, I’m getting paid to snack, to pick, and had my mother’s voice swirl around my head, “Hat, don’t pick!” as I annoyingly grabbed at the makings for dinner, or a piece of lamb as the leg rested on the bench. The snacks while you’re cooking are pure pleasure. And on apricots: they’re simply sublime. They say summer in Paris to me like nothing else — they’re at every fruit stand and stall around the city through August, and make for a perfect snack as you do your flâneur thing, which, in my opinion, is the best way to spend an August in Paris, and potentially any month for that matter.

A bowl of cherries. Speaks to the season, to the time and the place. Summer in France. Cherries to me say Christmas and summer; they say flirty and they say fun. And I think it’s as much this joy as their sweet juiciness that I associate with the fruit that makes me fill a paper bag with them at the Wednesday morning market. I use my hands to tear them open and rip the seed out as I chat with a man who I quite like that is sitting at my kitchen table; black cat on his knee, white vermouth on ice in his hand. I successfully avoid getting cherry juice splatters on my white top and my white skirt. We eat them in a salad with wedges of tomato, peach, torn leaves of basil. A dressing of eschalot, red wine vinegar, honey and olive oil. There’s a bowl of ricotta seasoned with salt and pepper on the table, too, and slices of warm bread to mop. A nice night, probably thanks to cherries.

A red lipstick. The only colour lipstick I wear. This one is a Clarins lipstick in shade joli rouge, deep red. I have six different red lipsticks of sorts with me — some may say excessive for someone who isn’t in their own home. They make me feel like me as much as my old stove top and my pointy red shoes. My two current favourites are a French Pharmacy find, LA ROSÉE’s tinted lip balm, which I use to give my lips a little rouge as well as my cheeks, and am well-addicted to, and a Chanel lipstick in Rouge Spectaculaire (837) for the more serious moments in love and life.

A martini. There’s a glass with the Martini logo on it. My drink of choice: a martini, or a vermouth on ice with a slice of lemon. I feel ones drink of choice is a self portrait of a person in itself. It’s speculated that the martini cocktail was named after this vermouth brand, Martini, which was born in the city of Turin in 1847, the home of vermouth, and of the concept of aperitivo. My perfect martini: dirty, gin and with extra olives if you’ll be so kind. Although, I remember on my 25th birthday, my editor buying me a martini at the ‘downstairs office’, Ramblin’ Rascal, the bar in the basement under the head offices of Gourmet Traveller, and quoting someone-rather saying, “They say a martini is like a woman’s breast: one ain’t enough and three is too many.” I thought this then, I think this now: never too many (olives, that is). The martini is also the subject of perhaps the only poem I can recite by heart:

I like to have a martini

Two at the very most

After three I’m under the table

After four I’m under my host

— Dorothy Parker via Frank Moorhouses’ Martini: A Memoir (a book I recommend)

A Bison coffee cup. I bought this piece from Canberra ceramicist Brian Tunks circa 2016, the year I moved to Sweden. It comes with me everywhere; I’ve started my day with coffee in this cup in quite some kitchens — Paris, Marseille, Mollymook, Todi, Stockholm, Sydney, Genoa, Bonniuex, Port Vendres. Every morning, for the last seven years, I make my black coffee in the yellow Saint’ Eustachio stove top that I bought in Rome that same year, and pour it into this cup. Something to do with making where I am feel like home, both the familiar ritual and the familiar items. Things are just things, yes, but things are what have made home feel like home for me throughout my life — the same paintings, pots, jugs, rugs, sheets, wooden spoons, from the South Pacific to the United States.

Matches over a lighter, always.

A Bose speaker. Another item I carry with me, always — I can’t live without music. Most days, I have music playing from the moment I start brewing my coffee. Right now, it’s usually a playlist I’m building titled AUGUST IN PARIS of songs I’m hearing as I’m out and about, or that come up in books I’m reading, films I’m watching. Laura by Charlie Parker starts the playlist, it’s beautiful.

A long, thin tomato. I like a plate that’s visually stimulating, and I bought this beauty because I pictured a plate of tomato rounds of varying sizes, shapes, colours and invariably, sweetnesses, all sprinkled with fleur de sel and drizzled with olive oil. I asked the man at the market which of the four varieties of tomatoes he was selling are best for salad and he proceeded to slice off a piece of each for me to taste. The long, thin variety, tomate andine cornue, have a firmness to them, and a thicker skin, whereas the rounder, yellow tomate ananas or the red coeur de boeuf are often almost so ripe, so juicy, that really, it’s best to cup one in each hand to walk them home from the market in one piece. I learn that I prefer the tomate andine cornue roasted — they’re not as rich or sweet or juicy as the other beauties. But the plate of tomato rounds was gorg.

A silk scarf. As I packed for a move to France, one suitcase, a beautiful friend of mine said, “Who cares what you pack, just buy a silk scarf when you get there and it’ll make whatever you put on feel special.” I found this scarf a few weeks after having landed, in a vintage shop just off the Old Port in Marseille. It has this friend’s initials on it. I may give it to her when I see her, but for now, it has given me a whole lot over this last year — shelter from light rain to feeling a little more like me in times of what am I doing, who am I in this new place, this new period.

A lemon. There’s a lemon on the table because I start my day, everyday, with a squeeze of a lemon wedge in hot water. I sip and it soothes while my coffee brews. It’s a mild catastrophe if I don’t have a lemon, but that’s really quite rare — it’s not unusual for me to have a lemon half in my suitcase when I’m on the move.

A candle. Another strong belief: lighting is everything, and candle light is everything.

A ramekin of fleur de sel. Perhaps my favourite feeling in the kitchen, at the table: salt flakes between my fingers as I sprinkle. Joy, pleasure.

A peach. I’m working on a dedicated piece (more like a book) on this one. For now, I leave with you this Joel Oppenheimer poem:

The Lover
every time
the same way
wondering when
this when that.
if you were
a plum tree. if you
were a peach
tree.

A green salad. There’s a book open to a page titled, “Salads”, and on that page Oscar Wilde is quoted as having likened the making of a salad dressing to diplomacy. Amusing. And three things I’d say are really quite part of who I am: the green salad, Oscar Wilde — we share a birthday, and well, he is him and my father’s infatuation with him has been passed down to me, — and my parents being diplomats has shaped much of how and who I am in the world, having grown up here and there. The book is the 1981 Food, Wine & Friends by Robert Carrier. But the green salad. I have a lot to say, so much so it’s almost overwhelming to know where to start and where to stop. I believe the simple green salad to be an ultimate language of care, particularly in a restaurant. If I get a bad green salad (Bistrot Paul Bert a few weeks back), I feel the kitchen does not care, not about me and not about their craft, and it turns me off the place instantly. If I get a good green salad (Rome’s Piatto Romano, Sydney’s Fred’s, and yet to experience but I imagine Berkley’s Chez Panisse), I feel I’m in the hands of chefs and cooks who take real pleasure in food and in what they do, and all with great care. If a green salad is executed well, it’s likely a marker for the rest of the meal. Simplicity at its best, with nothing to hide behind; perfectly crisp and cold leaves, a balanced dressing, maybe a herb or two. If it’s done well, goodness it’s good.

My thoughts on a perfect green salad:

the leaves must be washed throughly

the leaves must be dry, I mean really dry, or else the vinaigrette will become watery, and I have a dedicated tea towel for this — I don’t love a salad spinner

cold leaves make for divinity

a variety of leaves is a nice thing, as are an added mix of fresh herbs

the dressing should be sharp, and a simple one should go something like: one teaspoon Dijon mustard, a teaspoon of honey, a pinch of fleur de sel, a crack of black pepper, a good splash of red wine vinegar, give that a little whisk until the mustard has dissolved, then slowly whisk in a good olive oil until the dressing has emulsified and just about tripled, or not quite if you like it punchy like I do — taste, taste, taste, and play with the ratios until you’re happy

chopped anchovies, capers, fresh herbs, diced eschalot are all welcome additions to the vinaigrette

a big silver bowl is your best friend when it comes to dressing a salad

it goes against the common thinking, but I like a salad dressed a little while before eating, to give the leaves a chance to become one with the vinaigrette, and I like a heavily dressed salad — all very personal preferences, like how you take your porridge

use your hands to delicately dress your leaves

Well, now you know me, somewhat intimately, through my kitchen table. And I now firmly believe that if you want to know what a person is like, what they like, about their habits, about how they live their lives, ask them what their kitchen table looks like. There are layers there, as it turns out.

Kitchen table self portraits, I’m into this. I’d love to hear others, to get to know you through your kitchen table. Anyone? Perhaps the start of a series.

Off to tidy my kitchen table before a friend pops by for a Monday eve apéro of white vermouth, Lucques green olives and Tyrrell’s lightly salted chips.

With thanks for coming,

H.