The Senior (2024)

24/04/2024

It’s my birthday week and if you’d have asked me yesterday morning what I might want then I would have answered ‘A meal at Brutto.’ Well you can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes, listen carefully to the silent rhythms of life and are accepting of chance, then sometimes life delivers a poetic line that is even better. Sometimes it delivers two. In that vein I’ve ended up dining at Brutto for both lunch and dinner. Like a pig in the proverbial.

22/04/2024

I’ve been known to claim that you can’t beat a few simple oysters for breakfasts (especially if accompanied with a glass of cool, crisp white wine), at other times I’ve lauded the soft-boiled egg (which, especially with buttery piece of toast, can be accompanied perfectly by white wine too). On particular mornings however, when the sun is low but bright, and the trees cast long shadows in front of me on the dog walk around the park there’s no plate of food I’d rather come to than fresh radishes with butter and salt (white wine—perhaps the real breakfast star would have gone down nicely but sadly however I had coffee).

After variable success in the past, a few months ago I decided to try growing radishes in root trainers. As a small root crop this seemed like a pretty obvious thing to do and yet I couldn’t find much online to say that it would work. And yet work it does. It takes up very little space (the trainers I bought can each accommodate 24 radishes in what is essentially a deep seed tray little bigger than a shoe box).

21/04/2024

“Dear friend,
Because it is a Parisian spring out there I want to open all the windows of your gorgeous, golden house.
And there are a lot of them. The facade to the rue de Monceau is seven windows wide, modelled by your architect on the spare elegance of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, but rather brilliantly there are fifteen windows on the park side where the straight facade becomes two wings framing a grand semicircular bay supported by Corinthian pilasters. This is a house that you cannot understand without a plan. And forgive me this conceit but just imagine the air moving, reaching round these rooms and up that sinuous staircase, reuniting the winds in these paintings and tapestries and the carpet of the winds...” — Letters to Camondo, Edmund de Waal

20/04/2024

The Maison Gainsbourg collection is exquisitely curated. So good in fact that I think it likely inspiring enough to convert those who might not be Gainsbourg fans before entry. It was so good that, even when on my best behaviour after my last trip to Paris sans kids, it nearly had me cave and give in to a Gibson in the Gainsbarre at 11am.

19/04/2024

Whilst perhaps not exactly the same as when James and Kay Salter visited (Guy Martin ‘embraced the times’ and made Le Grand Vefour somewhat more affordable in 2021) I nonetheless love this piece from Salter’s “Life is Meals”

“We rarely go to three-star restaurants. The prices and the reverence of the diners speaking in near-whispers dilute the pleasure. One February, however, at the end of a week in Paris spent largely at the Louvre, we decided, as a finale, to have lunch at Le Grand Vefour, “celebrated throughout the world,” as the Michelin put it, for its sumptuous late-18th-century decor as well as its food and service…
At the northern end of the Palais-Royal, its first incarnation was as the Café de Chartres, which became a meeting place for the French revolutionaries. Embracing the times as they changed, its clientele eventually became Bonapartists, and Josephine dined here with Napoleon. In 1820, after a number of owners, it was taken over by Jean Vefour, who gave it his name. Victor Hugo was one of the early patrons, followed, among others, by Colette more than a century later who, when her rheumatism made walking impossible, was carried downstairs to it from her Palais-Royal apartment.
A two-course prix fixe lunch is about eighty-five dollars, when the dollar is strong. It is well worth it. The combination of the rich cuisine and the midday wine made the coat check girl ask Jim as we left whether, given the purplish hue of his face, he was well. Nothing a stroll in the gardens wouldn’t cure, he managed to assure her.
He was reminded of hearing the late Warner LeRoy, the vivid, well-fed owner of Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room in New York, describe an experience at Le Grand Vefour. Having eaten a superb meal from appetizer through chateaubriand and its trimmings and on to dessert, coffee, and cognac, he was asked by the waiter, “Sir, is there anything else I can get for you?”
To which LeRoy answered, “Yes. Bring it all again.”

17/04/2024

Heading once more to Paris tomorrow. A few shots that I didn’t post last week.

Last week’s trip to Paris was the first proper visit for my children (until then they’d simply been driven through or under Paris on the way to other holidays). I’ve wanted to take my children to Paris for a long time. To allow them to visit that great city for sure — but mainly so that they might love it like I do. On the first day I was mocked for the fact that I can’t pass Seine without shouting “Harry, your wife is looking for you” to any passing bateaux mouche (a year’s old tradition in emulation of George Plimpton). I was mocked too for having very specific storied venues where I wanted eat. I want to eat with my children at these venues (much like I want them to occasionally sip great stories wines when I open a bottle) because the thing about storied restaurants and grand cru wine estates is that like Paris they’ll always be there. Like the woman I remember from my first visit to Harry’s Bar Venezia who had been eating the lemon meringue pie since she was a child I want my children to look back and be able to take my grandchildren to Deux Magots for breakfast one day and say — I’ve been coming here for years. I came here with your grandparents when I was six. My favourite memory of last week’s trip to Paris was not the twentieth time I heard one of my children elatedly shout “Harry…” to a bateaux mouche on the second day, it wasn’t even the fact that they unanimously raved about my restaurant choices and some of my children are more than ever. It was instead at our final meal when my wife mentioned off-hand that I was coming back to Paris this week. For a moment I looked in five children’s eyes and saw hatred. My youngest daughter spoke up first for all of them, sitting opposite me and glaring menacingly as she said “You’re coming back to Paris—without us!!?” That was when I knew the trip was a raving success. When I hear someone is going to Paris (or Venice). Whilst I might feign happiness inside I’m thinking - that bastard! I think when you really love a place so much, finding out someone else is going is tantamount to finding out someone about to go to bed with your wife.

16/04/2024

The Raisin and Biscuit Yorkie is often overlooked.

15/04/2024

I really enjoyed the article on Parisian dining from Simon Kuper’s new book in the FT Weekend.

It used to be that I’d buy books from Audible that I already owned in physical form — simply for the convenience of being able to enjoy a book on the dog walk or when I found myself with a book to hand. I’m at that stage in life however where I’m again running out of space for physical books so it was an easy decision to go straight to Audiobook here. The fact that the cover looked a bit like an old London A to Z only affirmed that decision further. As an insider’s guide to Paris from someone who has lived and raised a family there, the contents however are excellent. Even better perhaps than Polly Cole’s similar treatment of Venice “The Politics of Washing - Real Life in Venice” — a book with an even worse jacket design too.

14/04/2024

Yes. Sherry is definitely going to be big this year.

Busy morning here and so our Sunday roast is still a few hours away. Couldn’t get oysters so got some white anchovies instead.

14/04/2024

I was so busy yesterday that come bedtime I still had a full jug of coffee that I’d hardly touched. Rather than pour it away, and knowing I was getting up early to run with my sister, I decided to make one of my favourites — Francis Mallmann’s coffee-stained ham, with burnt tomatoes and eggs for breakfast this morning. I left the ham marinading in the coffee overnight to find it a wonderful mahogany brown when I returned from my run. I’ve posted about this dish before and used to use cornbread. I now use a brioche loaf because I think this dish works so well because of the bitterness of the ham meeting the sweetness of the tomatoes. Additional sweetness at breakfast never hurts either, especially when combined with additional fat from lots of butter.

There’s a great video on YouTube of Mallmann making this. Well worth seeking out.

The sun has just made a proper appearance here but the day can hardly get any better.

13/04/2024

What an absolute joy of a book.

Recommendation via

13/04/2024

Promised the kids bacon pancakes.

12/04/2024

My favourite Gibson anywhere. Last night .tto

11/04/2024

A decent camera is all well and good but for the best memories it can’t beat a seven-year-old with a Polaroid.

10/04/2024

Wonderful day with my favourite people. Breakfast for the kids at Deux Magots, Jardin du Luxembourg, Eiffel Tower Summit, a ride on a Bateau Mouche and dinner at Chartier Montparnasse. I could try and write a caption here (starting with one true sentence) but know I’ll never write it better than it’s been done already: Instead I’ll just quote the man and remember the look on my youngest son’s face when he received his hot chocolate.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

[In Paris]…When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”

09/04/2024

A few things that weren’t lunch.

09/04/2024

Lunch.

08/04/2024

I first read the best-selling Bunny Mellon biography shortly after its release in 2017. I’ve never not wanted to grow miniature myrtle standards since.

All images after the first found online. Most credit I believe going to Architectural Digest or Sotheby’s (the set of Bunny Mellon auction catalogues have also been in fixture in my eBay saved searches since too).

07/04/2024

I know I’ve been saying it every year for over a decade but Sherry is going to be really big this year.

07/04/2024

Without the ‘The Optimist’ the prequel to this book, I would never have learnt to cast, to tie a fly, or filled a few precious bookshelves and more surfaces of our small home with fishing books (yes Mrs. H - don’t blame me, blame ‘Long Distance Dave’).
Knowing he famously dislikes DMs whenever I’ve felt bold enough to message David about fishing, generally after a few martinis, he’s always given me the sage advice of seeking out a guide. I’m absolutely rubbish at listening to advice mainly because in my experience it’s too often proffered by people who think too highly of themselves. Of course David is not one of those people. When it comes to learning about fishing, as this book, like The Optimist before it, testifies I don’t think there’s a guide who approaches the art with such humility. It’s a wonderfully funny and yet beautiful book as a result.

06/04/2024

I love Le Creuset cookware. When I bought my first home around 25 years ago rather than redecorate the kitchen I bought Le Creuset pans instead. Due to a lack of storage space they sat on a long window sill in the centre of the room and, in the same burnt orange enamel as Joan Didion’s famed set, distracted the eye and dominated the space visually anyway. I sold that house long ago, and others after it, but still own the Le Creuset.

I’ve never thought or had real need to replace it. Because people associated it with me I’ve been gifted secondhand finds too. I’ve questioned the colour choice at times, fashions change and whilst I don’t know whether these have really ever been in fashion they have at least remained the same. The thing I did regret most for while was the Teflon coating. After a while that begins to wear and can lift threatening the pan’s untimely demise. My solution for that is as heavy and basic in its simplicity as the pans themselves: I take my electric drill, a heavy duty wire preparation brush set, a pack of dust masks and safety goggles and strip the Teflon completely. It takes a while and creates a lot of unhealthy dust but it works. When you finish you just need to season the pans ready for another 25 years of constant use.

(Some before and in progress photos of mine above. The rest, including Joan Didion’s own set, all obviously found online)

05/04/2024

The origin UK edition of George Plimpton’s first book of participatory journalism. Review by Ernest Hemingway and cover illustration by Len Deighton who must have been working on this around the same time as he was privately writing The IPCRESS File.

03/04/2024

Bought Butter for my daughter and made the mistake of starting to read it before giving it to her. It’s not really my kind of thing, but it’s as easy to read as this Gibson is to drink.

03/04/2024

I went for a run in the dark this morning to come home and find this guy asleep on the sofa wrapped in his Ralph Lauren cashmere blanket which he seems to love almost as much as Hot Wheels Monster Trucks and dinosaurs. We bought this for my eldest son was a baby and I think it’s swaddled every child we’ve had since until it became one of his favourite possessions and I think mine too.

02/04/2024

The rich ascetic minimalism of John Pawson; best captured for me in Living and Eating (2001).

01/04/2024

Like so many of Nigel Slater’s books I’ve always liked Monty Don’s Ivington Diaries for the ability it grants to just pick it up and find some inspiration and some insight for the day:

“April 1st, Easter
“I have noticed that outside is not where people work any more. It is where we play. I’m being disingenuous as ever, writing comfy and smug under the canopy of a hop kiln, the perfect paradigm of modern rural life - the writer hacking out words that can earn ten times what the grind of agri- or horticulture can ever generate from the same buildings or space.
Yet we should all get out more and relax less. Decent hurting labour involving weather and dirt and the odd ache and strain does more good than the same time in a bright, airless gym. Throw in something immeasurable like a flower raised from seed or a shaft of sunlight changing the whole world just as you have given up on it for the day and you get health and salvation.
It is Easter. It is always like this at Easter for gardeners. A bit battered but on the up. You take stock. And not before time. The truth is that it doesn’t take much. There are little clumps of violets in the garden that fill all the spaces worn away by winter. A tree full of blossom is personal
- a private audience. A cup of coffee outside in real sun while the thrush takes on all comers in song from the ash tree is better than any five-star food eaten indoors. Only a lover or the laughter of children can equal the warmth of thin April sunshine.”

30/03/2024

My daughter joined me at church tonight out of choice. Not many teenagers who would do that. Perhaps she’s a contrarian like her dad.

Something I wrote around Easter last year:

“To quote Woody Allen quoting Groucho Marx “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member” and yet that’s exactly what I did: during 2015 and 2016, I underwent the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and joined the Catholic faith with my baptism and confirmation taking place at Easter.

Whilst not baptised as a child, I grew up going to a Anglican church every week with my junior school up to the age of eleven. The worn, warm-brown oak pews and cool stone still residing happily deep in my sensory memory. After a long hiatus I started going to a Catholic church with my wife after her father passed away and we had children ourselves. Eventually I decided to finally be baptised and to undertake the RCIA. Now I’ve always considered myself a man of reason and whilst I’ve never had any issue believing that Christ existed (there’s more than enough historical evidence to convince any disbeliever of that) as I went through the rite and Easter came closer I started then to face a moral issue in the fact that if I was to do this solemnly then I’d need to honestly state that I actually believed in the Resurrection itself (the central miracle and tenet of the Church). As testament to my own dilemma in the weeks up to Easter when selecting a confirmation name I chose Thomas—that famous doubter who didn’t believe in the Resurrection until he could touch Christ’s wounds himself. Eventually however, I came to the powerful realisation that faith, true faith is a belief in something more than reason itself. A belief in something that doesn’t have or need any empirical evidence to support it. If you need evidence at all then of course you don’t have faith. I thought there was real beauty, and indeed something to really believe in in that, something that caused me to find reason and rationale in my faith and that I continue to believe in now.

30/03/2024

I don’t tend to open red Bordeaux until it’s tenth birthday. I love the tertiary characteristics most of all and it seems a waste of a bottle to open it before these really develop. I bought this 2013 Sociando Mallet from a French supermarket a few years back for around £20 — the price reflective of the vintage I think. 2013 was a pretty poor year by the few wines I have tasted and so I wasn’t expecting too much here. It seemed like a good foil to the long weekend however and made a cracking gravy and pairing to Alistair Little’s steak, fried polenta, and (wild garlic) salsa verde.

29/03/2024

Christ crucified between the two thieves: ‘The Three Crosses’ by Rembrandt

For much the same reason I find solace in tying trout flies, back in 2018 I intended to start a tradition of drawing Rembrandt’s ‘The Three Crosses’ every Easter. I even bought new sketch book for the purpose. I’d almost given up yoga completely by then and whilst I remember thinking the act of drawing meditative I think I wanted do this because it was built on two things I held, and continue to hold dear: some sense of personal tradition (much like my drinking Sassicaia on Christmas Eve), but much more importantly something that, when looking back over those pages, would allow me to hopefully see some personal progress and betterment.

Apart from the first entry however it’s an empty book. Oops.

The Senior

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