We flew back yesterday to Paris after a triumphant, two-week trip to Italy. My mother impressed us all – and indeed herself – by averaging over 7 kilometres a day on foot (and more than one day over 10), much of which was up and down steep hills. Go Mum!

Miraculously, I didn’t work the entire time we were away, apart from sending you that short missive last Thursday. This is unheard of for me and I’m ashamed to admit it, because taking breaks is crucial if you want to be of any use in this world. Despite my always defending this fact, I’m not so good at walking my own talk when it comes to taking time out. That’s perhaps more of a cultural hurdle than one based on personality, but those engrained tendencies can be the hardest to break free of. Seeing how much good the Italian getaway has done me, I’m determined to get better at rest. Overworking never means you get more done. It just means you wear yourself down to dullness and eventually burn out.

How about you? Do you give yourself the downtime you need and deserve?

Leave a comment

Although I didn’t work during the holiday, I was obviously taking in observations. Here are some things about Italy that struck me:

· There is a palpable respect for and inclusion of the elderly and children in that country. I noticed this in restaurants from the way patrons greeted people young and old, and from how engaged grandparents and children were at the table. Even in the street and on trains and so on, people constantly made room for my mother, and were helpful, accommodating, and kind. In a world where being overlooked and isolated is a chronic distress for so many, this was heartening to witness.

· At the excellent agriturismo we stayed at in Umbria, our hosts were seriously devoted to the quality of their food, and by that I don’t mean in terms of culinary flourish. I’m talking about raw ingredients. They grow their own wheat, for example, using an ancient variety which Roberto, the farmer, explained has a very different level and quality of gluten from today’s industrial varieties. If so much as a pinch of flour gets into a sauce Peter eats, he will be sick for days because of the gluten. Well, he decided to tempt fate by eating a piece of Roberto’s wife Rebecca’s bread, made from their wheat, and guess what? Yup, nothing happened.

Leave a comment

This insight, along with a lengthy description from Roberto about what goes on with modern meat production, hit me broadside. I’ve been aware all my life that good food starts not in the kitchen but in the ground, but for some reason the importance of good ingredients was sounding louder in my ears than ever on this trip. Italian cuisine gets the message across better than most because of its simplicity. A plate of steamed beet greens or a piece of grilled fish with olive oil and salt have nothing to hide behind: the quality or lack thereof is immediately apparent. This is not necessarily the case with, say, French cuisine, which has a vast arsenal of elaborate techniques that can disguise or distract from inferior ingredients.

“Audacious simplicity” is how I want to describe the Italian approach to food, although their essential way of eating has always come more from scarcity and necessity, not daring. Still, I like the term and shall aspire to it, especially in the kitchen.

Share

· It had been many years since I travelled to Italy, and I’d forgotten how different the table culture is from that in France. More frenetic, for one thing. There’s no time to start with a leisurely apéritif because waiters want you to order food straight away. Dishes arrive when they’re ready, willy-nilly, instead everyone’s order landing at once. Plates get passed and shared, usually resulting in a bit of mess. And as soon as someone’s plate is empty, it’s whisked away, sometimes almost before they’ve had a chance to set their fork down. This leaves anyone still eating to finish on their own. I can’t say I love that custom.

· Despite the general impression that Italians are more laidback than the French, and they are, you nonetheless see a lot more white tablecloths and cloth napkins in Italy, including in modest family restaurants. Also, the Italians still change your cutlery between courses, unlike the French these days, who will go so far as to rip it out of your hands, however covered in sauce it might be, and throw it back down on the table for you to use again. (I’m not talking about starred restaurants; I mean in your average bistro.) Now that Peter and I are onto this new and horrible trend in Paris, we’ve learned to ask for fresh cutlery, which isn’t always provided graciously.

· Food is less expensive in Italy than it is in France.

· House wines in Italian restaurants are cheap and actually good.

· Food in Italy remains more devoutly regional than in France, with less variety and less invention at the mid-range level. That’s not a criticism, just an observation. There’s something to be said for it, too.

· After two weeks of eating in restaurants in Italy, I feel completely normal and healthy, whereas after just two days of eating in restaurants in France (or North America), I’m desperate for my own cooking.

“You sound like you’re done with France,” my brother said to me more than once during our trip. I can’t imagine ever being done with France, but it’s true that I do get a craving for ways of living that seem to be fading out here. It makes me want to run around France turning stones to try and find them, because if there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that culture – any culture – roots like a Banyan tree. You can hack away at the top of it all you want, but its resilience, deep down, will always triumph.

Leave a comment

I’m heading to Provence next week for my art of the table retreat at Château de la Gonette, and I can’t wait. This Italy trip, along with a book I’ve been reading by Perla Servan-Schreiber about cooking, food, and eating, have me totally pumped on kitchen and table topics. The week in Provence is going to be an absolute binge. I’ll tell you all about it when the time comes.

Until soon ~

Laura xo

Leave a comment

Share

Give a gift subscription

I’m on holiday this week with my mother, brother, and husband, toodling around Tuscany and Umbria after a few days in Rome. It has been a refreshing change after our return to French life, and it’s giving me lots to think about in terms of the differing lifestyles in these two countries, and what both have to teach us.

This morning, I write to you from this desk in Florence, in an apartment where the ceilings are cathedral high.

But a holiday must be a holiday, otherwise I won’t be able to recharge and come back to you with fresh inspiration and insights. It’s just a few pictures this week to let you know I’m thinking of you. I’ll save up my impressions for when I’m back to Paris next week.

I’ll be back to my regular schedule next week. In the meantime, I wish you only good things as we head into spring.

xo,

Laura

Leave a comment

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

My parents used to be famous for taking “trips to nowhere.” They did this whenever they were desperate for an escape but had no plans; they simply got in the car and started driving. Sometimes it would result in a day trip, with a country lunch somewhere unexpected. Other times they’d be gone for a day or two and come home with tales of more elaborate adventures.

In honour of the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, my mother and brother flew over to meet me and Peter in Rome this morning. We’ll spend two weeks following our noses, just like my parents used to do, footloose and fancy-free, and, importantly, together. I hope my dear da’ will be along for the ride — and, if you’d like to come, too, we’ll be posting on Instagram at @laura_calder and @pscowen .

Meanwhile, spring is here and the first asparagus are being trotted out at the markets, so let me share a perky sauce the colour of sunshine to go with them. It’s quick and light, something to try if you’ve been overdoing it on the Hollandaise or sauce mousseline (although, is that even possible?). If you don’t have asparagus quite yet, you can always use this sauce to dress up poached leeks.

Read more

To receive a brochure with all the details about our A Breath of French Air Getaway in Burgundy this September, please write to Lucy Hawkes at lucy@chateaudemissery.com to express your interest. It’s a lovely, laidback place, full of character (and characters!).

Leave a comment

The books we recommended today were these:

By the way, I mentioned in the video that dîners en ville, or town suppers, are a special form of entertaining at home in Paris among the elite. Even though a story of mine got into the book, I can assure you I’m not a part of the Paris elite and never was. But when half your friends are writers, stories do get around!

Share

And if you’d like to tag along for our supper videos on Instagram, you can find me here. Of course, there’s Peter’s account, too. He’s the better photographer in the family, as well as being co-host and co-chef. Here’s one sample from earlier this week:

C’est tout for now. See you soon!

Cheerio ~

Laura (and Peter, too)

Leave a comment

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

Give a gift subscription

Our trip to Marseille, France’s largest port city on the Mediterranean and its second most populated overall, was almost accidental. We’d originally planned to spend only a night there before burrowing deeper into Provence to visit people in the country. However, a cancelled flight led to those people being trapped abroad, so we found ourselves suddenly with four days stretching ahead of us in a city that, admittedly, I’d always suspected I wouldn’t overly like. Port cities do tend to have reputations, after all…

Read more

It’s springtime in Paris – hurrah! – ushered in with cherry blossoms, daffodils, magnolias, and sunshine sparkling on the Seine. It makes you want to throw your shoulders back and stride out into the world with a big smile upon your face, optimistic that good things are around the corner.

The markets have not yet quite caught up with the springtime buzz. Root vegetables, cabbage, apples, and pears still dominate the stalls — and that’s in France, where green things are sprouting. Much of the northern hemisphere, I’m aware, will still have to struggle for a few more months to figure out how to keep making those staples interesting. One reader from Canada wrote the other day to say:

I’m desperate for new ideas for weekday meals that look good on a plate. We’ve been living on one-pot meals that we dump on top of some rice and I’m craving something more visually appealing. Is this something you might write about? xox

Yes it is, because I sympathize. In fact, Peter and I have just launched into a more serious home-cooking regime, which is not to say that the food is more serious, but that we want to be more intentional about we put on our plates. (Hum… Perla’s influence?)

We’re just back from a trip to Marseille, which I’ll do a post on next week (I’ve got some fabulous addresses for you), so the return to simple home cooking is just starting. And, as I said, until the peas, asparagus, and fava beans come out and start strutting their stuff, we’ll be working with the last of winter ingredients.

One vegetable that I’ve been seeing everywhere on restaurant menus lately, and which is being used in marvellously creative ways, is celeriac. At one Paris restaurant, lamb boulettes were served on celeriac purée then draped with mandolin-thin sheets of soft caramelized celeriac slices, the whole spooned over with delicious jus and served with a bouquet of herbs. In Marseille, again a purée of celeriac was served, but this time with caramelized roasted cubes of the vegetable that had been marinated in an Asian sauce (they could have been eggplant!) and were mixed with chunks of refreshing pomelo. Delicious. At our Paris market, one organic stand was handing out a recipe for celeriac oven fries, which we tried last night.

Spiced Celery Root Fries

27.8KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The spiced celeriac fries with mayonnaise could obviously be served as a first course or appetizer, but they were unusual enough to inspire us to want to create a reimagined moules frites, which is usually mussels steamed in wine with parsley and garlic, with French fries on the side. We found a recipe on Saveurs magazine for mussels with a spicy twist. They contain the Calabrian sausage ‘nduja, but you could also use chorizo or simply leave out the pork altogether and add a pinch of chilli peppers and maybe a good squirt of tomato paste. I’ll translate the recipe for you, with only slight tweaks and a pescatarian option.

Mussels With Fennel And Spiced Sausage

27.1KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

We had some leftovers because we’d made a big batch, so we shelled the mussels, returned them to their cooking liquid, added some tomato sauce, then tossed it all with spaghetti the next day for lunch. Delectable!

Perhaps less original, but nonetheless a standby that never fails to comfort and please, is a quick and skinny potato frittata, which is what we made for lunch the first day back from our trip because there was virtually nothing in the house to cook with. It always feels like a bit of a James Bond moment to make potato frittata. Remember the scene from A View To A Kill where Bond needs to make supper for a woman and the fridge is practically bare? He manages to whip up an effortless “Quiche de Cabinet” (“Cupboard Quiche”), which evidently was a real score. This frittata is easier, as it happens, requiring neither pastry nor a hot oven, unless you count the quick broiling to finish.

Let me walk you through the potato frittata, because you really don’t need a recipe. You just have to make it once and it will be implanted in your brain and in your hands for good.

Skinny Potato Frittata

A household staple that comes in handy, noon or night. It’s similar to Spanish tortilla, but not quite the same because it’s thinner and also gets broiled to finish, rather than being flipped over and over in the pan. Serve with a green salad, and possibly a little tomato or roasted pepper salad on the side. While you wait for it to fry, enjoy a glass of rosé, a few olives, and possibly some sliced dry sausage. Simple, but civilized.

For 2 to 3 people, you’ll need the following:

Grapeseed oil, for frying

An onion, sliced

3 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and diced

Salt and pepper

3 eggs

A handful of finely chopped parsley

Pinch chilli pepper flakes

Set a rack in the oven at the top and be prepared to broil when the time comes.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a 10-inch/25 cm non-stick pan, add the onion, season with salt and pepper, and fry until soft and lightly golden. Remove, and set aside.

Now add a good centimetre of oil to the pan, get it sizzling, and add the potato in an even layer. Season with salt and pepper, and fry, tossing occasionally, until crisp and golden on the outside and completely cooked inside. Remove to paper towel to drain. Pour away all but a thin film of oil from the pan.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper, and stir through the parsley and chilli flakes. Add the onion and potato, mixing to coat.

Reheat the frying pan to medium, pour in the frittata-to-be, and cook until set, but still slightly wet on top. Finish under the broiler, slide onto a cutting board or a platter, and serve warm or at room temperature with a green salad.

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

What with all this fixing of lunches and dinners (I say “fixing” because everything has been so simple it has hardly felt like cooking), I’ve been reminded of how differently we eat when we take the time to prepare a meal from scratch. It’s very different from “grabbing” a slice of pizza from a kiosk or even ordering a salad in a restaurant, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it does make you eat more mindfully and perhaps even more gratefully when you’ve thought through what you’re really in the mood for and made it yourself with care and interest. So, that’s how Peter and I shall carry on throughout this transitional month, cooking our way towards the brighter days ahead.

If you have ideas for “weekday meals that look good on a plate,” as requested by your fellow reader of A Breath of French Air, please do share in the comments so we can all partake of your inspiration!

Leave a comment

I’ll be back next week with my musings on marvellous Marseille — and with a new announcement. In the meantime, there are just two spots left for the Art of the Table Retreat with me and the team at Château de la Gonette this April. It’s going to be a special and luxuriously restorative week in Provence, one that offers a rare opportunity to transform your relationship with food, cooking, dining, and hosting in unexpected ways that will stay with you forever. That, and for a full week you’ll have my undivided attention in person. Click here for more details, and don’t hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.

Leave a comment

Wishing you a delicious and inspired month ahead, in the kitchen and beyond ~

Laura xo

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

Give a gift subscription

“I’m worried about you!”

That was my friend Camille piping up at dinner the other night. “I read your Substack, you know,” she said. “Where did the food go?!” My instinctive reaction was to want to blame the tiny kitchen in our apartment, but realizing that was ridiculous I kept the thought in my head and let her carry on. “You’re all about the table and yet you’ve somehow taken all the food off it. Why aren’t you cooking anymore?!”

Read more

Dear D,

Peter finally got back from Canada on Monday morning, his earlier flight having been cancelled because of a snowstorm that never materialized. You have to wonder how the airlines feel when that sort of thing happens. It reminds me of you quoting Mark Twain: “Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt you may never owe.”

Peter must have arrived well rested because he decided to take the RER train from the airport into the city for the first time, rather than get a taxi. Sounds like something you’d have done. When he popped up out of the ground on the Place de la République, he said he stood for a moment, planting himself like a flag, and took in a long and deep inhale. Ah Paris! It’s in the very air. He’s glad to be back, and I’m glad to have him here.

After he dropped off his bags, we wandered out to lunch and found ourselves at Astier on the rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, a restaurant Patricia Wells used to write about favourably back in the 90s. It has changed hands since then, of course, and gets no accolades now, but we liked it because it’s old-school and honest (and open 7 days a week). The owner, dressed in jeans, greets you and takes your coat. Then, even after a waiter has stepped in to continue looking after you, he can’t quite keep himself out of the dining room, because he wants to know who you are, chat, and crack a few jokes.

Peter ordered frog legs for the first time in his life. “Faites un voeu!” the owner whispered to him, “Make a wish!” I, myself, had three fat scallops served in their shells with confit leeks underneath. (Two, actually, because Peter nicked one of them.) Then I was brought a fish quenelle (a bit heavy on the choux paste) in Nantua sauce, while Peter had “quasi de veau,” which always makes me want to ask, “Why quasi of veal? Is it or isn’t it?!” (I know that’s not what they mean, but still…)

We shared a Mont Blanc for dessert with candied orange zests on top, and it was delicious, but we did have to attack it like a demolition crew with our spoons because the meringue was too hard. No matter, we were happy, especially to be together, and after a complimentary liqueur, poured sparingly thank God, and an offering of advice on where to get knives sharpened in the neighbourhood, we wandered home, where P immediately felled himself like an oak and sawed logs for the rest of the afternoon. That left me alone to work, or in my case to re-work.

It’s my art de la table masterclasses that I can’t stop fiddling with to get ready for the April retreat at Château de la Gonette. I’ve been working on these for the past five years! Yet, just when I think I’ve got one locked and sealed, I learn some wonderful new thing that I can’t possibly not add to it. This threatens to go on for the rest of my life. Tinker, tinker, tinker without let-up. Every editor I’ve ever had on books has ripped their hair out over this inexhaustible tendency of mine to tweak. Strange, because, generally speaking, I’m no more of a perfectionist than you ever were, but when it comes to writing I pick nits like a mother monkey.

Did you see the brochure La Gonette made? It’s beautiful, as are the people signing up for the retreat. I can’t wait to meet them, and especially to have them all together in one room. How I wish you could be coming!

Art of the Table brochure

2.61MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

P and I will go down to the Luberon next weekend and spend a couple of nights at La Gonette, as well as in Marseille, a city neither of us knows. Were you ever there? It seems a polarizing place: people either love it or hate it, everyone says. Julia Child lived there for a stint in the 50s, in a small flat with views of the old port...

Read more

Because of where I’ve been heading with my work, namely more in the direction of l’art de la table, rather than just cooking as in the old days, I’ve been stumbling upon several people who are on something of a parallel path, only perhaps not quite as table focussed as I am — namely, the modern etiquette brigade.

Until recently, only a handful of notable voices in the wilderness that is good manners cropped up on social media. Among them were William Hanson, a British expert in the field (still rather pedantic, it has to be said), and, to a lesser extent, Myka Meier, who, by her own account, had a slow start cranking up her now acclaimed American version of a finishing school. Today, Meier boasts 660,000 devotees on Instagram, while Hanson has a whopping 4 million, and the etiquette space overall is suddenly exploding with others who have studied the subject and are determined to spread the word about why manners matter and how to acquire them. This sudden interest in etiquette alone is fairly recent, but I’ve also noticed there’s a new spin emerging within the buzz.

In France, a leader in the movement is a woman called Aude de Vathaire, whom I interviewed on Substack a few weeks ago. Offering etiquette training focussed on simplicity and elegance, she’s less about arcane correctness and more about practising sensible, yet graceful, habits and rituals that will improve people’s lives and make the world a brighter place. Elena Terantola in Italy, with over 800,000 followers, takes a similar approach.

Relatively new on the American scene is Mariah Humbert (179,000 followers on Instagram), a young enthusiast of social graces who brands herself as “Old Soul Etiquette” (note, not “old school”) and speaks of “tools instead of rules” promising to “help individuals shine with confidence, create meaningful connections, and share their gifts with the world.” She’s one to watch.

Perhaps lesser known but nonetheless also lending gravitas to the trend is Clinton Lee, a Vancouver-based business consultant with a clientele of international executives whom he mentors in “cultural intelligence.”

And, of course, there remain the forerunners, such as Debrett’s in the U.K. and l’Institut Villa Pierrefeu, Switzerland’s last remaining finishing school. Even they, however, are starting to wiggle out of the straitjacket that was old-school, here’s-the-one-right-way-to-do-things etiquette and to lean towards values that truly matter, such as respect and decency. L’institut Villa Pierrefeu, for example, despite still targeting high-society young women, or those with such aspirations, has expanded its focus from things like instructing students in how to eat bananas and oranges with a knife and fork to helping them gain “an understanding of multicultural diversity.”

This is what makes the new etiquette new. Proponents are shifting focus from, Here’s how to sit, stand, and use an ice-cream fork if you want to join the upper echelons of society, to, Here’s how to be present, how to listen, how to put others at ease, no matter who you are or what circles you move in.

Not that etiquette mavens from days of yore were indifferent to the importance of kindness, thoughtfulness, and respect when it came to keeping social wheels well-greased.

Read more

The skies have been as white as handkerchiefs lately, which is just as well because they’re needed to mop up all the drizzle that has been coming down. What with the damp and chill, there has been little incentive to leave the house, which is fine with me because it has given me permission to lock myself away and guiltlessly devour the book that’s just come out by the great British restaurateur, Jeremy King, he who created such icons as The Ivy and The Wolseley. It’s called Without Reservation: Lessons from a Life in Restaurants, and it truly is studded with so many valuable life lessons and insights that, whether you have any interest in hospitality or not, it’s a must read.

I took copious notes to chew on, of which a smattering below.

• King reminds us to notice that some problems are actually “happy problems,” a realization that came to him once when he was feeling frazzled by having too many credit-card slips to tally and, at the same time, a phone incessantly ringing with people wanting reservations. Waking up to what was actually going on in the midst of this stress, he quickly changed his tune from “woe is me” to “lucky me!”

• He has something he calls “The Dinner Party Test,” which was a trick he gave his children to help them figure out whether they’d found themselves in the right profession. The idea is that you imagine sitting by a stranger at a dinner and being asked the dreaded, “What do you do?” If you feel good giving your answer, you’ve probably got the right job. If the question makes you want to dive under the table and start burrowing through the floorboards, then you should perhaps start a new search. Personally, I think “The Dinner Party Test” would come in handy for many of life’s questions, including those we’re unlikely ever to get. Try these, for instance: “How do you like where you’re living?”; “How’s your fitness?”; “What has you leaping out of bed with glee these days?”

• King never lies and won’t even tell white lies. He stands by the idea that it takes more brains and creativity to come up with an inoffensive and/or humorous way to express the truth, and so that’s always the better route to take.

• He never swears either, because swearing is almost always an expression of anger and an indication you’ve been thrown off balance. It’s much more powerful to articulate the reason for your anger, calmly, and then solve whatever the problem is.

• Beware of equating luxury with affluence, is another of his tips. And, when it comes to money, he reminds us, “It’s not about how much you have, but whether you have enough.” Some people, no matter how much they have, will never be satisfied and therefore never happy in life. Better to be the person who has less but is content because it comfortably suffices.

• And, finally, his superpower question to ask when everything around you is going to pot: “Where are the positives?” In other words, look for the silver lining in every cloud, however dark.

Leave a comment

Rich nuggets like these glitter on every page, along with stories about the glamorous lives of King’s many restaurants and the characters who have peopled them. It’s a book you’ll hole up with and wolf down like an illicit bag of Doritos (only tasting more like beads of caviar). Allow me, then, to wish a rainy day upon you, too, so you can do just that. Meanwhile, here’s an excellent podcast featuring Jeremy King with his friend Ruth Rogers, she of The River Café fame:

One more thing from the book, if I may, because, like me, you may need to hear it before next week. King tells how most restaurants shun single diners on the grounds that they take up a whole table and don’t end up leaving as much as possible behind on it. He, on the other hand, because he’s so dedicated to getting the balance of clientele right for the purpose of vibe, believes, “The single diner brings mystery, intrigue, sophistication and admiration.” I’m going to keep that in mind as Valentine’s Day approaches, because my darling Peter will be away, which means I’ll be having a date with myself. Thanks to King, though, I won’t feel so bad about this. In fact, I may just dress up smartly and march myself out to lunch somewhere like Brasserie Lipp and get as conspicuous a table as I can.

I have a lot to pack into this short month, including putting the finishing touches on my masterclasses for the upcoming April retreat with La Gonette. It’s going to be a heavenly week of table immersion and discovery. By the time people leave, they’ll be floating on air with inspiration from the place and the people, and they’ll have learned a wealth of secrets for turning any table they come to into a talisman for a better life.

I haven’t given you a substantial recipe lately because my cooking has been so curtailed by the limitations of this rental apartment’s blasted induction stovetop and weird oven, which I still can’t figure out how to work properly. Pots boil over, cakes start to blacken in only half their normal baking time, and everything from onions to nuts to caramel will burn if you turn your back even just to push “go” on the Nespresso machine. (Is there a “happy problem” to be found in this, Jeremy King? I do not know… I do not know! “Where are the positives?!?!”)

You could never test a cookbook using a stove like this because you wouldn’t be able to give anyone accurate cooking times. I mean, what would you say, “Bring the sauce to a boil and reduce by half, about a split second”? You can almost see the bewildered face of the poor home cook with their pot of sauce, cold and without a ripple, on a standard electric coil. Anyway, despite this, I have been working on a recipe for saffron potatoes that I love, not least of all because it cooperates with this stovetop, but also because it’s fragrant and colourful and warmly brightens any grey February day.

Saffron Potatoes With Roasted Red Pepper

29KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Before I leave you, here are five things to love about February, because we must embrace this peculiar, mid-way month and not just wait for it to fly by so we can land in March:

• February is short, which helps get us more quickly through the cold stretch than any other winter month.

• It has love at its heart and offers a perfect excuse to eat chocolate in the afternoon and book fancy restaurants noon or night.

• It brings us the Chinese New Year (Feb. 17) to celebrate. Fire Horse, gallop on in! (And slither out and away, you freshly shedded Wood Snake. Good riddance to you, too.)

• It’s the perfect month for plotting what seeds you want to plant, whether in the ground or in your dreams.

• And it’s delightfully, rebelliously, belligerently un-modern in its spelling: FebRuary, goddammit. “I yam what I yam,” says the month. “Deal with it,” to quote Jeremy King one last time.

With best wishes for the month ahead and lots of love,

Laura xo

Leave a comment

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

Give a gift subscription

Good News!

Applications are now open for The Art of the Table retreat with me this April at Château de La Gonette in Provence, France. Click here to read the full brochure, and please note that the application window extends only until February 8th.

This will be a delicious retreat in a heavenly setting, with art of the table masterclasses with me along with local excursions, tastings, glorious meals, and more with the lovely team at La Gonette.

Share

Come let yourself be transformed by the magical powers of the table. Spaces are limited, so be sure to snap up yours! Here’s where to apply.

Until soon ~

Laura xo

Leave a comment

Note to my readers: Due to a technical error, this post was accidentally deleted. I have recreated it for online access only (which means it is not being sent out by email again). Sadly, this means your comments on the post have disappeared. My sincere apologies for that.

Welcome to our impromptu apéritif hour! We’re so happy you could make it. 🥂

Now, an

Read more

It was Maison & Objet last week, the massive design show that brings well over 2,000 of the best European makers of lifestyle goods to Paris, causing you to rethink whether your dinner plates and bed linens are really up to snuff. As soon as that was over, men’s fashion week hit the ground, so now eyes are hard to keep in their sockets because gorgeous, chiseled beanpoles are gliding all over town waiting for their moment on the runway. Next week, this will be replaced by couture week, sashaying in to unveil the season’s fabulous and unfathomably costly creations destined for awards season red carpets and the angular shoulders of the ultra-chic 1 per cent.

Design and fashion are not my worlds, though I admire both from the fringes. I am grateful, however, simply to be surrounded by them, along with so much art, music, literature, and more. Paris is a great city in part because the best of the best in every field, from all over everywhere, are constantly coming through, which makes it a mecca for anyone craving osmotic self-cultivation of any sort. It’s almost a variation on being in the presence of a Buddha: just come to Paris and sit, and you’ll be transformed.

Or is it really that easy?

I’m not sure any self-respecting French person would say so. The reason the crème de la crème come to Paris in the first place (indeed to many parts of France) is because they know they can expect an audience sophisticated enough to appreciate them and their work. And why is that? Well, largely because the French have long valued refinement and made it their business to become educated in those aspects of life that fall under the umbrella of l’art de vivre à la française. These include not only luxury and the arts, but also elegance and good manners, excellence in all forms, gastronomy and good taste, the art of conversation and debate, the value of civility, and an attitude that embraces living in beauty and taking time to celebrate everyday pleasures. That kind of self-cultivation takes effort and discipline, along with a certain mindset, but the French believe it’s worth it, because these are the things that make life worth living.

With me to talk about l’art de vivre – the French art of living – is Aude de Vathaire, who after many years working as a coach and therapist has now become, much to her own amazement, what one might call a French elegance guru, with the clout of 427,000 followers on Instagram behind her and a robust YouTube following. Here’s our conversation:

Leave a comment

L’art de vivre comes quite naturally when you live in France, but, as I’ve always tried to hammer home, it’s easily exportable, too. Even if you never set foot in this country, by adopting the right attitude you’ll find opportunities at every turn to inject more beauty, elegance, and joie de vivre into your life. If you get stuck, just follow Aude on Instagram and YouTube and she’ll get you out of your rut.

Sending all my best from Paris,

Laura xo

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

Give a gift subscription

The saying, “You can’t go home again,” can mean two things. First, that any place you have memories of and return to will inevitably have changed so that, no matter how well you once knew it, it will no longer match the image you’ve been holding in your mind. Second, you yourself will have changed, so that even if “home” had remained locked in time while you were gone, you wouldn’t be able to re-enter it with the same perspective, feelings, needs or desires. Over time, the inner territory that is you becomes just as unrecognizable as the physical places you’ve known themselves. You meet again, you and a place, and you wonder if you still really know it; it wonders if it ever really knew you.

France is obviously not my home of origin, but I have always felt “at home” here. Many of the culture’s values align with mine: civility, beauty, and honouring the importance of the table at the heart of life, to name a few. I like the pace of life here, even in Paris, which, despite what Parisians say, is saner than in most cities. It’s a place that gives you permission to enjoy quiet and leisure when that’s what you need. And there is something in the air itself, which I always gleefully inhale when I step off a plane, a certain softness that seems to lift a load off the shoulders, lighten one’s step, and smooth out the brow. Then, of course, there’s the light…

Or is that me being nostalgic? A long-time Parisian friend, Geoffrey Finch, posted a Substack this past week entitled Remembrance of Things Past, in which he mourned the loss of a bohemian way of life that was once synonymous with Paris and totally accessible to anyone who wanted it. That quality of life is the reason why starving artists have always flocked here.

But that simple life of small pleasures that was latter-day Paris is being rapidly elbowed to the side by things like an over-abundance of international luxury fashion brands and generic restaurant and hotel “groups,” all of which send prices soaring so high that you practically have to be an oil baron just to afford a respectable omelette and a glass of wine. The result is that artists and artisans get pushed out, or at least to the fringes, of the city — and the magical sense of possibility they create, which is largely what everybody else comes for, gets exiled along with them.

I’ve always believed that Paris would be the last holdout when it came to defending the right to quotidian joys for the everyman. Alas, this city, like so many others, seems to be caving to the modern, Instagram-fed pressure to cater to the tastes and budgets of the 0.1 per cent. Inevitably, it’s not the bourgeois-bohème town it used to be, but more like Bezos-bohème, which has less and less that’s bohemian about it.

This is not sour grapes on my part. If someone wants to spend 210 euros on a spaghetti gratin for lunch (I wish I’d made that up, but that dish at that price is actually on a menu in town right now), they can knock themselves out. What irks me is that this trend quickly bulldozes out of sight what people with my sensibilities would consider true luxury and pleasure: things like a lazy day of dipping in and out of small, independent shops buying unique goods that you know won’t be available in every duty-free shop on Earth, or cozying up in an old-style café where people chat for hours over deliciously bad coffee without first having to queue up behind one hundred influencees to get in.

I appreciate five-star luxury as much as anyone, now and again anyway, but, even more, I appreciate the delight of a window-box full of red geraniums on an otherwise grey street, the possibility of a glass of Champagne for a relative song when you spontaneously snag a seat on a café terrace in the sun on a Tuesday afternoon… Surely there’s room for a little bit of everything, no? Bezos, bourgeois, bohème…?

All this is on my mind because I’ve been thinking lately about why I’ve been drawn back to France at this stage of my life. When I was younger, it was the cuisine I was hungry to learn about – the recipes, the wine regions, the history… Landing back this time, I automatically picked up where I’d left off, but something felt off. France is not as I left it, and I have not returned the same person either. I’m not here to frantically taste every charcuterie and cheese this time, or to scramble to catch up with all the trends found in restaurants and parading down the runways that are Saint-Germain and St. Honoré.

What I’m seeking now is something with more depth; clues, perhaps, to a better way of living in general. I’ve always known these to be at the core of French culture, but I didn’t explore them fully before, so perhaps that’s why I’m back: unfinished business.

Whatever it is, clearly I won’t be able to rush it. The French secrets to living well aren’t as prominently on display as they used to be, and I can already tell, as my friend Geoffrey suggested in his piece, that it will be a bit of a scavenger hunt. But maybe that’s all part of the quest. If it takes faith and determination to dig up those time-honoured principles and make sure they still have a heartbeat, so be it. Or, perhaps patience will be all that’s required, a willingness on my part to sit back and let France reveal to me in its own good time what it has to teach me now, it in its present tense and I in mine.

~Laura xo

Leave a comment

Give a gift subscription

We left Paris on Tuesday, pulling out of the Gare de l’Est in the morning, and hurtled through a snowy landscape towards Strasbourg, a mere two-hour trip and yet worlds away. Here, men were taking down Christmas lights with the help of Fisher-Price-sized trucks and piling trees stripped of their decorations into heaps for removal. Somehow, none of this made Strasbourg feel less festive, at least not to us. We’d missed the Christmas markets and all that mulled romance but, on the upside, we were avoiding the crowds that flood in at Tinsel-time and experiencing everyday winter life in a fairytale city laced with rivers and canals lined with timbered houses, and dominated by a cathedral that makes Notre-Dame in Paris look like a pipsqueak.

For two days, the city was cold enough to turn your fingers into icicles and your nose into a cherry within moments of stepping outside. That didn’t stop us from serpentining the streets for hours to admire the architecture, a mixture of old and contemporary all refreshingly fearless when it comes to colour. To give just one example, look at the Centre de Recherche en Biomédicine de Strasbourg (CRBS, initials that made Peter laugh. “If you’re looking for an inexhaustible field of research, B.S. would certainly fit the bill,” he quipped.) To round a corner and come upon it is like discovering a pot of gold as commanding as the sun itself, reflecting a thousand colours of light, warmth, and optimism.

Read more

Happy New Year! And welcome to this newsletter’s next chapter, as reflected in its new name, A Breath of French Air. I’ve been feeling ready to expand creatively for some time and needed more of a blue-sky space to do that in, which is what this development is all about. Don’t worry, the table will always be here (I am still Laura Calder, after all), and, with it, a guaranteed place at it for you.

What will be different going forward is that this will be a more genuine reflection of why I’ve returned to France. When I lived here in my thirties, French cooking and table arts were my passions, and are still both subjects of great interest to me, but not ground I feel the need to keep going over exclusively. My appetite at this stage is more for the permission France gives a person to slow down and appreciate the simple pleasures of everyday life (including at the table). I’m here for that, as well as to gather fresh perspectives and ideas, discover new people, places, and things, and get a literal change of air after what has been a challenging decade. Cheers to that, then. Bring on 2026!

I don’t have a whole lot to report after the holidays because my husband, Peter, and I were both struck down by wicked bouts of the flu and spent two solid weeks at home flat on our backs. There wasn’t a green bough in the house to give it a festive feeling; there were no special dinners (no appetite!), although we did simmer our way through umpteen chicken carcasses for restorative broths; and, without exaggeration, we didn’t lay eyes a single familiar face until last night, when we went to raise a New Year’s glass with our next-door neighbours. How’s that for a sob story?

I bring it up to emphasize the point that there are good reasons for gathering and celebrating with loved ones at various times of the year. It’s these high points that raise us up out of the humdrum and give us vital shots of reenergizing, rebalancing and courage to help us keep on keeping on in the interim periods. By not participating, we put ourselves at a serious disadvantage (not that we had a choice). So, I’m going to have to make up for our loss this year by putting extra care and attention into even the most quotidian of reasons to celebrate in 2026 — including, as it happens, every sunrise.

Despite my illness, I began a whole new morning routine a few weeks ago, going so far as to make a nice, red card for myself that I’ve propped up on the mantel. It’s a list of things I’m committed to doing to begin each day before anything else (including any tech). It has already had a positive impact on my state of mind as I head into each day.

Of course, not surprisingly, one of the first things my morning routine taught me is that, if you want to start off a day in the right frame of mind, you must already have taken your brain to bed in that state the night before, because the thoughts and emotions you go to sleep with are exactly the ones you’re bound to wake up with. I’m still sorting out the details of my night routine, but at the very least it, too, will involve turning off tech (including phone) and spending time putting uplifting ideas into my brain to sleep on.

Never mind resolutions: I’m straight into action this year, as you can see. How about you?

Leave a comment

We obviously didn’t take any trips this holiday. The closest I got to a getaway was to trot myself up to the tipity-top of the 10^th arrondissement in search of a dosa, which I found in a bright blue hole in the wall at the end of a strip of shops selling colourful saris, gaudy (to me) jewelry, and exotic fruit and vegetables. I’m told that, in a month or two, this will be where to return to for some of the most deliciously ripe and juicy mangos you ever did sink your teeth into. Noted!

On the way home, I popped into a “cash & carry” on the Faubourg Saint-Denis and asked for a brass oil lamp, which was produced along with wicks and the required fuel. The sun hasn’t been coming up in Paris until after 8:40 a.m., which means I beat it every day. I wanted something to keep me and new routine company in the dark hours before dawn. My lovely new lamp does that with a wonderfully warm and reassuringly steady glow. I’ll try to keep the same flame flickering away in my heart all year long.

Wishing you a healthy, positive, peaceful, and rewarding 2026!

xo,

Laura (and Peter, too)

Share LAURA CALDER: A Breath of French Air

Give a gift subscription

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays! Let there be peace on Earth and good will towards all.

Love,

Laura (and Peter, too)

Meet Sonam, the France-based co-founder of Lehvallée, who with her sister, Kunzes, who lives in their native Ladakh, is bringing one of the rarest and most luxurious cashmeres to the world. It’s not every day that you hear someone speak this passionately about a project.

“For me this is very personal,” Sonam told me. “This cashmere is first-class material and it is extremely scarce. You need three goats and three months of work just to make a single scarf. It’s impossible to put a price on that. But I need to do this, because it connects me to my people and to the land I come from. It’s spiritual. For me, it’s art.”

Here in France, Sonam works with European designers to develop clothing and homewares that are then hand-spun and handwoven using ancestral techniques at the Lehvallée atelier in the Himalayas. The cashmere comes exclusively from the inner layer of hair on changra goats, which, paired with the painstakingly detailed handwork involved, gives each piece its innate elegance and soul.

“You can’t sell these products to just anyone,” Sonam said. “People have to understand what has gone into them and have the sensitivity to feel the energy of the pieces.”

When she draped a brown wrap around my shoulders (pictured on me up top), I immediately knew what she meant. The weight of it felt like being hugged by loving arms. The energy was palpable, and the quality undeniable. It wasn’t just comfortable; it was comforting. It’s no exaggeration to say that I have never had a material of that quality on my body before, which of course means that I’m now ruined. I’m extremely grateful to Sonam for her cashmere connoisseurship.

You can follow Lehvallée on Instagram here.

Leave a comment

Another brand striving to preserve and promote sustainable heritage craft is a treasure-chest of an online shop called Storie, founded by the exceptionally well-travelled, British-born Fiona Cameron, now based in Saint Malo. The concept behind the exquisite fabrics that she combs the world to collect and, in France, transforms into beautifully designed wares for the home, is that every piece has a story — and a colourful one to boot.

“When I first set up shop, I felt if I could tell people a story about the objects they’d understand the value of them better and treasure them,” Fiona explains. “And there’s not just one story, there’s a story in every element of production for each piece.”

Fiona sells cushions decorated with African appliqué art and placemats made of beautifully dyed “faso dan fani”, the famous, heavy, hand-loomed cotton from Burkina Faso. She carries Mochi-embroidered bedspreads from the north of India, kantha throws, plaid blankets woven from recycled wool, and hand-loomed beach towels made of khadi, the textile tradition championed by Mahatma Gandhi. And so much more…

What’s wonderful about the personality-filled pieces from Storie is that they can be worked into any aesthetic. “You can create your own style with these pieces,” Fiona said. “It doesn’t have to be bohemian. You can go classic. Even if you love all cream, just by adding a hand-loomed khadi blanket in the same colour as the rest of a room suddenly you give the space texture.”

A single addition of one of Fiona’s creations will give any room a burst of joy, but, beware, because when you enter her online world you’ll want it all. If your life has been feeling a little too homogenous and box-store for comfort, this is the shop for you. My own proper Paris apartment hunt begins in the New Year, and as soon as I find the perfect spot, I’ll be banging on Fiona’s virtual door to help me bring it to life.

You’ll find Storie on Instagram here.

Gift a gift subscription for 10% off

And, finally, at least for this roundup, meet Galeria Obscura, by Paris-based artist Ancuta Hansen. Ancuta’s background is in photography and cinematography, but she has branched out now to making objects for the home with mystery, history, patina, and allure, all using early, public-domain black-and-white photographs. I went to interview her at her apartment, which also serves as a studio, to see what she has been getting up to. Here’s a little video of my visit.

Ancuta, in her own way, is working to preserve, only in her case it’s to safeguard the memory of early photography and powerfully influential women from historical eras like La Belle Epoque and Les Années Folles.

Galleria Obscura is on Instagram here.

Leave a comment

So there you have it: three friendly new faces with their online addresses to put in your little black book. A resolution for all of us in the New Year might be to buy less, but to buy better. Supporting any of these small, luxury businesses is a great way to act on that resolve.

I’m off until the New Year, although I’ll pop in with a quick greeting next week. Wishing you many happy connections and much merry-making until then — and sending you huge gratitude for being part of this community and for supporting my work. You’re a true comfort and joy. Until very soon!

Big love,

Laura

Share LAURA CALDER: A Place At My Paris Table

Leave a comment

Read more

I also have a few special things for you to go out of your way to get a taste of, and which would make great stocking stuffers, too. But first, the tagine…

Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Almonds

Slightly exotic, glorious to behold, exquisitely delicious, and, best of all, easy! Note that the first step is a marinade, so be sure to factor in the time for that. Serve this dish with a big bowl of couscous (or rice, for the gluten-free) tossed with rocket and chopped mint.

Makes: 6 servings

2 preserved lemons

¼ cup/60 ml olive oil, more for frying

¼ cup/60 ml lemon juice

1-1/2 tablespoons powdered ginger

1-1/2 tablespoons turmeric

A good pinch saffron

6 garlic cloves, minced

3 large sprigs each of coriander and parsley, including stems, finely chopped, lots more for garnish

Pepper

6 chicken legs, cut between thigh and drumstick

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

2 cups/500 ml chicken stock

3 cups/375 g pitted green and black olives

¾ cup/140 g ever-so-slightly toasted blanched almonds

Several handfuls of fresh flat-leaf parsley

Several handfuls of fresh coriander leaves

Start by cutting the skin off the preserved lemons, chopping it, and setting it aside for later. Chop the pith, discarding any seeds, and mix with the olive oil, lemon juice, ginger, turmeric, saffron, garlic, and the chopped coriander and parsley. Season with pepper, add the chicken, and rub all over to coat. Cover and marinate in the fridge for several hours or overnight.

To cook the tagine, remove the chicken from the marinade, scraping off and saving as much as you can. Set the marinade aside. Heat some olive oil in a sauté pan or cocotte and brown the chicken on all sides, removing as you go. Afterwards, clean the pan to remove any burnt bits, then add olive oil for frying the onion.

Fry the onion gently for 15 minutes, add the marinade and continue cooking for 3 to 5 minutes to remove the raw taste from the spices. Pour over the chicken stock and return the chicken to the pan in an even layer. Cover, and cook at a gentle simmer until the meat is tender, 45 minutes to an hour. Remove the chicken.

Add the olives and reserved chopped preserved lemon rind to the pan juices, then boil to reduce somewhat (not too much because you’ll want plenty of sauce). Return the chicken to the pan to heat through and scatter over the almonds. Serve with generous heaps of fresh parsley and coriander on the side for people to help themselves.

Chicken Tagine With Green Olives And Preserved Lemon

31KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

And now for those special tastes I mentioned!

The first is cedrat (also called a citron in English), which is obviously a citrus fruit. It’s a bit like an oversized lemon that’s more pith than fruit and juice. The difference is that the pith of the cedrat, instead of being bitter like that of lemon, is exquisitely delicious. The only trick is that you must have a meat slicer or mandolin to deal with it, because cedrat must be paper-thin to be enjoyed. My friend Jennifer McLagan, who has a meat slicer, makes cedrat carpaccio this time of year, adorning it with just a drizzle of good olive oil and fleur de sel. Pictured above, I used a mandolin to shave my cedrat and, along with the oil and salt, added some basil leaves from a plant on the kitchen counter. A most excellent first course for the holiday season.

The second taste, which in fact I mentioned last week but without giving details, is sobacha. I’m just onto this ingredient, having recently seen it as a garnish in a restaurant. It’s toasted buckwheat, which the Japanese and Koreans infuse for tea, but its flavour and crispness also make it superb for putting on everything from salads, to fish, to desserts. Peter puts it on chocolate pudding, I love it on scallop carpaccio (shown above). It’s amazingly versatile, something to keep an eye out for next time you’re in a tea shop.

Finally, there’s this marvellous salt from Terre Exotique. I don’t normally go in for flavoured salts (or oils or anything else), but I might have to change my tune because this fragrant, smoked Salish salt is addictive. Use it on potato or egg dishes, on crudités, or whatever strikes your fancy. I like the brand in general and can recommend it for other flavour discoveries as well.

Happy cooking; happy tasting. And stay cozy!

Laura xo

Share

Give a gift subscription