Grand-maman presides over the table covered in her mother’s tablecloth. Beautiful people lounge in mismatched wooden chairs set on the grass. It’s Sunday and children are in from the city seeking escape from their day jobs in publishing, finance, and children’s clothing design. Carafes of wine, children in spotless white, women in tastefully wrinkled linen. Cheese for dessert.
If you’ve been waiting to recreate such a scene, here’s the manual: A Well Kept Home: Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother by Laura Fronty and Yves Duronsoy.
In this book, Fronty and Duronsoy have created a tisane of beautiful photographs (straw hats, lily oil), vintage recipes (Colette’s quince water, Dumas’ butter), and practical home keeping advice (returning the shine to glassware, keeping moths away with peppercorns). Sprinkled throughout are Fronty’s reminisces about lemon balm, ivy water used to wash silk, and a time when currants, quince pips, and bergamot oil were household staples.
Although I don’t own a straw hat, my wine glasses, sadly neglected, are cloudy. I took a recipe from this book and am, as I write, hoping the vinegar/egg shell mix works its magic. If it does, I may drag my own mismatched set of wooden chairs out on the lawn, sip a glass of wine, and savor the plate of plum cake at my feet – though I daresay my children won’t be wearing white anytime soon.
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"He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter. By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes." -Barrow
Contents
Index
About the author
- morningstar
- When she's not caring for her husband and two children (and sometimes even when she is), she can be found reading "a novel."
3 comments:
This reminds me of my old copy of Better Homes and Garden's Cook Book from the seventies. It has little home making tips in it also.
I just may have to do a blog post on that book...
Leila chose to wear white shorts and a white shirt the other day- they were both soon covered in dirt and blood from the mosquito bites she can't resist scratching.
M- I've been looking for a kitschy book myself on the topic, ironically, to make me a better housewife.
L- Sounds all too familiar. J found a pristine white shirt in her closet that I've been "saving" for a special occasion :) the other night to wear just before spaghetti. I should just let her wear the darn thing. And buy more Clorox.
oh, and btw, the wine glasses are still cloudy but now have little bits of egg shell stuck to them. I'm drinking wine out of kid's meal plastic cups from here on out....
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