Christmas Traditions at Darlington

Every family, however you define it, has its own Christmas traditions.  At least those families who observe Christmas, which we do at Darlington House.  I celebrate Christmas for the enjoyment of the holiday, and also for the spiritual message that inspires it, and me.

Christmas just wouldn't be the same
without pots of paperwhites about the house

There are a number of Christmas traditions that we observe at Darlington that I brought with me from my birth family, and there are ones of a more recent vintage that we have made our own.

FD, Camilla, and MD
Christmas 1947

As I have written before, one tradition that I observe at Christmas is to adorn the grill of our Rover with a wreath.  My mother, MD, decorated her cars with a wreath when I was a boy.  I loved it then, and I love it still.  This year we ordered our Rover's wreath from the good ladies of Cedar Farm.  I think they did a lovely job of it (they also made the wreath shown in the background, hanging on a door of one of our barns).

This year's Rover Wreath

Another Christmas tradition I observe is to set out a crèche.  MD was mad for crèches, and collected more than a dozen of them over the years.  The one we have at Darlington is a dime store crèche made in Italy in the 1950s that I bought at a Groupe Shoppe years ago.  I've been adding figures to it ever since.  If you look closely at the photograph you'll see that there is a little pug, given to me by my sister Camilla, among the adoring throng.

Our not entirely tasteful Christmas crèche

I also have a collection of Black Forest bears that I put out at Christmas.  I inherited the nucleus of the collection from my mother, who inherited it from her father.  I've added to it over the years, and I put the bears on the mantel in our Snuggery, along with half a dozen or so little Steiff toy animals that I played with as a child.  I've had some of them for almost fifty years.

The mantel in our Snuggery, decorated for Christmas

When it comes to food and drink we have a number of traditions at Darlington.  I always make sure to have a box of Darling clementines on hand at Christmas.

Every Christmas Eve, before attending the evening festival service at the Episcopal church in the nearby town (assuming I can stay awake—and sober enough—to attend it), I make a simple oyster stew, a dish that my sister Hermione introduced me to as a Christmas Eve tradition many years ago.

I think I may try Alex Hitz's recipe for
oyster stew this year
Image courtesy of House Beautiful

On Christmas day we tuck into an old-fashioned English dinner of prime rib roast and Yorkshire pudding (recipes courtesy of my dear friend Lindaraxa), followed by Stilton cheese and Christmas pudding with hard sauce.  MD adored hard sauce.

Lindaraxa's English roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
Image courtesy of same

In years past, when Fauchon still had an outpost in Manhattan, we used to put in a store of their sublime pâtes de fruit and marron glacé to eat over the Christmas break.  Now we console ourselves with chocolates and other treats, including blinis heaped with caviar or salmon roe and crème fraîche.  Champagne is usually within easy reach.

A Darlington tradition of Christmases past
Image courtesy of Fauchon

Another tradition of ours during the Christmas break is to drive to Albany, New York State's capitol, and have a festive lunch at the city's venerable Jack's Oyster House.  It's been an Albany institution for one hundred years now.  Jack's is usually packed this time of year with tables of happy revelers out for a holiday lunch.  We heading there for ours today, in fact.

Jack's Oyster House's card

A more recent Christmas tradition that we've added to our repertoire at Darlington is dipping into the most delicious egg nog imaginable, made by our friend Ted Greenwood.  Ted makes a large batch of it from an old family recipe every year and distributes it on Christmas Eve to his lucky friends in Ball jars.  He calls it Ted Nog.  It is beyond yummy, particularly when adorned with a bourbon or rum floater on top.  Needless to say, Ted is very popular with his fortunate friends this time of year!

Our friend Ted "Nog" Greenwood at a
Darlington dinner party several years ago

Another tradition I look forward to every Christmas is listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols sung by the choir of King's College Cambridge, and broadcast on our local public radio station on Christmas Eve.

The choir of King's College Cambridge
Image courtesy of Zimbio

Of course we hang garlands and wreaths and put up a tree at Darlington, and we decorate the house festively for Christmas.  But, then, that's the subject of another post, soon to follow. . .

I found these little German wooden candles in
a hospital thrift store ten years ago.
I've put them out at Christmastime ever since

Tell me, Dear Reader, what are some of your Christmas traditions?

All photographs, unless noted, by Boy Fenwick or Reggie Darling

Reggie Throws a Dinner Party, Part I

Today's post, the first of two, discusses the planning and preparations for a dinner party that Boy and I hosted at Darlington House last weekend.  I thought it might be of interest—at least to one or two of my Dear Readers—for me to share just how we do it here at Darlington.

One afternoon a month or so ago I said to Boy that I was itching to have a dinner party to celebrate the arrival of autumn, and to entertain a group of friends—some of whom we knew well and others we'd like to know better—to an evening of pleasant conversation, flowing libations, and delicious, hearty fare of the season.

Boy and Basil at the Hudson Farmers Market in Hudson, N.Y., the week
before our party, to meet with our beloved caterer and also our flower lady

Throwing a successful party, in Reggie's view, requires planning, forethought, teamwork, and effort.  Although a party can be a casual affair, where guests freely mingle and help themselves to drink and food laid out at a buffet, one must never confuse "casual" with "effortless."  The term "effortless entertaining" is a particular pet peeve of Reggie's, and it sets his jaw on edge whenever he all too frequently comes across it in magazines breathlessly describing the entertaining styles of certain social animals.  Believe me, Dear Reader, "effortless entertaining" is a fantasy concept, indeed.  For a party worth attending doesn't just happen.  It requires work.  And why shouldn't it?  Anything worthwhile requires effort to achieve.  Fortunately Reggie enjoys all the preparations and planning that go into a creating a successful party.  He finds it fun.

One's enjoyment in undertaking such efforts is helped, though, when one is able to share said labors with others, at minimum with one's spouse, and—when possible—with one or more professionals employed to assist in making said event a well-run affair.

Christine Jones of the Red Barn
at her stand at the Hudson Farmers Market
Baker, caterer, restaurateur, and friend

When Boy and I entertain at Darlington House, we gauge the level of assistance we require by the number of guests invited and the type of entertainment provided.  When we have another couple over for cozy supper of four, we take care of it entirely by ourselves, setting the table, cooking and serving the meal, and washing up afterwards.  When there are six of us, though, we hire someone to help us out with the final food preparations in the kitchen, serve at table, and clean up afterwards.  When there are eight or more we surrender the cooking entirely to a chef, who is usually supported by an assistant and where the guests are attended to by at least one, and sometimes more, servers.

That way we get to enjoy our own party, rather than be enslaved by it.

The Cedar Farm stand at the Hudson Farmers Market
I ask you, who needs Manhattan's flower district when the good ladies
of Cedar Farm are so close to home?

Since we determined that there would be a total of ten of us at table for this dinner party, our first step was to contact our beloved caterers, Christine Jones and Bert Goldfinger of the Red Barn, who've helped us out with many parties, to see if they were available (and willing) to cook for us.  Once we determined that they were (Hooray!), we enlisted the help of a woman who helps us serving at parties, to see if she was available to attend to our guests, and were delighted that she was.

Marilyn Cederoth of Cedar Farm Wholesale
Plants-woman extraordinaire

Once we had the staffing of the evening in hand, we turned to assembling our guest list.  We invited a number of people who had entertained us who we liked and wished to return the favor to (see Reggie's Rules of Social Reciprocity), and we also invited some people we had never entertained before (two recent arrivals in the area, one of whom I first met twenty or more years ago), with the end result being a mix of singles and couples.

With guest list in hand, I picked up the telephone and started calling my hoped-for guests to invite them.  Please note, Dear Reader, I did not impersonally email or text my invitations, I telephoned them.  For when throwing a dinner party one should always strive to invite one's guests telephonically, in order to personalize said invitation.  Of course when throwing larger parties, say cocktails for fifty, it is understood that one sends out invitations via the post office (or, increasingly these days, by Paperless Post).

Olde Hudson on Warren Street in Hudson, N.Y.,
is a regular stop for us for specialty foods, and
where we stocked up on last-minute treats for our party

Once our guests had accepted, I then sent them reminder cards (in the mail) one week ahead of the party with the requested arrival time noted, as well as the dress.  For this dinner party we asked the men to wear jacket and tie.  It seemed a bit too early in the season to force ask our guests to haul out their formal wear for a country dinner party.

The marvelous Hudson Wine Merchants
on Warren Street in Hudson, N.Y.,
was the source of all of our party potables

On a parallel path with assembling our guest list we met with and had any number of telephone and email exchanges with our caterer to come up with a menu for the evening that was appropriately autumnal, and decidedly delicious.  As I've written elsewhere, Boy and I are of the school of entertainers who shy away from serving over-handled and fancified food at dinner parties.  We and our friends eat out in restaurants all the time, to the point that it really isn't all that special.  But it is special to be invited into someone's home for a dinner party these days, since so few people have them anymore (or at least invite us to them when they do!).  When I either give or go to a dinner party, what I really want to eat is what has come to be known as "comfort food."  And that's what we serve at Darlington House dinner parties—unfussified "home-style" cooking made with care and from the best available (ideally local) ingredients.  Not one's mother's plain, everyday get-it-on-the-table cooking, mind you, Dear Reader, but rather dressed up comfort food.

While we were planning the menu with our caterers we also contacted Marilyn Cederoth of Cedar Farm Wholesale.  Marilyn helps us with flowers at Darlington House.  We arranged for her to come by the house the day of the party to fill the Chinese urns in our drawing room with autumnal branches and to provide arrangements for the dining room table and the table in our entry.

Rural Residence on Warren Street in Hudson, N.Y., is an
invaluable source for candles for parties, among other things

The day before the party our groundsman/handyman/all-around godsend, Rich, brought in a crew and did a thorough leaf clean up and tidying of the property, so it would be in tip-top, manicured shape for the party.  We also contacted our favorite wine merchant in the area, Michael Albin of Hudson Wine Merchants, to put aside cases of white and red wine, and also one of champagne, and a replenishment of the bottled liquor we like to have on hand at parties.  Reggie also stopped by a specialty food court near his office in midtown Manhattan to pick up some before-and-after-dinner treats to augment the already planned food and drink.

Cases of champagne and wine, delivered and ready to be chilled for the party

With these and other advanced arrangements taken care of, we then drove up to Darlington from the city on Friday night, ready to embark on the preparations the next morning in order to be ready for our guests when they arrived on Saturday evening.

Next: It's Show Time!

All photographs by Reggie Darling

Reggie Out & About: Cocktail Preview Party at Cove Landing

Well, Dear Reader, it has been rather a long time since I've posted an "Out & About" story here on Reggie Darling.  While I've most decidedly been running around Manhattan and its environs these last several months attending this and that, nothing has excited me to actually sit down and (so to speak) take pen to paper to report on it.  That is, until now. . .

The other evening Boy and I attended a cocktail party hosted by Mr. Angus Wilkie, the celebrated antiquarian and proprietor of Cove Landing, formerly of Upper Lexington Avenue.  The party was held to preview Mr. Wilkie's autumn exhibition sale of precious agate, marble, and hardstone objects, cleverly titled "Stoned."

The invitation to Cove Landing's cocktail party,
featuring an image of 19th-century Austrian
hallmarked silver-mounted agate cutlery

The exhibition sale was held in the galleries at W. M. Brady & Co., in a smart townhouse on a smart street on New York's Upper East Side, just steps off Fifth Avenue.

The party was attended by a swell, well-dressed set of New Yorkers drawn from the museum, auction house, and decorating worlds.  That, along with a smattering of investment bankers and assorted collectors, including yours truly.

I lusted after this delicious English nineteenth-century
Blue John and porphyry obelisk

The objects on display were all made of semi-precious or rare stone (hence the name "Stoned") and were mouth-wateringly covetable.

Mr. Angus Wilkie

The exhibition was assembled by Mr. Angus Wilkie, the debonair owner of Cove Landing, who is known for his exceptional eye, honed by a lifetime spent in the loftiest levels of the antiques and auction house worlds.  He wrote one of the earliest—and most definitive—books on Biedermeier when he was but a tow-headed youth in his twenties.

There was lots to see and admire at the Cove Landing cocktail party, including both objets and those attending the party.

These Blue John urns were the stars of the exhibition

I was particularly enamored with the pair of early-nineteenth-century English Blue John urns shown in the preceding photograph.  They excited a lot of admiration among the assembled guests.  I think they would look perfect on the mantel in our drawing room at Darlington House.  Alas, this will not come to be as their purchase price, while exceedingly fair given their rarity, was a tad high for Reggie's pocketbook.

The Emperor Tiberius

I also admired this nineteenth-century Italian carved marble wall placque of the Emperor Tiberius, formerly in the collection of Bill Blass.  I learned from one of the other guests, Michael Baldridge, during the party that Tiberius was a nasty piece of work, indeed.  However, such knowledge did not detract from my pleasure in seeing the piece, which I thought very handsome.

As I wrote above, the party was attended by guests drawn from the arts (both decorative and fine) and museum worlds.  The decorator Todd Gribben can be seen on the left in the above photograph, and Sarah Coffin of the Cooper-Hewitt can be seen on the far right.  Both Todd and Sarah have houses near us in the country.  Boy and I spent a week in a farmhouse in Tuscany with Sarah and her husband, Tom (seen on the extreme right of the photograph), a number of years ago.  Sarah's uncle, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, wrote my prep-school letters of recommendation.

I admired this little late-nineteenth-century Russian gilt-bronze bear sprawled on a malachite base.  He was most appealing.

In addition to the main gallery room at W. M. Brady & Co., Cove Landing's exhibition extends into a smaller adjoining room that was set up as a cabinet of curiosities . . . of sorts.

I particularly liked this little nineteenth-century Italian Siena marble Roman tub, raised on carved paw feet.  I liked it so much, in fact, that I bought it.  It can be seen in the photograph at the outset of this essay, Dear Reader, sitting on a pier table in our Snuggery at Darlington House.  I'm very happy to have it.

In addition to offering decorative stone objets, Cove Landing is also selling a selection of handsome furniture and framed works of art.

The South German Biedermeier cherrywood center table shown in the preceding photograph has its original dished variegated gray marble top.  It's the perfect setting for the stone objets displayed upon it, don't you think?

Ms. Laura Bennett, of W. M. Brady & Co.

While at the Cove Landing party I was pleased to meet and speak with Ms. Laura Bennett, Director of W. M. Brady & Co.  She was very nice, and good-naturedly put up with me asking if she was related to the Bennets of Pride and Prejudice.  She said that she isn't, with a smile.

A stone-inlaid table, holding a collection of polished stone desirables.

Here's a photograph of Boy standing with the decorators Robert Lindgren and Tom Gibb.  I first met the charming Mr. Gibb around thirty years ago, when we were both just starting out in New York.

I thought this framed collection of nineteenth-century Italian sliced marble samples mounted on board was very attractive.

Guests at the Cove Landing party did not want for cocktails.  That's Mr. Phillippe de Montebello, the former head of the Metropolitan Museum, that you see standing in front of the table, wearing the light gray suit.

What desk wouldn't benefit from this elegant and severe English desk stand made of Siena marble and bronze mounts, circa 1810?

"Why, yes, I will have another cocktail, thank you!"

Boy and I briefly considered buying this George III alabaster and Blue John lidded urn mounted on a black marble base.  We opted not to, though, given that we had already committed to buying the little Siena marble tub.

While at the party we met and spoke with the decorator Tom Scheerer and his partner Michael Balding. Mr. Balding and I had a particularly amusing conversation, and he was the one who told me just how nasty the Emperor Tiberius (supposedly) was.  It was only after leaving the party that I realized Mr. Scheerer is the decorator who redid the public rooms at the Lyford Cay Club, which he did to perfection, in my view.

In addition to stone objets, Cove Landing also has a selection of beautiful rock crystals on display.  They, too, can be yours.

Realizing that we were—once again—among the remaining few guests at a party, Boy and I gathered ourselves together and bid our adieus and exited down the townhouse's somewhat treacherous (well, at least it was after several drinks) staircase and headed out into the late October night . . .

. . . where we hailed a taxi on Madison Avenue . . .

. . . and sped over to Swifty's for dinner.  As I have reported here on Reggie, Swifty's is one of our favorite "go-to" restaurants on the UES.  Mr. Robert Caravaggi, the restaurant's co-owner, kindly gave us the sole remaining table, even though we arrived there on a busy night without a reservation.  Swifty's was the perfect place to wind up after our very pleasant evening at the Cove Landing cocktail preview party.

For those of you who are fortunate to be in New York City this week, Reggie highly encourages you to visit Cove Landing's autumn sale.  But you'd better hurry, though, as it closes on Friday, November 1, and I expect that it will sell out soon (if it hasn't already).  Oh, and please tell them that Reggie sent you!

Cove Landing at W. M. Brady & Co.
22 East 80th Street, Third Floor
(212) 288-7597

23 October through 1 November
11 o'clock to 6 o'clock

Easter in Paris, Part II

Today's post is the second, and final, installment of my two part series of photographs taken in Paris during the week leading up to Easter.  I hope you like it.

One of the places my seemingly never-ending search for champagne took me to was Le Vaudeville Brasserie, recommended by Nick Nicholson for its over-le-top Art Deco interiors.  We were not disappointed!  Not only did we find the sought-after flutes of champagne there, but we also found what we considered to be the best oysters we ate in Paris, and this marvelous, exuberant bouquet of cherry blossoms towering over the main dining room.

We admired the zen-like serenity of this chocolatier's window in the Carré Rive Gauche, nestled among the antiques shops the area is known for.  It's so French it's almost Japanese!

I stopped at this tiny flower shop on the Rue du Bac because I thought it was terribly clever to scatter the discarded petals of the roses for sale there onto the sidewalk instead of sweeping them up and away.  So pretty.

One was rather taken by this chocolate egg in the window of Les Marquis de Ladurée on the Place Vendôme featuring a cameo of Marianne of France.

More chocolate eggs seen in another chocolatier's window, this time wrapped with springlike green and chartreuse bows.

These pâte des fruits were the perfect ending to a lovely luncheon at le Grand Véfour, one of the oldest and most beautiful restaurants in Paris.

One does not see such flower stores here in New York outside of the city's (fast-dwindling) flower district.  In Paris they seem to be at every turn!

Looking up into the Dôme des Invalides takes one's breath away.

I'm convinced the French have cornered the world's market in the creation of pretty confections.

What Easter would be complete without bunnies cavorting about, as these ones are at Deyrolle?

Shelves and shelves of chocolate eggs, bunnies, chickens, and ducks wrapped with orange bows!

Speaking of eggs, while visiting the sublime Musée Nissim de Camondo, I finally learned how to use one of those French copper bowls made for whipping egg whites.  As can be seen in the photograph, the trick for stabilizing the round bottom of the bowl is to nestle it in a ring made of kitchen towel.  This was an "ah-ha!" moment for Reggie!

Paris is full of musical offerings during the Easter season.  We chanced upon an impromptu concert when visiting Eglise Saint-Sulpice early one evening.

I got yelled at by the security guard at the Hermès flagship store on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré for taking pictures, including this one of gorgeous flowers on display there.

One was able to console one's grief with cocktails and sandwiches later that evening at le Bar 228 at Hotel le Meurice.  I encourage you to read my FaceBook posting on that little episode, as I think you may find it amusing.

Just as on Madison Avenue here in New York, there is always a line to get into Ladurée's flagship store in Paris.  We were luckier at the Ladurée outpost in Saint-Germain.

Flowers and motorcycles are often seen together in Paris!

We thought this diamond and pearl tiara from the French crown jewels displayed at the Louvre was rather fetching.

But, to be honest, one preferred the more accessible rose-flavored cocktail in the bar at Hôtel le Bristol.  It was delicious, and a perfect "pick-me-up" during an afternoon of taking in the sights.

What trip to France would be complete without pausing to admire topiary-filled Versailles planters in the Jardin des Tuileries?

Or a visit to Cathédral Notre-Dame de Paris?  We were fortunate to find an evensong service in process there when we stopped in.  The singing was magical.  Of course one stood a respectful distance at the rear of the cathedral when taking this image.

And with that, Dear Reader, I conclude our whirlwind tour of Paris at Easter.  I hope you liked it.

All photographs by Reggie Darling