Pompey of the Pillows

Boy and I had a busy social calendar this week and decided to spend last night, Saturday, at home keeping a low profile, as we often do on weekends.

When it came time to retire for the evening I was amused to find this sight when I went into our bedroom:

Aren't I adorable?

There was Pompey all snugged up amongst our pillows, enjoying the luxury of their freshly-laundered and ironed cases.  I burst out laughing and went and got my camera to record the scene.

I've seen statistics published that claim more than 40% of Americans sleep with their dog(s), and we certainly fall within that group.  I couldn't imagine not sleeping with our little 15 pound bundle of affection and cuddles.

Do you sleep with your dog?

Photo by Reggie Darling

Reggie's Five Favorites: Cookware

The is the inaugural posting in my "Reggie's Five Favorites" series in which I share with you from time to time, Gentle Reader, selections of what I consider to be my top favorites in a particular category. As outlined in the December 12th posting in which I introduced the series, these favorites will be culled from the many and far-ranging categories that I think will be of some interest to those who read this blog.  Categories covered may include such things as books, ceramics, hats, films, household objects, tools, music, and more . . .

Today's posting focuses on cookware used on the stove-top or in the oven.  I thought this would be a good place to start at this time of year when many of us are particularly focused on the pleasures of hearth and home. Boy and I both enjoy cooking, particularly when we are at Darlington, and one of the pleasures we take in it is having a well-considered collection of good quality pots and pans. Over the years we’ve assembled a core group of cookware where the common theme is utility, heft, good design, performance, and pleasure of use.

Here are Reggie's Five Favorites:

1. All-Clad Stainless
At the top of my list is our collection of stainless steel pots, pans, and roasters manufactured by All-Clad Metalcrafters. I love them because they are versatile, durable, attractive, and a snap to clean.

2. Le Crueset Dutch Ovens
The grand-daddy of enameled cast-iron dutch ovens or casseroles, we have one in almost every size, all in the iconic “Flame” orange enamel--the only color worth having as far as I’m concerned. These are perfect for making stews and soups, and for braising.

3. Cast-Iron Skillets
Often relegated to the back of the cupboard in today’s kitchens, if even there. I have cast-iron skillets, in several sizes, that I regularly use when high-heat searing or frying is called for. They are easily picked up at tag sales and junk shops.  The trick to prevent rusting is to season and maintain them with a light wipe of vegetable oil after each use.

4. Antique Copper Pots
Not only are they beautiful to look at, but they are a marvelous conductor of heat as well. Despite the infrequent bother of having them re-tinned when needed, the joys of owning and using antique copper pots far surpasses the modest maintenance they require.

5. Old-fashioned Lobster Pot
Found in the kitchen of every seaside cottage, these inexpensive spatter-enameled 4-6 gallon warhorses are a joy to boil up a mess of lobsters on a summer’s afternoon.

So, now that you know what my favorites are, what are yours?

All photos by Boy Fenwick

The Greatest Accomplishment of My Adult Life

That would be quitting smoking.  It was one of the most challenging and difficult achievements that I can think of.  Of my life.  While I was never a heavy smoker, giving it up took me several years and many false starts before I finally succeeded.  And it was one of the best, if not the best things I’ve ever done.  That is, except marrying Boy.

I kind of miss the good old days, though.

I started dabbling with smoking shortly after college when I took a share in a beach house on Long Island and fell in with a fast, party-boy set.  Cocktails and cigarettes.  Late nights out.  Fun.  The party moved on to Manhattan when the summer was over and I met and then started to date a smoker who enjoyed the hi-life just as much as I did and, well, it’s easy to start smoking on a regular basis under those circumstances . . .

But times and friends and priorities change, and eventually I could no longer deny the cold hard truth that only an idiot destined for an untimely and ungodly death would continue to puff away in this day and age.  And so after more failed efforts than I care to admit I finally quit.

One of the things I enjoyed about smoking, apart from the physical act of doing it, was collecting the paraphernalia available to help one support the habit, such as ashtrays, cigarette boxes, etc.  Known in the collecting world as "Tobacciana", there’s a lot of it out there to choose from ranging from tacky throw-away junk to exquisitely beautiful objects from the likes of Asprey and Cartier.

Over the years I assembled quite a collection by haunting antiques stores and shows, trolling eBay, and always keeping an eye out for interesting examples to add to my collection.  I bought silver cigarette boxes, often engraved with names of long-departed swells, silver ashtrays, and ceramic ashtrays emblazoned with the names of fabled night spots or legendary hotels, such as the Stork Club or Hotel George V.

I collected engraved silver and enameled match box covers, antique match-strikes, and little silver and porcelain cups for holding cigarettes on tables during dinner parties.  I still have them all.  They are too beautiful and have too many fond associations for me to want to get rid of them.  While the ashtrays have long since been stored away in cupboards I haven’t put the silver cigarette boxes away.

We keep them out still, along with the more decorative match boxes and match strikes, since they are really quite lovely to look at and do wonders for table-scapes as well.  Besides, one still needs a place to put matches used to light candles and fires in one’s rooms.

The Richard Rogers' living room at "Rockmeadow"

(note ashtrays and cigarette cups)

Looking through old decorating magazines and books I’m often interested to see that up into the late 1970s ashtrays and cigarettes were almost always seen on tables in the smarter featured residences.  I recently was flipping through my copies of Dorothy Rogers’ My Favorite Things: A Personal Gude to Decorating and Entertaining and The House In My Head, books that I first read with vicarious and thrilling pleasure as a boy, and was surprised to see smoking paraphernalia on virtually every table.  I was also amused to read her helpful suggestion that a successful hostess should always be sure to have plenty of cartons of extra cigarettes on hand for parties.  My, how times have changed.

The same ashtrays and cigarette cups in the living room in their next house

Once a smoker, I’m convinced one can never again become a non-smoker, only an ex-smoker.  It's like drinking -- once a drunk always a drunk, whether wet or dry.  Although I quit smoking long ago it took me several years before I stopped catching myself regularly thinking -- usually with a cocktail in hand -- "Wouldn’t it be great to have a cigarette right now?  Wouldn’t it be terrific to feel that good old nicotine rush again?”  After a while the frequency of these reveries subsided, but I still catch myself thinking the same thing every once in a great while.

To be honest, I could pick up smoking again in a heartbeat and probably would if the consequences weren’t so obviously vile and horrible.  But they are truly awful so I won’t.  However, as I’ve heard other ex-smokers also admit, if I knew I had a finite period to live, perhaps a couple of months only, I’d probably say “Hey, what the hell, why not? What have I got to lose?”  And then reach for that trusty pack of Marlboro Lites once more . . .

All photos, except those of the Rogers' living rooms, by Boy Fenwick.  Photos of the Rogers' living rooms are from "My Favorite Things" and "The House in My Head" by Dorothy Rogers

Lunch at La Grenouille

As a team leader of a small group of professionals at the investment bank where I work, I believe it is important to develop relationships with those that report to me that extend beyond the requirements of the job.  As part of this I enjoy taking my team out to a group lunch or for drinks from time to time, and I choose destination restaurants known for their excellent food, high level of service, and attractive decor. I make sure to keep the conversation light during such outings, refraining from speaking much about business, if at all.  The focus during these get-togethers is on eating and drinking well, and catching up on what people are doing outside of the office, their families, vacation plans, movies they've recently seen, and books they are reading.  In other words, having a good time.

Courtesy of La Grenouille

This year I decided to take my team out for a particularly nice lunch to celebrate the holidays at the last great bastion of old-style, formal, French dining left in New York: La Grenouille.  I've eaten at this classic beauty any number of times over the years, both for business and pleasure, and thought it would be an ideal place for us to wile away several luxurious hours on the last friday before Christmas, with the explicit instructions that no-one was to return to the office afterwards.

The interior at La Grenouille, photographed by Robert K. Chin

When I first started working in New York after college, the uppermost echelon of the City's top restaurants was dominated by five of the most formal of French restaurants imaginable: Lutece, La Caravelle, La Cote Basque, Le Cirque, and La Grenouille.  Each was rightfully famous for impeccable service, gorgeous interiors, and exquisite, Escoffier-based cooking served by armies of formally-attired waiters and their assistants gliding about the rooms. Each was also overseen by a Maitre d' or owners whose understanding of their patrons' wishes and expectations exceeds anything seen today, and where the welcome and service extended to regulars was so solicitous as to defy imagination.  If, on the other hand, you were not among the restaurant's inner circle you could--in certain of these restaurants--find yourself relegated to a less-than-desirable table where service wasn't quite as superb as what was provided to cherished regulars. In other words: Siberia.  Reasons for such treatment might include being too young, appearing to be too obviously from out of town, arriving wearing less-than-fashionable clothes or dressed too flashily, the subject of a scandal recently reported in the newspapers, or something as trivial as entering the restaurant a bit too tentatively--evidencing a less than ingrained comfort with dining in such an establishment.  I've experienced life both among the Inner Sanctum and in Siberia in these establishments, and believe me--the Inner Sanctum is where one wants to be. 

But times and tastes change and of this crew only Le Cirque and La Grenouille remain. In my view, though, only one of these two truly qualifies as the last of the real deal, and that's La Grenouille. Despite Sirio Maccioni's legendary hospitality at Le Cirque I've always felt like an interloper in the half a dozen or so times I found myself dining in its peripatetic, oddly-decorated rooms. Sure, the food is fantastic, but there's a reason they call it Siberia: it's cold there. On the other hand, every time I have had the fortune of dining at La Grenouille Charles Masson has demonstrated a hand so deft at making me and my companions feel beautifully welcomed that I want to return to it again and again.

But what makes La Grenouille so special is the entire experience one has from the moment one enters its doors to when one reluctantly bids it farewell.  In other words: it's Heaven.  It begins with a lovely welcome to a gorgeous interior with extremely flattering lighting, and a justifiably famous display of astonishingly beautiful flowers.

And then there is the food.  It's sublime. After consuming a perfectly made Beefeater martini straight up with olives, I started with an endive salad with pears, walnuts, and Roquefort cheese and then followed it with grain fed roasted chicken "Grand Mere".  While both of these are staples found on the menu in virtually every French restaurant I've ever eaten in, they emerge from the kitchen at La Grenouille transcending the ordinary versions found elsewhere. It's a whole different league. The roast chicken, in particular, was a joy: succulent and juicy, golden crisp skin, perfectly seasoned. This kind of simple, straightforward cooking takes many, many years to perfect.  Since La Grenouille is famous for its dessert souffles and we were in a celebrating mood, each of us ordered one in a different flavor, giddy with excitement.  Mine was pistachio.  Incredible. 

And the place was packed!  Every table was occupied, and I saw at least four or five bold-faced names that regularly show up in New York Social Diary.  Everyone appeared to be having an absolutely lovely time.

And that's what you too can expect to have when you dine at La Grenouille, the last of the grand French restaurants in New York.


La Grenouille
3 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
(212) 752-1495
http://www.la-grenouille.com/

Have You Met Mrs. Roles?

I love using table linens. I like the way they look, I like the way they feel, and I like the way they soften the experience of sitting at a table, eating a meal. A table that is dressed and covered with a white cloth, be it plain cotton or damask linen, is one of the pleasures of civilized living. Using handsome table linens, be they tablecloths, placemats or napkins, transforms what can be a mundane experience--eating a meal--into something special, an event.

Boy and I have assembled a fairly sizeable collection of table linens over the years. We've bought new ones from places like Williams Sonoma, and we've bought antique and vintage ones from dealers and at antiques shows. And we use our table linens. Not just when we entertain, but also when we don't, when it is just the two of us. We have "every day" table linens, which can stand up to repeated and regular launderings, and we have "occasion" linens, usually vintage, which are more delicate and usually reserved for when we entertain.

There's one thing about table linens that I don't particularly care for, though, and that is laundering them. While our housekeeper does a passable job of washing and ironing clothes and linens, she isn't all that adept at the more nuanced requirements of stain removal, starching, or meticulous folding that maintaining linens well involves. Her level of care is fine for the cotton napkins we use during meals at home (no paper napkins allowed in our house) but falls short when it comes to laundering and finishing table cloths or sets of linen napkins. For one thing, our laundry room isn't really all that well-equipped (that's waiting for the next round of renovations), and the other thing is--she's just not that in to it.

But there is someone out there who is in to it, and I'd like to introduce her to you. Her name is Mrs. Roles, and she is a privately-owned business based in New York that specializes in French hand laundering and finishing of linens and garments. Her full name is Mrs. Roles Private Hand Launderers and she can be found at http://www.mrs-roles.com/.  There really was a Mrs. Roles at one point, but that was over 100 years ago and today the firm is owned by the Lutzky family, which has operated the business since 1949. Mrs. Roles is what was once referred to as a "carriage trade" business, and caters to the needs of customers whose laundering requirements aren't sufficiently met by their household help or local dry cleaners. Mrs. Roles picks up and delivers in New York City, and also does a brisk shipping business for customers beyond her delivery area. She provides charming cherry-red nylon bags emblazoned with her company's logo to her regular customers for pickup, and then delivers the beautifully-finished goods in cardboard cartons with acid-free tissue paper separating the layers of perfectly ironed and finished linens. It's a treat to open a box from Mrs. Roles, almost like a present.

I send all of our tablecloths and better linens to Mrs. Roles for laundering, and have been doing so for years. The personnel are a pleasure to deal with, and the level of service and quality of finishing is exceptional. While not inexpensive (this is, after all hand-finished work), you truly "get what you pay for" from Mrs. Roles, and I whole-heartedly recommend her to you for the laundering and finishing of your table linens. She also does a superb job with bedding linens as well.

Please note, this recommendation is being made solely as a courtesy to my readers. I have not received anything from Mrs. Roles in return, nor do I expect to.

Photos by Boy Fenwick

Good-Bye to All That

I know I said that I wasn't going to post about Holiday at Darlington anymore, but . . . as my dear, departed mother would say after taking down the tree on Boxing Day, with a scotch on the rocks in one hand and a Lucky Strike in the other, "Christmas done come and gone!"

Photo by Reggie Darling

My First College Mixer; Or, How Reggie Got Slapped...

When I was 14 my parents decided that it would be a good thing for me to spend the weekend visiting my older brother Frecky at Yale, where he was at the time a member of the freshman class.  My parents thought that a visit to the college would help spur me on to the academic and athletic accomplishments required to make me a more promising candidate to ultimately attend Yale, following in the footsteps of not just my brother, but my father and grandfather before him, along with numerous cousins, uncles, and other forbearers.  Frecky, under considerable pressure from my parents, reluctantly agreed to go along with this, and so I found myself on a November Saturday afternoon in Durfee Hall on the Old Campus at Yale, where my brother shared a room with two of his former classmates from Exeter.

Frecky wasn't quite sure what to do with me that weekend, other than taking me to a football game at the Yale Bowl, followed by dinner in the Freshman Commons with his roommates.  Over dinner, though, a plan was hatched that we would all attend a "mixer" in one of the residential colleges later that evening, basically a dance where several busloads of girls were shipped in from one of the Seven Sisters schools, in this case Mount Holyoke.  While Yale was co-ed by that time, there were not yet enough women undergraduates to obviate the need to import girls from other schools to fully populate such adolescent crushes.

As soon as we got to the mixer Frecky ditched me to see what conquest he could muster up that evening and I found myself alone sitting at the edge of the hall, sipping a punch of orange flavored Kool-Aid and grain alcohol, looking around the room to see what was what.  The place was initially fairly sparsely populated, dark, and smelled of dining-hall food, and beer, but over time became crowded as more and more undergraduates came in and started dancing to the DJ's soundtrack of rock-and-roll and R&B hits popular at the time.

After a while, fortified with several more helpings of grain alcohol punch, I decided that I would take my show on the road. I figured if my brother could pick up a Holyoke girl, so could I.  So I started a prowl around the darkened room to see who or what I could find. After being rebuffed by several sets of uncooperative girls I came across a group who, if not welcoming of my approach, at least tolerated it.  So far so good.  I zeroed in on one of the girls who looked to be the youngest of the bunch and started talking with her.  I learned she was a freshman at Holyoke and this was her first time at Yale.  She was pretty, and nice, and seemed interested in speaking with me.  Skating on thin ice, I had to think fast.  I decided that it would be too dangerous to claim that I went to Yale, so I cooked up that I was a freshman at Dartmouth (?) and was visiting my brother at Yale for the first time.  I figured that was a decent cover, since I wouldn't be expected to actually know all that much about Yale.  I asked her to dance, and much to my surprise she agreed and I found myself, against all imaginable odds, shaking it on the dance floor with this girl to the strains of Earth, Wind and Fire's "Boogie Wonderland".  The giddy experience of what I was pulling off, combined with the effects of the grain alcohol, the pounding music, and the swirling lights, made the experience verge on magical to me, if not hallucinogenic.  One dance led to another, and I recall Frecky and his roommates egging me on as they twirled by with their dance partners.  After a while it was time for a break and I suggested to my companion that we repair to the punch bar for some refreshment and a breather.

That's when my troubles began . . .

We were met at the bar by a gaggle of my date's friends from Holyoke, who immediately pulled her into a huddle, with one or two of them sneaking suspicious glances at me over their shoulders.  After a few minutes my "date" re-joined me, decidedly more-reserved than she had been when we left the dance floor.  After accepting a glass of punch, she paused and then started asking me questions, with her friends looking on.  What dorm was I in at Dartmouth?  What classes was I taking?  How many credits was I expecting to complete this semester?  Did I know So-and-So?  Where had I gone to prep school?

Recognizing that I was on a base of shifting quicksand I tried to bluff my way through her questions, but it was clear to me that the jig was, in fact, up and I had been found out.  Blistering under the laser intensity of her increasingly angry interrogation and the mounting "off with his head" chorus of her friends, I finally confessed that I was not a student at Dartmouth, but rather only a ninth-grader visiting my freshman brother at Yale.  After a moment's beat--which seemed to last an eternity--she recoiled in horror, betrayal, and humiliation and administered one of the most powerful, Academy-Award-inspiring, full-body-force slaps to my face that I to this day can recall, and turned and fled from the room screaming through her tears of rage "...and he's only fourteen!"

At this point, Frecky fortunately re-emerged from his own cat-prowl, licking his chops, and scooped me up and took me back to his room on the Old Campus, shouting with laughter, where we agreed--after consuming a six-pack of beer and a bong hit or two--that this was a story that was better left untold.

...at least to our parents.


All antique and vintage Yale postcards were a gift to Reggie from his dear Sister Darling