Kathryn at Home: A Guide to Simple Entertaining
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About this ebook
From the author of Inspired By and Timeless Interiors, a guide to fabulous at-home entertaining both indoors and outdoors.
Beyond pulling a room together with great fabrics and furniture pieces, Kathryn M. Ireland has an extraordinary talent for pulling together stunning tabletops and delicious meals. Here she celebrates good friends and great food in the French countryside and in southern California. In an elegant scrapbook style, she shares her notes and advice on entertaining, particularly outdoors. Join Kathryn and her talented friend Ithaka for a breakfast, lunchtime picnics, a candlelight dinner, afternoon tea, a barbecue, and a wedding—all interlaced with signature Kathryn M. Ireland fabrics.
Kathryn M. Ireland
Kathryn M. Ireland is among House & Garden's "10 to Watch" architects and designers expected to influence 21st-century style. For the last decade, House Beautiful has named her one of the top 100 designers in the United States. She is the author of Creating a Home and Classic Country. She divides her time between Santa Monica, California, and Montauban, France.
Read more from Kathryn M. Ireland
Timeless Interiors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classic Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inspired by Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creating A Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Kathryn at Home - Kathryn M. Ireland
Foreword
by Kate Betts
The first time I saw photos of Kathryn’s bohemian-chic French farmhouse, La Castellane, I knew I wanted to sit at her table. What’s more, I wanted to set my table just like her table. I wanted to learn all of Kathryn’s entertaining secrets — from the colorful Moroccan linens to the terra-cotta pots of lavender and the way she pulls together a seemingly spontaneous guest list and then effortlessly creates a magical evening or afternoon. Who can resist her gorgeous table settings, simple yet so chic and inviting with tiny vases of fresh garden roses and brass candelabras dripping with wax?
Photo of Table set outdoors.Photography by Ithaka Roddam.
Photo of a table by a pool.Photography by Manolo Langis (for California Homes)
Kathryn is the ultimate connoisseur: she knows the right wine to serve, the recipe for pot de crème, or the outdoor market where they sell the tartest apple cider. She’s also something of a set designer, whether she is creating pink candlelight at dusk, early morning breakfasts by a lavender-scented fire, or a pile of paisley pillows under a shady oak tree for an afternoon nap al fresco. More than Kathryn’s tables or her scrumptious food and inimitable settings, it’s the glow on her guests’ faces inviting us into the photo.
I’ll have a dinner for you
is a familiar refrain for anyone who has been so lucky to call her a friend. And with Kathryn, the genius of her invitation — whether it be to an 18th-century barn overlooking Provençal fields or a Eucalyptus-filled garden in Venice — is that she takes such pleasure in setting her table and gathering familiar and new friends around a feast. In fact, it’s hard to imagine someone with a bigger heart or a better sense of style when it comes to entertaining.
Photography by Mikkel Vang (for Veranda).
Photo of fabric.Photo of Kathryn in bedroom.Photography by Deborah Anderson.
Photo of fabric swatch.Photo of table outdoors.Photography by Mikkel Vang (for Veranda).
Photo of fabric swatch.Preface
by Ithaka Roddam
When I think of my childhood summers, almost every one was spent at Kathryn’s houses either in France or LA.
I was one of four girls, and Kathryn had three sons of similar ages. With the boys’ friends and cousins, there were always about ten of us kids running around. Each of us was assigned a chore every day throughout the summer holidays, things like setting the table, feeding the horses, or watering the garden. Picking the vegetables from the kitchen garden was one of my favorite jobs. I used to walk barefoot in the prickly grass with my mum and Kathryn, carrying a straw basket and a pair of sécateurs (pruning snips). They would show me which herbs to pick and what was ripe, and we would fill the baskets with the freshest lettuce leaves, tomatoes warm from the sun, sweet strawberries, and roses to adorn the tables. Another chore was lighting the hundreds of tea lights in the wall nooks of the barn, which was pretty tedious but certainly kept us busy for a while! I realized from a young age what a difference candlelight made to the romantic ambiance of the barn for dinner.
Kathryn has an amazing ability to create something out of nothing. The entertaining space that she inhabits has to look beautiful. I remember moving a table from one oak tree to another three or four times until it was in the right place. It is little details like this, which Kathryn has an eye for, that make the party flow. When I think of Kathryn’s dinners and parties over the years, there was always Elvis playing, delicious rosé on tap, some of the most interesting and fun people, and an element of surprise. You never knew how the night might begin or end.
My mum, Carina Cooper, wrote cookbooks and my father, Franc, created the television program MasterChef,
so I have always grown up with the idea that mealtime was a celebration and was inspired to cook on my own from a very early age. I often helped Mum cook big lunches for all the guests at Kathryn’s homes. I think I was about twelve years old when I first began making up recipes of my own and was always delighted by their success! In my early twenties Kathryn asked me at the last minute to cook for her first design/yoga retreat. It became the detox/retox week, and one of my most memorable summers. I cooked and cooked and it really was the beginning of a new culinary chapter in my life.
Since then, whenever I can, I help Kathryn at her retreats or special dinners in LA, and now I have been given the privilege of cooking, styling, and photographing for this book. I was truly inspired by the farmers markets in and around Santa Monica and am really taken with the Californian lifestyle and the outdoor living that Kathryn creates.
The recipes in this book are inspired by long summer lunches with a farm-to-table style in mind, using fresh and local ingredients.
Photo of Ithaka RoddamPhotography by Kathryn M. Ireland
Photo of fabric swatch.Introduction
by Kathryn M. Ireland
Entertaining is my passion and it comes naturally to me. As with producing anything, you can’t rely on just one element. It’s the combination of delicious food, above-average wines, amazing decor, and, most importantly, people who have something to say — a unique mix, effortlessness that makes the guests feel comfortable, people you wouldn’t normally put together, wonderful chaos, as my great friend the film director Jaci Judelson would say, that allows for spontaneity.
Photo of several fabrics.Photography by Jon Hugstad.
It takes courage and a leap of faith to entertain in one’s home. Mishaps are expected and part of the charm of doing the party yourself; some great things often come out of mistakes. Who wants a perfectly boring dinner, house, or anything? There has to be the element of the unexpected for the experience to be real.
This book came about in a very organic way. Having bought a house in the French countryside a quarter of a century ago, which went from two bedrooms to twelve over the years, I was able to teach myself how to cook, clean, and make beds! It has been home to not only my children and me but also my best friends and their children. Ithaka was born within months of my eldest son, Oscar, and was amongst the first of our guests when she was an infant. Over the years, we have cooked together with her mother, Carina Cooper, a noted chef and author of numerous cookbooks, whose style and tastes have evolved over the years. In the kitchen there is always a combination of tradition and different influences, from California, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Sri Lanka, Italy, and of course, France.
What interests me the most is entertaining for