Creating a New "OLD" Kitchen - Part 1 - a Bit of Historic Background

As my regular readers know, we live in a Mediterranean style house, totally unlike a typical Cape Cod house (and yes, we do live on Cape Cod!) As a couple of francophile dreamers who have always fantasized about living in Provence or the French Pyrenees, we knew this house was for us the minute we walked into it for the first time.

We are just beginning to renovate/decorate the kitchen here, and we are making our already Mediterranean style room into an old-fashioned version of itself ...so I thought I'd give a little background history first.

Above are two photos I took before we bought the house, with the previous owner's furnishings.

Our previous house was an early American antique (300+ years old) which had reminded us of old French homes with low ceilings, antique fireplaces, wavy glass windows, etc. When we redid the kitchen in that house, we wanted it to look like a French country kitchen, even though we were starting with all new construction (including new ceiling) and new appliances. I painted just about every surface in that kitchen, to make it look rustic and antiquated.

Here are some photos of the kitchen in our old house:

An overall shot of our former kitchen showing painted walls, cabinetry and ceiling. The idea was that you felt you were in a dilapidated French farm building (specifically, a dépendence of a mas provençal), with the beamed ceiling broken away in areas, revealing the sky, and wild herbs growing on the roof above. The cabinets above the countertops were painted like windows looking outside to fruits, vegetables, olive branches, etc., and the lower cabinets were painted to look like animal pens, housing pigs, a lamb, chickens & rabbits (all edible, bien sûr!)

(Photo by Nan & Monty Abbott)

Smooth walls were transformed into faux bumpy stone ones with paint. I also added trompe l'oeil postcards, business cards from France and a French recipe, just for pure fun. People used to run their hands over this wood post to see if the items were real...and just to tease people, the Van Gogh postcard WAS real!

One corner with Italian majolica plates and an old Venetian floor lamp

 The breakfast nook with French wheat-back chairs and French linens

(Photo by Jay Elliott)

Another view of the breakfast nook with my husband, Jack Dickerson's painting, Il Contidino, a portrait of an Italian farmer at the end of the day, waiting to share wine and bread with a friend. The table, covered in an Italian tablecloth, was set with Italian and French items. The silverware is French; the plates were from a visit we made to San Gimignano in Deruta pottery country, Italy; and the glasses were some we picked up on a trip to Biot in the South of France, near where I used to live - so many happy memories!

Jack and I designed this dish rack in the breakfast nook, to hold some of our French, Italian & Portuguese plates. There's a Moroccan plate in there, too, from one of Jack's mother's voyages; a vintage carved wood German bread board; and an antique copper mold inherited from Jack's ancestors in Amsterdam.

These two photos (above & below) show the kitchen after years of use - rather worn out, but still charming.

The drawers above the animals all featured herbs. Note the chicken with a special plaque - "Poulets de Bresse". I also featured these fabulously delicious French chickens in my murals at PB Boulangerie Bistro. I wrote about them here.

The real door to the basement was painted to look like a door out to a French garden, with a pear tree and rows of lavender in full bloom.

Above the door was a Della Robbia plaque we had brought back from San Gimignano.

We hung real garlic to further trick the eye (what trompe l'oeil painting is all about.) I even had to nail the antique square nail into the door at a distinct angle, so that it would seem to be in the correct perspective!

The goose waddling around the corner of the door is a foie gras producing goose, famous in the Dordogne region of France. Again, this gourmet bird had a special place in my PB Boulangerie Bistro murals. I wrote about it here.

I took this photo as we were moving out. The shelves had been full of cookbooks. The grain sheaves depict wheat, barley, oats & rye. The quote, which continues around the top of the room, is from one of my favorite French cooks, Madame Lulu Peyraud, owner of Domaine Tempier vineyards in Provence. The quote is, "You know, my food is nothing but plain old cuisine de bonne femme [traditional housewife cooking]. What makes it different from restaurant cuisine or recipes in cookbooks, is that I am always cooking for someone I love." Jack painted the lettering.

Another quote on our woodwork, which has great memories and meaning for us, is this one by our friend, Patricia Wells: "What grows together, goes together." A prolific cookbook author, Patricia also teaches fun and informative French cooking classes in both Paris and Provence. We once took a week of Provençal cooking lessons from Patricia, and learned this quote during that week.

Notice my window valences, above, and then the very similar one, below, in Lulu's kitchen. Both are traditional, hand-block-printed cotton indiennes from Souleiado, in Provence. 

Above is an absolutely charming photo of Lulu Peyraud with her dear friend, Alice Waters, photographed in Lulu's kitchen. For more about Alice Waters, see my posts here and here. Our Lulu quote came from the book, Lulu's Provençal Table, by Richard Olney, with a forward by Alice Waters.

Another picture of Lulu in her kitchen, shows the wonderful Souleiado border fabric in color. This border fabric, called La Grosse Rose, is available online here. Old French farmhouses often have a fabric valence like this one, to keep smoke and ash from going into the room, in case of a strong wind.

A third quote in the old kitchen was from Julia Child: "Life itself is the proper binge." Since Patricia Wells, Alice Waters, Lulu Peyraud and Julia Child are all culinary heroines of mine, I may have to include quotes from all of them in our new kitchen. Click here to read my post about a cooking class I once took with Julia Child.

 The tiles used for backsplashes and stairway were ones we had purchased on our honeymoon in Portugal. The marble countertops were made of slabs that had been rescued from an old bank building in Boston.

Detail showing the gorgeous ochre marble, which Jack installed himself (very heavy!!)

I went out one day and came back to discover Jack installing leftover tiles on the stair risers - I just LOVE this! Our original island, which Jack also had built, was covered in these tiles, with the floral border all around. Unfortunately, that had to be sacrificed when we had the new kitchen built. The flooring was Portuguese cork - a lovely warm color and so soft to stand on.

The new island was covered in tumbled Botticino marble, which beautifully matched the marble countertops and our faux painted walls.

This old kitchen of ours was photographed numerous times for various magazine and newspaper articles. Here it is, as featured for Christmas, in Better Homes & Gardens magazine, December 2003:

Better Homes & Gardens Christmas '03  (I will upload a better PDF, soon, I promise!)

Julie & Julia... & Me

If you have not yet seen the hit movie, "Julie & Julia" I highly recommend that you do....soon. In fact, I'd like to see it a second time....very soon! It is so inspirational on several levels. The French passion for food was clear and the French scenery and stage sets were a feast for the eyes. Julia's commitment to cooking techniques was first and foremost a goal to be admired, and Julie's commitment to learning and completing all of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking was admirable (more so in the movie than in the book, I thought. In fact, I didn't really like the book, Julie & Julia when it came out, a few years ago.)

Having also read Julia's biography, Appetite for Life, as well as My Life in France, (both great reads, by the way) and having watched Julia on TV so many years ago, I couldn't get over how well Meryl Streep matched my own image of Julia Child. Stanley Tucci was also stellar as Paul, Julia's husband. All around, the movie was superb fun!

Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci

One reason I liked the premise of the movie/blog/book is that, about fifteen years ago, I had made a New Year's resolution to go through Mastering the Art... from beginning to end, learning every technique in it. I was not as successful as Julie Powell, who did complete every single recipe in one year. (Yes, I had young kids at the time, which made it difficult, but excuses aside, mine went the way of most New Years' resolutions, I have to admit.) I had been inspired by Gordon Hamersley, whom I had heard in a panel discussion on Julia, when he said that he had learned to cook quite young by working his way through Mastering the Art... (This informative discussion about Julia had been held at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, where Julia's massive collection of papers is housed; but I digress...)

On one occasion, a few years back, I was incredibly lucky to have been able to cook with Julia Child. I had signed Jack and myself up for a hands-on seminar on EGGS with Julia, at the Boston University School of Culinary Arts. At the last minute, Jack was unable to go, so my mom came along instead. Anyone who imagines that cooking eggs would be an uninteresting subject - think again. As with all food preparation, technique and chemistry are so important to the end result. Julia Child was passionate about learning and understanding both. In truth, the art of cooking cannot succeed without knowledge of both technique and chemistry.

Working with Julia Child in BU's seminar kitchen

This week, I am putting together a list of recipes and class ideas for cooking lessons I'll be offering in my own kitchen, beginning this fall. The overall theme of the classes will be what I am most passionate about - French Country Cooking. I am so thankful to Julia Child for the work she did bringing French recipes to the American cook. Although I don't always follow her recipes verbatim, these days, I know that we would not even be able to purchase so many of the ingredients necessary for French cuisine, if she had not led the way in introducing Americans to their goodness.

In addition to Julia, I have been truly inspired by several other ex-pat Americans like our friend, Patricia Wells, with whom Jack and I cooked and reveled in Provencal food and wine for a full week, twelve years ago. (I know I've promised to write a whole post on cooking with Patricia - I just have to sort through our photos from that incredible week - it will be soon.) We use all of Patricia's books.

I also love the recipes and explanations of Susan Hermann Loomis, whose French Farmhouse Cooking is one of my bibles. Susan spent a lot of time traveling around France and talking with farmers and farm wives, to compile a great collection of "everyday" French recipes.

Stay tuned for my cooking class schedule, which I will publish by the end of next week. It will also include classes by Jack, and some we will teach together. We look forward to sharing what we know (and are still learning) with all of you. Thank you, Julia, for making it possible!

Julia et moi