Vin chaud and white lights

It's three in the morning and here I sit, glass of hot vin chaud - the spiced and brandied red wine I made earlier this evening to have with leftover boeuf bourguignon, and it finally hits me that after a more than a week of visitors, Christmas parties, finals, grading, faculty meetings, and yet one more party to come, that it is only eleven days before we set off on our winter vacation. Normally, we would take the winter vacation in New York but this year we going to Rome, a city neither of us has been to. Florence is on the itinerary as is New Year in Venice. Of all the buildings I'm going to see, Bramante's Tempietto is the one I'm most most looking forward to.

Christmas, in its own way, a festival of lights, when in the short, dark days of the northern midwinter fires were lit not only against the cold, holly and mistletoe, the greenery of the old gods, hung above doors and windows, and trees ornamented with candles. One of my most clear memories of childhood Christmases is of a card printed with a snowy coaching scene that because of its metal foil surface and a shred of embossing glinted magically in the light of the fire. The magic of that glint, the glow of fire in a dark room, the blue shadows beyond the slab of light from a window thrown across snow, has never left me. Last night at our condo holiday party the major decorations were large glass vases filled white lights and white twigs from which hung many icicles - to me the most glamouring of combinations, frost and fire. It's good sometimes to snatch a few seconds, just to appreciate how light in the dark is so essential and elemental a condition.

When, last weekend, I asked the Celt what we might serve for his sister-in-law's last-night-with-us dinner with friends he immediately said boeuf bourguignon, gratin dauphinoise and roasted asparagus with a bought-in fruit tart to follow - suggesting he'd hitherto given it a tad more thought than had I. Boeuf bourguignon it was but the odd thing is I realized I'd never made it before. I'd made the Flemish version of beef in beer, slowly stewed beef with prunes and red wine, even stroganoffed filet (the "t" is not silent in this household) with sour cream and mushrooms - in fact over the years I'd stewed a lot of beef but had never done the classic, Julia Child popularized, blogged-about and movie-starred boeuf bourguignon. Well, I made it and I can tell you honestly it was a total disappointment - until, that is, on reheating two days later and with the last minute addition of buttered mushrooms and pearl onions, it had evolved into the most salubrious of casseroles. There's a morsel, perhaps not served well by a second and third reheating, left for lunch tomorrow.

As to gratin dauphinoise, and this is where I recognize the irony of taking anti-cholesterol medication, I like it simple - well-seasoned, thinly-sliced potatoes, layered with cream and lots of garlic (none of the rub the dish with garlic nonsense) and slowly, slowly baked. Simple, subtle, and salacious.


I shall resume posts about connections, circles within circles, next week.

Crepuscular

On a cold, wet day when twilight arrived at dawn, in our library the grey light has leeched the warmth from the cream-painted woodwork and the off-white curtains, and the blue upholstery fades softly into the shadows. In the deepest shade, that of the bookshelves, gilt book titles gleam bringing to mind how, when the world was lit by fire, our ancestors varnished and gilded leather wall panels, flashed the cornices, architraves and door cases with pellucid color and coruscating gold, dangled silvered mirrors and sparkling crystal from ceilings and walls, all to catch the light and restore it to the room.

Now we use electricity and our rooms are much brighter than previous times but how many of us design rooms in such a way that surfaces, objects and textiles collaborate with light? We shade lamps, glaze walls, burnish metals and woods, hang huge expanses of mirror, polish floors, yet I wonder how many understand the reciprocal relationship between luminosity and luster. Photography and the need for clear portraits of rooms has done away with atmosphere and much is lost. The past is indeed another country, they did things differently there.

I began with the photo above of a room designed by yesterday's designer, David Mlinaric - a living room in London. When I chose that photo my train of thought was different to the one expressed above; more about how discretely contemporary the room is, has neither the inconsequence of minimalism nor the modish use of early or mid-century modern, and is vivacious and serene at the same time.

So, in a way, my theme is light and warmth, for here is a room that would not be drained of life even on the darkest of days - the colour is a light yellow that sits well with the glowing orange of the curtains and the friendly warmth of wood and silk. One could sit in this amiable room, awaiting friends, contemplating the evening ahead, with a glass of vin chaud in hand, comfortable and relaxed.

Vin Chaud

1 bottle robust red wine

4 cinnamon sticks

1 x 5" curl orange zest

1/3 cup sugar

1 star anise

5 whole cloves

1/3 cup cognac

Put all into pan and heat but do not let it boil and simmer for a few minutes. Simmering is when a bubble two rises to the surface but there is no turbulence on the surface.

Photo by Derry Moore, copyright Conde Nast Publications, from Mlinaric on Decorating by Mirabel Cecil and David Mlinaric, 2008.

Recipe from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Christmas, Hyperion, 2009.

Phrase "when the world was lit by fire" suggested by William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire, Little, Brown & Co., 1992.