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I have been friends with the chef. Skye Gyngell Since I met her in Sydney when I was 19. She worked in a delicatessen where they made a memorable chicken and celery salad with a delicious mayonnaise dressing, excellent on a baguette. Our lives have been linked ever since, and now our children are best friends.
We often meet at my house in West London for big Sunday lunches. In the summer, we mostly do it on the terrace in my garden, under the wisteria. We cook together, although we are like an odd couple with opposite personalities: she is calm and order, and I am drama and chaos. She makes lists, I throw things together.
For this picnic we have invited a group of quiet friends, those who do not mind helping: jeweler Solange Azagury-Perdizstylist Bay garnetFounder of Orlebar Brown Adam Brown and his husband, public relations officer Tom Konig-OppenheimerCathy St Germans, co-founder of the Port Eliot Festival and writer, and Will Rowley, our wonderful doctor friend.
Skye and I share the belief that entertaining is like theater. The way the table looks sets the tone for the meal and allows people to relax and enjoy themselves. It’s nice to think about the mood of the day and create a space where things happen slowly, a place where people can settle in, read a book, take a nap, play cards, and in Cathy’s case, make a lei from the flowers in the garden.
We set up a rustic lumberjack tent on the lawn. Canvas awning company; We took a piece of plywood from my garden shed and placed it on some old apple boxes. We covered it with a tablecloth Summerill and Bishop and spread out a selection of rugs and cushions made from recycled plastic bottles The unnatural soil company and Green Weaver – totally waterproof. These were mixed with some long, padded sofa cushions Caravan in Marylebone.
As we cooked, we kept everyone happy, sipping rhubarb and sweet cicely liqueur and eating biodynamic radishes, hunks of homemade sourdough bread and creamy butter sprinkled with sea salt, and peeled heirloom tomatoes drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. We picked the most beautiful pale green cabbage leaves and stuffed them with freekeh and tart cherries, placing them on a bed of sheep’s curd with a tomato vinaigrette.
In Myself Gozney In the wood-fired oven we made focaccia di recco, a kind of flatbread topped with stracchino cheese, and added courgettes with their flowers. Then we moved on to the prawns, over which we spread a dollop of seafood butter. I had to fight Skye’s perfectionism to let me slide the flatbread so it would cook evenly near the flames. After a mid-afternoon nap, we woke up to a rhubarb and strawberry tart and lemon shortbread filled with lemon curd and mascarpone. It was all utterly relaxed. And the best part? Everyone helped to clean up!