License to Grow

A planter of herbs is a virtually skill-free endeavor.

    Growing herbs has always seemed to me one of those activities best practiced by the newly enthusiastic—the college student who has made the leap from dorm to apartment, or the young couple who finally gives in to suburbia.  Is there a better symbol for starting fresh than a window planter that quickly becomes abundant with edible verdancy?  Though real cooking happens everyday in our house, I’ve always just bought whatever fresh herbs I have needed along with the other ingredients.  I think this had more to do with convenience than cynicism.  

    Two years ago I was given a pot of English thyme.  I was going to clip the whole bunch of tender shoots and use them that night on a roast chicken, but for one reason or another it was forgotten.  A few days later, out of pity or curiosity, I planted it alongside some Coleus and Celosia.  I was amazed to find it had almost doubled in size by the end of the week, and by the end of the following I was clipping strands to thin the growth and using the fragrant leaves wherever I could.  The realization for me wasn’t that herbs are good—I have been adamant about including fresh ones in most of what I cook for years.  The abundance was the revelation.  

    The following year, alongside thyme, I planted basil, rosemary, tarragon and parsley.  They flourished like weeds.  Which taught me my first lesson about herbs: they do not require any skill to cultivate.  They want to spread and thicken, especially basil and parsley, which very quickly dominate a planter, sometimes to the detriment of less vigorous herbs.  If you have ground, put those there, saving planter space for thyme, tarragon and rosemary where they will receive unobstructed air and light.  

Pesto with body.

    The only maintenance needed (other than water) is thinning—a regular harvesting which is the sole reason for planting herbs anyway.  Woody herbs, like thyme and rosemary, will need a pair of snips; basil, parsley and tarragon are tender enough to pluck with fingertips—just be sure not to disturb the root structure.  I like to take a combination of new growth, which is usually found at the top, and inner, older growth from the center or the interior.  This practice is not just for the health of the plant; the combination of tender, new herbs and more mature ones provides the full range of flavor in a dish.  

    All this abundance requires recipes that star herbs rather than calling for them as a mere seasoning.  A salad of herbs and something more neutral, like butter lettuce, can be a very refreshing start to a meal.  Tarragon and parsley are the main ingredients in Green Goddess Dressing—that 1920’s classic.  And packing herbs onto a piece of meat before roasting is rarely a miss.  But if the herbiest punch is desired, little approaches pesto.  To make a good one, strike the gloppy, buffet horrors and mix-and-match noodle/sauce restaurants from your memory, focusing instead on the name itself.  Pesto is derived from the italian verb to pound or crush, inspired by the original mortar and pestle method.  From Provence to Genoa preparations call for various herbs, nuts, cheeses and oils—not out of wild experimentation, but based upon availability, that most crucial of ingredients.  

Basil Pesto

Wash a few handfuls of freshly plucked basil.  Dry.  Toast a small handful of pine nuts or walnuts in a dry pan.  Let cool.  With a vegetable peeler, fill a small ramekin with strips of a hard cheese, like Pecorino or Grana Padana.  Place nuts and basil in mortar and grind in circular motion until a fairly uniform paste is achieved.  Grate in a pinch of fresh garlic.  Slowly incorporate extra virgin olive oil, about half a cup total, mixing continuously with pestle.  Grind in cheese.

Perfect Squares

Neckerchief, reef-knotted and ready.  

   Between the necktie and the scarf exists another way of closing the collar that has nothing to do with bow ties.  I’m not being coy; this accessory has multiple and varying names, and a general disagreement of size and function.  Is a bandana smaller than a neckerchief?  Is the neck cloth a catch-all term for anything worn inside the shirt?  An ascot is certainly different; like a tie, it is shaped to achieve a particular effect.  But the unisex, unstructured, large square of cloth is what I find the most beguiling.

    I prefer the term neckerchief because it suggests utility rather than mere decoration—precisely the distinction I find important as concerns handkerchieves as opposed to pocket squares.  Of course if someone is crying, or a minor spill needs mopping, whipping off a neckerchief hardly seems the most sensible option.  So what are they for?  On casual occasions in cool weather, a silk or wool neckerchief provides a very effective barrier to drafts.   In summer, a lawn (fine cotton) or linen neckerchief is a glorified sweat band.  I can almost see some readers recoiling, but that’s life when it's hot.  Better a saturated square of cotton than rivulets of sweat collecting about the neck.  Plus they launder.

    This identification of utility should alleviate any timidity in wearing one, but it doesn’t.  Neckerchiefs are still rather conspicuous, even when worn neatly tucked beneath nothing more noticeable than a polo collar.  This is because the effect of wearing anything around the neck is always decorative.  The dullest woolen scarf, soberly arranged, is going to reveal something about its wearer, so what hope does lilac linen have for not attracting attention?  As a countermeasure, I limit my neckerchiefs to muted colors and quiet patterns, allowing the presence of something less familiar to win most of the style points.

    The knot(s) are important too.  True, there are more than one, but really only the reef knot matters.  I realize this sounds narrow, but more elaborate knots are either going to exaggerate the presence of your neckerchief, or invite unwelcome associations to boy scouts (who use a cute little ring to cinch theirs), or chefs (whose traditional four-in-hand produces an awkward, protruding nub).  To tie a reef, first transform the neckerchief from a square into a long strip (known as a pli de base) by folding two opposite corners of the square so they overlap, and folding the remainder in two inch intervals.  Give the result a few twists if you’d like.  Put it around your neck, the left end a little longer than the right end.  Thread the left end over and under the right end, and then the right over and under the left.  The points should protrude from the knot in opposite directions.  Fiddle and tuck the excess.  

    Of course women may do whatever they like with a neckerchief, a point made famously well by Grace Kelly who was once photographed using a silk square as a sling following an injured arm.  Carré de soie, the large, painstakingly printed foulards most notably produced by Hermès are at the top of this amorphous category of accessory.  I imagine either sex occasionally admires items from the other’s wardrobe; I have caught my own wife locked in some mixture of admiration and longing as she held a pair of my sensible brogues.  She has a few nice bags, but nothing tempts me more than her modest collection of carré de soie.  They are vibrant and dense—alive with spring and heft.  More than once, I’ve stood open-necked before them, wondering if I could get away with one of the more subtle prints slipped beneath a collar.

Violet giraffes on an olive ground.  One might say this is an advanced neckerchief.

What the Blazes?

These Royal Welsh Fusiliers blazer buttons are lovely, but not suitable for civilian wear.  Beware military and club associations to which you aren't entitled.  

    An advertisement for very expensive ready-to-wear suits caught my attention the other day, and not for the clothing, which seemed to be struggling to contain the muscular model within, but for the great difficulty the copywriter had in describing the various ensembles.  He or she did well enough with colors, although I cringed when I read gray flannel described as “battleship wool.”  Parsing the type of garment was where efforts failed entirely.  Suits were variously referred to as “jacket with matching pants,” “coat with trousers” and a “blazer.”  That last one was a real howler: it was written beneath a photo of a double breasted chalk stripe suit.

    Blazer is probably the most widely abused men’s clothing term.  I wonder if this has something to do with the somewhat more exciting experience of saying it aloud versus the mundane, monosyllabic coat or suit.  Maybe blazer just makes for better copy, accuracy be damned.  The other reason might be its relative isolation within the masculine wardrobe.  From a marketing perspective, tweed is for picking apples in autumn, suits are for boardrooms, and seersucker is for summer weddings and garden parties.  Because the blazer doesn't neatly fit one of these niches it explodes into the in-between spaces, surfacing when convenient as a term for anything vaguely jacket-shaped.  

    The quick and dirty version of blazer history has the single breasted version originating as a brightly colored rowing club jacket, and the double breasted version emerging as a civilian interpretation of the Royal Navy’s reefer jacket.  This is a plausible, if tiresome, convergence of stories.  Like most origin tales, though, retelling them gives the impression that one day the blazer did not exist, and the next it did.  That’s silly; like a cummerbund or a pair of jeans, the contemporary conception of a blazer is a product of slow emergence and eventual familiarity.  Put another way, the blazer is as much an idea as it is a garment.  

This hopsack makes other hopsacks question their relevance.  

    But we rely upon certain visual cues in order to identify that idea.  The blazer has metal buttons, for instance, to distinguish it from the jacket of a suit.  Of course my last two blazers had horn and mother-of-pearl buttons; both were handsome and still somehow registered as blazers.  Ticket pockets, patch pockets and swelled edges (slightly raised seams) are all sporty details found on various blazers, but none are compulsory.  The cloth itself should probably have some un-suit-like character.  The pronounced twill of serge, the mottling of flannel and the basket-weave effect of hopsack make all those cloths good candidates.  But suits can be made from all three too.  Slippery, no?

    I’m wrestling with these details at the moment.  I’ve had for some months a particularly hopsack-y hopsack in a deep navy sitting on a shelf with the vague idea of making it into a traditional blazer.  This cloth has so much character that I wondered for a while if that alone would be sufficient in distinguishing it from an orphaned suit jacket.  But when else would I use metal buttons?  So I’ve decided on those too.  Whether they should be brass, silver, bronze, gunmetal or copper is still very much undecided.  I also like the idea of swelled edges, because, again, when else would I have them?  The trick, if it qualifies as one, is to use enough detail to establish the garment as a blazer, without distracting from what should be a garment as elegant as it is useful.  An extra detail might easily become one too many.

Short Circuit

I bet bronze helmets chaffed, especially while dancing.  

When I was actively playing sports in high school, weight training was as leaden and uninspiring as the 45 pound discs we all hoped to rack up on the barbell.  One particular strength coach, his thick neck roped with arteries, suggested the following routine: one muscle group, worked to absolute failure, each day of the week.  For instance, on the day we were to train our chests (everyone’s favorite as the desire for full pectorals is deeply coded into the brains of boys) this guy had us line up next to the bench.  One by one we would each do a set of as many repetitions we could muster at whatever the heaviest weight manageable was.  The goal was to fail around the tenth repetition.   And that was it!  Hit the showers, boys.  Of course he had a huge neck, so we all assumed his was the path to similar, collar-busting glory.  I’m not sure anybody even broke a sweat.  I did develop a persistent pain in my lower back, though.  

    Thankfully, straining beneath huge weight once per day has fallen from favor.  Instead circuit training has become massively popular under the guise of countless branded programs.  I chuckle each time I see a new one advertised; circuit training is as old as Jack Lallane.  No—older: Spartan boys training in the brutal Agoge camps performed the Pyrrhiche, a repetitive dance routine of explosive lunges, thrusts, pivots and jumps—all while wielding bronze shield and javelin.  The idea hasn’t changed much: a circuit of similar, weighted exercises executed with vigor and according to a strict clock is an ideal, if grueling, way to boost performance. 

    All that is required is a set of modest weights, perhaps a cinderblock (or the slightly less rudimentary kettle bell) and a clear space.  From lunges to cleans, squats to rows, the variety of exercises is vast: choose five, executing each without rest during the transitions and repeat three or four times.  But circuit training scales down very well—right down to training for nothing more romantic than general physical fitness.  And the only requirements for that noble goal are a few memorized floor exercises, a scant fifteen minutes and some degree of persistence.

    A modest circuit might begin with fifty jumping jacks, followed by fifty lunges, twenty-five  pushups and twenty-five sit-ups.  This might sound too modest to some.  I must pause here to relate a brief story about just that.  A few years ago I was asked to help out with my old high school wrestling team.  For one reason or another I was put in charge of conditioning.  In advance of the first practice, I put together a relatively modest circuit, similar to the one above.  The other coaches thought it far too lenient.  I persisted, as I wanted to gain a sense of general fitness in the room.  We were all dismayed, though, to learn that virtually no one could get through three circuits without real strain and, toward the end, sloppiness.  And therein lies the secret of the circuit; most people can get through one, but will subsequent rounds be all flailing arms and jellied legs?  

    Happily, by the end of the season, I had the team conditioned to a more suitable standard.  That modest circuit expanded from four simple exercises to seven challenging ones.  Three circuits could be crisply executed.  These particular exercises were tailored to the needs of those wrestlers, which is to say explosive strength in the legs, an iron trunk and arms that would not fail.  I’ve reproduced the original circuit below, but unless you are training for a spot in the varsity lineup (or to be a Spartan warrior) a simpler series of four or five familiar or favorite floor exercises should suffice.  Performed quickly and honestly, a more efficient workout just doesn’t exist, and at absolutely no risk of popping the buttons from your collars.

If readers unfamiliar with the exotic exercises listed here are interested, drop a note and I will put together some colorful descriptions into a post.

Yes You Canapé

Checkmate: rosemary ham with gherkin, poached shrimp with tomato, Robiola with beet, hard cooked egg with parsley. 

   In a particularly slapstick production of Moliere’s The Misanthrope I went to see several years ago, some of the sillier moments involved a sharp-tongued servant who, despite good intentions, repeatedly had his tray of canapés inadvertently slapped from his hands.  The canapés themselves were pastel little buns  and discs made of foam—as unserious and cutesy as the comedic scene required.  It occurs to me now, though, that, just as a prop sword or crystal ball must be immediately familiar for the sake of narrative clarity, so too were these faux morsels a popular conception of the canapé.  I’m mildly offended; I love canapés.  

    Strictly speaking, canapés are a class of hors d’oeuvres involving little rounds of bread with some single or series of toppings.  Classically, the bread is punched out from fresh slices with a ring mould, allowed to become slightly stale, brushed with clarified butter, gently toasted, anointed with some sauce which acts as an adhesive for whatever main topping is desired, garnished, and served on individual doilies on a vast silver platter.  They can be complicated, affected, luxurious and delicious.  But do you know what else is a canapé?  Bruschetta.  So is Spam on a cracker.

Mortadella on toasted ciabatta.  Garnishlessness can be a virtue.  

    My canapés rarely involve much more than bread, a topping and a garnish  I can live without toasting the bread if it is dense and sturdy enough.  Those long, thin and precisely sliced rye loaves sometimes found at German butchers and specialty stores make an ideal base.  Lightly toasted (or stale) baguette rounds work well too.  I’ve always found clarified butter a waste of perfectly good milk solids; instead I use salted English country butter; when softened it is an effective adhesive and I haven’t yet encountered a sauce with better flavor.  If the desire to doctor your butter is overwhelming, fold in chopped herbs, some minced shallot and lemon zest.  

    The topping, a seemingly simple aspect to the architecture of the canapé, is often where the assembly goes pear-shaped.  I avoid complicated compounds, favoring instead the single protein sliver or hunk.  In practice this means a fanned-out shrimp rather than a scallop and mayonnaise concoction; a ribbon of parma ham rather than a prosciutto, fig and walnut medley; a room temperature piece of cheese rather than ricotta studded with pistachios, dill and black pepper.  Ultimately, it is just too difficult to improve upon the already well-made, and most efforts, while genuine, obscure rather than enhance.  Ask yourself: do you really feel you can improve upon caviar?  

Make plenty; canapés tend to vanish.

    Garnishes are vital, providing contrast in flavor, texture and color.  Thinly sliced pickled gherkin is ideal.  Pickled anything works though.  Cooked beet is terrific with a bloomed rind cheese.  Seafood often requires little more than a few drops of lemon juice and a slice of tomato.  Shavings of fresh truffle are probably the best luxury garnish.  Herbs, particularly pungent ones like tarragon and basil, are good candidates; sprigs of rosemary and thyme, while handsome, are inconvenient for the guest. 

    Convenience is important for canapés.  They are one-handed, two-bite morsels, and any design or element that challenges that simple dynamic is a poor choice.  Towering arrangements, inedible garnishes, overwrought mixtures likely to let loose down a foulard—these are the results of the cook’s cleverness being put before the guest’s enjoyment.  My wife recently reminded me of a man we silently observed at a wedding last summer.  It seemed he could unhinge his jaw like a python, swallowing the preposterously tall canapés with ease.  Everyone else just avoided them.  The best canapés are approachable, familiar, and delicious, even from across a room.  But if they look like stage props, something has likely gone wrong.

Smart Support

A battered old badge transforms this polo into supporter gold.

    Even the most devoted classical dresser can be coaxed from his worsted and woolen shell when the urge to support a sports team strikes.  This is particularly true at the moment; the World Cup has the unique ability to unearth previously unknown allegiances in friends and colleagues, some hotly defended no matter how spurious the connection.  Pride of this sort can cloud judgment though; who hasn’t witnessed some less-than trim character squeezed into the newer style of painted-on jersey?  Oversized versions are the more common offender, but neither could ever be considered part of an elegant wardrobe, even if rarely worn.  So how can the classical dresser participate without compromising a commitment towards personal style?

    Firstly, why does wearing sports gear chafe the sensibilities of the more classically oriented anyway?  Historically, sports fields and stadia have been a rich source of style.  Polo coats, chukka boots, tennis sweaters, plimsolls, pique polos—all of these items began life as solutions for real athletes.  The social scene that arises around an event was also fecund ground for personal style; Esquire and Apparel Arts sent reporters to cover (American) football rivalries between various ivy league universities in hopes of spotting the newest fashions for their readers.

    The obvious answer is that sports gear has taken a decidedly inelegant turn in the past forty years or so, employing synthetics wherever possible, plastering every available inch with sponsorship branding, and doing away with any element deemed superfluous.  Simultaneously a dramatic change in proportion has occurred; shorts have become longer and baggier, jersey’s often the same.  It wasn’t that long ago that Mike Tyson entered the ring in unadorned black mid-thigh shorts.  He looked menacing and explosive as he surveyed the crowd, most of whom wore tuxedoes for the occasion.  Are we surprised that the advent of bill-board shorts goes hand-in-hand with ring-side seats populated by unshaven, sunglass-wearing celebrities?  

    I almost teared-up when I discovered England’s national kit had forsaken the crisp little collar that made wearing replicas such a pleasure in the past.  France fans are fortunate; their team’s jerseys are particularly smart in navy with white collars.  But, those, too, seem doomed as collarless compression tops become the default style.  I recommend seeking out older jerseys; they may still be synthetic, but even versions as recent as ten years old typically have retained a collar, a tailored silhouette and a less egregious clash of branding.  This is a bottomless well though; secondary markets exist for collectors of vintage and rare jerseys and, like any coveted and limited product, prices can quickly become exorbitant for the most desirable specimens.

A lapel pin never looked so good. 

    If you really cannot bare a synthetic jersey, a subtle, low drama effect can be achieved with a badge or pin.  The truly dedicated might have an official badge sewn on to a well fitting polo; the effect is surprisingly convincing, and no more noticeable than a polo with any other chest-mounted emblem.  I wouldn’t sew a badge on a blazer, but I have worn a pin through the button hole to great effect.  In fact, I attended a garden party during the last World Cup wearing ready-to-wear chinos, the aforementioned badged polo and a lightweight blazer with a small pin on the lapel.  The combination went largely unnoticed until a fellow England supporter spotted me, revealing his own jersey beneath his blazer.  He wanted to know where I found my pin.  

    Finally, scarves, which would be a perfect fan accessory if they weren’t so season specific.  A brightly colored and loudly printed scarf can be worn without fear of looking like a paid mascot.  It can be waived around, held up for the cameraman, or, if your team wins in hostile territory, quickly stuffed into an interior pocket during an escape.  So useful is the supporter scarf, I’m proposing its summer alternative: the supporter cotton neckerchief, to be worn in a square knot  beneath a collared jersey.

Reasonably Seasonal

This Cote de Brouilly could go either way--chilled or cellar temperature. 

    Perhaps four years ago at a lively bistro on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, I sat for lunch with my wife on a particularly hot day.  She was rather pregnant at the time, and perhaps because of this, we were given a table very quickly, despite what appeared to be an impatient lunchtime crush of regulars.  The tables were tightly arranged in the small dining room and so eavesdropping was unavoidable.  Next to us sat two men; while I hesitate to say they were rude, their manner was certainly brusque, and more so than might be excused by local custom.  The waiter, a Frenchman, was patient while one of them studied the wine list, finally jabbing an index finger at a name.  The exchange was brief but perfect:

“Is that the red wine you are supposed to drink cold?” 

“That Beaujolais would be fine chilled.”  

    I was impressed how expertly this professional dealt with what, for lesser waiters, might have been an opportunity for haughtiness.  His response was delivered with a gracious smile, but the message was clear: you may drink that particular Beaujolais chilled because the day is hot and the spirit in here conducive.  As a devoted Beaujolais drinker, I was satisfied.  This young, uncomplicated French wine can, indeed, be chilled.  Some combination of varietal (Gamay) and fermentation method (carbonic maceration) produces light bodied, fruit-forward and yeasty wines without the tannic astringency that would become metallic and flat once cold.  The problem is that the fashion for chilled Beaujolais tends to creep outside of those appropriate moments.  Ordinary Beaujolais doesn’t need a chill to be good, and the Crus (small, pricier producers) can demonstrate complexity and nuance that would be a shame to flatten out with chill.

    When it works, though, few wine experiences seem as clever.  So ingrained is it that red wine should be served at room temperature, that any sign of chill seems an error.  Perhaps this is why red wine is often served too warm; the fear of faux pas creates an overcorrection.  Counterintuitively, Beaujolais almost becomes more serious when chilled.  The signature fruity nose develops juicier and darker notes and a bracing structure can emerge where before there was little.  Well-chilled Beaujolais is also dangerously drinkable, and not unlike rosé, is a practice best reserved for those warm weather daytime events where a few drinks seem less an indulgence than a right.  The waiter was spot-on; chilled Beaujolais is more about atmosphere than correctness—the enhancement of time and place through an unusual practice.  

    A surprisingly similar sensation can be had by going sockless.  A collection of quality, over-the-calf hose can be the difference between dressing and dressing well.  Having multiples of sober colors is an efficiency, and a complement of less serious patterns is the mark of a more sophisticated dresser.  But even the most comprehensive collection can’t compete with the thrill of going without on those warm and casual occasions when even the sheerest, coolest wearing versions stifle.  I adore my own collection of lisle, merino, silk and cashmere, but my favorite day on the sock-wearing calendar is the one when the breeze finds its way between loafer and trouser cuff.  

    But socklessness, like chilled red wine, can creep too.  Any occasion more serious than a non-business lunch or casual outdoor event really requires socks.  I don’t usually look out for ankles, but a bare one at a wedding or business function is hard to ignore.  It’s funny to think of a man’s ankles as being distracting considering our collective tolerance of exposed flesh these days, but somehow that little patch of skin between foot and calf is weighted differently than midriff and décolletage.  Specifically, it signifies leisure.  This is why a tie requires socks; on younger men forgoing the latter looks affected, on older men, like a jarring omission.

    The only real danger in chilled Beaujolais or socklessness is deploying either too regularly.   This is often the case with seasonal indulgences; they only delight when experienced in contrast to the expected.  Of course this cuts the other way too; the instant the practice feels routine, a return to more conventional habits is welcome.  We are blessedly early in the season though, so at least once a week I will be the guy drinking cold Beaujolais, ankles very much in the open.

Hands-On (Eyebrows-Off) Grilling

Those little stalactites of grease and char are what need to be incinerated in order to effectively grill at high heat.  

    For the most visible symbol of American warm-weather leisure, cooking things on a grill is mightily misunderstood.  Outside of places like Texas and the Carolinas, Memphis and Kansas City, “barbecue” is applied to any outdoor moment involving fire and food.  Most of these instances are actually the far less evocative “grilling,” during which someone burns packaged meat over barely contained open flame.  Enthusiasts of the real thing are right to be outraged at the appropriation of the term.  But I wonder if “barbecue” is already one of those lost causes, like the substitution of “chomping” for “champing" when bits are involved.  

    So, to be clear: grilling is cooking things on a metal grate over a heat source; barbecuing is cooking things at lower temperatures for a long time with the purposeful use of wood smoke.  People dedicate their lives to the latter, and, when good, is great.  I have barbecued with what seemed like success, but I imagine my efforts would be ridiculed by aficionados of the discipline.  In any event, a few hundred words on the matter would be like writing a memo with the title: Religion, a Summary.  High-heat gas grilling, however, can be dealt with fairly briefly.  

    To begin, a grill must get hot.  I know when my grill is ready when opening it seems unwise; when my eyelashes curl and my lips feel chapped as I approach; when it is visibly peeling off heat waves; when your neighbor looks warily over the hedges.  These somewhat frightening levels of heat are achieved by allowing your grill to rip at full gas for twenty minutes prior to use.  This is good to do periodically anyway; like a cleaning feature on an oven, very high heat burns away collected char and grease.

    Seasoning the grill itself is important but overlooked.  First use a long-handled wire brush to remove any visible char and ash from the grill.  Cut a large onion in half crosswise and dip the root side into a shallow dish of neutral oil (canola will do).  With long-handled tongs wipe the surface of the grill, re-dipping as necessary.  Excess oil will likely ignite and flare up; this can be spectacular at night.  If you value your arm hair, wear something long-sleeved and fire resistant and do be careful.  Close the lid and wait another few minutes.  The oil and high heat will create a fairly non-stick surface, and whatever goes on it will now emerge with restaurant caliber hatch marks.  

    The classic items for a hot grill are steaks and chops, hamburgers and sausages.  This is where high-heat grilling often goes awry; all of these have large amounts of fat, which, once hot, will run and ignite.  The result is heavy on the char rather than the desirable grilled flavors.  But all the work that has gone into preparing the grill is not wasted if your heart is set on a mixed grill of the above.  Simply allow the grill to even out at a medium gas setting.  Enough heat will be retained in the walls, lid and grill to nicely brown and cook through the meat, but the flame low enough not to incinerate it.  Some people use squirt bottles to extinguish flare-ups; I find closing the lid accomplishes the same with the added benefit of quick, oven-like cooking.

    If, however, you have a father-in-law or colleague to impress and really wish to cook something effectively over ripping heat, you have options.  Shellfish generally have trace fat and enough water content to be fairly foolproof.  A thinly pounded-out chicken cutlet, what the French call a paillard, is another, if slightly more challenging, choice.    But for maximum showmanship, when smoke and fire will be appreciated and little mollusks or fancy French cutlets just won't do,  nothing even comes close to tentacles.  

Grilled Octopus

Three or four pounds of large octopus tentacles, raw or parcooked.  

One teaspoon of dry oregano

One teaspoon of chili flakes

Two tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 cup of dry white wine

Salt and pepper

If the Octopus is raw, gently simmer for one hour (or so) in water.  It is ready when a paring knife slips easily into the thickest section of the tentacle, like a potato.  Mix the marinaded.  Once completely cooled, separate the tentacles and add to the marinade; refrigerate for a minimum of ninety minutes.  Meanwhile prepare the grill.  When very hot, arrange the tentacles on the grill.  Leave covered for two or three minutes before turning for another few minutes.  Remove to a cutting board.  Slice into quarter inch coins and serve with lemon and fresh parsley.

The Rarest Cloth

Little can challenge the perfection of worn-in white linen.

    Whether my collection of handkerchieves is considered vintage I don’t know.  They are old, and rather international, having mostly come to me through my parents before they moved to the US.  I like to think of them comfortably occupying their shelf like a privy council of foreign and wise elders.  Each serves a role, from the plain and modest to the colorful and moody, but the collective purpose is balance.

    They are adamantly not pocket squares though.  That loathsome term suggests delicacy and useless adornment.  What could be more vain than some verboten and fragile little square of cloth worn arranged on the chest?  The purely decorative role is already occupied by the tie; a handkerchief is utilitarian, which is why it is pushed into an easily accessible outside breast pocket.  But whatever panache a displayed handkerchief can achieve will only materialize for the wearer who is committed to its regular sacrifice to spills, sneezes, tears, and comfort.  That willingness to serve is the difference between artifice and chivalry.  

Totally tonal.

    And so the most prominent members of my collection are plain white handkerchieves. They have no color to bleed, nor patterns to preserve.  They have dabbed at every type of tear and are as gentle as mink to a raw nose.  But there is more than just comfort to these old handkerchieves.   That same gauzy character enables the most attractive puff from the breast pocket.  The less described the technique, the better, but the general movement starts with a gentle pinch of the center, a subtle corralling by the other hand and an inexact folding over on to itself before being pushed into the pocket.  Do not look at the results in the mirror—just leave.  This takes almost as much discipline as yanking it into service does.  

    Tonal, patterned handkerchieves work very well too.   An honorable place in my collection belongs to a print by Swiss artist and friend, Claudia Meyer.  This handkerchief is an example of her very early work given to my father when I was a boy.  Faded taupe, charcoal and cream are layered in angular exuberance and deliberate artiness.  The result is the most earnest pastiche of the middle 1980s imaginable.  I once considered framing it, as I’m not entirely sure it is a handkerchief in the first place, but abandoned the idea for fear of having nothing unusual to put in my pocket for gallery and museum events.  

A grouping of Hanae Mori prints: strangely versatile.

    Some more complex little wisp of color and form appearing from the breast pocket can also be effective.  My favorite colored handkerchieves are an old series of Hanae Mori prints in very fine linen.  These are not the pea-cocking color bombs that have become the mark of stylists and glossy magazine editors.   The use of color is instead expertly tempered with sparse arrangement, restrained borders and white space.  Despite the apparent decorative aspect, these are my most versatile handkerchieves.  Depending on how they are put in the pocket the effect can be restrained or dominant and yet they remain fairly casual.  I reach for one of these too often.

    Here is a test: go to your own collection and choose the newest, finest one and blow your nose.  If you can’t bring yourself to use it for its primary purpose, it will never reward you with any of its corollary style.  Repeatedly laundering a new handkerchief won’t produce the same effect; a handkerchief achieves perfection only by use.  I have a few newish ones myself, gifts mostly.  The patterns and make of these are beautiful; I am excited to put one in my breast pocket in two decades or so.

Armoire Bureaucracy

    Designing a piece of furniture is not unlike having an odd jacket or suit made.  The urge to leap into the exciting details of buttons and exuberant linings of the latter mirrors the fawning over solid brass hinges, campaign hardware and knobs that are the finishing touches of the former.  Impatience is ill-rewarded in both instances.  Form, proportion and basic design must first be firmly established and only then should the lily be subtly gilded.  

    Oh how satisfying those finishing touches can be though!  It was a happy realization that my modular armoire almost required a linear, undecorated design as I have long admired campaign style furniture.  These officer’s trunks and cases, desks and bureaus are simply constructed of sturdy hardwoods, the only embellishments coming from brass reinforcing hardware.  As it happened, my bedside tables were already in the campaign style, so a towering armoire was sure to compliment.  And it does, but at considerable personal effort in sourcing convincing solid brass hinges, corner braces and pulls.  

    Interior hardware was another trial entirely.  Finding a sturdy brass tube with matching flanges as a clothes bar was not an easy task.  Plenty of brass-plated versions exist, but fear of flakes raining down on the shoulders and lapels of my clothes like glittering dandruff had me commissioning a solid brass tube from a distant Canadian foundry.  I hacksawed it to precise length, and installed a steel tube snugly within so as to prevent even the faintest sagging under the significant weight of coat hangers and clothes. 

    The problem with storage generally is things like suits and shirts, sweaters and shoes receive the prime real estate, while belts, braces (suspenders) and ties are left to divide the less desirable nooks and crannies.  Neglected accessories are a sad sight, so rather than hastily tacking a tie rack somewhere I am still mulling my options.  I have found some tasteful solid brass strips, each with twenty pegs.  I’m stumped where to install them though; on the inside of the doors will mean constant fear of clamping a foulard when closing the armoire, but hung on an inside wall will bite into the linear storage space.  I will need all 101.4 inches.  

    I joked with a friend helping me move the thing the other day that, should I have to scramble, I could load the two modular pieces of the armoire, fully loaded with clothes, into the back of a truck and be gone within the hour.  I suppose a similar scenario is what motivated the design of campaign style furniture in the first place.    It’s a romantic, though in my case irrelevant, thought.  The true mobility of this design is less concrete; it’s the investment in storage that is untethered to a single place—quite unlike the fortune people are happy to pour into closet space.

Pant-a-Porter

Daddy long-legs: chinos with unfinished hems.  

   Ready-to-wear trousers are rarely ready to wear.  Some tweaking is almost always necessary, if not in the waist or seat then certainly with the hem, which, on better trousers, is left unfinished and long enough for Herman Munster.  A decent alterations shop should be able to turn around a few pairs within a week, which is considerably faster than the two to four months typical of fully bespoke or made-to-measure (customized to a standard pattern).  But if having trousers made is an option, why fool around with ready-to-wear in the first place?  Cost, of course—a consideration that becomes acute when dealing with washable cotton trousers intended for warm-weather wear.  

    Like polo shirts, the instant you start laundering your trousers the dimensions will change.  If you have gone to the considerable effort and expense of having trousers made in a washable cloth you might be unhappy to learn that, no matter the precautions taken, sometime around wash number four the waistband will tighten or a seam will pucker, effectively undoing the precision and labor of your tailor.  This inevitability raises an important philosophical question: what is a tailored garment with uncertain dimensions?   Rather than prod the existential foundation of trousers, I decided to limit the bespoke option to those made of wool and linen.  Put another way, washable, warm-weather trousers should be ready-to-wear.

    Since that happy resolution, I have learned that there is style to be reaped in the somewhat imperfect shapes of this type of trouser.  Whereas bespoke trousers hang in perfectly tapering lines, breaking slightly over the shoe, and moving fluidly with the wearer, the ready-to-wear trouser made of washable cotton might cling or bow, bunch or sag, crease, rumple or wilt.  With use and washing they will certainly fade; with love they will fray.  This character is particularly welcome when a finely tailored jacket is introduced.  Similar to the effect of a sculpted bust emerging from a roughly hewn plinth, the latter serves as a foil to the former, accentuating the beauty that can be coaxed from cloth while preserving the honesty of the medium.  

A beloved pair of chinos drip-dries following a flash downpour.  Notice how they have retained the wearer's shape.

    Not unlike the exciting nomenclature of loafers, casual cotton trousers have their own secret language: chinos, drills, khakis, ducks.  Parsing the precise definitions of each can be exciting for the enthusiast, but the common theme is inexpensive cotton cloth, neutral coloring and lineages that invariably lead to the military.  They have retained the rugged allure of campaign and adventure and this is perhaps why the style endures.  Of course unhappy things result when shoehorned into a business context.  The ubiquitous khaki was never intended as business-wear; that it has become one of the unofficial symbols of corporate dullness is its own retribution.  Wear them to a vineyard, a sports event, even a garden party—anything but a conference room.

    There is one rather important decision to be made at the outset, however.  Sometime following World War II when this style of trouser gained civilian acceptance a sort of division formed between British and American versions.  The former retained some of its Military stiffness and slightly trimmer silhouette.  By contrast, the American version became somewhat fuller, straighter and altogether more casual.  I wouldn’t say the differences are dramatic—it's really an experiential distinction.  This is best demonstrated by comparing the offerings of Bill’s Khakis with those found at Cordings.  The former is a relative newcomer offering three fits, the fullest of which is patterned from a wartime original.  The latter is a rickety shop in London’s Piccadilly that, among heaps of English country clothing, sells chinos in an inimitable cut with the most obnoxious button fly ever conceived.  Both are excellent.

    Finally, I’d like to rally women to the cause of this type of trouser.  Father’s Day promotions tend to be saccharine suggestions of novelty cufflinks and sticky colognes.  These things are better ignored in favor of items that sacrifice sentimentality for practicality and style.    Buy the men in your lives some ready-to-wear cotton trousers—they have both by the armful.

Luxury Tax

Special edition Oldenvault bag: high-grade plastic with hand-applied Sharpie.

   Imagine, for a moment, an object that has some basic utility.  A capacious bag, say.  This carryall is made of canvas with a durable polyurethane coating.  Its thin leather handles are reinforced with synthetic contrast stitching.  Interior zippers are the standard coiled nylon—probably YKK.  It’s a widely available object, from midwestern malls to European metropolises.  Those who notice it find it familiar, typical—a common sight on women and men in both Bangor and Bangkok.  The one extraordinary feature is price: depending on size and manufacturer, these bags go for mid to high four figures.  These are luxury handbags.  

    The mouth-watering retail scenario that large conglomerates enjoy is a perfect storm of covetousness, healthy margins, and distribution that relies upon the sly but brilliant erosion of what luxury really means.  That so many consumers happily display almost identical accessories—that the patterns and logos are so ingrained—means these big names have succeeded in their mass delusion.  I don’t begrudge them; like the dry-cleaning and laundry industry, complacency of the consumer is the chief enabler of lowered expectations.  It nevertheless needs saying, if only for the preservation of an otherwise good word: to qualify, true luxury must be rare, expertly crafted, composed of unusual and limited materials, and, only because of these qualities, be expensive.  Expensiveness alone is lazy.

A modest black handbag made of cowhide, brass and common sense.

    I’m not interested in ranting though.  Instead I’m proposing that real luxury is still available, but only to the consumer who, in addition to expense, must dedicate time, research, creative input and risk into its acquisition.  He or she must act as both the finance and creative departments, budgeting, designing, sourcing, negotiating and inspecting.  This is the approach I have taken with a recent furniture project; it was arduous, frequently discouraging, and, finally, satisfying.  

A canvas and leather carryall, lovingly anointed by the perils of travel.

    I’m curious to see if the same principle can be applied to that most recognizable of luxury accessories—the woman’s handbag.  I’m inspired by two my wife already has, which, by way of my definition above, aren’t all that luxurious.  The materials are humble: cowhide, canvas, brass fittings.  They are substantial and well crafted though, and have noticeably patinated since they were purchased in Spain a decade ago.  This is especially true of the larger of the two, which is her carry-on when we travel and has suffered every calamity a bag charged with that task might endure, from a toppled Bloody Mary to serving as a receptacle for a rather ill infant.  

    The project is ambitious and almost certainly bristling with hurdles.  My hope is that a bag will emerge from the fog that is well made and of excellent components; whether what results qualifies under my admittedly narrow parameters of luxury will be a truer test than any rant against the institution.  If it passes, I might be emboldened to participate further in what might eventually be coined as micro luxury, or, considering the effort involved, lunacy.  I’m open to suggestions for subsequent projects, although I’m partial to a garment bag made chiefly of shell cordovan and keeper's tweed.

Not Quite The Last Morsel

Euro-zone: French, English, Spanish and Italian cheeses. 

    Foreign foods that find popular footing in the US tend to feature some exciting or mildly challenging aspect.  Tapas, for example, questions the structure of a traditional one-plate meal—a concept that has proven so popular in recent years that I yearn for the days when I didn’t have to forfeit my plate to the rest of the table.  Korean galbi and Japanese teppenyaki have a lively interactive element that is enjoying a resurgence; whether they are worth the increased laundry expense I can’t say.  And then there is sushi, which must have seemed very chic (and slightly frightening) when first witnessed here.  Oliver Stone used the allure of raw fish to great effect in Wall Street (1987): the main character, Bud Fox, celebrates his I have arrived moment with an excellent cardigan, The Talking Heads and a hand-cranked nigiri machine. 

    The common theme is we seem to prefer when our foreign food is foreign, which is perhaps why the cheese course is so misunderstood.  Assuming a few wheels of the stuff made it over on the Mayflower, cheese is no more foreign than beer or bacon.  And yet the instant it is served between the main course and dessert the tone changes entirely.  Cheese becomes fancy, overly indulgent and misplaced.  Sad, considering the cheese course is actually an exercise in practicality, harmony and ease.

    It may not seem like a real problem, but often a main course is finished before the accompanying wine.  The appearance of a cheese board is a practical way to extend the savory aspect of a meal until whatever has already been poured (or is left in the bottle) is finished.  It is also a relief to those with larger appetites who might have had a second helping had it been offered.  From the perspective of a host, laying out a pre-arranged cheese course is an effective stalling tactic while dishes are cleared, desserts finished and coffee brewed.  

    But what dour hosts we would make if practicality was our only concern: the arrival of cheese must also be a welcome sight for the diner.  I’ve often found pivoting from my main course to dessert too jarring.  Some greater harmony can be achieved with a cheese course bridging the gap.  The fat, the salt, the mouth-coating richness are an ideal lead-up to something bracing and sweet—almost creating anticipation for the grand finale.  This principle is often reinforced by the presence of some compote, honey or fresh fruit alongside the cheese.  I often serve cheese with digestive biscuits—themselves an ideal concession between savory and sweet.  

    And the cheese itself?  Rather than specific names, successful cheese courses depend upon a basic understanding of the categories: fresh, semi-soft, bloomed rind, blue-veined, firm and hard.  Like wine, the general idea is to move from fresher or lighter to more aged and assertive.  A cheese course can be organized by category, country, type of milk, or a degree of randomness.  While few dishes are easier than laying out a few hunks of the stuff, admittedly choosing from the vast variety can be bewildering.  Fortunately, those people wearing lab coats behind a cheese counter are brimming with knowledge on a hair-trigger release.  My cheese monger knew my name and preferences by the third visit.

    The most important aspect to a cheese course, though, is temperature.  Anything colder than your dining room is going to noticeably mute the full range of flavors.  I take mine out at least two hours before service.  Arranged on a parchment covered cutting board or slab of marble, your cheeses can sit uncovered in a cupboard until needed.  Hard cheeses sweat, softer cheeses ooze and those in between take on a difficult-to-place glow.  The ripe flavors and correct texture is revelatory to those who haven't had room-temperature cheese before.  Strangely, more than colorful descriptions or interesting histories, it is this step that has most often made believers out of cheese course skeptics.

London (Circa 1882) Calling

Let's see... wallet, spectacles, gaspers... Blast! My calling cards!

   Freedom is leaving the house without the need of an overcoat or gloves, and little more in the pockets than a slim wallet.  But when are we afforded so light a burden?  A balmy late-night sundry run?  A weekend brunch?  Even then, phones rarely leave our person for fear of missing a last minute addition or change of venue.  Keys to the house or car end up in one pocket, and if sunny, sunglasses in another.  I must admit, not smoking has less to do with health than it does with the inconvenience of having to haul the paraphernalia.  And then there is the matter of the professional card. 

    I once worked for a small media company that insisted its employees carry reams of cards at all times.  These cards had some sort of glazing which would crack and flake if mistreated in a back pocket; worse, they were oversized squares that wouldn’t reasonably comply with any sort of standard card case or billfold.  Those dreadful cards were my chief motivation in seeking a position elsewhere.  

    And yet there is one type of card that has always appealed: the calling card.  These Victorian holdovers once served as the primary way of letting an acquaintance know you had visited their home, either while they were out performing similar rounds or indisposed in some chamber within.  The complex etiquette of how many to leave and for whom and during what hours etc. is perhaps one of the reasons the calling card fell from favor.  The other reason?  The telephone, which discouraged the urge to show up unannounced on someone’s stoop.  

    Today, of course, the idea is beyond quaint—which is precisely why I decided to commission some.  With the expert guidance of a local print and stationery shop, an idea was born so ludicrous as to completely dispel any whiff of utility: calligraphy.  Someone trained in the craft would actually hand-write something of my choice on one hundred small pieces of paper.  I chose an appropriately grand typeface and a lovely cream stock cut to the standard business card size rather than the larger (but far less pocket friendly) calling card size.  The question remained, though: what to have put on?  

    Tradition calls for little more than a name, perhaps with an important club association.  Business information is strictly prohibited as the calling card is a social marker, not a professional one.  But even I was mortified by the vanity of such handwritten nakedness.  And then it occurred to me; what entity in my life most suits so brazen a gesture?  This very site, of course!  The results are intentionally obtuse, delightfully inconsistent and completely, utterly unnecessary.   In plainer terms: perfect.

    Emboldened by the results, I might have others made bearing my name.  Maybe my wife needs her own.  It might be too much for our toddler, although It would make quite the splash at her preschool. Of course all this card swapping in my future requires another Victorian accoutrement—the receiving tray.  I must remember to call in on my silversmith.  

Calling cards speak louder than words.  

Held in Suspense

Versatile reptile.  

    More than any other element of the masculine wardrobe, trouser fashion is really a function of physics.  Whereas lapel widths might be endlessly variable according to the whims of the influential, the design of trousers takes place within rather narrow boundaries.  They must either be suspended by some means or be low and snug enough to resist gravity on their own.  Fashion vacillates between silhouettes every twenty years or so, but the general architecture of the garment remains a choice between the two.

    While braces and side straps are unquestionably my preference on suits, dinner clothes and most odd trousers, I haven’t banished the belt altogether.  When they fit, jeans should resist gravity on their own, but they look strange without a belt.  Denim, with its pronounced twill and variegated coloring, seems to cry out for something rich put through its loops.  I like substantial bridle leather in mottled tan or mid-brown, and brass for the buckle because steel is pedestrian and sterling far too costly for an accessory designed for less formal use.

    If luxury is the goal, though, it’s hard to do better than alligator or crocodile.  Unless expertly worn, shoes made from exotic skins can easily seem too flash.  A strip of the stuff around the waist, though, provides an appealing texture and welcome departure from the expected matching calf of the wearer's shoes.  I have had a dark brown alligator belt for almost twenty years that still sees regular use.  Some combination of cracked finish, faded coloring, obvious repairs and perceived luxury makes it one of the more versatile objects in my wardrobe.  

A webbing belt in a particularly sedate color. Try one in red, bottle-green or navy.  

    Far cheaper ways of achieving similar pleasing effects can be had with belts made from webbing, ribbon, or crochet.  This is perhaps the best way to introduce a cheeky aspect to non-suit-wearing occasions; a flash of brightly colored grosgrain beneath an open blazer is a well-understood play by style icons past and present.  The most famous example is perhaps the silk ties Fred Astaire threaded through his high-waisted trousers.  Better still, there is a picture somewhere of the Duke of Windsor wearing a pale rope around his tidy waist.  One might be forgiven for wondering if this was a wistful reference to his abandonment of duty—a sort of sardonic symbol of shirked responsibilities. I’m waiting for some brazen young designer to make one of braided coaxial cable in a similar nod to abdication from an expected role.  

    If there is a common theme here it is belts should honor their military and sporting heritage.  “Dress belts,” those slim straps made of anonymous black calf and adorned with sleek buckles, aren’t nearly as useful as belts made from textured, whimsical or somewhat rustic ingredients.  Formal versions of innately informal objects often have this problem.  Belts signify informality, and that’s fine.  Whether braces, side straps or belts, just make sure whatever is doing the lifting is capable; while fashionably slim pants won’t result in arrest, those worn around the ankles very likely will.

Bridle leather in all its thick, mottled glory.  

Field Survey

From top to bottom, a good start.

    Now that Memorial Day (in the US) has passed, any of the largely ignored restrictions regarding seasonal colors and materials are lifted.  White, cream, pastels, linen, raw silk, straw—these shouldn’t look out of place for the coming months.  This is particularly true of outdoor occasions, where whatever reluctance might remain in combining some of the above is assuaged by the prospect of standing in the grass with a Pimm’s.  Nevertheless, the garden party—for our purposes, a social gathering that takes place on or in the vicinity of a lawn—presents additional challenges to those who care about clothing and comfort.  

    I understand women have a whole genre of shoes specifically designed not to aerate the lawn, from flat sandals to stubby and flanged kitten heels.  A different concern lurks for men: moisture.  Grass, when green, is wet stuff, even if following several days without rain.  A prolonged stay sole-deep in the foliage can rather quickly soak through a shoe.  I avoid particularly thin-soled or lightly constructed shoes.  A double-soled monkstrap is good here, or, if you must, a rubber sole in the form of white or dirty bucks.  One word of caution: lighter colored leathers and suedes, spectators, and loafers with twill vamps are susceptible to grass stains.  

    That damp grass creates another problem: ground humidity.  I almost melted once at a charity benefit in mid-weight cotton drill trousers even though it was only in the mild mid-seventies.  If it is sunny, the relative humidity on the lawn will increase sharply.  Instead of cotton, a porous, lightweight wool or linen works better.  The former disperses the damp heat, the latter, at the expense of wrinkles, permits evaporation.  The most important aspect to a trouser in these conditions is porosity; any tightly woven cloth is going to allow rising humidity in without providing much of an escape.  The result is like being stewed from the waist down.  

Porosity is when you can see the garden through your trousers.  

    Porosity is important for your upper half as well.  A shirt in a cool-wearing open weave is important.  Royal oxford is a good compromise between comfort and opacity.  Voile is very cool but is fairly sheer—a problem for those with darker chest hair.  Your jacket should be made of one of the previously mentioned trouser cloths.  I say one of because, depending on the formality of the event, you’ll either be in a suit or odd elements.  Lightweight wool, especially something textured like Fresco, goes well with linen and, it could just be my imagination, but odd jacket and trouser combinations just seem cooler-wearing than suits.  

    Finally, if the sun is truly out, a straw hat is indispensable.  This can seem counterintuitive as it is another layer and the inside band might stick to your forehead.   But there are far worse symptoms of an exposed melon: a higher body temperature, the need to squint, sunburn.  If your head feels hot, simply remove your hat for a few moments and let evaporation do its thing; this will afford an opportunity to display your dexterity in the juggling of cocktail, hat and brow-mopping handkerchief. 

The Shrewdest Shrub

Boxwood bun in need of a trim.  

    I wonder if the display of boxwood is some sort of code for quality within.  When in an unfamiliar place, one can bet the lunch money that the cafe with the boxwood planters will do the best oeuf poché, and would a lousy hotel really maintain a healthy boxwood border in its courtyard?  Of course lesser establishments have caught on to this unspoken signal, and the display of convincing faux shrubberies has confused the matter somewhat.  I’m surely not the only one to have pinched a suspect leaf on occasion to determine the true character of a proprietor.  

    If thickly matted ivy connotes permanence, boxwood, lush and neatly kept, signifies order, elegance and propriety.  We plant ivy when we wish to relinquish control; the cultivation of boxwood is a statement of intent—living evidence to our audience that we wish to carve some rich order into our immediate environment.  Not that boxwood is particularly expensive or high maintenance.  One could just as well plant a few and permit them to grow leggy and wild.  But this seems unlikely--boxwood almost wills its owner into action.

    Happily, pruning is a deeply rewarding activity.  And the tools are exciting.  A proper boxwood border is going to need real hand shears with 18 inch blades, preferably serrated, and sturdy, offset handles.  It takes a certain fearlessness to lay into a handsome row of boxwood, but as long as the cuts are kept to the exterior foliage, and not the interior stem structure, that gusto will be rewarded with the emergence of a rough form.  While intricate spirals and severe geometrics seem appealing, enthusiasm for their upkeep will wane, and what could be sadder than a novelty shrubbery grown shaggy with neglect?  I recommend the soft rectangle; it has the linear character for which boxwoods are famous with a roundness that forgives those Saturdays when pruning falls several rungs below shining shoes or ironing shirts.  

    Once a rough form is established, fine-tuning is best accomplished with a pair of topiary snips.  These should be spring-activated and sharp for cutting through wayward and woody offshoots, and operable with one hand as you'll need the other to brush the snipped pieces to the ground.  Mine look as if they were willed to me by some green-thumbed great grand-father; I’m not ashamed to admit that’s why I bought them from a fancy design store.  I have both small snips and curved hand-shears—both make fast work of refining the boxwood’s rough shape, and with fewer snips than one might expect a polished line will appear.  

Old-timey shears and snips.  

    Pruning is a strange cycle though.  Removing foliage encourages new growth, and those fresh shoots might not mature enough before the first frost.  So I prune in Spring, soon after the first new buds develop.  This, I must admit, requires a strong constitution; lopping off this innocent and tender growth seems criminal.  Persevere though: the only way to encourage density and uniformity is to prune.  Of course over-pruning can be problematic too, creating too dense a shell while starving the interior of air and light.

 Fearlessness, form, patience, perseverance, harmony—boxwood disperses some aerated cocktail of these qualities in its immediate environment.  While handy in determining the better place for brunch, those who cultivate it at home soon learn boxwood’s real value: encouraging these same qualities in its owner.

Looking Pale

Not exactly the face of spring.  

    The visuals of asparagus—newly green shoots emerging from barely thawed earth—cannot be beaten as the chief signifier of spring.  Truly local foraged mushrooms are a near second, but are so much more difficult to acquire, and, it should be said, require real trust in the forager as toxic lookalikes abound.  I associate something else with these undecided weeks that bridge the seasons: Belgian endive.  Actually, we are nearing the end of endive season in North America, but a recent encounter with these curious little nubs reminded me of all their excellent applications.

    Belgian endives are winter greens that are grown in a cool indoor environment completely deprived of sunlight.  They are said to be the serendipitous crop of a carless Belgian farmer, some forgotten roots and his cold storage room.  Like other chicories (frisée, radicchio) Belgian endive has a bitter, vegetal taste, although not nearly in the realm of kale or collard greens which are from the more assertive brassica family.  Manipulating this bitterness is what makes Belgian endive so versatile.  

    Start by eating one raw.  At this time of year they have probably passed their peak, which, in my experience, is late March or early April.  Never mind; they will still be tightly wrapped upon themselves, dense and brimming with mildly bitter moisture.  Notice the microscopic cilia-like hairs thatching the white portions of each leaf and the feathered edges of the chartreuse tops.  Raw endive is a toothsome experience, not unlike iceberg lettuce.  In fact, Belgian endives are a terrific substitute for those ubiquitous and largely tasteless globes: whole leaves on sandwiches, chopped pieces in salads, or—my personal favorite—shredded lengthwise as a crisp addition to shrimp tacos.  Move quickly though: Belgian endive oxidizes once cut.  

    Speaking of browning, Belgian endive caramelizes very well over heat.  The simplest way to experience this is to cut several lengthwise, drizzling the innards with olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper.  Pass each over a hot grill, resisting the temptation to fiddle around with them.  Four minutes later remove to a platter, drizzle with a simple vinaigrette, some freshly snipped tarragon, and announce the results as “a warm Belgian endive salad.”  Warm salads are always a hit, particularly when vaguely from the Continent.

    Still deeper flavors can be produced from the Belgian endive.  Remarkably, they can be braised.  Most would cut each endive first lengthwise, but I find doing so unnecessary.  Instead, aggressively brown several whole endives in an ounce or so of butter.  Browning the butter is inevitable (and desirable).  Add two cups of white wine or (Champagne leftover from brunch), salt and pepper to taste, and reduce by half before covering with foil and placing in a warm oven for half an hour.  What emerges isn’t lettuce-like at all: golden, sweet, complex and soft, these can be served as a side or a vegetarian entree.  I like to think of the dish as a remnant of winter—something asparagus, for all its fresh astringency, will never achieve.

Not lettuce.  

Foulard-y

Notice how the foulard on the left, with its two-color geometric arrangement, appears slightly more serious than the three-color floral pattern on the right.  

    Among the collection of cheap regimentals, novelty and sock ties that were part of my elementary school rotation was a cache of hand-me-downs in neat little patterns.  These had come from my brother’s wardrobe—cast-offs, I suspect, as the 1980s moved from the prep ideal to the more exuberant expressions for which the decade is usually remembered.  I wore them sparingly, savoring the lively hand and pleasing arrangements of color: robin’s egg and cream on a buff ground, or silver and pine layered on deep navy.  Years later I learned these were foulards, not exactly an exotic style of necktie, but a classification that still manages to evade most people’s immediate grasp.

    I think the word—foulard—and its complex associations are to blame.  As one might suspect, the origin is French, but past that etymology becomes foggy.  The most credible theory suggests the term is related to fulling—a traditional process of cleaning and thickening common to many textiles.   In any event, foulard, then and now, is a quality silk twill that, because of its even consistency, responds well to dye—particularly small set patterns in two or more colors.  And this is where the trouble begins: the latter becomes conflated with the former and the result is metonymy—foulard means to various people silk twill and/or any silk with a small repeating pattern.   Further confusing things, to the French a foulard is a silk scarf (think Hermes’ famous prints), but that same fabled house refers to its men’s iconic print ties not as foulards, but silk twills.  

    Don’t be discouraged though; foulards (for our purposes neatly printed silk neckties) are worth whatever linguistic hurdles they present.  While I adore hefty woven silk ties, cashmere, challis, grenadines and knits, I occasionally flirt with offloading them all in favor of a well-edited collection of sensible foulards.  Somehow neatly printed silk strikes the most consistent chord: tidy, unpretentious, rich, sober, endlessly versatile.   That last characteristic is especially important: by varying the scale or number of colors in a foulard, the effect can be dramatically altered.  Large patterns in complex color arrangements are casual—better with flannels and tweed and perfection with dress-stripe shirts.  Neater patterns limited to two colors, say small silver florets arranged on a navy ground, can seem quite formal—even effectively standing-in for more formal woven ties.  

    The pursuit and acquisition of fistfuls of foulards can be foolhardy though.  The effect of wearing one is so consistent as to make a vast wardrobe of foulards unhelpful.  I’m not in the habit prescribing numbers of things, but I imagine half a dozen foulards in various scales and in similar color combinations of navy, red, green, light blue and buff would be enough to avoid monotony.  You will have chosen correctly if, in a dozen years or so, they are discovered by someone and still hold their appeal.

A foulard, made significantly less serious by vibrant colors and a busy, non directional floral motif.  

Volume Button

Fairly plain matte horn buttons rein in linen--a cloth know for having plenty of character of its own.  

    Choosing buttons for suits and odd coats is no arbitrary task.  The general principle is buttons should harmonize with the cloth they adorn—dark brown and black with dark cloth, pale grey and tan with lighter cloth.  I even have inky blue horn buttons on a navy double breasted suit.  But what if contrast is desired?  Or what if a particularly mottled horn button just looks good on a length of cloth?  Button choice can adjust how conservative or fun a finished garment will be in infinite increments, like a tuning knob on a transistor radio.  I knew this in a vague sort of way, but the concept came sharply into focus on two recent warm weather suits.

    One of these suits has patch hip pockets as well as a patch breast pocket—a first for me.  The cloth is a very handsome light brown, something the merchant has romantically named “Tabac” for its resemblance to Connecticut shade tobacco leaf.  The result is a casual suit, if such a thing any longer registers with people who aren’t clothing enthusiasts, and while this doesn’t bother me, I did want some element to help temper the effect.  Enter buttons. Lighter ones—even something lustrous like mother of pearl—would have been in keeping with the casual cloth and styling of the suit, but restraint won out, and matte horn buttons in a harmonizing shade were chosen.  The suit now clings—by the buttons alone—to some slightly more formal echelon.

The cream and bone tones in these horn buttons bring out the lighter elements of the cloth, including the faint overcheck.  

    Worsted, open-weave wool, commonly known by the trade name Fresco, is a strange beast.  In one sense it is a conservative cloth in familiar blues and grays with limited pattern choice and an almost rough, utilitarian hand.  But a closer look reveals a rich mottling created by the high-twist yarn, an incredible porosity, and a springy resilience better suited to sportswear.  It was the latter rather than the former I wished to emphasize on the other of these two suits.  Once again, buttons suggested themselves as the solution.  Chris Despos and I entertained several options of horn buttons, splashing each across my length of “Derby Gray” Fresco.  It was a waste of time: the clear winner was a highly variegated tan, cream and brown horn usually reserved for odd jackets.  Once installed, the effect was immediate, dispelling any stuffiness of the cloth, edging the suit pleasantly toward the casual side of things.  

    Dialing in the character of a garment with buttons can be an enjoyable aspect of clothing, bespoke or not.  But it can also easily be overthought.  Worse, one can easily become lost in the arcane: where, on the formality scale, do smoked-mother-of-pearl buttons exist in relation to two-hole polished bison horn?  The very best scenario involves a bolt of cloth and bin of buttons.  This might encourage an urge to experiment, but once the novelty has worn off, one learns that buttons can pleasantly contrast, but in most instances should all but disappear.