At Home with
Nigel Slater
Can you re-imagine your home to be a place of personal freedom? Rather than simply a container full of objects and colours and furniture – it can become a conduit for you to live your best life? A place for you and others to truly collaborate and be fully creative? Sometimes it could be an environment of deep, deep calm. At others, it can provide the framework for gatherings of many around your table – happy and joyfully noisy times. Sometimes it is the place where you potter – in the garden, at your stove or over and inside your books. But it is a space where you and others feel right and cared for.
Nigel Slater’s house is deeply, deeply comfortable. I cannot express this enough. Its atmosphere is one that embraces the deep connection between it and its owner. It is an animate space which Nigel takes enormous care of and everything inside it. It is incredibly beautiful, but mostly it is comfortable in a way that is rare.
Nigel welcomed us in with joy and ease. A quiet and detailed tour of his home and the story they have built between them. There was much conversation about the importance of the right colour in the right place. And where it still wasn’t right – but will be dealt with at some point in a somewhat unplanned but also planned future.
We discussed the details of things that are important and the things that are not. The love of objects – of which there are more than you think. And the joy of a home that provides him with the life he loves. He is truly the care taker of it. He lives within his home, which is rare and beautiful.
Walls in Night
It is painted in mostly neutral hues – some of them ours, some others, all beautifully connected. But he did confess a love of orange, which slides in, unexpectedly, but very happily. There are big sofas, and tiny, perfectly imperfect bowls. There is a beautiful basement kitchen for him.
And then there is a separate kitchen that I think of as being for all of us. The place where so many recipes have been created, made, photographed and shared for the goodness of others – for you and me. The Kitchen Diaries lives on in all of our lives. There is the spaghetti bolognese my husband made for his children every single weekend. A happy Thursday evening spent preparing, so that the weekend could be spent caring. There is the duck recipe we cook every Christmas, and the carrot cake that I swear cannot be bettered. Recently baked for a young friend’s surprise birthday lunch, it has baked in a long-term memory for all. Nigel has woven a place in all of our kitchens and it is one of generosity, comfort and gentle precision.
There was lunch and cake and many discussions on life and living. And then we left, truly satiated. And Nigel went back to his work of making goodness for all of us.
I think that Nigel and his home can teach us what it is to be fully connected to how we choose to live. That selecting possessions with truthful care is essential. And that living your best life at home is about understanding who you are and fully inhabiting how you would like to live.
Aren’t we lucky to have him in our lives.
Walls in Foundation
Walls in Foundation
Walls in Foundation
Walls in Foundation
Walls in Night
Walls in Night
Walls in Foundation
