#mimithorisson

From the Box Marked “Keep”* You, sitting on my kitchen chair, chipping apples into a bowl in your lap, my garden pail at your feet. Your hands, in a familiar circuit of movement, do not stop as you inquire of me, as though a stranger, ‘Do you KNOW how many apples there are?’

21-22 January, 2017

Where to begin...

When you have an abundance of beautiful food, fresh flowers and someone you can take a romantic walk with on the beach...what more can you ask for?

This Saturday has been the National Tulip Day of the Netherlands, and it was also the morning I spent the most time deciding on the colour of the bouquet. Eventually I went with the “two from every colour” approach and it turned out really pretty. I can’t help smiling when I look at them on the dining room table. 

But I could not resist a pretty pink bunch of chrysanthemums, which according to my father were gerberas, and he insisted they were, so I had to take out one and really show him up close on Facetime, so that he finally believed that I knew my flowers. 

I prepared two trademark dishes of Mimi Thorisson, a cherry clafoutis with orange blossom water and baked apples with lardons, goat cheese and walnuts. My approach to orange flower water has become the following: everything that can have it, will have it. 

Oh and the best thing: Szofi calls me Mimi. She can’t pronounce Nyunyi, this little affectionate nickname we use to call each other with her Mom, so she came up with Mimi and she keeps requesting Mimi, whenever she sees a delivery guy (because I often send her carepackages) or when she is preparing food for “Vau”, the little doxie on a leash I bought her. We Facetimed a little on Saturday and those girls always melt my heart. 

I have been reading a lot of Vogue Paris in the weekend, and I’m so happy with the progress I have made with my French. I can read and understand full articles now, without using a dictionary. Then of course, I check every word I don’t know, but still, I have come a long way. 

We went to the beach on Sunday to get some fresh air and to refill on vitamin D. The beach is full of shells, crabs and starfishes, I have never seen so many in my life. I added a few items to the collection, and I think in a couple of years we will need a room for “the things I found on the beach” alone. 

I realised I live from weekend to weekend. Correction: I try to survive during the in-between time. But it is not that terrible, especially with these amazing colleagues I have, who brought me a postcard of The Goldfinch, a favourite painting of mine, from their visit to the Mauritshuis Museum. Those increíble Spanish girls <3 And my Japanese project manager gave me a heating pad the other day when I was shivering from the lack of heating in the office. 

An Ode to Mimi

The book of this wonderwoman arrived in the mail today. I remember how happy I was when I got the first one for Christmas from David two years ago. That winter and the coming spring I was constantly cooking (and instagramming) delicious, French, Mimi food and we simply could not have enough of her trademark dishes.

All of that happened in a Hungarian kitchen, in the fifth district of beautiful Budapest, and this new chapter is going to take place in the Netherlands, in Haarlem, in this cozy loft of ours. A lot of things can happen in two years…

But back to Mimi: what I love about her recipes is that they are easy to make and incredibly hard to mess up. It always turns out as it should if you follow the instructions, so it always gives you this immense, satisfying feeling of success and accomplishment.

Manger food is seasonal, effortless and delicious, and I can’t wait to start exploring book number two: French Country Cooking. In the meantime I’m also translating Vogue Living Nederlands from Dutch to English, because they visited and interviewed her in Médoc and I just couldn’t help buying the magazine. You see, it is not just the food, but also her style, her way of living and approach to life that I admire.

So this role model of mine is not only helping me in the kitchen, but also with improving my Dutch.

Merci infiniment Mimi, for every blogpost, every book and every little wonder you are giving the world.