How is it that modest expense and good taste always seem to go together?
The cocktail dress. Doesn’t it always look more sophisticated with a great necklace, or a great pair of earrings, but not both?
The house. Doesn’t a modest, lovingly kept dwelling with a pleasant view feel much more stylish than a sprawling exurb estate with four game rooms and a seven-car garage?
Dinner. Doesn’t the idea of a simple, perfectly roasted chicken paired with a lovely glass of unfussy wine inspire more urbane desires than a 75-ingredient, four-process fusion dish of eel-roe and saffron gelee paired with a sugar-rimmed blue cocktail?
And isn’t each more-stylish image described also the less expensive one?
What is it about the clarity of simplicity, and the light touch of thrift, that is so unexpectedly chic?
I think it’s the a vivid confidence suggested by an unembellished sheath, or a simple home, or a plate free of complication. Someone had a lucid, contained vision and, with a healthy respect for resources, executed it cleanly and honestly and with certainty. Modesty, in dress or life or food, suggests an admirable sense of assurance. Of authenticity. Of humanity.
Overwrought, conspicuous things (gaudy jewels, overgrown homes, thrice-fused entrees) too often reek of confusion. Anxious and unseemly, they flirt with, or embrace, vulgarity. Rare is the artist who can over-adorn (Lacroix), overdesign (Gehry), or overchef (Achatz) while remaining articulate.
As we drift as patiently as we can through this intersection of recession and holiday time, we bemoan our losses, our sacrifices. Which, perhaps, we are entitled to do. Many of our citizens are truly suffering, and after all, self-bemoanment is free, easy, and, to a point at least, therapeutic.
But as we collectively pay closer attention to the cost of things, we’re also blessedly reminded of the inherent correctness and clarity of simplicity, and the attendant beauty of thriftiness. Suddenly (again) having the best and biggest of everything doesn’t seem so great. Suddenly (again) competence and clarity are more meritorious badges than spending power or job title. Suddenly (again) clean and simple thinking and the frugal husbandry of ideas into things are what’s valued most.
I admire the home cook who’s able to coax and develop ingredients into tastes authentic to their origins, not the one who remakes them into forms and flavors unreminiscent thereof. I revere the cook who cooks to connect, not the one who cooks to stand out. I study the one who sings with food, not the one who shouts with it.
It is this first cook, the one who sings and coaxes and connects, who I’ll work to be this season. I’ll strive to sate long- held cravings rather than shock with ill-informed reinvention. I’ll stand behind the simple, inexpensive ingredients I know well. I’ll work to deepen my knowledge of my products and processes, to reaquaint myself with their essences and nuances, to acquire and shepherd them with care, to waste nothing.
This season, I’ll embrace for modesty, clarity, simplicity and good taste.
And bet on this: I’ll save money doing it.
