I love the feel of japanese rice papers. The silky strands of fibre imperfectly pressed and knobbly yet smooth and lustrous. I love how ink saturates them, spreading in slow motion like red wine knocked over white linen. The texture and elusive tactility of all things hand-wrought is inimitably sublime.  Refined tactility thus becomes almost a holy art, a sort …

Simple is not a shortcut. It is not even cheating. It is learning to appreciate the essential. Understanding the essence. Simple can be complex. Simple can layered. But most of all simple food is soul food, warming the palate and the heart. It is food that we remember when we close our eyes. Food we remember on a hot sunny …

To be chic is to have fun! To play roles, dress up, be whimsical! Love the bygone ’50s years? Hunt down swirly sundresses and learn to be a lady again, dote over pre-war glamour? Bring on the waves and rolls! Pout only if it makes you smile inside, laugh if your teeth sparkles and your tongue is a perfect pink …

I have learned recently that beauty can be so achingly simple, so heart-wrenchingly raw and austere and pared down and so imperfect. What makes things beautiful? The masters of classical design idolized symmetry and refinement above of all else. Perfectly styled stills? I think not though it would be almost blasphemous of me to say so with all that I …