FOREST & BLUFF MAGAZINE FEATURE + SETTING AN ELEGANT TABLE

Our dining room, table set for a spring dinner. Photo by Monica Kass Rogers for Forest & Bluff.

Landing on the April 2018 cover of Forest & Bluff was an absolute honor! Magazine editor Sherry Thomas and photographer Monica Kass Rogers recently spent the day in our home, highlighting the dinner Tim and I are hosting for Ragdale's cornerstone benefit,  Novel Affair.  (we're thrilled to have Novel Affair guests, including acclaimed authors Curtis Sittenfeld and Megan Stielstra, in our home for the April 28th event).It was such a fun day and I feel incredibly lucky to have met and worked with these two extraordinary women.

Photo by Monica Kass Rogers for Forest & Bluff.

Spring table setting, including glasses from Molly Flavin, my mother's silver, and 1820's English Derby porcelain.

Bud vases filled with jonquils and daffodils echo yellows from the main arrangement.

Another topic of conversation the day of the shoot was my love of setting a beautiful table. It brings me almost as much pleasure as creating a menu and preparing it! My approach is akin to putting together a great outfit—mixing pieces and never wanting it all to come from the same place or the same period. And I love a diminutive bouquet or plant at each place setting for guests to take home at the end of the evening. Last fall I gave a Napa themed dinner where miniature rosemary plants in rustic pots dotted the table—beautiful and enduring.

Thank you for the honor, Forest &Bluff! Though the dinner at our home is sold out, we are only one of several homes hosting author dinners. All proceeds benefit the not-for-profit Ragdale organization. Click here to read about all of the authors and homes, and to purchase tickets. 

Additional photos and the full article where we discuss the dinner and much more, can be found here. And I promise to share the recipes from my menu in the coming weeks!