After this week’s L.A. detour, I’ll be getting back to Ojai updates. In the meantime, if you’re into growing food, I’d love your opinions on what to add to our future garden planters. Head on over to the Chat, where I’ve been getting great ideas and local insights.
Soon after I launched Homeward, I received a note on a chat thread from Laurie Cambra Seplow, who described her kitchen as “Nancy Meyers meets authentic Madrid.” She included photos of a double sink with two faucets, a shelf of cake pedestals above it, and a marble-topped baking area with a backdrop of neatly stacked dishes. It was a kitchen that had been carefully assembled rather than overtly designed, and it was clearly heavily used, not just for show. Everything had its place and was within reach.
I detected an intensity to the space that you don’t often see in modern home kitchens, which are designed as if to conceal the owner’s personality—to favor clean lines over any sign of human touch. Laurie noted that she has a classic 5-oven Aga, and added, “It’s perfect for our 30-person Thanksgivings and our 50-person Paella Christmas Eve parties.” And thus I discovered the source of the intensity!
Kelly and Laurie (right).
Laurie, who is a non-profit executive and lawyer, renovated her home seven years ago with the designer Kelly Van Halen. The house had been owned by the actor Fred MacMurray. “It was his bachelor pad,” Laurie said, “It didn’t even have a laundry room.” The two enjoyed working together so much that they founded Cambra Carter, a property development company committed to using a portion of profits to help victims of abuse rebuild their lives. Proceeds from their first house will go to ASISTA, which provides technical support to attorneys who represent immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and human trafficking.
I dm’d Laurie, and soon afterward took her up on an invite to visit her house. I like checking out people’s houses and I’d love to feature others’ homes on Homeward (hint! hint!). Today is our inaugural house-snooping tour! Laurie will show us her marvelous kitchen and also share her wildly impressive Thanksgiving menu and the Martha-inspired mac-and-cheese recipe that’s become her family’s holiday staple.
Let’s take the tour!
SETTING THE SCENE
“I think we succeeded in making the sight line going into the kitchen as welcoming as possible. Yet, I didn’t expect just how great it would feel in the kitchen when the doors are closed during my coffee and contemplation hour. Kelly really knocked it out of the park with these pendants. The way they integrate with the ceiling is just amazing. Pardon the pun, but chef’s kiss. And, don’t even get me started on the door knobs: the living finish of the oiled bronze, the subtle detail, the scale.”
The brick wall, wood beams, and dark furniture evoke Laurie’s Spanish heritage. While she grew up in California, her mother’s family lives in Madrid and her father is from Hawaii. “I always say my parents bonded over having rice with eggs for breakfast, because they do that in Hawaii and they do that in Spain.”
The centerpiece of the kitchen is a wood table, not an island. “The little house on the Spanish prairie where my mom grew up didn't have a living room, just a room with a large dining table. My favorite childhood memories are of sitting around the table with my family and numerous visitors, including monks from the town’s monastery, eating fruit, drinking wine, and discussing politics.”
Laurie’s wood table serves as both a gathering place and work table. “I put an oilcloth over it, and when I'm cooking, I'll sit here and chop. The night before Thanksgiving, everybody is sitting around the table working on something.”
THE BAKER’S NOOK
Laurie designed the kitchen to have stations for different stages of cooking. This is her baking area. She aspires to bake but doesn’t do it herself; she created this corner for the bakers (family and friends) so they wouldn’t be bumping elbows with the cooks, who have their own area for chopping and cooking. “Everything has a utility in the kitchen.”
A RANGE WITH RANGE
Laurie’s favorite part of her kitchen is her black Aga. “It makes me happy every day.” On a classic Aga, each of the five small ovens heats to a set temperature (the “warming oven” heats to 165°F, the “roasting oven” to 465°F, etc.), and the stovetop hotplates have two modes: boiling and simmering. It’s a range that you have to get to know over time—she calls this learning curve the “Aga saga.” The range, she said, “drives my daughter nuts; she can’t stand it.” But Laurie is smitten: “The whole thing is amazing because I can literally do 15 dishes at the same time in there.”
VERSATILE LIGHTING...
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