Patti - New Orleans, LA

Making a smoothie is one of Beatrice and Patti’s rituals. Beatrice looks forward to the day she can make Patti breakfast by herself, but for now, the smoothie takes two. From frozen bananas to feeding the dogs an off brand of peanut butter Patti is trying to get through, watching them work together, is a window into an intimate friendship and a continued conversation about taste. They enjoy getting fresh mushrooms from the Co-op every Thursday that come from a farmer in Saint Francisville. And when Patti buys bread from Bellegarde Bakery, Beatrice observes: it’s sweet. She can taste the difference in the freshly milled flour.

When Patti first bought her camelback house in the nineties, she was a new mother, her son less than a year old. The exterior looked like the Adam’s family (Patti’s words) and the electricity needed an update. The kitchen was squeezed into a back room upstairs, counters opposite a water heater. She moved the kitchen downstairs to make room for her son’s bedrooms. She kept a mental scrapbook of the kitchen she wanted one day, drawing inspiration from a friend’s Soho loft who collected vintage Fiesta. When time and money allowed, she updated her kitchen nine years ago with a scene stealing orange fridge and a beautifully veined Corian countertop. She said that choosing the counter was the easiest decision she made. She instantly gravitated towards the surface she wanted to touch. 

Patti designed a triangle arrangement between stove, fridge and sink with plenty of room to glide across the gleaming pine floor. A life long student of ballet, Patti cooks with a dancer’s reach. A friend made the dining room table that anchors her kitchen. It was planed from a reclaimed Cypress tree left by loggers in the Atchafalaya Basin. 

There is a knot in the table where a sequin fell off one of Beatrice’s art projects. Beatrice shows me. It’s in there somewhere, so deep we will never find it.