The Rustic Kitchen

Spring always makes me feel like heading for the market and then of course the kitchen.
Bunched baby carrots with feathery green plumage waving enticingly from the market trestle, slender leeks with their fresh and wiry, dirt encrusted roots and sublime colouring - deep forest green fading to milky white like the most perfect watercolour. I find miniature spring onions displayed like flowers in a vintage vase at the neighbouring stand - is it not a crime to pick them when they are so small ? I consider trying to replant them under the kitchen window when I get home but decide that the abundance of spring allows for the odd culinary sacrifice.
I have a plan - it is spring and time to make a lamb navarin. This simple French dish is spring on a plate and an annual ritual - it somehow closes the door on winter and always rekindles memories of France.
An earthy fragrance scents the room as soon as I empty the vegetables onto the counter - the soil scatters across the well worn marble top like veins. I rummage through the chaos of our cutlery drawer and find my favourite 19th century knife - the familiar handle slips into my palm, comfortable, as if it had been made bespoke to fit my hand. I notice again the slight imperfection in the beaten silver collar and know that the century old blade will slice with ease as I prepare the vegetables for the navarin. I spot the gentle pea green speckle of the enamel casserole dish at the very bottom of the wooden crate on castors that stores our pots and pans. I lift the weighty dish and nudge the crate. It slides ghost driven back under the counter - our new self closing system installed by the earthquakes conveniently tilting the kitchen floor.
I smile as I watch the crate slide back into place and I think of all the outstanding meals I have enjoyed over the years that invariably come from small or simple, rustic and functional kitchens. Kitchens that produce food just as heavenly, if not more so, than vast artistically lit, appliance laden galleys boasting myriad modern wonders.
Our setting this month at Haunt is a wistful ode to the rustic kitchen. Kitchens where families gathered, pots aux feux bubbled routinely on stove tops, potatoes were peeled at the kitchen table and drawers creaked and groaned as they were opened and closed.
This gracious 18th century, cherry wood buffet a deux corps hails from Aix En Provence. The interior has been lovingly lined many years ago with a traditional Soleilado style fabric - an authentic and quintessentially Provençale touch. This charming cupboard would be a pretty and practical feature piece for a modern rustic kitchen.