Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2023 i Victoria

Dear Friends For many readers of Victoria, it was words penned by 2016 Writer-in-Residence Frances Mayes that first cast light on the charms of Italy. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she describes a particularly beautiful hilltop vista. Taking in the sights of the lush valley below swirling with fog and nearby trees laden with figs and pears leads her to surmise, “May summer last a hundred years.” In this issue, we visit the author’s adopted hometown, basking wistfullyin the golden glow that so captured her heart many years ago. July/August finds us exploring the byways of Cortona, an Italian village that you are certain to fall in love with on page 25. Come alongside as we peruse the wares of a local market on page 37, make an excursion to…

I have always felt that old houses will tell you their stories if you let them. My suspicions have been confirmed by the manse I’ve only come to live in this past year: my big, drafty, beautiful old vicarage in Oxford, England, built in the year 1887. You need only sit in a real, companionable quiet; watch the way the light falls across the walls, notice the scuffs on the wooden floors, note the shadows where pictures have hung or children’s growth has been marked. The walls of an old house are soaked with the voices and stories of all the people who have laughed and wept in them; they bear traces of hands either careful or careless, hands that beautified, or sometimes didn’t. Occasionally a name is even left…

“I SIMPLY FELL IN LOVE [WITH ITALY]—LIKE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH A PERSON.”—Frances Mayes For many of us, our first introduction to the delights of Cortona came in the 2003 film Under the Tuscan Sun, based on author Frances Mayes’s best-selling book of the same name. The scenes of the busy Saturday market in the Piazza Signorelli transported us to this enchanting place, opening our eyes to the wonders of this colorful region of Italy, certainly worthy of any must-visit list. History wraps this town in a gracious embrace—its archaic buildings girded by Etruscan-built stone walls more than two thousand years old. Nearly two dozen churches, such as the Gothic Revival–style Basilica of Santa Margherita and the thirteenth-century Chiesa di San Francesco, evince Cortona’s strong foundation of faith. The…

Blush-colored tulips seem to bow in reverence to the hands carefully tucking them into an organic, ethereal composition of silky roses and feathered peonies. As the arrangement takes shape, it’s evident there’s a mutual respect between artist and bloom. “I really try to let my senses live in the moment,” says entrepreneur Natasja Sadi. “I have always had every faith in what is offered by nature.” Born in the South American country of Suriname, Natasja recalls early memories of lush, uninhabited lands. After immigrating with her mother to The Netherlands, the blossom trade capital of the world, her kinship with cut flowers truly sprouted. As an adult, Natasja’s creativity sustained itself in every stitch and seam of custom bridal couture. When her family began to grow, she discovered yet…

Sample ten of our favorite peach recipes at victoriamag.com. SEE RECIPE INDEX, PAGE 103, FOR RECIPE INFORMATION.…

Visit our website to read this issue’s online stories and to find more of the content you love. Take a closer look at some of our favorite July/August features: Traditions of Excellence Discover the inspiring heritage of Busatti, an Italian maker of luxury linens known around the world for quality workmanship and iconic signature style. Extending a Welcome Learn secrets of cultivating a lovely yet gracious milieu from Leslie Saeta—lifestyle blogger, social media influencer, and author of A Home to Share. Tastes of Summertime Including our refreshing recipe for Peaches Foster Ice Cream, find ten favorite dishes from the Victoria test kitchens that highlight our favorite stone fruit of the season. A Continuing Story Step into New Orleans emporiumKeil’s Antiques to learn about the most significant treasure in the cache of priceless…

As the incalescent days of summer settle into northern Virginia, gardens bear the brilliant hues and heady scents of the season. Situated less than an hour’s drive from Tallwood, the nation’s capital is gearing up for its annual extravaganza, while Jenny and her family are preparing to commemorate Independence Day—and husband Bret’s thirtieth year of service to our country—in her usual elegant style. “From the days of our founding, the American ideal has bound together those from different walks of life in a most poetic cause: liberty,” says Jenny. “As we are a military family, I hope I was able to capture something of that spirit with this tablescape.” Turning to Over The Moon, a favorite source for all things beautiful—especially difficult-to-find china patterns—she created a setting that perfectly portrays…

“A LAKE IS A LANDSCAPE’S MOST BEAUTIFUL AND EXPRESSIVE FEATURE. IT IS EARTH’S EYE; LOOKING INTO WHICH THE BEHOLDER MEASURES THE DEPTH OF HIS OWN NATURE.”—Henry David Thoreau SEE RECIPE INDEX, PAGE 103, FOR RECIPE INFORMATION.…

For millennia, Chinese cultures controlled a monopoly on fine porcelain production. Their unique methods of combining raw materials such as kaolin, silica, and coarse granite and firing the mixture in high-temperature kilns created milky, translucent wares desired by nobility and influential communities around the world. Unable to correctly examine the hard-paste porcelain from Asia, European factories fired a similar product that was much easier to create: china. Though beautiful, china, or soft-paste porcelain, is much weaker than true porcelain. Driven by the desire to craft the elegant pieces he had seen imported from abroad, Marquis Carlo Andrea Ginori founded Doccia Porcelain Factory in 1735 on the outskirts of Florence in Doccia, Italy. Initially, the firm specialized in creating sculptures from ancient bronze casts, a fashionable decorative element that helped popularize…

Hope Blooms When Queen Anne’s lace blankets the meadow, spinning like saucers on slender stalks, I remember that summer. Following a year of challenges and disappointments, my parents announced the unimaginable: they were buying me a horse. No middle school algebra equation could express the unlikelihood of their decision. Our search for a horse led us across state lines to a small farm along the Ohio-Kentucky border, where a Tennessee walking horse approached from behind the barn. His deep color, an earthy smear of cinnamon and paprika, framed a flaxen mane. A white star blazed across his forehead, taking aim at my heart. I named him Mike. Unlike the other horses at the stable—known as Chief, Thunder, and Sundance—the name spoke to his gentleness and strength. This older horse, a…

I have always been in love with antique blue-and-white anything. Be they lovely bone china plates that feel like silk in my hands or majestic Chinese temple jars, I cherish them all. It’s interesting—I grew up in red rooms with no blue in sight. But there was something about the intricacy of the blue patterns: the peonies, court figures, dragons, and borders that often resembled lace caught my fancy and sparked my imagination. No other pattern looked as beautiful nor juxtaposed so well against any color. A few years ago, I heard a loud crash from my kitchen and was horrified to see that the top shelf of my dish cabinet had broken. Four shelves of gorgeous blue-and-white china now lay smashed on my kitchen tile. After a couple of…

“YOU MAY HAVETHE UNIVERSE IFI MAY HAVE ITALY.”—Giuseppe Verdi…

Built on ancient Etruscan and Roman ruins, Arezzo’s patchwork of period architecture cloaks the metropolis in centuries of rich history and culture. Renowned Renaissance frescoes and musei (museums) spilling over with patinaed relics beckon the scholarly visitor, but the first weekend of each month invites a crowd of antiques dealers, collectors, and enthusiasts to the sloping city center, where more than four hundred exhibitors display the most rare and interesting items. “ITALY OFFERS ONE THE MOST PRICELESS OF ONE’S POSSESSIONS—ONE’S OWN SOUL.”—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison Founded in the summer of 1968 by distinguished Italian dealer Ivan Bruschi, the Arezzo Antiques Fair is the earliest established antiques event in the country, where vendors from around the world arrange their stalls in the trapezoidal-shaped Piazza Grande—the beating heart of Arezzo. Due to the…

New Orleans is a city like no other, where jazz music echoing from street corners seems as commonplace as fresh café au lait and beignets. In the French Quarter, in particular, sojourners find that the captivating atmosphere somehow both soothes their worries and stimulates their senses all at once. It is among these historic avenues that one family has served as proprietors of stunning collectibles for more than a century. Keil’s Antiques has a special story to tell, not only through the breathtaking chandeliers, furniture, and other aged objects it vends to clients but also through its very existence. It is a story of family and enduring excellence. One of the city’s oldest antiques shops, Keil’s was founded in 1899 by Hermina Keil, who emigrated from a region on the…

As a young girl growing up in the Mid-City area of New Orleans, Maria Hardeveld was already entranced with time-caressed treasures, collecting shards of colorful glass and scraps of iron that were magical in her eyes. “If it was really pretty,” she says, “I’d walk up the alley, sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ and give it to my mother.” This early onset affection for vestiges of the past blossomed into a full-bloom fervor, and in 1991, she opened the doors to Antiques on Jackson, located in the city’s enchanting Garden District. The sheer amount of gold embellishment lends an auric glow to the shop’s interiors, as if the sun itself was setting amid the shelves. Though Italian and French antiquities are prevalent, patrons will also find plenty of Spanish, German, English, and…

According to Oscar Wilde, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Yet in the case of one unique collectible, it seems quite the other way around. Debuting in the Victorian era, when oysters were a well-loved delicacy in affluent circles, these intricate platters were designed to mimic nature itself. Oyster plates are trays with several indentations set within—each well moulded to resemble the curvatures of the creature’s open half shell. Early models are said to have had larger pockets, with room for shaved ice along with the shell itself, but due to the abrasive texture of the latter, most iterations instead feature smaller nooks in which the shucked oyster is served. Besides this commonality, there is great diversity among oyster plates. They are made from a wide range…