Le Doyenné
More four hour lunches s'il vous plaît
Yesterday I luxuriated in a four hour lunch in the French countryside.
A day trip from Paris simply to eat lunch is one of the most beautiful, decadent things I have ever done. What struck me most wasn’t the status of dining at this echelon of restaurant. It was the time. The care. The slowness. The feeling of being held inside precise intention for an entire afternoon. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and quite frankly, don’t know how to talk about “well-balanced dishes” or culinary technique. What I do know is that a single bite of carrot felt like an argument for paying attention.
The hors d’oeuvres set the tone. Almost everything at the beginning was one bite. Sometimes two. A crudités platter where each vegetable was presented once: a bright yellow carrot, a radish sliced in two, a nasturtium leaf wrapped around sweet and bitter orange. Vibrant and wondrous in flavor, gone in a single mouthful. A sunchoke, a beet: admired, savored, discussed.
Yes, there’s something a bit pretentious about a solitary bite of a vegetable being so revered. And yet. And yet! The focus that such an impactful bite commands feels like the perfect expression of the belief that if something is done at all, it’s worth doing with utmost care.
In a country where long meals are not an exception but a cultural fluency, this lunch almost felt like a rite of passage. One dish after another revealed the best version of each ingredient that I have ever tasted. Outside, the light shifted through the garden. It was only when the shadows grew long and I recalled that the sun sets just shy of 5:30 that I realized this had been a lengthy endeavor. It’s a particular luxury to forget about time entirely, to be so absorbed in a meal, in the company around you, in the rhythm of eating and talking and noticing, that the afternoon quietly slips into early evening.
It reminded me that I want to be more protective of one particular aspect of my life: the ability to be fully present. To become entirely absorbed in a sensory experience. To linger without distraction. To remember that paying attention — really paying attention — is one of the most meaningful privileges we have.
