Simply, Beautifully

A Home-Cooked Meal Every Night SIMPLY, BEAUTIFULLY

SARAH I loved to cook from the time I learned how to make a Béchamel sauce in third grade. Starting in about fifth or sixth grade, I asked to become the family cook during the summer. I loved it—I just loved it. I got what seemed to me like a serious salary, $4 a day. My mother would take me to the supermarket. She would allow me to choose what we were buying. I didn’t really have cookbooks. I just made stuff up or saw how things were done. I had heard of lobster bisque, so I decided to make it. We were in Maine. Why not? I knew how to make a cream sauce, I knew how to cook a lobster, and so—let’s see— how would I do this? I’d cook the lobster so I could get it out of the shell and then make a little cream sauce, and then dilute it with milk and broth and my mother would say, “Well, maybe throw in a dash of sherry.” And I’d throw in a dash of sherry, and I made delicious lobster bisque. I always cooked. I cooked from early childhood on, and I cook like a maniac to this day.

LUCY POE It was one of the only times she helped me with my homework. If I came to the table while she was cooking, she gave me as much attention as I wanted. There was no other time that I got that. That stuck out for Nick and me.

NICK POE She always had a window box hanging out of our kitchen. She grew herbs and stuff there. She cooked all the time, every single night. I think we ate out at a restaurant maybe two or three times growing up. If she was too tired to cook, which was rare, we would order in Chinese food or Indian and eat on a blanket. But she almost always cooked. We would eat with a candle. Simply, beautifully. She took a lot of pride in that.

LUCY POE My mom taught us manners. We put our napkins on the left side, folded in a triangle. You put the fork on top, you put the knife on the right. It was someone’s job to set the table and someone’s to clear it. Someone’s job to pour the water. The TV had to be off. The lights were all off or dimmed and we had candlelight. You put the water glass on the top right. You say grace—we would say grace almost every night growing up. And my dad, who was so absent for so many things, would be at dinner at seven o’clock every night. No matter how different our lives were, we gathered every night for dinner. Us four, no matter what. Being an adult now and seeing what people’s lives are like, it is so surprising that was our reality every single night.

KATE LINKER There was a time when she needed a new stove and she said, “Amos has to understand that if he doesn’t get me a proper stove, I’m not going to make the Portuguese fish stew that he likes. I will not be able to make it.” Portuguese fish stew is always in my mind when I think of her and Amos and Great Jones Street.

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Teacups; 2002, from the series Neverland, Fuji Crystal Archive Print, with lacquer frame, 41.5” x 31.5”.

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