LI F OFO ES DT& Y LLEI F&ESTY F OOD LE
SUNDAY NIGHT “SPAGHETTI” AT NAN’S This page: Impeccable even at her most relaxed, Nan Kempner was the supreme hostess of New York society.
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WHENEVER NAN and Tommy Kempner were in town, Sunday nights were super-special occasions. Unlike the more formal seated lunches and dinners for 12 to 18 during the week, these Sunday parties were blockbuster sit-all-over-theapartment buffet suppers for 30 to 120 guests, several times a month. The phone would ring and there was Nan: “Do come for a spaghetti dinner,” her tone implying an evening as cozy and relaxed as something any old housewife might slap together for a crowd. Hmm. For more than 50 years, Nan’s Sundays were legendary: bacon sticks passed on silver trays with pink Champagne swirling through the apartment before the dining room doors opened. Ta-da! Round buffet tables set with cheerful Porthault linens served as backdrop for the most scrumptious spaghetti carbonara—and handshaved (read: exotic) Parmigiano Reggiano with major-domo Bernardo there shaving it. Plus trays of cold meatloaf with mustard sauce; sides of smoked Scotch salmon; platters of France’s most decadent cheeses; and arugula with balsamic—before anyone’d heard of either. Silvina, Bernardo’s wife, was the Kempners’ chef and had incredible talent—something I call “the touch.” A natural cook, a dream. But the reason that absolutely every morsel ever served in that house was so memorable was because both Nan and Silvina collaborated on each menu, each dish, each recipe, together. Their union was gourmet virtuosity.
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
BY ALEX HITZ