Village Champion

Fashion / Food / Travel

Having decamped from Paris to a restored house in the country, art director Charlotte Huguet rustles up inventive recipes to entertain her many guests. In the process she has become an advocate of rural living – so much so, she wrote a book on it.

Charlotte Huguet is on her way to her local village bakery. The single-lane main street of Barbizon, which is lined with a tiny crêperie, a butcher and a small supérette, is in its mid-morning slumber. An ice-cream van waits for customers on the cobbled pavement. “We’re lucky,” says Huguet, as she buys a quarter of a loaf of natural sourdough with linseed, three meringues and a dozen madeleines for her boys, Leonardo and Solal. “Barbizon has everything you need –and lots of good restaurants.” We stroll to the next crossroads where the lane narrows and high hedges hide houses built in rustic natural stone. The green iron gate to Huguet’s home stands open, and a yellow garden hose curls in the sun on the lawn in front of the two-storey house with its green shutters. 

We step into a wooden kitchen where Huguet unloads her shopping onto the worktop. “We were in Sardinia and returned from our holiday the day before yesterday,” says the art director, slipping off her Birkenstock sandals. She is wearing a midnight-blue ankle-length silk dress with spaghetti straps by Datura from Mallorca. Her shoulder-length blonde curls are still damp from her morning shower. “Every year, we go on extended trips to southern Europe and always let ourselves drift a little on the way there and back,” she says. 

She and her husband, Emiliano Schmidt-Fiori, are both passionate about cooking and use their Italian forays for inspiration. “A few days ago in Sardinia, we ate pasta with bottarga, or Sardinian caviar, at Il Cormorano restaurant in Castelsardo, and I want to cook it again,” she says, lining up her ingredients on the worktop. “Instead of pasta, I’m serving the mullet roe, which is called poutargue here in France, with radicchio. I bought this one this morning from an organic producer in Jardins de Courances around the corner. The slightly bitter flavour of the radicchio goes wonderfully with the spicy, smoky flavour of the mullet caviar and creamy stracciatella.” 

Huguet begins to cut the burgundy-hued leaves and lay them out in a semi-circle on a shallow brown ceramic plate. The stracciatella, which she has mixed in a small bowl with a fork, is filled into the stalks of the lettuce leaves and the dried fish roe is grated on top. A second layer of leaves is placed, slightly offset, over the first layer and garnished accordingly. When the plate is full, Huguet decorates the salad with small sprigs of thyme. “I often cook intuitively; I like to improvise,” she says over her shoulder as she drizzles a little lemon over the salad to finish. 

Huguet’s passion for cooking goes back to her childhood. “When I was little, I carried a notebook around with me” she says. “Every time I ate something I liked, I asked for the recipe and had it written down in my book.” She puts the salad to one side and takes ceramic plates out of the cupboard – handmade, pastel-coloured crockery by Marion Graux, Léa Baldassari and Lola Moreau – to set the table in the garden. “I collect ceramics. I’m fascinated by the fact that every piece is unique and tells its own story. The imperfection of each object is poetry for me,” she adds, turning to the preparation of the dessert. “There is a reference to pavlova, a meringue cake filled with cream and fruit,” she says. “But my version is less time-consuming to prepare.” 

Huguet whips the cream until stiff, adds a pinch of brown sugar, then spreads the cream over the crumbled meringue that she bought from Guillaume Potherat this morning. Finally, she garnishes the frothy dessert with whitecurrants, blueberries, raspberries and thyme. “In my eyes, thyme goes wonderfully with desserts,” she says. “We go to the Ardèche every summer. There, I make a slightly sweetened, quick-cooked jam with wild thyme from collected blackberries.” It’s a balmy day and the garden beckons. Huguet carries the salad, crockery, glasses and cutlery across the wooden veranda onto the lawn, where a long wooden table stands on trestles in the shade of a tall lime tree. A natural-coloured linen tablecloth from Élitis flutters gently in the wind. A lemon butterfly lands on a marigold next to the table. 

“My husband grew up close to nature on an estate in Tuscany, with horses and other animals,” she says. “He was the one who persuaded me to move away from Paris 10 years ago.” The house that the couple found in Barbizon, about an hour’s drive south of the French capital, was in ruins. “We completely gutted and renovated it, added an extension and a workshop.” The atelier was for Schmidt- Fiori, who builds tiny houses with his company, Sycomore Tree. He also designed the furnishings here in Barbizon. “Emiliano’s style reminds me of [French architect and furniture designer] Charlotte Perriand and the American George Nakashima,” says Huguet. 

Huguet studied art, textiles and fashion at the École Duperré in Paris and worked as an interior stylist at Elle for two decades. Two years ago she left her steady job and now works as a freelance consultant and stylist. At home, there’s an effortless elegance to her approach to entertaining. She fetches a green ceramic jug of water from the kitchen and fills the glasses. She works three days a week in Barbizon and two in Paris. “Coronavirus changed a lot of things,” says Huguet. “I’ve realised the inestimable value of working independently in my own workshop, like my husband does. I now live differently and consume less, which makes me happier,” she adds, taking a seat in a wooden chair with a backrest. 

Huguet has also proved to be a pioneer by moving to the countryside. “Some of our friends did the same – after initially advising us against realising our plans,” she says. She and her husband were most often told that they would be lonely. In fact, the opposite was the case. “I invite friends and neighbours over once or twice a month for lunch or dinner. It’s not unusual for us to be 20 adults and 20 children. The garden offers much more space than our previous flat in Paris.” 

Inspired by her Italian mother-in-law, Huguet then prepares a large pasta bowl and salads. With these dishes, it doesn’t matter if there are one or two more guests at the table. “I really enjoy introducing people I love to each other,” says Huguet, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It makes me happy to see others coming together.” Huguet’s husband, Emiliano, wiry with a mottled beard, comes out of the workshop, an L-shaped flat extension to the house. Leonardo and Solal, tanned and in colourful T-shirts, also meander into the garden for lunch. 

Huguet’s country life has been a creative new chapter. Her friends, furniture designer Gesa Hansen, journalist Estelle Marandon and photographer Nathalie Mohadjer, have also left Paris to live in the country. Coming Home to Nature: The French Art of Countryfication is the title of the book that the four escapees have published together with photographer Stephanie Füssenich. They are now considering working together to develop home accessories for life in the country. So there’s no threat of boredom in tranquil Barbizon. But now, after lunch, Huguet goes for a long walk in the Forêt de Fontainebleau. Like she does every day.

Konfekt,
Summer 2024