Slow Supper No.1 - In Pursuit of Slow Living

On a Monday evening in July a small group of friends sat outside around a low wooden table for our inaugural Slow Supper No. 1. It was an unusually steamy evening. Santa Barbara typically cools dramatically at dusk, but on this particular night the day's heat lingered, leaving beads of perspiration on the water carafes.

I scrapped my plan to grill sourdough on a hibachi and added bonus ice to my old copper pot filled with bottles of Storm Sauvignon Blanc and sparkling water. Five Santa Barbara creatives gathered on lounge pillows -- each one of them women who aspire to and bring into practice unhurried, sensory lives through their work. The cat slinked along the stone wall.

I wore the evening’s featured silhouette myself -- the Teté dress: an unlined black cotton narrow caftan, with self-ties on the side to accentuate the waist. The fabric, black cotton lawn with petite white swiss dots, is sewn inside out so that the soft nubs of the embroidery brush against your skin. It felt like the most apropos thing to wear in celebration of slow living: when was the last time you wore something so sensual that you were distracted mid-conversation by its texture against your skin? My friend Renee cheekily referred to the new silhouette as my first French tickler caftan. Maybe not quite that distracting, but it did offer a new kind of sensory awareness.

It had been warm in the kitchen as I cooked, and I was glad I did not line the Tete dress – it breathed more easily being just one layer. In a nod to Andalusia, I wore simple espadrilles -- just as my mother would have in 1960s Spain.

We migrated to a low table, and seated on pillows, tucked into tiny local cherry tomatoes tossed in Anne-Marie’s vinaigrette in a cup of butter lettuce). I had made a simple sautéed spinach ancini di pepe pasta with feta and lemon ahead of time, and left it warming in the oven. As the sun set, time slowed. We finished the night with tart-meets-sweet: McConnell’s lemon ice cream.

I had hoped to collaborate on a playlist with someone whose music taste I admire, but I ran out of time and gathered everything in my library that reminded me of summer jasmine, bare feet on tile floors, and fuzzy nights when the vibraphone sounds a little like water.