Le Pen's last stand | The Spectator

Tastes of paradise

What’s in a name? Sometimes, quite a lot, especially when seen through the benign lens of sentiment. By the time you read this, April, which is not the “cruellest month,” will be upon us and the morning mercury will be edging upward, coaxing forth the crocuses and daffodils. But in the last several days, dawn has come to where I live in Connecticut accompanied by temperatures in the teens and twenties. March has entered clad in its traditional lion’s mane. I feel especially grateful, therefore, that duty called me and a handful of colleagues to Palm Beach, just as February gave way to March, on behalf of the New Criterion, the magazine I edit, and Encounter Books, the other phalanx in my campaign for world conquest.

Jane Stannus

Spring’s perfect roast

When I first moved to the country, I was intrigued by the sight of people walking sheep on a leash round and round the front garden of a neighboring farmer. City girl that I am, I wondered if they were receiving some kind of special therapy. Equine interaction is supposed to help with certain anxiety disorders, why not sheep-walking for, say, insomnia? It turned out, however, that the sheep-walkers were members of the local 4-H club preparing to show their market lambs at the fair, an event I was later privileged to witness. But I was put to the blush when the judge, a tall, competent-looking man in a checked shirt and green boots, commented loudly on the fine chops displayed by the winning entrant.

Calla Jones Corner

Table talk

I grew up in rural Connecticut, in a remodeled cow barn where my family sat at an antique hutch table for meals. The table with four comfortable Windsor chairs fit into a niche. My sister Christina and I weren’t allowed to join my parents for dinner at the table until we could hold a conversation. For me, that was at five. The rule came from my father, as that was how he’d been brought up. Once, when we were in our early teens, I whispered to Christina, “It’s King Arthur’s round table” — our father’s middle name was Arthur. I must have learned some British history and was probably showing off. My firm but gracious father wasn’t a king.

Tanya Gold

The real food of Venice

A few years ago, I moved to Newlyn, a fishing village in west Cornwall. I didn’t understand why I moved to Newlyn until I returned to Venice. I take almost all my holidays in Venice, and it is a cliché that Venice only slowly reveals her mysteries. You must fight your way past a mass of Renaissance portraiture and mirrored palaces but the mystery it showed me this time is this: like Newlyn, Venice is a fishing village. Venice got rich in the thirteenth century, monopolized the trade routes to the east for two centuries and covered itself in Istrian stone, which Newlyn didn’t. But it’s still a fishing village, founded by people running away from barbarians, into the mud flats of a lagoon to fish for crabs. It is easy to forget that — unless you look for Venetian cuisine.

Food & Drink