The Revue, May 2020

The Revue welcomes in the month of May with plenty to keep you occupied and entertained whilst you settle into life indoors. With time no longer in short supply, we’re digging out and sharing some of our favourite distractions, from a recipe for possibly the best cookie you’ll ever eat, to a ‘60s jazz-infused tour of the home of a mid-century master. In between we stop off for a major retrospective at the MoMA and finish up with a touching tale of friendship forged over a Lyon bread oven. Get stuck in.

read: Baking Bread in Lyon, Bill Buford, The New Yorker

An ode to friendship and good bread, writer and food obsessive Bill Buford revisits his time as a baker’s apprentice in Lyon in a recent issue of the New Yorker. Uprooting his family from NYC to the gastronomic centre, Buford had initially made the move to learn the art of classic haute cuisine. Failing to find a chef willing to take him on, he ended up at the best baker’s in the city, a ramshackle boulangerie run by a man named Bob. The story that follows is sweet and heartbreaking and will definitely have you craving a slice of warm crusty bread with a slab of cold butter.

visit: Judd, MoMA online

Originally scheduled for March, MoMA take the much-hyped Donald Judd retrospective online, part of their “Virtual Views” series. The American artist who defined minimalism while loudly rejecting the term, Judd’s work “…turned to three dimensions as well as industrial working methods and materials in order to investigate “real space.” 70 pieces go on show covering sculpture, print and furniture. A collection of resources including piece-by-piece audio tours with writers and artists, a Q&A with Donald’s son Flavin, and an introduction to the exhibition via curator Ann Temkin, are available here to enjoy from the comfort of your armchair.

eat: Dark Chocolate & Brown Butter Cookies

If a surplus of free time has resulted in a reunion with your kitchen scales, that last bag of plain flour would find a good home in this, the best cookie you’ll ever eat. A recipe from Chris Morocco of Bon Appetit, the secret to these chewy wonders is in the browning of the butter and the use of decent dark chocolate. Once you’ve made the dough, bake and eat immediately or roll into small spheres and freeze for hot cookies on demand - the good life.

listen: Live at Montreux YouTube Channel

In lieu of the real thing, the folks at the The Montreux Jazz Festival open up the archives with a selection of performances from across five decades to keep you occupied for an afternoon or two. Among the highlights are a full set from Nina Simone, some extremely mellow Herbie Hancock, and Ella Fitzgerald casually performing “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But The Blues” in 1969. Enjoy. 

product focus: Needlecord Shorts

Fans of corduroy, it’s time to claim the summer. Saying goodbye to your cords once warmer weather hits is now a thing of the past thanks to 100% cotton needlecord shorts. Made in the UK, available in four upbeat shades: Bright Yellow, Mint Green, Lobster Red and Light Blue, these smart shorts are super soft and comfortable, as happy indoors as out. 

watch: House of Finn Juhl

A tour of architect/designer Finn Juhl's house in Denmark, accompanied by a ‘60s Swedish jazz soundtrack, feels like the 9 minute 10 second video we all need right now. One of mid-century modernism’s greats, Juhl, like many of his contemporaries, combined architectural work with furniture design and is now possibly best known for his elegant chair collection, many of which feature in this beautiful film. Built in 1942, now open to the public, his home in Ordrup, a suburb of Copenhagen, looks relatively ordinary from the outside. The devil is in the detail however, something captured perfectly in this charming video from filmmaker Thorsten Dreijer.