The cookery writer Colu Henry and her husband Chad didn’t mean to upsticks to Hudson, N.Y. The plan was to stay in New York City, to buy something in Brooklyn. “But we came here and just felt it had something,” she says. By the time they were settled into their Victorian terrace just five minutes from the main drag – or “the movie set” as they nickname Warren Street, with its certain McAllister family charm – it was the pandemic, and suddenly people were moving to Hudson in droves. “Ours was the most forwarded zip code in the country during Covid,” she tells me, “and I now have a wonderful group of friends who moved up here around that time.”
Among them are the guests at Colu’s festive harvest lunch. For this she gathered a handful of her favourite creatively-inclined people in Hudson, mostly new to one another, including her dearest friend Helen, a British watercolour artist – “she makes me cackle”; Nicolette, a floral artist, who offered to help Colu scape the lunch table with “exquisite blush roses and latte-coloured mums”; Kari, a recent arrival in Hudson – “a real straight shooter and so lovely”; Dan Pelosi, a gregarious cookbook author who “becomes friends with anyone who walks through the door”; and Paula, a retired ad executive, “badass, hilarious and acerbic”. Sugo the dog, a part husky, part miniature Schnauzer rescue that Colu and Chad adopted a couple years ago, pads in and out. Conversation is sparked over glazed salmon, dark Spanish rosato wine, her current favourite, and TOAST furoshiki table gifts.
Colu had prepared a meal that reflected the season on the East Coast, served on hand-thrown sharing platters from Horezu in Romania. “I always prefer to serve food family-style,” she says, “it’s more convivial, less fussy, and you have to talk, get to know each other, if you’re passing something around the table.” Alongside the salmon – which she had glazed with harissa, brown sugar, a little grated garlic and champagne vinegar – she prepared roasted honey nut squash with crisp-fried sage leaves, a radicchio, blue cheese and hazelnut salad dressed in cherry vinaigrette and baby potatoes boiled with mint. “Helen taught me about that – I’d never heard of putting fresh mint in with the potatoes – but she told me her British grandmother always had, and it was a nod to her. I loved it and am going to put it in my book now!”
The book in question is Colu’s third and has the working title, Colu Cooks Better At Home, and is a digest of how she cooks both here in the Hudson Valley and the nineteenth-century farmhouse that she and Chad, who is Canadian, are restoring on the north shore of Nova Scotia. When we speak, Colu sits in her office, where tempting images of colourful platefuls from the book shoot are tacked to the wall behind her. She tells me that Chad is doing the photography for this book, also that he is an artist and fine woodworker – “he’s good at everything, it’s quite annoying actually” – and it is his beautiful carpentry that gave lunch its dynamic backdrop, with its “intense, dark teal” colour, and “bookshelves from floor to ceiling – 90% cookbooks, organised by colour.”
When it came to Colu’s outfit for lunch, she knew who to consult. “Paula and I are each other’s fashion muse and inspiration,” she says of her guest. “Any time I have an event, we’ll talk clothes in advance.” For Colu they chose a TOAST velvet dress, which she layered with a slip “for a twenties vibe”, and several precious stone necklaces made by Hudson jeweller, Isabel Borland.
Colu, which is how her family shortened her given name, Maria-Nicola (a homage to her great-grandmother), grew up in New York City. Her grandmother lived with them when Colu was a child, in a home where there was “pasta numerous times a week, and always stories attached to those dishes”. After a degree in musical theatre, she worked in fashion and then food and wine PR, without any conscious ambition to cook for a living. But cook she did, and during her time as a publicist at Conde Nast, set up an Instagram hashtag on a whim, #backpocketpasta. “It got a lot of traction,” she says, and wound her up with a first book deal of the same name. What would be her go-to, last meal, back pocket pasta dish? “Vongole,” she says, without hesitation. I ask if she still sings. “Give me enough wine and I might break into My Funny Valentine,” she laughs, pushing her oversized, thick-rimmed spectacles onto the bridge of her nose.
That didn’t happen at her harvest lunch, nor was there pasta, but there was dessert – local pears, chocolate and dates – which there isn’t always in the Henry home. “I’ll always take cheese and sherry over something sweet,” she says, and mentions her particular affection for Harbison, a bark-wrapped, bloomy rinded soft cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, “or even just a cocktail. Sometimes a martini is all I need”. I ask what she’ll be making for Thanksgiving (this year she is hosting Helen and her partner Dan), a matter she is giving serious thought. “We’re in the brainstorming stage,” she says, “last year I went completely rogue and made a German-themed dinner, so I might be a little more traditional. Perhaps I’ll do the roast honey nut squash again.” One way or the other, there’ll be bacon sandwiches – another UK staple which crossed the channel to Hudson with Helen – the following morning. Is there any better antidote to the effects of the night before’s rosato?
Harissa and Brown Sugar Glazed Salmon
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
2 salmon filets
Kosher salt
⅓ cup harissa paste
1 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
2 garlic cloves grated
2 tablespoons of good quality white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Flaky salt for serving
Recipe
Heat the oven to 200 degrees.
On a sheet pan lined with parchment, season the salmon well all over with salt.
In a medium bowl, stir together the harris paste, brown sugar, garlic, vinegar and olive oil. Season with salt. Taste and adjust seasonings with more salt and vinegar as needed.
Pour over the salmon and with your hands or a small spatula, make sure to coat the fish well with the marinade.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the salmon is cooked through and reaches an internal temperature of 63 degrees. Finish with a few pinches of flaky salt and serve family style at the table.
Colu wears the TOAST Fluid Silk Velvet Dress. Dan wears the Soundwave Jacquard Crew Neck Sweater. Helen wears the Textured Cotton Alpaca Sweater. Nicolette wears the Ribbed Mohair Cardigan. Kari wears the Orla Donegal Sweater. Paula wears the Ribbed Mohair Blend Cardigan.
Also featured is the Furoshiki Table Gifts, Romanian Horezu Serving Plate, Wonki Ware White Wash Dinner Plate, Recycled Bolivian Wine Glasses Set, Washed Linen Napkins, and La Chamba Clay Casserole Dish.
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