A moment with dear Mrs. Helen Hokinson and her trademark ladies, for no good reason other than it's been a mildly trying Tuesday.
Actually, double the number of people at the table and you've more or less got Mr. Muscato, me, and a small select cercle that ate out this past Saturday in one of Our Nation's Capital's many eateries aimed primarily at gentlemen who use the last word of that caption in a rather different sense than did the spritely Mrs. Worthington there.
Oh, just look at them, that trio, in their gay early-spring hats (note the fur; I'm guessing the second week in March) and eager mealtime expressions of anticipation. You just know, given the obliging, ladylike hostess and dangling plant, that they'll be having one of those quaint artistic lunches so much in vogue - a nice chicken vol au vent, perhaps, or one of those intriguing, so authentic quiches. Apple tarte, of course, for dessert - little Mme. Durand in the kitchen is a treasure, dear, and nothing less.
This charming vignette does set up one small surprise: the possibility that ladies - even quite sensible matrons - actually wore those peculiar conical hats that turn up so frequently in Adrian designs of 1938-41. I frankly always thought they were a purely Hollywood invention, but apparently not. Live and learn!
When I was a wee little thing, Mother had a suit we called her club luncheon suit because it was just like a Hokinson drawing. The hat she wore with it, though, was not conical.
ReplyDeleteI love Hokinson. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a Hokinson in the newspaper every morning!
I am determined, as I get older, to be a "lady who lunches".
ReplyDeleteEventually. Jx
And I have no doubt you will achieve that goal. Of course, you do have have the great advantage of living in a city that, in my memory at least, is still more than abundantly enriched by a staggering range of cozy luncheon destinations.
DeleteIndeed. Unfortunately, due to the regrettable encumbrance known as "work", I have barely set a daintily-shod foot in any of them... Jx
DeleteI was born in DC in the middle of the last century. My maiden aunts Margret and Helen often took me to lunch at a place called the Inn of the Four Georges which I'm sure is long gone.
ReplyDeleteCharlie
In our hometown, one of the preferred ladies' destinations was the Pussy Willow Tearoom, which featured lots of teapots and had the best ham salad anyone could possibly imagine. My Great Aunts Edna and Claudia were very definitely regulars, both for lunch and for bridge on the sunporch after. Do you suppose someday people will wax nostalgic about Chipotle?
DeleteI have a couple of Hokinson books of her comics that I adore. My favorite is wife in the patrician couple saying (archly) to the furniture salesman, "Do we look like maple people?"
ReplyDelete