“Our Most Beautiful Festive Tables “, with
Jennifer Hart-Smith

I am a half French and half Australian. After studying design at the École Boulle, followed by typography in San Francisco, I spent a few years in France, working for start-ups like Deezer. At the same time, I regularly worked in restaurants, both front of house and in the kitchen. It all clicked when my daughter was born. I needed to get back to my roots and be creative in a more “personal” way. I therefore took a CAP – a vocational qualification that gives a Certificate of Professional Aptitude – but within a few days I found myself wanting to switch out one kind of flour for another and include healthier ingredients in the recipe. After a few internships, training in luxury hotels, stores and restaurants, in 2014 I created Tookies: small, custom-decorated cookies. Very quickly, lots of top brands put their trust in me and have continued to place regular orders. I have also graduated with a diploma in naturopathy, which is a discipline that I have really enjoyed studying in my free time over these last three years.

My view has always been that, while cakes and cookies aren’t meant to be healthy, they can at least avoid being harmful to your health. They can be natural and free from refined and artificial ingredients. In other words, we use unrefined sugar and whole grain flour, with a focus on sensual pleasure that is good for your body and the planet with organic, local and seasonal ingredients.

I think it’s something I’ve always had. My grandmother has an amazing garden, covering several acres, two hours from Sydney. It has nothing but native bush plants in it. She talked to me about their names and their qualities. When I was younger I only listened to half of what she had to say. I was more intersted in my schoolmates. But I think the seed was still planted at that time. When I was pregnant with my second child, Milo, I watched people gathering in plants from Parisian parks, and others in the Drôme, and I became obsessed with learning what they were doing and copying them in the field. I had guides by François Couplan and Delachaux on my bedside table. I found it restful and thrilling at the same time. It felt like people had been keeping it from me my entire life. And, in a city like Paris that is short of green spaces, being interested in plants makes you a bit crazy. My naturopathic studies also led me to look into phytotherapy and aromatherapy. Always with that link to plants and living beings.

Decorating the tree, definitely. Baking gingerbread and other cakes and cookies. But they are like me; they’ve seen too many cookies during the rest of the year.

We only moved in recently, four months ago. We live near Gambetta and we wanted to remain in the neighbourhood at all costs. We found it by word of mouth. A couple, both architects, had lovingly refurbished it but they were looking to move to Bordeaux. All we had to do was unpack and move in. I still feel like it could use a personal touch; for example, a few travel souvenirs. But all the essentials are already in place. The cosy sofa, the large living room table: finally, we were able to put in some furniture that we cared about.