MFK Fisher home to be culinary destination in Glen Ellen

New life for ‘Last House’|
KATHLEEN HILL
INDEX-TRIBUNE FOOD & WINE EDITOR

Mary Frances and me

In the last seven years of Fisher’s life I spent many days every week, including the day she left this world in 1992, with her reading her unpublished work to her and recording tapes of our conversations. – Kathleen Hill

A few classic quotes from M.F.K. Fisher:

“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken.”

“There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.”

Audubon Canyon Ranch is renovating M.F.K. Fisher’s “Last House” on the Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen into an exclusive destination honoring her legacy and celebrating her love of food, wine, literature and nature.

Fisher wrote 13 books during her 21 years of living in Last House, which was built for her by architect David Pleydell-Bouverie. Mary Frances treasured her “Palazzino,” with its simple design and connection to the land. After living in St. Helena for several years, she decided on this location, believing it closely resembled Provençe in France.

It was her decision to live at this location after traveling and writing throughout France and many other places. That’s why she called it “Last House” and wrote a book by that title.

Described by W. H. Auden as one of America’s greatest writers, Mary Frances welcomed friends such as Julia Child, James Beard, Chuck Williams, Judith Jones, and many others to Last House.

Among Mary Frances’s best known books are “Art of Eating,” “Consider the Oyster,” “How to Cook A Wolf,” “The Gastronomical Me,” “Here Let Us Feast,” “Map of Another Town: A Memoir of Provence,” and she translated the classic “The Physiology of Taste” by Brillat-Savarin. She received the James Beard Award for Lifetime Achievement and was a Grande Dame of Les Dames d’Escoffier.

Now Audubon Canyon Ranch will make her home a special place “to bring members of the community together to share her values of good food, good company, good stories, and the vision of ACR to connect people to nature through science and education.”

If you would like to participate in the restoration of Last House, your help is definitely needed to repair and improve the building, and re-establish the décor and ambiance that was so unique to her style.

For information on how you can help, contact ACR Executive Director John Petersen at john.petersen@egret.org, or at 938-4554, ext 304.

Mary Frances and me

In the last seven years of Fisher’s life I spent many days every week, including the day she left this world in 1992, with her reading her unpublished work to her and recording tapes of our conversations. – Kathleen Hill

A few classic quotes from M.F.K. Fisher:

“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.”

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken.”

“There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.”

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