Kitchen Designer Caren Rideau Shares Her Secrets to Hosting Open-Air Fetes
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In the kitchen of her 1920s Spanish bungalow, Caren Rideau revels in the Los Angeles sunshine, her half-open Dutch door being the cook’s equivalent of driving a convertible. The fresh air and dazzling light mirror the kitchen designer’s breezy approach to entertaining—plus, they make the petite cook space feel a tad larger. Size, however, matters not; in her work and gatherings alike, Rideau is less concerned with the amount of space than an abundance of spirit. Uplifting yellows and bright oranges and blues—the cheerful palette of the Mexican, Moroccan, and Portuguese pottery she collects on her travels—make her tables as radiant as she is. Besides, who needs a big dining room in Southern California, where outside entertaining beckons year-round? “Guests always feel more at ease outdoors,” says the author of Caren Rideau: Kitchen Designer, Vintner, Entertaining at Home, her new book full of kitchen design wisdom and entertaining inspiration.
Thanks to her Mexican and Louisiana Creole heritage, Rideau’s bons temps approach and penchant for bold flavor and color come naturally. Making tamales with her mother and gumbo with her dad as a child shaped her love of all things culinary. “Our humble kitchen—always smelling of delicious, spicy aromas—was the true heartbeat of home,” she says. Her life and work, it seems, are vibrant extensions of those traditions, even leading to the launch of wine label Tierra y Vino a decade ago with her husband, a winemaker.
Whether hosting guests at home or at the winery, Rideau juxtaposes the distinction of craft with the simple bounty of nature: Arrangements of fresh herbs and cuttings from her garden mingle with a me?lange of vibrant flat-ware and dishes, including pieces from Gorky Gonzalez, a Mexican ceramic artist known for his singular brushstrokes, with whom she’s collaborating on her own line—“a dream!” she says. Sunflowers and cacti will be Rideau’s signature themes for Gonzalez’s strokes of whimsy, an embrace of nature as vivid and joyful as every table she sets.
This article originally appeared in the March-April 2023 issue of VERANDA. Photography by Meghan Beierle-O'Brien; styling by Char Hatch Langos; written by Stephanie Hunt.
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