EDITOR’S LETTER

from Hearth and Home 2020

THE LAST WILD THINGS

A Holiday You’ve Earned

There’s a totemic reverence for vintage trucks around our offices, a kind of aura that draws us to their simplicity, patina, timelessness. When we put them on the cover, or on social, you seem to agree: more like this, please, we hear. Hey, we aim to please.

Their 1968 Ford pickup isn’t the reason Kenya and Taib are front and center for this much-needed Hearth and Home issue, however. They’re emblematic of the new Sunset—a design couple who, yes, run with the Instagram crowd importing like-able Moroccan rugs and who’ve designed their Palm Springs house just so. But key here is that they’re self-made. No silver spoons. No head starts. And when you talk to the couple, a certain timelessness emerges. They’re moving the past forward. Endlessly renewing, regenerating, re-integrating the best of it with pieces of the future that won’t flame out, flare up, or go dark.

Another old soul? Try Jackie Kecskes (right), the horse whisperer we profile on page 80. Jackie leads the pack in mustang rehabilitation at a ranch in Montana, and her training techniques are what first drew me to the story. “No carrots,” she said. “I train them so that I’m the reward, not something easy.” Got me thinking about easy clicks, fast likes, stale trends.

The challenge now is this: How can we pull together amid change and churn to celebrate the pastimes, the pursuits to which we assign meaning, that give us common ground instead of talking points?

One of those ways is by breaking bread. Thanks to executive editor Hugh Garvey, the issue you’re holding or reading is chock full of recipes—23 in all, for blowing minds and filling bellies in your bubble this year. I’m happy to be his sous chef, on set, and in the kitchen—and in this issue, which is a tour de force for the creative powerhouse based in Los Angeles.

Think about that this holiday season. Life’s about making great things with great people. Who’s in the kitchen, the saddle, or riding shotgun with you?