Antique French Wire Salad Basket w/ Swing Handle

An antique French wire basket from the courtyard at Chanteduc, part of Patricia Wells’s personal collection. Hand formed in iron wire, it has a rounded, pumpkin like silhouette with closely spaced ribs, a wrapped swing handle and small looped feet that lift it for drainage. Generous without being cumbersome, it is shaped to cradle a mound of market greens or a tumble of garden finds. This wire basket is featured on p.131 of The French Kitchen Cookbook, by Patricia Wells. Patricia explains, "I love these and have collected them over the years. Many were originally made for drying salad, and I found them all at brocantes. I fill them with rocks collected in the mountains, choosing lovely flat ones so I can write each guest’s name on them as place cards." Brocantes means village flea markets, a fitting provenance for a tool of everyday French cooking and conviviality. The basket’s practical sturdiness and quiet refinement echo the intelligent simplicity and exact observation that guide Patricia’s teaching and entertaining at Chanteduc. Put it to work in the kitchen to air fruit or linens, keep it by the garden tap for rinsed herbs, or adopt Patricia’s welcoming habit and fill it with smooth mountain stones inscribed as place cards. Its utility and character make it as at home on a farmhouse table as in a light filled courtyard.