Leonora Carrington would have turned 100 today. I met her in Mexico City in the early 1990s, through our family doctor, and we embarked on a friendship of nearly twenty years. Most Sunday afternoons, my parents, my sister and I would visit her at home in the Colonia Roma, arriving at five and staying until after dusk. I often wrote down my impressions, and her words verbatim, as soon as I got home. 

The LRB blog has been invited to an exclusive panel discussion at the Barbican next Thursday on 'the Future of Kitchens'. It's part of The Surreal House exhibition, which is disinterestedly sponsored by IKEA.