Pleasure Principles

Pleasure Principles began as a year-long attempt for Flamingo Estate founder, Richard Christiansen, to understand the garden around him, and what it could teach him about living a better life. It is not simply a gardening book, a cookbook, a workbook, or a history of plants. It is a collision of all those things: part garden almanac, part field guide, part art book, and part love letter to Mother Nature. Across more than 400 pages, it moves month by month through the year, gathering stories, recipes, rituals, and some magic for anyone who wants to get off their phone, off their ass, and back into the big wide world.

At its heart, this is a book about living a more interesting, exciting life through the things we can make, cook, grow, notice, and do. It is filled with planting and harvesting guides, seasonal recipes, monthly tasks, personal stories, scent explorations, herbal remedies, mythology, and botanical history. It is also a love letter to all the hands who have built the Flamingo Estate garden and orchard. To the people, plants, and animals that have shaped our life on this Los Angeles hillside.

There are hundreds of original photographs by Hugh Davison. Recipes by Chef Sandy Ho. Twenty-eight original oil paintings by John Regan. Design by Aaron Harvey and the in-house Flamingo team. Together, they have made something very special.