mem­o­ries for posterity

Then it was off to Gatwick for our fam­i­ly, Avery head­ed to Budapest with her friends where she had a mar­vel­lous time (I think this was an unusu­al moment when they were not all in the lux­u­ri­ous hot baths!).

For our part, John and I swanned off to Inns­bruck, a first for both of us, spe­cial­ly in search of snow for me (I am a bit obsessed, and Lord knows we nev­er get any in Lon­don).  We found snow!

Of course we had to take a funic­u­lar (so so scary!) up to the top of the high­est local  moun­tain to find it, but hey, it was an adven­ture.  I was so glad to get some wear out of my super-cool Dan­ish boots!

Of course pride goeth before a fall, lit­er­al­ly in my case.  Short­ly after this action-hero shot was tak­en, I slid down a mud­dy hill­side, near­ly end­ing it all right there, and spent the rest of the day shiv­er­ing in my dirt-encrust­ed jeans!

Our hotel was called a Best West­ern, but there was noth­ing chain‑y about it.  Sim­ply charming.

We walked and walked, check­ing out every gro­cery store (for me) and estate agents’ win­dows (for John), had aver­age sushi and very, very good piz­za with the crispest crust in the world.  Due Sicilie it is, should you go.  Delight­ful­ly authen­tic, warm and friend­ly, deter­mined­ly Ital­ian in the face of Aus­tri­an dignity.

We took our­selves off to the Tyrolean Folk Muse­um, on the advice of my ring­ing friend Eliz­a­beth who had been as a child and nev­er for­got­ten it, in par­tic­u­lar its col­lec­tion of res­cued pan­elled homes.  Sim­ply magical!

We dropped into Inns­bruck Cathe­dral, or the Dom of St Jakob, which was hung with an exhi­bi­tion of beau­ti­ful sculpt­ed cloth­ing by artist Minu Ghe­d­i­na.

And because I’m me, we found a bell muse­um.  Seri­ous­ly.  The Grass­mayr Bell Foundry, sim­ply filled with fas­ci­nat­ing dis­plays and in fact, one giant bell in the mak­ing as we were there!

The most mem­o­rable Aus­tri­an food?  At a hill­top tav­ern called “Bier­stindl”, Tyrolean chick­en bouil­lon with parsleyed, cheesy dumplings.  Rich, sim­ple, authen­tic: magical.

There were also tra­di­tion­al Bavar­i­an sausage sim­ply poached in water.  Delicious.

Three days in Inns­bruck was just right.

But of course the real star of Tate Mod­ern, for a sad­ly short peri­od of time, was The Fog.  An instal­la­tion by Japan­ese “fog artist” (did you know there was such a thing, or more than one of them?  I did­n’t.) Fujiko Nakaya.  Sim­ply stun­ning, to go through it.

We went every sin­gle night it was open, for about two weeks, and in the day­time too.  The view from our bed­room was sub­lime.  I real­ly miss it, now it’s gone again.

Being me, there is always ring­ing, of course.  I’m not quite as scared as I have been in the past, am grad­u­al­ly gain­ing in con­fi­dence.  And so nat­u­ral­ly there had to be a par­ty to cel­e­brate.  Before­hand, we had had a spe­cial­ly intrigu­ing “silent” prac­tice, with the bells stilled in obser­vance of Holy Week.  The ringers gath­ered here after­ward, after a spec­tac­u­lar walk across the Wob­bly Bridge, to be fed and to make mer­ry.  The video of “silent ring­ing” was much admired by all.

It’s so hard to believe that just about 18 months ago I did­n’t know any of these won­der­ful peo­ple, whom I now count among my most appre­ci­at­ed friends.  Sun­day morn­ings, and the Cof­fee Club after, and Mon­day evenings and the Pub Club after, have become cher­ished parts of my life.  The walks home late Mon­days are so welcome.

All too soon, Avery’s hol­i­day was over.  As always, our miss­ing her is set along­side being so very proud of her.  It has tak­en some get­ting used to, the say­ing good­bye, but it’s won­der­ful to know that even­tu­al­ly, she’ll be back for anoth­er fun-packed visit.

There has, of course, been cook­ing.  I am increas­ing­ly con­cerned about how I’m going to pro­duce Vol­ume Two of “Tonight at 7.30″ (what on earth to do about illus­tra­tions, since my pho­tog­ra­ph­er has moved on to green­er pas­tures?).  There has to BE a Vol­ume Two, because more and more fre­quent­ly our din­ners involve recipes that aren’t in Vol­ume One, and so they deserve an out­ing, to be shared.

High on the list is authen­tic car­bonara — no cream!  unlike my bas­tardised ver­sion in Vol­ume One, with not only cream, but aspara­gus and chick­en as well.  This one is sub­lime­ly sim­ple.  You must buy the finest guan­ciale (here in the US, here in the UK), which is smoked and pre­served pig jowl, that you can.  With so few ingre­di­ents, they must all be insane­ly high qual­i­ty.  If you can’t wait to mail-order it and you can’t find it where you live, in a pinch pancetta will do.

Heat the olive oil in a large fry­ing pan, then add the guan­ciale and cook gen­tly until com­plete­ly crisp. Do not be dis­turbed by the large amount of fat that is ren­dered – this will pro­vide your sauce. Leave to cool.

Whisk togeth­er the Pecori­no, eggs and black pep­per. Add the cooled guan­ciale and mix well.

Cook the spaghet­ti accord­ing to pack­age direc­tions and drain, reserv­ing about 3 tbsps of the pas­ta water. Toss the spaghet­ti into the guan­ciale mix­ture and add the pas­ta water, mix­ing well. Salt to taste and serve gar­nished with extra cheese.

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Words can­not ade­quate­ly describe this excel­lent, so-sim­ple dish.  Rich, smoky, salty, perfect.

And then there was the duck burg­er.  Yes, a duck burg­er, inspired by the great British chef Michel Roux.

Remove the skin from two of the breasts and dis­card (or do some­thing clever with it, let me know if you do).  Trim the breasts thor­ough­ly of all mem­brane and blood ves­sel and cut into man­age­able chunks to put through your min­cer.  Do not be alarmed at how very soft and almost tex­ture-less the mince is.  I was wor­ried but it was perfect.

Form the mince into two balls and press 1/12 tbsps of cheese into each, then form the balls into burg­ers.  Fry for about 4 min­utes a side or until the burg­er is the done­ness you want.  You can always fin­ish them in the microwave for a minute if you need to.

Mean­while, melt the but­ter in a fry­ing pan and add the mush­rooms.  Fry until light­ly browned.  Pile these onto the burg­er, along with any oth­er fresh gar­nish­es, and enjoy.

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So lux­u­ri­ous!  And yet not any more expen­sive than beef.  We pre­ferred these in fact to both beef and lamb, both of which I love in a burg­er.  But the duck was unusu­al — sen­su­al and slight­ly foreign-tasting.

And then you’ll need choco­late.  For this I offer my dear friend Orlan­do’s treat.

 300g dark chocolate

125g but­ter, salt­ed or not

200–250g mixed dried fruit (sul­tanas, raisins, cran­ber­ries, blueberries)

100ml liqueur, like Grand Marnier, cit­rus brandy, sweet sherry

3 tbsps gold­en syrup

13 bro­ken diges­tive bis­cuits (not crumbed, just broken)

100g toast­ed nuts (peanuts, wal­nuts, pecans, hazelnuts)

Oh, and an eggplant/aubergine dish to delight all the sens­es.  It’s Ottolenghi, nat­u­ral­ly, although I’ve left out the pome­gran­ate seeds that I think he’s con­trac­tu­al­ly oblig­at­ed to include in every dish (I just don’t like them very much).  Feel free to add the hand­ful of them that he sug­gests.  I’ve just reword­ed things a bit here to make the instruc­tions read­able for both Eng­lish and Amer­i­can cooks.

 

3 medi­um aubergines, sliced as thick as your finger

olive oil for brush­ing (it takes a lot, per­haps 1/2 cup in total)

2 tbsps toast­ed pine nuts

20 basil leaves

sea salt and black pepper

a small pinch of saf­fron threads

3 tbsps very hot water

180g/3/4 cup plain yoghurt

1 gar­lic clove, grated

the juice of a lemon

3 tbsps olive oil

Lay the aubergine slices on a foil-lined tray, brush with plen­ty of olive oil on both sides, sprin­kle with salt and pep­per, and roast in a 220C/425F oven for 20 or so min­utes, or until begin­ning to brown.  Let them cool down.

For the sauce, infuse the saf­fron in the hot water in a small bowl for 5 min­utes.  Com­bine the infu­sion with the yoghurt, gar­lic, lemon juice, olive oil and a pinch of salt.  Whisk well to get a smooth, gold­en sauce.  Chill.

To serve, arrange the aubergine slices on a plate and sprin­kle over the pine nuts (and pome­gran­ate seeds if using).  Driz­zle with the sauce and lay the basil leaves on top.

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In a match made in heav­en, I served this beau­ti­ful dish with my barmy but deli­cious Chick­en Tonkat­su and some love­ly steamed bas­mati rice.  What a dinner!

Cook­ing is much eas­i­er alone, it turns out, than when I try to teach the fin­er points of chop­ping, stir­ring, mix­ing and slic­ing, to a group of extreme­ly ener­getic chil­dren at my after-school cook­ing group.  Guess what hap­pens when one of the lit­tle boys dis­cov­ers that a flick of the spoon can prac­ti­cal­ly wall­pa­per a kitchen with couscous?

Still, they are adorable.  How I wish I could show you pic­tures of their cheeky, naughty lit­tle selves.  I was so pleased, too, last week, to receive an award for 100 hours of ser­vice to Home-Start South­wark!  What fun to cel­e­brate with one of my fel­low vol­un­teers, in a cer­e­mo­ny next door at Tate Mod­ern.  How I love that job.

I ran into dear friends from my Fri­day play­group as well!  It was real­ly an inspir­ing, heart­warm­ing evening.  When so much in the world seems to be going in the wrong direc­tion, leav­ing so many vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple behind, I felt encour­aged to be in a room full of hun­dreds of peo­ple who try to do good.

The Fri­day arrival is always a high point, this time at the sea­side in Sax­mund­ham, Suffolk.

We were miss­ing our Susan until Sat­ur­day after­noon, but the first-night cel­e­bra­tions were love­ly any­way.  Cock­tails in hand, we all gath­ered on the beach for a spot of silliness.

I repaired to the kitchen to con­coct, as is our tra­di­tion, Fri­day night sup­per.  Some years it’s been a crab tart, some slow-braised duck thighs.  This year was “Chick­en Meat­balls Pojars­ki,” a fam­i­ly favorite and now I’ve con­vert­ed my friends.  The star of the show?  Hand­made Hun­gar­i­an papri­ka giv­en to me by our door­man, Atti­la.  Made by his grand­moth­er!  It was sublime.

Nat­u­ral­ly we tucked greed­i­ly into Orlan­do’s fridge cake, describe above, for afters.  But actu­al­ly the real greed was in our friend­ship, once a year for the sev­en of us, although two or three man­age to see each oth­er through­out the year.  Sam, in par­tic­u­lar, quite often makes it to Lon­don, to join us for a sub­lime lunch at Padel­la, the hippest pas­ta spot in London.

Get­ting us all togeth­er under one roof, in one kitchen, is the annu­al treat to which we start look­ing for­ward on our train jour­neys home at the end of the weekend.

There were the usu­al run­ning gags about door­ways (some­day we will find out where Orlan­do devel­oped this par­tic­u­lar obses­sion); for the time being it’s just deli­cious­ly ridicu­lous, and some­how always gets a laugh from us, whether it’s dash­ing in and out of the door to the stairs or to the kitchen, or his equal­ly nut­ty game with “Push” and “Pull” in pub­lic places, to the befud­dle­ment of all around us.  Rosie, the Sil­ver Fox, appre­ci­ates us all with her gen­tle gaze, as always.

The stun­ning­ly beau­ti­ful after­noon found sev­er­al of us intre­pid spir­its in a scull in the mid­dle of the boat­ing lake smack in the mid­dle of love­ly lit­tle Thor­pe­ness, a per­fect­ly mag­i­cal vil­lage.  It was revealed short­ly after take­off that only one of was even remote­ly capa­ble of steer­ing the boat, and what’s more, she was an Oxford row­er!  Who knew, dark horse Katie!  Thank you, Orlan­do, for this beau­ti­ful pho­to, cap­tured from a sil­ly and love­ly video.  He was the only one of us sea­far­ers brave enough to bring along a phone!

The evening found us at a con­cert at the near­by Snape Malt­ings, a gor­geous hall set in a field of wav­ing grain.  It was a beau­ti­ful evening.

Katie and I, tra­di­tion­al room­mates, kept every­one up with our late-night chat­ter, and so I def­i­nite­ly need­ed the long, lux­u­ri­ous walk on the beach the next morn­ing with dear Pauline.  I always rel­ish a good dis­cus­sion with a mem­ber of the men­tal health pro­fes­sion, and espe­cial­ly with sen­si­tive Pauline, who is a mar­vel­lous lis­ten­er.  The com­bi­na­tion of her wis­dom, the tough exer­cise under the warm sun, and the thun­der of the sea was intense­ly calming.

All too soon, after a fishy lunch, it was time for me to depart.  Every­one accom­pa­nied me to the sta­tion, because… that’s just the sort of friends they are.  Good­bye for anoth­er year.

The train jour­ney sped by as I remem­bered all our fun — the sil­ly shared jokes, the long con­ver­sa­tions about our fam­i­lies, our hopes, our woes, our plans and dreams.  The deli­cious food, the windswept con­vert­ible rides with Orlan­do and Sam bick­er­ing about the pas­sen­ger seat and crush­ing my knees behind, the rem­i­nis­cences about the past eight reunions and debate over what to do to cel­e­brate next year — 10th anniversary!

I was hap­py, though, to arrive home to this sight, the always-pre­cious St Paul’s, our dear neigh­bor and scene of so many love­ly walks for John and me, right­ing the world’s wrongs.

We’re all caught up.  Here’s to a slight­ly less man­ic May than April has been, but… I’m not hold­ing my breath!