spring is coming

The race! It was the icon­ic I’m-a-moth­er-of-an-Eng­lish-school­child expe­ri­ence. Remem­ber those pic­tures, some 15 years ago, of Princess Diana run­ning across a field par­tic­i­pat­ing in her sons’ school Sports Day? Every­one’s hair flut­ter­ing in the wind, school uni­forms, laugh­ing faces and the gray-blue Lon­don sky. That was it, on Fri­day. Of course King’s Col­lege came in a handy fourth out of four in all events, but it’s not all about win­ning, is it? Espe­cial­ly when you don’t.

Such a per­fect after­noon. The race was to be in Bat­tersea Park, a place I was not awful­ly famil­iar with but had a feel­ing was too far to walk to. It turned out, after John did some research, that the Num­ber 137 red dou­ble-deck­er bus went direct­ly from our cor­ner on Park Lane, straight to the Park. So I armed myself with my cam­era and hopped on. It’s by far the best way to get around. You climb up to the top, sit your­self down in the front if you can, and watch Lon­don go by from the most per­fect van­tage point. We skirt­ed Hyde Park, swung per­ilous­ly around the Duke of Wellling­ton Place, thread­ed our way along South Kens­ing­ton, down Sloane Street (pass­ing my doc­tor’s office and the cute lit­tle phar­ma­cy on the way!) and con­tin­ued south to the Albert Bridge, a doll-like con­fec­tion of white, red and blue paint­work. And there I was. I walked through the park, unable as usu­al to deci­pher the extreme­ly clear park maps that would direct me to the band­stand, when I came upon a huge gag­gle of small gulls in gray and red uni­forms. Instant­ly I knew that if I fol­lowed them I would end up at the race. They were from Kens­ing­ton Prep, and there were a LOT of them. And tall? Too tall. As I began to fol­low them, up pulled anoth­er coach and there was the King’s Col­lege con­tin­gent. I met the for­mi­da­ble Mrs King the gamesmistress of whom Avery had paint­ed such an intim­i­dat­ing pic­ture. Nat­u­ral­ly she’s about 30, jol­ly and a lot of fun. She and Mrs Bick­ley, Avery’s form teacher, and I walked along with the gulls and end­ed up on a huge foot­ball pitch, at the end of which were the Kens­ing­ton Prep kids. Short­ly after, the Gar­den House kids showed up in their chic stand­out uni­forms of bright­est roy­al blue, and after that the group from Eaton Square School, also seem­ing­ly twice as large as our chil­dren and twice in num­ber, and with real­ly cool uni­forms as well. Our gulls in their sim­ple navy sweats with lit­tle white polo shirts were a bit overshadowed.

At first the par­ents stood war­i­ly in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, rec­og­niz­ing each oth­er from dropoff and pick­up but not want­i­ng to appear that most un-Eng­lish of all things: friend­ly to some­one to whom you have not been prop­er­ly intro­duced and spent about a year gaz­ing at from afar before speak­ing. But grad­u­al­ly our shared indig­na­tion at the odds stacked against our lit­tle chil­dren drew us togeth­er, and we chat­ted in a desul­to­ry ran­dom way, each of us won­der­ing silent­ly if it was all right to take pic­tures, or if the oth­er par­ents would think we were stalk­ing their chil­dren. Pret­ty soon though we were all tak­ing pic­tures, because the scene was impos­si­bly cute. All of the gulls hud­dled in their school groups at first, talk­ing in mut­ed tones, look­ing at the oth­er groups under their lash­es. But pret­ty soon they were loos­ened up by the sheer gor­geous­ness of the day, the pent-up excite­ment of the com­ing race, and most of all the pres­ence of a for­eign object: BOYS! From Eaton Square, I think they were. Chas­ing each oth­er around and mud­dy­ing up their uni­forms, hit­ting each oth­er over the heads with their back­packs, it was like being back at PS 234. Mrs Bick­ley at my elbow said ellip­ti­cal­ly, “That I don’t miss.” But they were cute, for one afternoon.

All the chil­dren began to take the prac­tice walk around the pitch, the Form Three lit­tle ones going 900 metres, the Fours 1100 metres, and the big strong Fives went 1500 metres, all of them swing­ing their arms and look­ing inno­cent and ath­let­ic. Gar­den House gulls hand­i­ly won most of the top spots in each form, includ­ing Avery’s, but the oth­er two schools did not do bad­ly. Avery’s Form com­plete­ly spent them­selves run­ning encour­ag­ing­ly after the Form Three rac­ers who went before, so that by the time it was their turn to run their race, they were exhaust­ed! Avery came in eighth out of per­haps 20, not bad, and by the end of the day she had cal­cu­lat­ed that the had come best out of the King’s Col­lege rep­re­sen­ta­tives. As the prizes were announced, and the phrase “And in fourth place, King’s Col­lege,” was heard many times, Mrs Bick­ley said resigned­ly, “At least we’re con­sis­tent.” It turns out the oth­er schools all have their own games pitch­es, where­as our chil­dren must walk to Regen­t’s Park to run. Well, then.

But the big excite­ment of the day was when I spot­ted who I was sure was the Crown Prince of Greece! I know, it’s pathet­ic to get so excit­ed to see the heir to a non-exis­tent throne, but he’s a sta­ple of Hel­lo! mag­a­zine and I found it quite excit­ing. My sus­pi­cions were con­firmed when he was joined by his gor­geous, impos­si­bly chic wife, the for­mer Marie-Chan­tal Miller of the New York Millers. Unbe­liev­ably she was dressed in white Chanel trousers and jack­et, on a foot­ball pitch! Prince Pavlov tow­ered above all the oth­er fathers, at per­haps 6 feet 4, in per­fect­ly tai­lored, very Euro­pean clothes that set him apart from the rather scruffi­er Eng­lish dads. For sure there was no oth­er Chanel on the pitch. Mrs King and Mrs Bick­ley thought I should take a pic­ture of them to sell to Hel­lo!, but even my crass Amer­i­can man­ners told me I should leave them alone. I did get one pic­ture of them leav­ing, because of course they arrived just in time for their daugh­ter’s race for Eaton Square, and left imme­di­ate­ly after. Not for them the ride home with a sweet exhaust­ed child on a red dou­ble-deck­er bus.

We all were “cheered off” as they say, with the first “hip hip HOORAY!” I have ever heard out­side a Win­nie the Pooh sto­ry. Home on the bus, where in Sloane Street, stuck in a traf­fic jam, I saw Rober­to Cav­al­li! The hot and hap­pen­ing design­er, who now calls Vic­to­ria Beck­ham his muse. Ick. He was com­ing out of his own store, car­ry­ing one of his own bags. Now, what could he pos­si­bly have bought?

This week­end was a real food fest in our house. I had got myself in the mood with spaghet­ti and meat­balls on Wednes­day evening, while Stephanie, Anna and Avery were play­ing. It’s such a good, made-up recipe with cot­tage cheese and fresh thyme, and I usu­al­ly use a mix­ture of ground lamb, pork and beef, but dopey Marks and Sparks had only beef “mince,” and I was too ashamed to crawl over to Sel­f­ridges yet again, so I made do. Then a long-sim­mered sim­ple toma­to sauce with red wine, and you saute the meat­balls in a skil­let and then pour the sauce over them and let them jig­gle for as long as they need, but at least half an hour to cook them through. Email me if you want the meat­ball recipe. Stephanie and Anna hung over the skil­let ask­ing to stay to din­ner! Stephanie’s dad came to pick her up and we were treat­ed to a hilar­i­ous dance recital.

Want a com­plete­ly sim­ple, cooks-itself soup idea? Rough­ly chop up lots of gar­lic, an onion, and 8 bell pep­pers, any col­or but green. Throw them in a large pot with olive oil and saute briefly. Add a good splash of brandy or madeira, and cov­er them all with chick­en broth, then sprin­kle on dried thyme, or fresh thyme leaves if you have them (not the stems, though). Sim­mer for­ev­er, at least an hour but as long as you like. Whizz with a hand-held blender (one of the most use­ful ktichen tools in my opin­ion, since you don’t have to cool the soup as you would before putting it through a reg­u­lar blender) and pour into anoth­er pot through a strain­er to get the lit­tle pep­per skin bits out. Add as much cream as you like and check the sea­son­ings, then sim­mer till you want to eat it. Divine, and so extreme­ly good for you with all those peppers.

Sat­ur­day we met up with Anna’s fam­i­ly (minus too-cool Ash­ley) to go to the St. John and St. Eliz­a­beth’s Hos­pi­tal char­i­ty East­er Egg Hunt, in St. John’s Wood up north of the school. Impor­tant­ly it had been billed as includ­ing a pet­ting zoo, so Becky and I were flum­moxed to arrive and find not only no eggs, but no ani­mals. There was the weird­est sys­tem of egg-hunt­ing: the vol­un­teers ran­dom­ly threw emp­ty plas­tic eggs around on the lawn (admit­ted­ly strewn with just-bloomed cro­cus­es, gor­geous pur­ple and yel­low), and then the chil­dren ran­dom­ly picked them up and turned them in at a table piled high with box­es of the ubiq­ui­tous Cad­bury’s Cream Eggs. No real eggs! Noth­ing in the plas­tic ones! And no jel­ly beans, which means the real East­er Bun­ny had not been there. And scream­ing tod­dlers, every­where. The sky cloud­ed over and we were all freez­ing! The girls were good sports, though, and just as we were despair­ing of sal­vaging the after­noon, the crea­tures showed up. A big goat, a pygmy goat, sev­er­al rab­bits, ham­sters and guinea pigs, and a cou­ple of ferrets.

As we walked down the St. John’s Wood High Street after lunch, I had a long­ing for Thanks­giv­ing dress­ing, so I turned into the Kent and Sons Butch­er (“You turned into the butch­er, Mom­my? How dis­gust­ing,” Avery would say, since she always loves it when Nan­cy Drew “turns into her dri­ve­way”) and bought out­ra­geous­ly expen­sive pork and jalapeno sausages and chick­en breasts for the main course. John was apoplec­tic at the cost, but I have to say that sausage was the best I have ever had, and it’s such an impor­tant ingre­di­ent in the dress­ing that it made a real dif­fer­ence. It smelled good even raw! With fresh sage, the torn-out insides of Ital­ian bread, plen­ty of gar­lic, mush­rooms, cel­ery, onions, chick­en broth and cream, that is sim­ply the most divine dress­ing, if a lot of trouble.

Yes­ter­day was the spring time change, so in order to get to the Maryle­bone Farmer’s Mar­ket before every­thing was sold, I was awak­ened at an uncon­sol­ing­ly ear­ly hour. Turned out it was­n’t nec­es­sary, as the mar­ket did­n’t even open until 10, yippee for next week­end! We ran into my friend Diana who with her usu­al savoir-faire, told us which was the best of every­thing. “You have nev­er tast­ed a car­rot until you buy some from this green­gro­cer,” she assured me, which might mat­ter if we ate car­rots in any way except drenched in but­ter and brown sug­ar and sauteed until every ounce of nutri­tion has been replaced with fat. Sor­ry, but there it is. I learned that recipe from my dar­ling Jeanne Grieger in Orange, New Jer­sey, and I will nev­er look back. Avery acquired a tiny hyacinth plant and an even tinier some­thing else laven­der to raise on her bed­room win­dowsill. She and John quick­ly tired of the mar­ket, as nor­mal peo­ple will do after a cer­tain peri­od of time, so they ran off the find a bar­ber for John and I stayed and put­tered around.

I bought a gor­geous leg of lamb, plan­ning to give Avery left­over chick­en as she objects to lamb on cute­ness prin­ci­ples. Lis­ten to the butcher’s address: “Lay­er Mar­ney Lamb, Poul­try and Game, Thor­ring­ton, Lay­er Mar­ney, Colch­ester, Essex.” Whew! I bought sev­er­al remark­able cheeses, and a just-pressed pat of but­ter from Simon Jones, the dairy man, and two love­ly smoked her­rings from Simon Long, the fish­mon­ger. Gor­geous toma­toes from the Isle of Wight and some curi­ous pota­toes called Pink Fir Apples, only they’re pota­toes. Waxy and good for sal­ad, the green­gro­cer said. I con­fess I bought them just for the fun of typ­ing “Pink Fir Apples,” but I imag­ine I can find some­thing to do with them. As for the lamb, oh my. Even Avery was con­vert­ed! I seared it all over in olive oil with salt and pep­per on all sur­faces as I turned it, in a heavy oven-proof pot, then put it in a 450 degree oven for 20 min­utes. Mean­while I mixed a stick of but­ter with chopped gar­lic, a table­spoon each of Dijon mus­tard and soy sauce, and a table­spoon each of rose­mary and fen­nel seeds, pound­ed in a plas­tic bag (not very suc­cess­ful­ly, a lit­tle spice grinder would have been bet­ter). Smeared half of this over the lamb, then turned the oven down to 350 for anoth­er 25-ish min­utes (a 2 1/2 pound leg, bone-in). I let it sit for 10 min­utes or so so all the juice would­n’t run out when I sliced it, and melt­ed the rest of the herb but­ter. I am a hor­ri­ble carv­er, so I know I don’t get the best pre­sen­ta­tion, but with the fen­nel and herb but­ter poured over the juicy pink lamb and left­over dress­ing on the side, it was sim­ply divine. Sauteed shred­ded brus­sells sprouts were my tiny ges­ture toward good health and austerity.

I’ve got our Scot­tish adven­ture planned! Avery and I shall take the Cale­don­ian Sleep­er train Thurs­day evening, leav­ing exot­i­cal­ly at near­ly mid­night from Euston Sta­tion. We arrive first thing in the morn­ing in Edin­burgh, where we can get break­fast some­where and explore, then then we head out to our hotel, the Cas­tle Dal­housie just a few miles into the coun­try­side. I dare you to go on the Castle’s web­site and not be instant­ly deter­mined to go with us! We’ll stay until Mon­day after­noon and come home on the day train, so we can see the scenery go by. I am real­ly look­ing for­ward to it. John leaves on Wednes­day of this week for his Hong Kong-Shang­hai-Syd­ney-Tokyo trip and he would much rather be com­ing with us. We’ll be at home then Tues­day, Wednes­day and Thurs­day, and go to the show jump­ing event on Fri­day and Saturday!

Last but not least, tonight is John’s boss’s work din­ner par­ty that’s been in the hop­per for months. I’m going to wear the gor­geous Vince black vel­vet jack­et that my moth­er-in-law gave me, and I was going to wear with it a short black skirt. But guess what? I wound up going to Sel­f­ridges and up to the design­er wom­en’s wear sec­tion, and I bought a lit­tle pair of the fash­ion­able longish shorts that every­one’s wear­ing on the cat­walk. At its worst this style is a ter­ri­ble idea, but these are by Chloe, a nice sort of tau­pey-goldy real­ly sub­tle tweed, just above knee length. The salesla­dy assures me that with my jack­et, black tights and black high heels I will be the lat­est word in fash­ion. I doubt that, but it has to be cool­er than all black. I also got some yum­my face cream at a place called Bio­therm, and I final­ly replaced my emp­ty bot­tle of Her­mes per­fume that has trav­eled sad­ly here with me from New York. I hope I will do John cred­it! I’ve nev­er before been to a din­ner par­ty where you’re pro­vid­ed, via email, with resumes for all the guests. Except me of course. It’s a pret­ty heady mix of invest­ment bank­ing exec­u­tives, hedge fund man­agers, minor mem­bers of the British aris­toc­ra­cy. And us. I can’t decide who I’m going as: for­mer gallery own­er and pro­fes­sor, cook­book writer, or just plain at-home moth­er. To go as a for­mer self seems a bit depress­ing, but to go as some­thing you’re only plan­ning to be… that’s iffy as well. Prob­a­bly best to go with what I know. Too bad I can’t bring Avery in my pocket.