the last, red-hot Amer­i­can week

Oh, how very real is the dif­fi­cul­ty of leav­ing behind one life for anoth­er!  Say­ing good­bye to Red Gate Farm, espe­cial­ly with its beau­ti­ful gate and fence restored to more even than their usu­al beau­ty was espe­cial­ly heart-wrench­ing this time.  The last days there were filled with heat, humid­i­ty, a revolv­ing door of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, fam­i­ly, and friends.

We were wel­comed back home from our Road Trip with Susan’s beau­ti­ful flow­ers.  What friends she and her fam­i­ly have become!

Of course, part of the dra­ma at Red Gate Farm this sum­mer was the nur­tur­ing (near­ly com­plete­ly failed, but more on that lat­er) of the sour­dough starter I had so care­ful­ly giv­en life to in Iowa.  Yes, dear read­ers, I packed it up in my suit­case and actu­al­ly fed it and watered it on our jour­ney from Iowa to Connecticut.

All right, all right, before any of you jumps in to say, as John and my broth­er in law Joel say con­stant­ly, rolling their eyes, that I tend to get… obsessed with things, let me stop you.  Yes, there were the chick­ens, I’ll give you that.  But they deserved my devo­tion.  And I sup­pose I did get a tiny bit, well, devot­ed to knit­ting, last sum­mer.  I get ideas!

This sum­mer, it might be verg­ing on accu­rate to say that I have been obsessed with sour­dough.  Cre­at­ing a starter, being giv­en a starter, main­tain­ing it, bak­ing with it.  I have been a bit, just a BIT, well, devot­ed to the top­ic.  I’d actu­al­ly pre­fer to call these activ­i­ties of mine “inter­mit­tent fever­ish com­pul­sions,” as the late, great cook­ery writer Robert Can­zoneri said in his absolute­ly epic mem­oir, “Pot­boil­er”.  That’s so much more descrip­tive than “obses­sions.”

In any case, the road to sour­dough suc­cess has been paved with a series of unmit­i­gat­ed dis­as­ters.  This starter seemed, at first, to be no excep­tion.  It had been so live­ly in Iowa!  But then it just pooped out.  At Red Gate Farm, I turned out loaf after loaf of dis­as­trous, flat, unbear­ably chewy yuck loaves.

Not con­tent with sam­pling these fail­ures on my own, I made all my near­est and dear­est taste them as well.  I spent hours, absolute­ly hours, on Face­book and iMes­sage and email with all my sour­dough gurus (believe me, there are peo­ple whose devo­tion to this top­ic make me look like a dis­tract­ed slack­er.  But it just did­n’t work.

(Fast-for­ward to Lon­don where, upon emerg­ing from my suit­case hav­ing explod­ed in its glass jar in a Ziplock bag, thank­ful­ly, the starter revealed itself not to be dead after all!  After a few days’ rest and feed­ing, just look what resulted.

See, it behooves one to per­sist in one’s inter­mit­tent fever­ish compulsions.)

But back to the Farm and our sum­mer’s end.

First of all, the HEAT.  The HEAT!  The air pos­i­tive­ly steamed, at times.  Not that I mind­ed.  It was beautiful.

Life siz­zled with humid­i­ty.  If you were sit­ting still in the shade, it was very pleas­ant.  But if you changed one of those things — mov­ing around in the shade, or sit­ting still in the sun — it was over­whelm­ing!  Park­ing lots, for­get it.  But ensconced in a deck chair on the ter­race with a book and some­thing cold to drink, it was Amer­i­can Sum­mer pure and sim­ple.  And then in the evenings, it was cool enough to enjoy din­ner with guests.

And my good­ness, did we have guests!  In our con­tin­u­ing attempt to give back as much as we could to every­one who had shoul­dered the bur­den of a tor­na­do-strick­en Red Gate Farm, we invit­ed and invit­ed and invited.

Mark popped by one fine after­noon, “just for a quick minute, I don’t real­ly have much time…”  (His t‑shirt says “Luck Is Not a Plan,” by the way, which explains Mark in a com­plete moment.)

But he’d brought Tay­lor along, and they stayed for a good long chat.  She has become, seem­ing­ly overnight, an absolute­ly joy­ful, mature, delight­ful girl with a twin­kle in her eye and a wicked sense of humor.

By the end of the after­noon we had con­coct­ed a plan for din­ner, the fol­low­ing evening.

Of course being Mark, he could­n’t just show up and be fed.  Oh, no, ear­li­er in the day he had made quite the most spe­cial deliv­ery that’s ever been made to Red Gate Farm.  Burg­ers, from lambs he had raised, butchered (or as he says, “dis­patched”), ground in his envy-mak­ing com­mer­cial grinder, turned into pat­ties with his spe­cial pat­ty-mak­ing machine.

The result­ing burg­ers, with my spe­cial espresso/paprika/garlic rub, were the last word in burg­ers.  On my home­made pota­to rolls, sim­ply divine.

Here, again, for you is Orlan­do’s excep­tion­al recipe for these rolls.  I love his “voice.”

Kon­nie cap­tured the peace­ful pre-din­ner table for Instagram.

A prop­er feast!  Roast­ed salmon for the pescatar­i­ans among us, and then sum­mer’s dis­cov­ery of grilled corn.

The Lyons popped by, which increased our num­ber by five!  Gabriel and I shared a secret.  I think it was about dessert.

Regi­na, Egbert and Judy came for anoth­er leisure­ly evening that start­ed with champagne…

… and mor­phed into enjoy­ing but­ter­flied, deep-fried jum­bo shrimp and my home­made cock­tail sauce (no sug­ar, tons of horse­rad­ish and lemon zest).

But­ter­flied Deep-Fried Jum­bo Shrimp with Home­made Cock­tail Sauce

(serves about 6)

for shrimp:

48 jum­bo shrimp

1/2 cup/90g plain flour

2 eggs, beaten

about 1/2 cup/90g cornmeal

about 1 cup/100g  Panko breadcrumbs

about 1 cup/100g Mat­zoh meal

2 tbsps paprika

2 tbsps gar­lic salt

2 tbsps onion powder

fresh black pepper

enough veg­etable oil to deep-fry

for sauce:

1 cup/250ml sug­ar-free ketchup

3‑inch piece fresh, peeled horse­rad­ish root, or about 4 tbsps pre­pared horse­rad­ish root (but not the creamy kind)

zest and juice of 1 lime

fresh black pep­per and sea salt to taste

For the shrimp, peel (but leav­ing on the tail if pos­si­ble as a “han­dle”), devein and cut deeply along the body but not all the way through.  This is called “but­ter­fly­ing.” Shake the shrimp in the flour, coat in the egg.  Mix all the remain­ing dry ingre­di­ents and place in a large bag or bowl.  About 6 shrimp at a time, shake or roll in the dry ingredients.

Heat the oil to about 350F/180C or until a piece of bread­crumb dropped in fries instant­ly.  In batch­es of 6 shrimp, deep fry for about 90 sec­onds or until just cooked, and drain batch­es on paper tow­el.  Serve right away with the sauce, for which you sim­ply mix all the ingre­di­ents and then pro­vide each guest with a spoon­ful of it in an indi­vid­ual ramekin.

****************

We could feel the days get­ting pal­pa­bly short­er, din­ner in the approach­ing dark of late summer.

We could feel, as well, the grad­ual accep­tance of life with­out Rol­lie, some­thing no one ever want­ed to antic­i­pate.  His pres­ence in our lives, the con­stant source of wis­dom and expe­ri­ence, the end­less sup­ply of ener­gy , his reg­u­lar appear­ances at times when I was at Red Gate Farm alone, to help me replace a propane tank, test the gen­er­a­tor, spread a dri­ve­way of grav­el, or just share a cup of cof­fee — all these things were pre­cious to us.  Judy is just as pre­cious, and the most impor­tant thing in the world is that she know how we intend to keep her as close as we can.

One of the joys of Red Gate Farm life is com­ing in from run­ning errands and find­ing gifts.  Eggs from Mark, blue­ber­ry cake from Judy, apple cake from Susan, recipes from both.

Jill and her fam­i­ly came for one last evening, on the sec­ond anniver­sary of Dad’s death.  Joel brave­ly popped a cork into the pond and we all shared a glass.  “What if I LIKE IT?” Jane hissed in a 13-year-old whis­per to me.  “No prob­lem, you just have eight years to wait.”

Mark had brought by a HUGE chick­en, so we exper­i­ment­ed and sous-vid­ed it, then fin­ished it off on the grill.  Note to self: don’t both­er sous-vid­ing a chick­en.  It was deli­cious, but that’s a sil­ly method for a whole chick­en.  What a din­ner!  Jil­l’s excel­lent pick­le-laden pota­to sal­ad went down a treat, not to men­tion the ubiq­ui­tous dev­illed eggs, when­ev­er Jil­l’s fam­i­ly come round.

For Jill, who is dairy-free, I’ve come up with a per­fect inno­va­tion for the Cap­rese Sal­ad, of which there is nev­er enough.  I sim­ply seg­re­gate the toma­toes from the moz­zarel­la, and sprin­kle over fresh basil, instead of pesto.  Alter­na­tive­ly, I exper­i­ment­ed with Parme­san-free pesto, and while I pre­fer it cheesy, obvi­ous­ly the impor­tant thing is the basil.  We had such a good evening.

Final­ly, there was no deny­ing it: it was time to go “home,” what­ev­er that means.  Time to tidy up the kitchen…

… tidy away all the projects that had lived on the din­ing table in these weeks of deli­cious­ly eat­ing out of doors…

… tidy away all the books that had been tak­en out of shelves in the hope­ful expec­ta­tion of long, bor­ing after­noons that nev­er actu­al­ly happened.

The last, marathon, rather hate­ful day of laun­dry, turn­ing some things one (timers and dehu­mid­i­fi­er), oth­ers off (water), emp­ty­ing the fridge and cup­boards, pick­ing up the rental car, fill­ing the car with moth­balls in a nev­er-suc­cess­ful attempt to dis­cour­age mice, and final­ly bring­ing in the Red Gate Farm sign that Dad made so many years ago.

Good­bye for yet anoth­er sum­mer.  We’ll be back after Christ­mas, trad­ing one life for anoth­er yet again.