I’m back

I’m sor­ry I’ve been so silent! A long-await­ed vis­it from John’s par­ents, com­bined with a nasty bout of a stom­ach bug called ulcer­a­tive col­i­tis, have cur­tailed my com­mu­ni­ca­tions for a cou­ple of weeks. But the vis­it is, sad­ly, over, and the bug, not so sad­ly, on its last legs, so here I am.

Sec­ond men­tal note to self (after the one not to ruin very expen­sive dress shirts and school uni­forms with one flick of a pash­mi­na): don’t try to melt but­ter in a Pyrex dish direct­ly on top of a scary ceram­ic stove. Why not? Because it freakin’ EXPLOD­ED! There I was, inno­cent­ly cook­ing din­ner last night, and the main dish was to be Mama Nel’s chick­en, named after my dar­ling moth­er who invent­ed it. It’s easy peasy, as Jamie Oliv­er would say: sim­ply pour some flour into a gro­cery bag, or some oth­er bag, and add lots of herbs: rose­mary, thyme, papri­ka, gar­lic pow­der, basil, mar­jo­ram, what­ev­er you like. Then pour some veg­etable oil in a nice Pyrex dish and dip chick­en pieces skin side down in the oil. Then shake them up in the herbed flour and lay again skin side down in the oiled pan. Bake for about 20 min­utes at 425, then turn over and bake skin side up for anoth­er 20 min­utes. You can do the last few min­utes on broil if you like crispy skin.

Any­way, I decid­ed to com­bine the oil with a lit­tle but­ter, so I was herb­ing my flour and watch­ing the but­ter melt on top of the stove when KABOOM the whole thing sim­ply explod­ed into hun­dreds of tiny shrap­nel pieces. I’m lucky I did­n’t put my eye out, or some kit­ty’s eye. My bleats of dis­may brought Avery and John, who looked on in hor­ror, and then John cut him­self try­ing to help. Final­ly it was all cleared up and din­ner on its way, only to find, as we ate the steamed bas­mati rice to go with the chick­en, that glass frag­ments had found their way into the but­ter I put on top. A very effec­tive way to con­trol por­tions, it turns out. No one want­ed to eat any­thing after that! What a night.

John’s par­ents’ vis­it was com­plete­ly won­der­ful. As you can see above, they went every­where with us! They accom­pa­nied us to the barn and met Cook­ie, and to school and met Mrs Davies, and to play­date dropoff where they met Becky and her fam­i­ly. It was school half term, so things like show­ing them Avery’s ice skat­ing had to hap­pen with just us, not the fun of the whole class, but still, I think they got a good feel for the way we live now. Let’s see, they treat­ed us to a ruinous­ly expen­sive after­noon tea at Brown’s Hotel (I’ve always want­ed to go back since my own par­ents took us way back in 1990 or so). Since then of course we have acquired Avery who is a great fan of Agatha Christie, and in par­tic­u­lar the thin­ly-dis­guised ver­sion of Brown’s that appears in “At Bertram’s Hotel.” So I inno­cent­ly booked us for one after­noon, not know­ing that by now it has climbed in price to the astro­nom­i­cal fee of 29 pounds per per­son! Hon­est­ly, even for Lon­don­ers that’s going some. Still, it was lovely.

We trekked out to the coun­try­side to see Lulling­stone Cas­tle, whose fam­i­ly for­tunes (or lack there­of) and ren­o­va­tion have been the sub­ject of a won­der­ful BBC doc­u­men­tary that we’re addict­ed to. We actu­al­ly got to meet Tom Dyke Hart, the son and heir, and inven­tor of the mar­velous gar­den that’s the cen­ter­piece of the new pub­lic areas of the house and grounds. John went around mum­bling, “I REAL­LY want that house…” Then we went to see the “Mouse­trap,” and John’s par­ents took my tick­ets to see “Cori­olanus” at the Globe (my act­ing class was study­ing it, I thought, but it turns out I was wrong and THEY were all at “Titus Andron­i­cus”!), we went to an incred­i­ble polo match at the Guards Polo Club in Wind­sor (Prince Philip’s own polo club, if you please). Did you know that at half­time, after the first three “chukkas”, the crowd are all asked to go out on to the field and stomp on the “divets”? So there we all were, find­ing all the places where the hooves and mal­lets had chewed up the polo lawn, and stomp­ing the sod back in place! Of course, only John Cur­ran could make this a com­pet­i­tive sport, so he was prac­ti­cal­ly mow­ing Avery down try­ing to stomp on all the divets SHE found.

On the last day of the vis­it, after Avery’s rid­ing les­son in Wim­ble­don, we moseyed out to the McBs’ for Sun­day lunch in Stroud. Incred­i­bly all four chil­dren were there, so John’s par­ents got to see the tow­er­ing thing that is Nick (who I first met when he was four, sob), short­ly to leave his row­ing days at Eton behind and con­quer Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, and Emma who’s off to Exeter, and Rose whose birth announce­ment I dis­cov­ered in a box of mem­o­ra­bil­ia last week, and Una who was not even born when we last lived in Lon­don. How have they all grown so old, and so accom­plished? Every time we see that fam­i­ly I feel that it’s best just to skip the fiery crash and give Avery to them now. They’re such professionals!

John’s dad per­formed his usu­al neigh­bor­hood mir­a­cle and found us a local restau­rant to patron­ize, the Lucky Spot, right on South Aud­ley Street, so we went twice in a row and were much made over. Their strac­ciatel­li soup, lemo­ny and eggy, was just what the doc­tor ordered for my frag­ile health. We dis­cov­ered many hereto­fore unknown bus routes and went to the Tow­er of Lon­don, the Por­to­bel­lo farmer’s mar­ket, shop­ping in Oxford Street, and every­where else you can imag­ine. Through it all we ate: even with my sad stom­ach, we ATE. Susan’s orange and gin­ger chick­en cur­ry, roast­ed pork spareribs (their left­overs made a superb pic­nic for the polo match), avo­ca­do sal­ad galore, cream of red pep­per soup with fresh thyme, you name it. And pink gaz­pa­cho, for which I must give you the recipe because it’s sin­ful­ly sim­ple and inex­pen­sive, and aside from a cucum­ber and an avo­ca­do you can eas­i­ly have every­thing on hand in your pantry:

Jeanne Grieger’s Pink Sum­mer Gazpacho

1 cup sliv­ered almonds or pine nuts
2 pieces white or wheat bread or 1 cup breadcrumbs
2 cans plum tomatoes
1/2 long hydro­pon­ic cucum­ber, or two small kir­bys, sliced
1/2 cup veg­etable oil
1/2 cup cider vine­gar (you can use bal­sam­ic but it will change the col­or of the soup)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp chili pep­per or cayenne
salt and pep­per to taste
2 cups chick­en broth
1 cup half and half
1 avo­ca­do, cut in small bite-size pieces

Pul­ver­ize the almonds or pine nuts in a Cuisi­nart, then whiz in the bread. Add the toma­toes, cucum­ber, oil and vine­gar and spices and pul­ver­ize until smooth. Pour into a very large bowl and add the chick­en broth and half and half and blend well. Taste it and add more of what­ev­er spices or salt you think is need­ed. Chill thor­ough­ly and serve with a lit­tle group of avo­ca­do pieces mound­ed in the cen­ter. Deli­cious, and so good for you! If you like a more ele­gant soup, you can peel the cucum­ber first, or you can strain the soup. But I find the green bits and the nut­ty bits are very nice.

Sad­ly the inlaws have gone cal­lous­ly home, leav­ing me with noth­ing more excit­ing to do than laun­dry. I caved to the pres­sure of my tiny wash­ing machine and yes­ter­day dropped off two huge bags of sheets, tow­els and John’s busi­ness shirts at a nice laun­dry in the Maryle­bone High Street. Sim­ply aban­doned it all.

So today I don’t get Avery back in my clutch­es until 5:30, due to the fever-pitch excite­ment of rehearsals for the school-wide pro­duc­tion of “Joseph and His Amaz­ing Tech­ni­col­or Dream­coat.” What I don’t know about Joseph’s 10 hap­less sib­lings, the many hues of the coat, and the end­less num­ber of rep­e­ti­tions of “AHA” isn’t worth know­ing. Andrew Lloyd Web­ber has a lot to answer for, in my hum­ble opin­ion, but I’m sure when it’s not just bur­bled at me in a taxi on the way to school or chor­tled at me as cook­ing imple­ments explode, it will be very charm­ing. The pro­duc­tion is on June 17 so we have a ways to go as far as expo­sure. Avery was astound­ed that her grand­par­ents did not imme­di­ate­ly change their tick­ets and stay an extra twelve days in order to see the per­for­mance. They are such saints, I think they actu­al­ly con­sid­ered it. How we miss them. Now it’s time for MY par­ents to come! But I am afraid I have to wait until the fall for that delight.