the cleanup (and a real­ly good sandwich)

Ah, it’s that time again. In the run-up to Christ­mas I feel pos­i­tive­ly addict­ed to clut­ter. I want the tree, the orna­ments, the lit­tle vil­lage of skaters and sled­ders, the cen­ter­piece of pinecones and cran­ber­ries, the presents, the wreaths! And music, and big meals with lots of gravy, and Christ­mas cards from friends stacked and dis­played, and bows on cats, if they’ll let me. Let the bells chime.

No more. Yes­ter­day I was vis­it­ed by the Spir­it of Minimalism.

After a day of fren­zied labor (poor John was roped in as well), the tree’s gone, the nee­dles swept up, all the orna­ments packed away and the box­es stored in the lit­tle Har­ry-Pot­ter-room under the stairs, table bare, songs silenced, every­thing neat, tidy and pol­ished. And emp­ty! It actu­al­ly feels good.

I even got obsessed yes­ter­day with my kitchen. At first all I was going to do was throw away the old, stale, dried-up stuff on my “pantry” shelves (I wish I had a pantry, but all I have is stain­less-steel shelves right out in the open in my kitchen). But once I got start­ed, no object was safe. Sev­en box­es of teabags? I don’t think so. I bunged the bags them­selves into a love­ly clean glass jar, screwed on the lid, and threw away all the box­es. Half a bot­tle of red wine I’d been sav­ing for spaghet­ti sauce? Down the drain. Why had I kept a box of lasagne sheets with just one and a half of them left? Gone. And then, while I was at it, I decid­ed to switch all the food and dish­es around, so into the cup­boards and draw­ers went the rice and tinned toma­toes, and out came the green Fire King din­ner plates and all the teacups and saucers from my Evil Grand­moth­er’s wed­ding chi­na. Lots of odd dis­cov­er­ies since the day long ago last year when John kind­ly (if a bit hap­haz­ard­ly) unpacked the kitchen for me. And you know what? It looks nice in there now!

By din­ner time, how­ev­er, I was exhaust­ed, dirty and hun­gry. But some­thing in me rebelled at pro­duc­ing yet anoth­er meal of meat and two veg, or pas­ta, baguette and sal­ad. No, I rebelled and decid­ed that just for once, a sand­wich for din­ner would­n’t kill us. And what a sand­wich! At first I thought, “How can I blog a recipe for a sand­wich? Every­one knows how to make a reuben.” But maybe not. Have a look, but keep in mind that, what­ev­er the time-hon­ored dis­tic­tions in cur­ing or what­ev­er, if you expect Amer­i­can-style pas­tra­mi, it’s called “salt beef” here.

Clas­sic Reuben

2 slices tra­di­tion­al rye bread
1 tbsp butter
enough Ched­dar-ish cheese to cov­er bread
1/4 cup sauer­kraut (or cole slaw)
2 tbsps Thou­sand Island or Russ­ian dressing
pastrami/salt beef to taste (we like lots)

Heat a skil­let to medi­um, and lay one slice of but­tered bread but­ter side down. Cov­er with cheese, then sauer­kraut and dress­ing, then pas­tra­mi. But­ter the sec­ond slice of bread and place on top, but­ter side out of course. Keep­ing all the wet­tish bits in between the cheese and pas­tra­mi avoids that fate worse then death for any sand­wich: sog­gy bread. Grill gen­tly until cheese is melt­ed and bread crispy, then care­ful­ly turn over and grill oth­er side until crunchy. Heaven!

I did cave to con­ven­tion and had a sal­ad on the side, but it was noth­ing more than chopped cab­bage and more Thou­sand Island dress­ing. Now, Avery will not eat dress­ing of any kind, but strange­ly enough, from a baby one of her favorite foods was sauer­kraut. Odd, but there you go.

Well, today we moseyed over to North (or is it called West?) Kens­ing­ton again to see a house in Bas­sett Road, designed, owned and inhab­it­ed by the most PER­SNICK­ETY man I have ever encoun­tered! Hon­est­ly, he makes me look dev­il-may-care and messy, and those who know me best know to their despair that I tend to fol­low peo­ple around pick­ing up the things they have just put down and tidy­ing them away. This guy was nuts. On his cof­fee table were six rows of mag­a­zines, all stacked the way fur­ni­ture stores do, so the title of each issue shows? And in his bath­room, noth­ing that would indi­cate a per­son could actu­al­ly prac­tice per­son­al hygiene in it. Just can­dles, and books, and flower arrang­ments. And he comes with a wife! And child! The child’s room looked as if they had just whisked away the glass dome that nor­mal­ly cov­ers it. Antique dolls and ted­dies lined up with vin­tage books care­ful­ly stacked beside a sepia-toned pho­to­graph of the child her­self, who appeared briefly dressed like some­thing out of a Vic­to­ri­an doll­house, and was prompt­ly tak­en away by a dot­ing nan­ny. Hon­est­ly, it was sur­re­al, and most enjoy­able, to inhab­it their world for half an hour.

But the house itself is like our loft in Tribeca trans­plant­ed into a Lon­don build­ing. Not for me. What would be the point of mov­ing to Lon­don and liv­ing in New York? I real­ly want an Eng­lish house. So I dragged John kick­ing and scream­ing from that envi­ron­ment of steel and glass, and we’re back to the draw­ing board. Although it will take awhile for me to for­get the image of all those sweaters fold­ed like they are at Ralph Lau­ren, repos­ing in a glass-front­ed clothes cup­board. Stacked by COL­OR. It remind­ed me of the per­fec­tion of the house where we were so warm­ly wel­comed in Southamp­ton this sum­mer. I am just not cool enough to live like that, but it’s a nice place to visit.

I’m off to a new class this after­noon! “Com­e­dy writ­ing for tele­vi­sion.” Per­haps that lev­i­ty implied in that title will be suit­able for a brain like mine that does­n’t seem capa­ble of pro­duc­ing a nov­el or a screen­play, my pre­vi­ous City Lit endeav­ors notwith­stand­ing. Some days I feel that my life is like a sit­com episode, one of them where it isn’t fun­ny to the peo­ple on the tel­ly, but the audi­ence real­ly enjoys it. So we’ll see if I can trans­late any of that to the small screen. Watch this space.