we’re offi­cial

Yes, we’re offi­cial­ly visa-ed for life in Eng­land now. John is, ahem, drum roll: a “High­ly Skilled Migrant Work­er.” Avery and I are his depen­dents. As if we did­n’t already know that.

We got up ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing and rode down in the hotel ele­va­tor with lots of hilar­i­ous dogs in town for the West­min­ster Dog Show at Madi­son Square Gar­den, just down the street from the New York­er. Oh, yes, we had to switch hotels after Alyssa vis­it­ed the one I had cho­sen, and said that while she was not actu­al­ly attacked by giant rodents and cock­roach­es, it was a near miss. And she thought maybe there was a dead per­son on the front steps. So I put my tail between my legs and let Olimpia book us into the bor­ing but clean hotel John always stays at in town. Sigh, so much for exper­i­men­ta­tion and adventure.

But yes, after we dropped Avery off at school with Cici to spend the day being a non-uni­formed co-ed girl, I had tea with Kath­leen and then trekked up to the British Con­sulate to sub­mit all the labo­ri­ous paper­work John had gath­ered up: tax records, salary records, mar­riage and birth cer­tifi­cates, every­thing but my last gro­cery list and mam­mo­gram results.

But on the way in the taxi, I was again vis­it­ed by the feel­ing that New York is sim­ply lit­tered with mem­o­ries. Bal­let on 6th Avenue, and the dar­ling Jef­fer­son Mar­ket library across the street, where lit­tle tutu-ed Avery spent so many hap­py hours. Our crazy mis­er­able den­tist who want­ed to be an Olympic ski­er, on 10th Street just around the cor­ner from the Hal­loween store, open every day of the year sell­ing make­up, wigs, scary teeth, dead rub­ber rats, plas­tic swords and cos­tumes. And then Friends Sem­i­nary where Annabelle goes to school and Avery spent so many hot sum­mer days at camp with her, and Beth Israel Hos­pi­tal, vis­i­ble from the school, where Avery was born. Sigh. But Lon­don is begin­ning to feel like home, as well.

The visas were no prob­lem at all, and then we found out our lunch with Alyssa had to be can­celed because Elliot was busy film­ing a com­mer­cial for PBS! His red hair and gen­er­al atti­tude of friend­ly, goofy aban­don makes him a total obses­sion with the New York com­mer­cial set. So we aban­doned our plan and instead spon­ta­neous­ly hopped on the V train and had pas­tra­mi sand­wich­es, mat­zoh ball soup and latkes at Katz Deli! There is just noth­ing like it, although I did recoil a bit at $13.45 for a sand­wich. But since no sane per­son can eat a whole one, it’s actu­al­ly not that bad. In fact, per­fect. Then a long walk to SoHo to find a down coat for me since the bit­ter wind was des­tined to make stand­ing out at a pony les­son quite mis­er­able. Boy are things on sale! EMS was good to me and I came away look­ing like a marsh­mal­low, but cosy and warm. And I found, on the oth­er end of the style spec­trum, a beau­ti­ful hal­ter-neck black dress to wear to the British Show Jump­ing Cham­pi­onships in April, for which John and Avery gave me fan­cy VIP tick­ets, for my birth­day. Black tie, the Puis­sance Wall, it will be great, and now for a bud­get price at JCrew, I have a dress.

Just in time to pull out­side school to get Avery, and I looked up to see my old friend Mya, one of the gallery’s best clients, com­ing toward me! “What on EARTH?” she asked in aston­ish­ment. It was but the work of a moment to explain our mis­sion, and she explained too that her eldest son Miles (who was just two when his par­ents bought their first paint­ing) goes to school at VCS. Then there is the mid­dle son who was born when the gallery was about a year old, and now there is a third son, with whom Mya was preg­nant when I told her we were mov­ing. We chat­ting ener­get­i­cal­ly until it was time for Miles to be col­lect­ed. How nice it would be if they came to Lon­don, but with three boys under sev­en, it might be tough.

Up the old famil­iar West Side High­way, past the new­ly-rebuilt crum­ble of the wall that so famous­ly fell onto the road just feet from our car sev­er­al years ago. What an adven­ture that was. Poor John’s mom not being able to reach me with my dead cell phone, cer­tain that we were buried under tons of rub­ble. We reached the barn to find all our friends milling about in the cold, some unrec­og­niz­able under wool­ly hats! Ali with her new, dear horse, Gab­by and Nina jump­ing in the ring with dear Chris­tine shout­ing at every­one to keep heels down, hands calm, shoul­ders straight. Arrange­ments were being made for the din­ner that evening to reunite us all, and John was pass­ing out cof­fee to every­one. Avery was on Lady­bug, and as you can see, the meet­ing was a joy for all. What a dear pony, but I must say the les­son last­ed just long enough in the freez­ing cold. And, dear read­ers, I man­aged to work in a trip to my beloved Fair­way, quite pos­si­bly the best, and most afford­able, food mar­ket I have ever been to. Huge piles of pro­duce of every descrip­tion as you enter, then onto the pantry goods with deals on olive oil and anchovies and pas­ta, plus a huge deli sec­tion where I snagged gravad­lax, smoked rain­bow trout, fresh cream cheese (bears no resem­blance to the gelati­nous cousin of the Philadel­phia vari­ety), and then into the famous Cold Room, where the entire space is a refrig­er­a­tor. There I picked up an embar­rass­ing quan­ti­ty of fresh shucked oys­ters for stew for Fri­day night’s sup­per, and regret­ful­ly passed up the whole beef fil­lets and giant pork roasts on the bone, not hav­ing enough peo­ple to feed to make it worth­while. Up we went then to Avery’s barn friend Nina’s gor­geous town house, to snug­gle before the fire and try to help Nina’s moth­er Julia with her lat­est pro­fes­sion­al conun­drum, a muse­um oppor­tu­ni­ty that sounds both com­pelling and confusing.

Din­ner was a total delight. I can­not say that my appetite was at its most oppor­tune, with a giant Katz Deli lunch in its recent past. So I con­tent­ed myself with an enor­mous Cae­sar sal­ad and had lit­tle bites of every­one else’s pas­ta, John’s gnoc­chi with wild mush­rooms def­i­nite­ly win­ning out. It was a love­ly restau­rant, Cen­tolire on Madi­son Avenue, and appar­ent­ly when Julia told some­one of our plans, the lis­ten­er was incred­u­lous. “You’re tak­ing CHIL­DREN there?” It’s one of Pino Luon­go’s brain­chil­dren, and had I known ahead of time where we were going, I would have saved my pas­tra­mi for anoth­er day. I remem­ber the days years ago when we lived in SoHo (more wax­ing nos­tal­gic), going to Il Can­ti­nori in Lit­tle Italy for a spe­cial treat.

Cer­tain­ly it was lux­u­ri­ous, and with a table for eight moth­ers (and John) and eight lit­tle girls, we were per­fect­ly set for a relax­ing evening. I just looked and looked at my friends and was so hap­py to be includ­ed: beau­ti­ful, earnest Flo­ren­cia lis­ten­ing grave­ly to what­ev­er sto­ry ele­gant, ath­let­ic Camille hap­pened to be telling, and author­i­ta­tive, opin­ion­at­ed Venezue­lan Ana, daugh­ter of Car­oli­na Her­rera, and then feisty, foxy Francesca who host­ed us so mem­o­rably this sum­mer, and fresh-faced Sandy, wife of a very pop­u­lar CNN host and with an edge of South­ern steely wit to her charm. And of course Julia to my right, still mus­ing over her job offer, join­ing me in look­ing over at our daugh­ters, order­ing their din­ners with grace and aplomb. How did they get old enough to deal with wait­ers, and receive such glow­ing smiles for their man­ners? All of them so sweet in their jodh­purs and long glossy pony­tails. As always the dis­cus­sion ranged from the most recent pony-human intrigues at the barn, who is win­ning ver­sus who should be win­ning, what insane things Joey the train­er has been say­ing late­ly, wor­ries over our daugh­ters’ grow­ing up too quick­ly, and a lot of inter­est in our lives in Lon­don, espe­cial­ly Avery’s rid­ing. It seems mag­i­cal, and almost impos­si­ble to me, that we can come back, and our friends are still here. As we fin­ished din­ner we looked out the win­dow to see thick snow falling. “Bet­ter get going,” John said, and we part­ed with many kiss­es, and head­ed back up to Connecticut.

We spent yes­ter­day recov­er­ing from our mad sched­ule, doing noth­ing but cook­ing crab­cakes and watch­ing “The Manor House,” a won­der­ful series of pro­grammes detail­ing the Gos­ford Park-like lives of an invent­ed, recre­at­ed aris­to­crat­ic fam­i­ly life in Edwar­dian Eng­land. So far three of the vol­un­teer scullery maids have quit, the French chef hates every­one, lit­tle Mas­ter Guy has received a pony for his birth­day, and some of the shim­mer is wear­ing off the gen­er­ous atti­tudes of the peo­ple play­ing the land­ed gen­try. What will this evening’s episode be? Per­haps Rob the Foot­man will fall for Jen­nifer the Sec­ond House­maid? We’ll find out.

Kris­ten’s Crab­cakes (inspired by Joel’s Crab­cakes, thank you)
(makes approx­i­mate­ly 8)

1 lb fresh claw crab­meat, cooked and picked over
1/2 cup thin­ly sliced green onions, white and green parts
1 red bell pep­per, minced
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 egg yolks, light­ly beaten
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt and pep­per to taste
3 tbsps veg­etable oil

(1 more cup bread­crumbs for rolling)

Mix all ingre­di­ents but oil, thor­ough­ly. Form into 3‑inch diam­e­ter cakes, about 3/4 inch thick. Roll in bread­crumbs and place in a sin­gle lay­er on a plat­ter. Refrig­er­ate as long as pos­si­ble, at least 2 hours (this will keep them from falling apart while cook­ing). Before fry­ing, firm­ly squeeze them into shape once again. Heat oil in a wide, deep skil­let and place crab­cakes in a sin­gle lay­er. Fry on one side 4 min­utes, then turn and fry for anoth­er 4 min­utes. Drain thor­ough­ly on thick paper tow­els and serve with:

Spicy Chili Mayonnaise

3/4 cup mayonnaise
juice of one lemon
2 tbsps gar­lic chili sauce
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly minced
salt and pep­per to taste

Mix all ingre­di­ents and adjust sea­son­ings to your taste. Serve in dol­lops on each din­ner plate, along­side crabcakes.