things to do to keep us out of trouble

No, one of those things isn’t shoot­ing off can­nons in Hyde Park. But some­body was, this after­noon. There I was, sit­ting inno­cent­ly at my desk blog­ging or some such thing, when my mobile rang: John. “It’s me. Some­body’s shoot­ing off big loud guns and there are lots of hors­es gal­lop­ing around. Come out.” So we met up on the cor­ner, and crossed Park Lane, and sure enough, far off in the dis­tance there was a huge cloud of smoke ris­ing into the air, and the sound of can­nons going off at reg­u­lar inter­vals. And in the very near dis­tance there were many, many glo­ri­ous hors­es in full regalia of some kind, stand­ing about look­ing skit­tish. Then all at once they went tear­ing off toward the can­nons, so we did too, walk­ing as fast as we could and try­ing not to look igno­rant. There were a lot of oth­er dumb-look­ing peo­ple stand­ing behind a rope bar­ri­er, though, so we were in good com­pa­ny. “Now watch them come back this way, when we’ve near­ly caught up,” John joked, and sure enough, they turned around and went gal­lop­ing back from whence they came. Just as sud­den­ly, the can­nons stopped and some gan­g­ly look­ing sol­diers came and took them away, and the hors­es retreat­ed off toward the Bayswa­ter Road with­out a word of expla­na­tion. What gives?

Assid­u­ous googling revealed that it was the 21-gun Salute for the Queen’s birth­day! Well, bless her heart. Hap­py Birth­day. Appar­ent­ly after the dis­play in Hyde Park they were off to the Tow­er of Lon­don to repeat it there, and thence to Wind­sor Cas­tle. Let the bells chime. Just anoth­er after­noon obse­quy for the monarch. But in search­ing for the answer, I found an excel­lent web­site about things to do in Lon­don, so check it out. Who knows what else I’m missing.

We’ve been run­ning around like the prover­bial head­less poul­try these days, vis­it­ing hous­es that seem like pos­si­bil­i­ties on paper, and then find­ing out they’re not, or are, as the case may be (a real pos­si­bil­i­ty appeared yes­ter­day, in Not­ting Hill, so fin­gers crossed). At least the loca­tion gave us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pop into the charm­ing Mr Chris­tian’s del­i­catessen in Elgin Cres­cent, for excel­lent sand­wich­es of pas­tra­mi and mus­tard mayo on cia­bat­ta for me, and sala­mi and Emmen­thaler for John. If we did move to that neigh­bor­hood, I would be in food heav­en with that place and the won­der­ful Gro­cer on Elgin just down the street.

And Bor­ough Mar­ket was excel­lent. So qui­et on a beau­ti­ful sun­ny Fri­day (well, not qui­et per­haps, but bet­ter than Sat­ur­days). At the peer­less Sill­field Farms I picked up some love­ly ham for Avery’s pic­nic today on the way to her teacher’s wed­ding (more on that when we col­lect her this evening), as well as a num­ber of slices of some­thing called “haslet,” a sort of meat­loaf of a recipe dat­ing back to Hen­ry VII­I’s time, appar­ent­ly, full of sage and onion. Sounds like the per­fect mid­night snack to me, when I should be reach­ing for a car­rot stick. Then some gran­u­lat­ed gar­lic from “Spices From Hell,” a love­ly lit­tle stall that I wish I could have spent more mon­ey at, but there was noth­ing I real­ly need­ed. Oh, I also tucked in a nice-look­ing jar of tahi­ni for hum­mous, John’s absolute favorite lunch.

Hum­mous
(serves four as an appe­tiz­er with toast­ed bread and crudites)

1 410-gram [soup size] can chick peas (also known as gar­ban­zo beans)
1/2 cup tahi­ni (sesame paste, in for­eign or Mid­dle East­ern sec­tion of shops)
3 whole cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste
1 cup olive oil, maybe more

Sim­ply put all this in the Cuisi­nart and turn it on, puls­ing occa­sion­al­ly and scrap­ing the chick peas away from the sides. Then, if you want to, pour some more olive oil on the top and leave it. The fla­vors will improve. To this you can add any num­ber of improve­ments like red bell pep­pers, lit­tle chunks of avo­ca­do, spinach, cilantro, you name it. And it’s good for you.

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From the fish­mon­ger at the mar­ket (does it have a name? don’t know it if so, but Nigel­la Law­son shops there, enough said) I picked up about a kilo of superb-look­ing mus­sels to steam for din­ner. They turned out to be incred­i­bly tiny, and suc­cu­lent, but almost too much trou­ble to eat, to jus­ti­fy the bit of labor involved in debeard­ing, scrub­bing and check­ing for cracks and dead spec­i­mens. It was almost like eat­ing peri­win­kles. I’ve done a bit of research but can’t find the rea­son for the small size. In any case, the white wine sauce I invent­ed was divine for dip­ping olive cia­bat­ta in. To my usu­al recipe I added creme fraiche from a fab­u­lous French dairy pur­vey­or at the mar­ket, as well as a hand­ful of san­ti­ni toma­toes I had sit­ting on the counter which looked about to get shriv­el­ly, which cut in half were quite love­ly. At the last minute I just fished through the broth with my whisk and out came the toma­toes skins. Per­fect. So here’s my revised recipe. I also added more chick­en stock. Keep in mind I make a lot of broth, for drink­ing like soup after you fin­ish your mus­sels. You can cut down on the wine and stock if you don’t want a lot of broth.

Mus­sels with White Wine and Fresh Thyme
(serves four)

3 tbsps olive oil
1 kilo mus­sels, cleaned
4 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine
3 shal­lots, chopped fine
1 tbsp fresh thyme (chopped with­out stems)
6 Thai fresh green pep­per­corns, chopped (from Spice Shop in Not­ting Hill)
2 cups white wine
2 cups chick­en stock
hand­ful cher­ry or oth­er small toma­toes, cut in half
2 tbsps butter

Saute gar­lic, shal­lots, thyme and pep­per­corns in olive oil, then add white wine and stock. Bring to a boil, add mus­sels, cov­er and steam for 8 min­utes. Dis­card any that did not open, and lift good mus­sels into a large bowl with slot­ted spoon, bring wine sauce to a boil again and sim­mer a bit to reduce. Add toma­toes and whisk in but­ter. At the last minute, run your whisk through sauce and pick up toma­to skins and dis­card. Pour over mus­sels and serve with warm bread and goats cheese.

Speak­ing of matu­ri­ty, after long months of near­ly for­get­ting I had called, I got a mes­sage from the Sylvia Young The­atre School that Avery’s name had come to the top of the wait­ing list and she can start a week from today, in dra­ma lessons! She was so inspired by the lit­tle girl in “Miss Pot­ter” that we rang up, and now it’s come. She is very, very excit­ed. And I can enjoy the prospect of liv­ing vic­ar­i­ous­ly through her, cer­tain­ly a healthy atti­tude toward mater­ni­ty. What fun it will be to pick her up and hear how it’s going.

I have been in a tizzy of order­ing tick­ets for things to do, in the com­ing months. It’s that time of year when all the things we enjoyed so much last spring are com­ing around again. So, try­ing not to think about how much it all costs (and jus­ti­fy­ing it as part of the point of liv­ing in Lon­don) I have booked us for a play in Rich­mond star­ring my dear crush actor Edward Pether­bridge, can’t wait for that, and seats at the Roy­al Wind­sor Horse Show. And most exot­i­cal­ly, John has booked us to fly to Moroc­co for our friend Vin­cen­t’s 40th birth­day par­ty. Won’t that be a hoot! After that we may be approach­ing cool enough to… have a din­ner par­ty of our own. I’ll pop an invi­ta­tion in the post for you, how’s that?

We just came in from a love­ly lunch at a cute lit­tle place lit­er­al­ly around the cor­ner, but to which until now we’ve nev­er been. Fino’s in the sun­shine is a love­ly spot, and the piz­za was amaz­ing­ly fresh, crunchy and sim­ply slathered with fresh ricot­ta and red onions. I had a very nice crab may­on­naise, but my only com­plaint was the way the chef had pre­sent­ed it piled on what start­ed life as a crunchy slice of Ital­ian bread, but by the time I got to the last bite was quite annoy­ing­ly sog­gy. Served along­side would have been nicer. It’s def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it and we will eschew the ubiq­ui­tous Ask and Piz­za Express in the future.

Well, we’re off to take Anna and Ellie off their par­ents’ hands for the evening, and then swing by to col­lect Avery at school and hear how singing for the wed­ding went. As long as the cer­e­mo­ny did­n’t put any ideas in her head…