you CAN go home again

It’s offi­cial: we’re back in Amer­i­ca! We made it through a last few days of insane activ­i­ty (the high­light being a real mile­stone at King’s Col­lege: a kiss from the head­mistress AND she called me by my first name!), last rid­ing les­son and din­ner play­date with Avery’s new friend Anasta­cia (a quite impos­si­bly sophis­ti­cat­ed Swiss fam­i­ly in Not­ting Hill Gate), a last hur­ried din­ner of my favorite gar­lic and pars­ley scal­lops. Final­ly in Fri­day we head­ed off to the air­port where we sat through an unex­plained five-hour delay, and final­ly got off. The long car trip up to Con­necti­cut from JKF, Avery sleep­ing on my lap, whizzing past all the famil­iar high­way exits that we used to pass every Fri­day evening on our way up from town, to arrive in very fog­gy dark­ness at Red Gate Farm. Lights blaz­ing, thank you Farmer Rol­lie! Bread, eggs and milk in the fridge, thank you neigh­bors Anne and David… we tum­bled into bed. And awoke to a per­fect Con­necti­cut morn­ing: blue sky, green mead­ows, red barn (new­ly roofed over the win­ter), and a fam­i­ly of wild turkeys in the side lawn! They did not take kind­ly to being observed and scut­tled quick­ly back into the woods.

It’s a reg­u­lar wildlife pre­serve here, espe­cial­ly once John refilled the bird feed­ers and corn hold­ers, and I had my first can­teloupe rind from Avery’s break­fast. “That’s not even half con­vinc­ing,” John object­ed. “You just cut that open to lure Gary the Ground­hog.” Which was true, and it worked! He came quite quick­ly, trained from last sum­mer to expect the best fruit castoffs. And this morn­ing he brought his lit­tle bride! Or per­haps a teenage off­spring? Any­way, we have two ground­hogs so far. And yes­ter­day when we went to the big barn to haul out the tram­po­line, there were, high in the rooftops, hun­dreds of baby bats. A few flew over our heads just to impress us. And chip­munks, dash­ing impor­tant­ly from ter­race to barn to wood­shed, tak­ing bird seed to their nests.

Here’s a weird break­fast: pesto on toast. Why eat such a thing? Because I got up super ear­ly with a bit of jet­lag, and knew we’d want pesto for lunch, and it smelled incred­i­bly good. John and I end­ed up cut­ting off end­less slices from the excel­lent Chaba­so wheat sour­dough bread (vot­ed Con­necti­cut’s best bak­ery!) that Anne and David left for us, toast­ing it, and slather­ing it with fresh pesto.

Basil Pesto
(makes about 2 cups)

4 large hand­fuls fresh basil leaves, stems removed (they’re bitter)
1 cup pinenuts
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup grat­ed parme­san cheese
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste (the cheese is salty already)
olive oil

Place all ingre­di­ents in a Cuisi­nart and add about 1 cup olive oil. Whizz till blend­ed, and add more olive oil if need­ed to get a nice creamy consistency.

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Deli­cious! You can also make this with pars­ley, cilantro, any high­ly-fla­vored green leaves. And you can use hazel­nuts or almonds or any oth­er nuts you like. In a pinch I’ve also used oth­er hard cheeses, like a very high­ly aged gou­da or ched­dar. It’s very versatile.

We were still ready for more at lunchtime.

Capelli­ni with Fresh Pesto and Crabmeat
(serves four as a light lunch)

1/2 lb capelli­ni, cooked in plen­ty of salt­ed water
2 tbsps but­ter, room temperature
1 cup-ish fresh pesto (amount to taste)
1 cup fresh crabmeat

Toss cooked pas­ta with but­ter and pesto and mix thor­ough­ly. Once mixed well, toss quick­ly with crab­meat. So sim­ple and so good.

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Then we have been reunit­ed with Sweet Baby Jane, quite sim­ply the sweet­est niece that ever lived, and sad­ly not a baby any­more. (And her par­ents are pret­ty nice too.) On Sat­ur­day after­noon we head­ed up north to see Jill and Joel in their per­fect house, smelling quite irre­sistibly of gar­lic and cheese (Joel is an amaz­ing cook), and the equal­ly irre­sistible Jane, grown ter­ri­bly tall and with long real-girl hair. To think this time last sum­mer she was in dia­pers. She showed us her “real under­wear” with great pride, point­ing out the stripes as she held up her diminu­tive kha­ki skirt.

And there were stream­ers and a “Hap­py Birth­day” ban­ner for John, since we did­n’t have a birth­day cel­e­bra­tion for him this year. Avery imme­di­ate­ly set about find­ing any­thing longer than it was wide, to serve as a pony jump, and arranged quite a nice course for her new pony, Jane. It was very touch­ing, I must say, to see Jane con­fi­dent­ly fol­low­ing Avery in any ploy she sug­gest­ed. “Run as quick­ly as you can, and don’t stop before the jump, just keep going,” Avery instruct­ed, and there was Jane, with her sweaty lit­tle brow and earnest expres­sion, “I’m com­ing, Avery!” It felt almost unbe­liev­able that my lit­tle sis­ter and I weren’t the chil­dren any­more, play­ing in the back­yard, one order­ing the oth­er one around (guess which one I was), but it was our CHIL­DREN run­ning around in my sis­ter’s own back­yard. How did that hap­pen! Then we heard from way across the lawn, “Cousin Avery, you’re my friend.” Well, you can live a whole life­time, as sis­ters, just to hear that.

But it’s hard to be too sen­ti­men­tal when there’s food to appre­ci­ate. Joel came out with a wicked­ly tempt­ing appe­tiz­er, and it cer­tain­ly sounds sim­ple. Be sure to use good, real may­on­naise. Joel and Jill report that Mir­a­cle Whip (the sta­ple condi­ment of our child­hood) does not work here.

Joel’s Arti­choke Dip
(serves eight)

1 cup arti­choke hearts (fresh or from a jar), chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grat­ed parme­san cheese

Mix well and place in a 9 x 9 bak­ing dish (non-stick sprayed to make life eas­i­er), or sev­er­al indi­vid­ual ramekins if you want to place them around an appe­tiz­er table at a par­ty. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20–3- minute or until bub­bly and brown on top. Serve with toast­ed baguette rounds or crackers.

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Jane makes us all laugh con­stant­ly. I had for­got­ten what a good age two and a half is. I must say here, how­ev­er, that while most tod­dlers are lus­cious, a lot of what makes Jane so won­der­ful is the way her par­ents treat her. They speak to her as a real per­son, remind­ing her of fun­ny things she’s said in the past, tak­ing her opin­ions seri­ous­ly, includ­ing her in all con­ver­sa­tion. Well, almost all. Once I leaned over to Jill to say some­thing I did­n’t want Jane to hear, and she tapped me on the arm with a sticky lit­tle hand and chid­ed, “Aunt Kris­ten, it’s very hard for me to hear what you are say­ing when you talk so qui­et­ly.” At one point she reached out toward the crack­er dish, and Jill said, “Now, Jane, how would you ask nice­ly for a crack­er?” Jane thought for a minute and then said seri­ous­ly, “May I please have the whole plate?” She’s very vig­i­lant about man­ners, too. When Avery got up from the din­ner table to run her course of jumps again, and invit­ed Jane to join her, Jane said with her brow fur­rowed, “Avery, I would love to run the jump course, but you should not leave the table while I am still drink­ing my water.”

Jill told the sto­ry of tak­ing Jane to the Indy 500 (which my bril­liant sis­ter was pro­duc­ing, if you can imag­ine), and putting the pass around her neck to get to all the behind-the-scenes events. Then lat­er in an air­port, Jane saw some­one with a sim­i­lar thing around her neck and the lady said, “Yes, this is my ID.” Where upon Jane burst out laugh­ing and said, “No, it’s not, it’s your cre­den­tials!” She reminds us all of lit­tle Avery at that age, com­ing up with hilar­i­ous words all on her own, as in the time she approached me in the park, sit­ting with my oth­er moth­er friends, and she took my hand, placed her can­dy wrap­per in it, and said, “Here, Mom­my, you can have my detritus.”

Well, we’re off to the library, I think, then the pool. I can­not believe how pale and Eng­lish we all look, com­pared to the bronzed gods of New Eng­land. And all the oth­er Amer­i­can things we had for­got­ten: the quite over­whelm­ing fast-paced tele­vi­sion ads, the ubiq­ui­tous cheer and will­ing­ness of sales­peo­ple, the enor­mous cars, and most hilar­i­ous­ly, the new cam­paign on Sub­way sand­wich tele­vi­sion adver­tise­ments to make what are famous­ly healthy sand­wich­es HUGER and more fat­ten­ing than any­one could ever ingest: obvi­ous­ly Amer­i­can appetites are not groov­ing to the slim­line image! There is a slick­ness and lux­u­ry to the most ordi­nary Amer­i­can expe­ri­ences that makes me feel pro­tec­tive toward the sim­ple and unas­sum­ing Eng­lish things we’ve left behind. I hope both ways stay the same and we can have the fun of each. But right now: it’s good to be back.