The cru­cible

Stop the press­es: SUN­BURN! Not a lot, I rush in to say, but today we got… sun­burned. I’m old-fash­ioned enough to say I put on “sun­tan lotion,” when my PC side knows I real­ly mean “sun­block” or “sun­screen.” But hey, 30 years ago I was slather­ing myself with baby oil and lying on a bed of alu­minum foil, so I think I’m due a lit­tle leeway.

It’s that time of year again, when I look at the cal­en­dar and think, “Real­ly?” Did I real­ly book tick­ets for three more plays, RSVP for Avery for three more par­ties, encour­age her to throw one of her own, and sched­ule two more sales for Lost Prop­er­ty, not to men­tion out of town guests, doc­tor and den­tist appoint­ments and the vet, all in the three weeks left before we go to the States?

Drinks par­ties, din­ner par­ties, really?

The girls deserve it after the hell­ish week they put in last week, 12 exams in five days! I’m relieved to have it over, and I nev­er even cracked a book! The whole ordeal was brought home to me most visu­al­ly when Avery held out a pen. “Do you see how there is no ink in this pen?” she asked rhetor­i­cal­ly. “This pen was NEW at the begin­ning of last week!”

This week, we’ve been out and about play­ing ten­nis (I will not suc­cumb to ten­nis elbow, will NOT, I’m sure it feels bet­ter if I play than if I don’t), and see­ing a new bit of the Vic­to­ria and Albert instal­la­tion, of archi­tects using the muse­um itself to explore archi­tec­ture’s exper­i­ments and lim­i­ta­tions. “The Ark,” by Nor­we­gian archi­tect Rin­ta­la Eggerts­son (would you have guessed that was a man? I would­n’t) com­plete­ly charmed us: a two-sto­ry two-by-gour con­struc­tion, teth­ered to the stair­case by thin met­al cables, and sheathed entire­ly in… paper­back books! A giant book­shelf, going round and round, admit­ting only four peo­ple at a time because it… moves. From side to side, just slight­ly, but enough to remind you of your own mor­tal­i­ty. In between con­tem­pla­tions of that, you can sit on the sheep­skin cov­ered seat on floor two, and browse. Real­ly, they invite you to browse! Go, do.

And then onto “The Cru­cible.” At Regen­t’s Park Open-Air The­atre, one of my most favorite places in the world, where we have seen “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest,” “Much Ado About Noth­ing,” always in these wan­ing days of the school year before we decamp for our Amer­i­can sum­mer. This year it was “The Cru­cible.” McCarthy­ism! Shades of today’s hys­ter­i­cal shout­ings about Oba­ma, health­care and Com­mu­nism! Every­thing that changes, sim­ply stays the same. The sun beat down, Avery’s class occu­pied the upper regions of the the­atre as we cooked in the “bet­ter seats”, and we rev­eled in the Amer­i­can play play­ing itself out in the Eng­lish atmos­phere. I won­dered how the reli­gious fer­vor would play out in Amer­i­ca… there was some ner­vous tit­ter­ing as the pre­dom­i­nant­ly-schoolkids audi­ence came to terms with Miller’s dead­ly earnest treat­ment. “No reli­gion that demands your blood deserves your faith…”

And how dif­fi­cult it is for me to with­hold the secrets of my culi­nary excite­ment of last week­end! Film­ing! Stu­dios! Cars and dri­vers! But my lips are sealed. Until mid-August, when I can reveal all… Stay tuned.

In the mean­time, I await the big reveal of my new blog design. There have been delays, as there always are with big projects, but I am hope­ful of mas­sive excite­ment in a week or so. To deal with this, I had bet­ter offer:

Cucum­ber and Yogurt Sal­ad with Chill­is and Lemongrass
(serves 4)

1 large cucum­ber, out­er sides sliced off and seeds left behind, cut into slen­der sticks
1 red onion, diced
1 medi­um-hot red chilli pep­per, minced
1 stalk lemon­grass, peeled of out­er lay­er, minced
zest of 1 lemon
lots of fresh-ground pepper
1/3 cup fat-free yogurt, mixed with juice of 1 lemon
Mal­don salt to taste

Mix every­thing but yogurt and lemon juice, then toss with those. Salt to taste.

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This sal­ad is beau­ti­ful and fresh on its own, but also sur­pris­ing­ly love­ly with a rather heavy main course, as we had this week: beef ribs in a toma­to sauce. The two bounce off each oth­er: rich and light, dark and springlike.

I wish you luck in achiev­ing all that June has left for you, as we dance through the excite­ment left for us… then HOME!