let the sea­son begin

The cala­mari come into my tale in just a bit… I could­n’t resist the pho­to as it makes me hun­gry every time I see it!

This week­end saw quite the per­fect launch of the weeks of fes­tiv­i­ty to come: the school Christ­mas Fair!  This gar­gan­tu­an fes­ti­val hap­pens only once every two years, as we would all die from the strain of its hap­pen­ing more fre­quent­ly!  The tombo­la in the Hall where unac­count­ably Avery won a bot­tle of wine — “is Pinot Gri­gio good?” she asks, a ques­tion that does­n’t come up for 14-year-olds at Amer­i­can school fairs! — the buskers play­ing “God Rest Ye, Mer­ry Gen­tle­men” on uncer­tain but enthu­si­as­tic vio­lins, the smell of green­ery and poin­set­tias, mulled wine and mince­meat pies.

I was far too busy to take any pho­tographs, but Avery snapped this one of a hand­made wreath, along the “recy­cling” theme of all the decorations.

There came a fran­tic email the night before, “Can you all please eat some­thing for sup­per that comes in a 400-gram tin, then bring them in?  We need them for flower vas­es!”  Hari­cot beans in home­made chick­en stock it was, and two tins from our house­hold to contribute.

Because I was deemed a vol­un­teer with no par­tic­u­lar skills but a great deal of good will, I was giv­en the fran­tic task of man­ag­ing the entrance desk, say­ing over the course of four hours “Three pounds for adults!” at least 700 times.  The par­ents who tried to sneak by, “I’m just pick­ing up my daugh­ter!” as if it weren’t all for char­i­ty!  But equal­ly my love­ly vol­un­teer team (I self­ish­ly chose all my favorite moth­ers to stand with me all after­noon, so there was some good ban­ter and gos­sip in slow moments).  The apple-cheeked tiny sib­lings of blase teenagers, the excite­ment of the “Vin­tage Cool” stall of sec­ond-hand clothes, where Avery snapped up a floor-length black vel­vet coat with a crim­son lin­ing, now quite her favorite possession.

John pitched in and we spent the whole day tak­ing mon­ey, run­ning out of this or that sort of change, rac­ing into the school office to drop off £40 in notes to exchange for pound coins, fran­ti­cal­ly rac­ing back to drop mon­ey into impa­tient hands, impa­tient to buy raf­fle tick­ets for impos­si­bly posh prizes: week­ends at hous­es in the South of France, iPads, a bas­ket full of a dozen new cook­books, and my own con­tri­bu­tion: a piz­za cook­ery les­son for two!  I heard at the end of the day that a school­girl won it, so we’ll see if she takes me up on it: I thought it would be a lot of fun to make dough, and while it ris­es, teach them to make pesto, a home­made toma­to sauce, basic chop­ping skills, how to pre­pare an arti­choke, what moz­zarel­la to choose… we’ll see!

The chilly Novem­ber air swirled around our ankles, ruf­fling the white linen table­cloth I had brought from home to save the rental fee!  Nor­mal­ly it lives on top of the fridge, await­ing the termly Lost Prop­er­ty lun­cheons, so it was hap­py to get an airing.

There were a cou­ple of hilar­i­ous moments, as always hap­pen when I’m with my friend Elis­a­beth.  Once, a wife stag­gered past laden with raf­fle prizes, her coat over one arm, chil­dren tug­ging at her hands, and by her side, her hus­band stood, emp­ty-hand­ed but for her hand­bag which he stolid­ly held out to her, wait­ing till she shift­ed every­thing to have one fin­ger free.  Elis­a­beth and I burst into simul­ta­ne­ous gig­gles.  “He could­n’t be seen, car­ry­ing his wife’s hand­bag, even for a minute!”  At one point, I relat­ed to her the Sat­ur­day Night Live sketch called “The Change Bank”, where earnest tellers explain, “It’s sim­ple.  You give us a dol­lar bill, we’ll give you four quar­ters.  Or, if you pre­fer, ten dimes, or even five dimes and ten nick­els.  And how do we make our mon­ey?  VOLUME.”

Lat­er, when the pun­ters were being par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult — six £20 notes in a row, for exam­ple! — Elis­a­beth hissed to me, “I’m sure that if we told them, ‘Give us three pound coins exact­ly, and you get in free,’ they’d go for it.”

Sim­ply a glo­ri­ous, hec­tic, crowd­ed, loud, fes­tive day, sur­round­ed by smil­ing par­ents, fran­tic vol­un­teers, healthy, hap­py chil­dren… a day when I felt a surge of grat­i­tude for that won­der­ful school, where the nor­mal­ly serene head­mistress played The Empress in the pan­to, and some­how end­ed up throw­ing a pair of under­wear at my unsus­pect­ing hus­band!  Amer­i­cans nev­er ful­ly under­stand panto!

Flog­ging dec­o­ra­tions at the bit­ter end, fold­ing up a very dirty table­cloth, turn­ing in all the mon­ey, walk­ing very slow­ly home with ears ring­ing and feet sore, back tired and hands filthy, feel­ing rather exhaust­ed and keyed up at the same time.  I stopped at my glo­ri­ous fish­mon­ger’s for advice on how to deep-fry scal­lops, and received the sim­ple answer, “Don’t.”  Too watery.  Mikey and Tony agreed that the best thing to do with any scal­lop is to saute it, and cer­tain­ly, there was noth­ing but glo­ry piled up on our dinner.

Sauteed Scal­lops With Gin­ger, Lemon Grass and Sesame

(serves 2)

good splash toast­ed sesame oil

knob of butter

1/2 inch knob gin­ger, grated

2 cloves gar­lic, minced

2‑inch stalk lemon grass, minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat the oil and but­ter in a heavy fry­ing pan till very hot.  Stir in the gin­ger, gar­lic and lemon grass and siz­zle just a tiny bit, then place scal­lops in the pan and cook for about 1 1/2 min­utes on each side, till gold­en, but still com­plete­ly ten­der inside.

Remove to a warm plate, then squeeze lime juice into the pan and siz­zle up the but­tery spicy juices.  Pour over the scal­lops and eat straightaway.

This dish!  So sim­ple, so per­fect.  And along with that we had our gor­geous cala­mari, for which recipe there can be no fin­er advice than “Get per­fect squid.”  Per­fect squid are near­ly white under their red­dish-gray skins, com­plete­ly odor­less, firm and shiny.  You can either have your fish­mon­ger clean them for you, or you can bring them home and have a lit­tle dis­sect­ing job of your own.  My best advice is to watch your fish­mon­ger do it first, or watch a video on YouTube, try it for your­self after­ward, and if you’re grossed out by it, have the pro­fes­sion­als take care of it.  But at least once, it’s very inter­est­ing to pull out the car­ti­lege, to squeeze the ink sacs, to get that squid com­plete­ly pristine.

Then cut it into rings and cut the fins into sliv­ers, and clean the ten­ta­cles per­fect­ly.  Now you’re ready to cook.

Cala­mari

(one large squid will feed four peo­ple as a starter)

1 squid

1/ cup home­made breadcrumbs

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup cornflour/cornstarch

1 tbsp Fox Point seasoning

enough rape­seed oil to come up 1 inch in your cook­ing pan

1 egg

2 tbsps sin­gle cream

Pat the squid dry with a paper tow­el.  Then on one large plate, com­bine the crumbs and corn­flour and Fox Point thor­ough­ly.  On anoth­er large plate, com­bine the egg and cream.

Assem­bly-line fash­ion, line up the egg plate and crumb plate next to each oth­er with an emp­ty large plate at the end.  Heat the oil till a bread­crumb dropped in siz­zles instant­ly.  Now, dip your squid into the egg mix­ture and mix with your fin­gers till all pieces are wet.  Next, dip the squid in hand­fuls into the crumbs and toss them until com­plete­ly coat­ed.  Place on emp­ty plate.

Depend­ing on the size of your fry­ing pan, fry the squid very briefly in batch­es, lift­ing them out with a slot­ted or wire spoon onto a heavy pile of paper tow­els.  The squid will cook in a VERY short time, per­haps 45 sec­onds depend­ing on the heat of the oil.  As soon as they are browned, take them out.  Eat IMME­DI­ATE­LY with a tartare sauce, a chill-toma­to-horse­rad­ish sauce, or a light, clean sauce of fish sauce, rice wine vine­gar, lime juice and sug­ar.  Or all three!  It’s the holidays.

There is noth­ing like home­made cala­mari!  Serve them on a kitchen island, with every­one stand­ing around watch­ing you lift them fran­ti­cal­ly out of the oil, grab­bing at the hot, crunchy squid, anx­ious to get the crispi­est morsels.

It was a love­ly end to a love­ly day.  Avery was safe­ly in the hands of a friend, watch­ing the new “Har­ry Pot­ter” movie, so we were free to cook things she does­n’t like.  There are small com­pen­sa­tions to her occa­sion­al absences.

I feel utter­ly unready for Thanks­giv­ing, and yet, that is sort of the point.  It’s meant to be a cook-all-day, run out for for­got­ten ingre­di­ents, nev­er take the apron off expe­ri­ence, after all.  We shall be 17 around the table, actu­al­ly two tables as John and I strug­gled down­stairs with the lit­tle table in Avery’s room at the top of the house.  The two turkeys are thaw­ing in their salty, her­by water, I hav­ing long ago decid­ed that in mat­ters of hol­i­day poul­try, I want a cheap, frozen, big-breast­ed bird, not a pur­ple heir­loom beau­ty with feath­ers still stuck in at strate­gic points.  So frozen it is.

I’m tempt­ed to make an addi­tion to the usu­al Thanks­giv­ing treats and add my new Favorite Soup of All Time.  Have I been bor­ing you with our tales of but­ter­nut squash?  In our new very-low-carb lifestyle, it’s been a very good sub­sti­tute for pota­toes: steamed, mashed and baked, there are no com­plaints.  John will eat ANY amount of the stuff roast­ed with sage.  So today, on yet anoth­er gray Novem­ber morn­ing just about to see sun­set even though I’d only been awake a cou­ple of hours, I decid­ed that soup was the way to go.  And boy, did I get that one right.

Roast­ed But­ter­nut Squash Soup with Cal­va­dos and Sage

(serves at least 4)

1 large but­ter­nut squash, cut in half lengthwise

but­ter to smear on each half

6 sage leaves

sea salt and pepper

1 shal­lot, rough­ly chopped

4 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped

chick­en stock to cov­er all veg­eta­bles, at least 6 cups

good splash Calvados

sin­gle cream to drizzle

Lay the but­ter­nut squash halves, but­tered and with sage leaves on them, in a roast­ing tin and roast at 200C/400F for 45 min­utes.  Drip the melt­ed but­ter from them into a fry­ing pan and fry the shal­lots and gar­lic till soft.  Scrape the cooked squash and sage leaves into a large stock­pot and add the shal­lots and gar­lic and melt­ed but­ter.  Pour in chick­en stock to cov­er, then the Cal­va­dos.  Sim­mer for 10 min­utes then whizz with a hand blender till per­fect­ly smooth.  Driz­zle cream and serve hot.

This soup!  Gor­geous.  Rich, mul­ti-lay­ered, homey, com­fort­ing, warm and deli­cious.  Just like the hol­i­days, in fact.  Let the games begin!