noth­ing like the Cotswolds

We’re back! All I can say is, three days in Chip­ping Cam­p­den, in our old famil­iar places, were not enough. Actu­al­ly it was­n’t even that long. We arrived around 4 in the after­noon on Mon­day and left first thing this morn­ing. But it was long enough for us to remem­ber every­thing we adore about that part of the world, and the East Ban­quet­ing House in par­tic­u­lar. I know, it seems all I do is rave about the Land­mark Trust, but if I get even one of you to can­cel your trip to Mom­basa or Lucerne or wher­ev­er, and decide to explore the British coun­try­side from the van­tage point of one of these irre­place­able hous­es, I will con­sid­er my time here well worth it. We must sup­port these peo­ple! Trust me, you will find that the mag­ic, the his­to­ry, the majes­tic grandeur, and the cozi­ness, well worth the lack of ade­quate hot water at times! Avery read glee­ful­ly in the log­book (all vis­i­tors are invit­ed to write up an account of their stay) my 1991 entry, wax­ing lyri­cal about every­thing except… not enough hot water. But it’s worth it!

Plus, it’s been an absolute plea­sure for us while we’ve lived in Lon­don to spend most of our hol­i­days explor­ing our adopt­ed land, whether it’s the incred­i­ble green of Ire­land, the end­less fields of sheep in Wales, the wild ponies of Exmoor (guess who vot­ed for THAT hol­i­day) or the gold­en stone of the Cotswolds. Good­ness, I sound like a tour guide. But I do love this coun­try. And every pound you spend stay­ing in these places goes toward res­cu­ing more derelict and deserv­ing buildings.

So on our lit­tle errand of giv­ing (oth­er­wise known as our hol­i­day), we head­ed out of town on Mon­day after­noon with our tiny Mini COM­PLETE­LY filled (Avery could not move, and we had to lift up a suit­case in order for her to buck­le and unbuck­le her seat­belt, poor child) with the clob­ber nec­es­sary for even a brief stay away from home: plen­ty of can­dles for the din­ing room table, a hand­blender (nat­u­ral­ly, for the cream of mush­room soup), a very amus­ing vari­ety of hot water bot­tles, a giant dish of mac­a­roni and cheese, a huge (but as it turned out, insuf­fi­cient) stack of books, Blun­ny boots for those end­less hikes we seem to find our­selves on. Gosh that’s a small car. For­get cloth­ing! We just resign our­selves to look­ing the same every day, pret­ty much. Oh, and add to the list all the rid­ing gear with which Avery must trav­el to near­ly all des­ti­na­tions. Once we filled the car so full, she had to wear her rid­ing hel­met. There was­n’t room any­where but on her head for that last item.

Our approach to Chip­ping Cam­p­den and the East Ban­quet­ing House was filled with nos­tal­gia. We have been com­ing to that vil­lage, to stay in that house, on and off since 1990, by our­selves, with John’s par­ents, before and after Avery. And it’s always the same. A sim­ply mag­nif­i­cent build­ing, one of two ban­quet­ing hous­es flank­ing the orig­i­nal manor house that was burned down some­time in the 17th cen­tu­ry. And sheep graz­ing every­where! To our cha­grin we realised we were too ear­ly for lamb­ing sea­son (at least for OUR sheep, but we found some more who were on our sched­ule, but more on that lat­er). We retrieved the two wheel­bar­rows from their shed at the dri­ve­way and trun­dled all our bits and pieces along the sub­tle lit­tle mowed path across the sheep field, up to the house, and to set­tle in. Mac­a­roni and cheese in the oven, red pep­pers sim­mer­ing on the hob, and bob’s your uncle. It’s worth post­ing the mac­a­roni and cheese recipe again, because it’s just that good, if I do say so myself. It’s cur­rent­ly Avery’s favorite meal, and it’s got every­thing to rec­om­mend it: good British cheese so you get your cal­ci­um, bread­crumbs that you thrifti­ly pro­duced your­self with your stale baguette and Mag­im­ix, a hint of nut­meg: per­fect. And don’t wor­ry that this does­n’t match my pre­vi­ous mac and cheese recipes: I do it a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly every time. You can too.

Mac­a­roni and Cheese
(serves 8, and the left­overs are superb)

1 lb elbow or oth­er tra­di­tion­al mac­a­roni shape, cooked and drained
4 tbsps butter
3 tbsps flour
1 pint whole milk, the best you can get (Jer­sey is my favourite)
1 1/2 lbs British cheeses (Wens­ley­dale, Ched­dar, Dou­ble Glouces­ter, anything!)
4 slices good old Dairylea, for creaminess
pinch nutmeg
pinch or two Mal­don sea salt
pinch white pep­per (unless you don’t mind the black pep­per look)
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 parme­san cheese, grated

Now, make a roux with your but­ter and flour, melt­ed nice­ly and bub­bly, but not browned. Whisk in (the whisk is very impor­tant!) the milk and bring to a near-bub­bling point, then add the cheeses, cut in cubes. As near as you can, whisk con­stant­ly until the cheese is melt­ed, then add the sea­son­ings and check to see that it’s perfect.

Non­stick-spray a large glass bak­ing dish (we like our mac­a­roni and cheese deep and round, but some peo­ple like it shal­low and rec­tan­gu­lar) and throw in the cooked noo­dles. Pour over the cheese sauce and stir thor­ough­ly to make sure that all the noo­dles are sub­merged and their lit­tle air bub­bles released. Now, you can trav­el to the Cotswolds with this dish, cov­ered in alu­mini­um, and it will be fine for hours. When you’re 45 min­utes away from want­i­ng to eat, bake it in a medi­um oven (375-ish) and there you go. With a cou­ple of bangers on the side and a sauteed colour­ful veg or two (broc­col­i­ni, pep­pers, aspara­gus, what you want is colour), you’re good to go.

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Evening saw us march­ing around the grounds, inves­ti­gat­ing the rab­bit war­rens where we always leave a lit­tle some­thing (they don’t like toma­toes, it turns out), watch­ing the sun­set light up the exquis­ite lead­ed win­dows fac­ing west (and the West Ban­quet­ing House that’s under ren­o­va­tion right now, no doubt financed by our series of hol­i­days this year!). The sheep munched hap­pi­ly, some on their elbows, which com­plete­ly cracked Avery up. One brown sheep! Just one.

Tues­day found us off to the near­by vil­lage of Stan­ton, home to Jill Caren­za­’s rid­ing estab­lish­ment where Avery has been put, over the years, through tougher paces than at any oth­er rid­ing school she’s tried (and Lord knows we’ve tried MANY). At first we were slight­ly miffed that Avery was not being taught by Jill her­self, who I’d specif­i­cal­ly asked for on the tele­phone, but it soon became appar­ent that who­ev­er Anna the Instruc­tor was, she was SERI­OUS busi­ness. Big jumps! On a dar­ling pony called Gyp­sy, with a rear end like an ottoman (how Avery hates it when I say that, but it screamed Ralph Lau­ren Home) and a heav­en­ly lit­tle face. John and I kept think­ing about the num­ber of times Avery’s grand­fa­ther leaned on the same fence we were lean­ing on, proud­ly say­ing over and over, “She has such a good seat. Look at that straight back,” and on and on. The joy he took in her, and the plea­sure she gave him, com­fort­ed us a bit, but not enough to make up for the loss. But hon­est­ly, what more can you do than pro­vide a beloved grand­fa­ther with chances to enjoy his grand­daugh­ter? The fact that it can­not last for­ev­er seems almost impos­si­ble to believe. But her grand­moth­er will be the first to smile at any pic­ture of Avery on a pony and remem­ber the times we all stood at the fence togeth­er, in total­ly fatu­ous admi­ra­tion of Avery.

Lord, it was cold! But we could­n’t say so, because Avery was pink-cheeked with exer­tion and brav­ery. Eight jumps in a course, and they got pro­gres­sive­ly high­er as the hour went on. For what­ev­er rea­son, as much of a wor­ri­er as I am, I don’t real­ly fret when she’s rid­ing. I think it’s because after all the gazil­lions of hours I’ve put in hang­ing on a fence watch­ing her, I have faith in her knowl­edge of her skills. She’s the least reck­less of chil­dren, and no mat­ter how often she falls, she gets back up fear­less­ly. Can I tell you how I did fret, how­ev­er, when I arrived to col­lect her at her Lon­don sta­ble last week to be regaled with sto­ries of how her pony ROLLED OVER with her on his back? Not a fun­ny sto­ry. “I man­aged to get off before he actu­al­ly crushed me,” she said non­cha­lant­ly. Well, I guess that’s SOMETHING.

Lis­ten, I must go pro­duce din­ner. Tonight’s going to be chick­en fil­lets stuffed with par­ma ham, moz­zarel­la and spinach. No recipe, because that’s all it is! Just stuff them, tooth­pick them, and saute in olive oil with some oregano thrown in. I’ll be back soon, though, with more sto­ries from the Cotswolds. Now book your hol­i­day, I mean it.