the last bits of moving

Well, we did take a break from the whole annoy­ing mov­ing job to spend a day in Oxford with my dear friend Jo Ann, who shares my pas­sion for Richard Armitage. This is only one of the long list of qual­i­ties that makes her a hilar­i­ous and ener­getic com­pan­ion, though, so we man­aged to get through the whole after­noon with­out resort­ing to crush-talk, to the undis­guised relief of my hus­band, child and vis­it­ing child Sophie. (She did come to lunch today, how­ev­er, and once John went to run errands we were straight onto the com­put­er, howl­ing with laugh­ter over the var­i­ous fan­sites devot­ed to our man. A girl has to have some sil­ly fun now and then.)

Spent the night and next day in Stan­ton, Glouces­ter­shire, watch­ing the girls ride, had high tea in Upper Slaugh­ter, and as you see fed the ducks in Low­er Slaugh­ter. And then real life reared its ugly head again and we were back to the box­es and box­es of stuff in the new house. But you know what, we are so hap­py here that we don’t even real­ly mind any of the annoy­ing things we do in ser­vice of the house, and of set­tling in. I think we pro­tect­ed our­selves while we were in the old flat, not think­ing about it too much, how much we weren’t suit­ed to that house, how hor­ri­fy­ing the rent was, but now that we’re out I can tell you, Ham­mer­smith is HEAVEN.

Real peo­ple live here! We see lit­tle boys bounc­ing foot­balls across the road to each oth­er, moth­ers wheel­ing babies, neigh­bors bicy­cling around so fre­quent­ly that I already rec­og­nize peo­ple (some­thing that nev­er hap­pened in two and a half years in May­fair). I am already great friends with my dry clean­er who suf­fered through remov­ing all the cat hair from two sweaters upon which, I fear, the tab­bies had been sleep­ing in my clos­et for, yes, two and a half years. Har­ry the dry clean­er, late­ly of Bagh­dad, the first Kurd I have ever met, and he treat­ed me to a far more learned expo­si­tion on the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Iraq than I have man­aged to glean from any recent news­pa­pers. Imag­ine, an actu­al mer­chant who is a real per­son and does­n’t mind a chat.

And the cor­ner store guy knows now that I always have my own bag and he does­n’t need to offer one to me. And there is an Irish butch­er, and a halal butch­er to choose from, but so far nowhere that I can buy basil. Hmm. I must suc­cumb to Marks and Spencer because I am moved to make pesto for din­ner. Oh, how I can cook in this kitchen! Gas stove, a total delight, and that grill? It is chang­ing my life. AND a huge fridge and freez­er with… drum roll please… an ICE MAK­ER! Let me nev­er com­plain again, now that I have an ice mak­er and a dry­er that is sep­a­rate from my wash­ing machine. Laun­dry had gone from being an absolute drudgery to quite a pleas­ant lit­tle task, and one that does­n’t absorb my entire day as well as tak­ing off all the var­nish on the ban­is­ter as it did in my old flat. Where else could I dry sheets and pil­low­cas­es? Ah well, we sur­vived the walk-through in the old flat yes­ter­day and it looks just fine, now that the car­pet’s been cleaned and the holes in the wall filled in and paint­ed over. Whew.

It’s so hard to believe that just three weeks ago, every­thing we owned was in an oth­er postal code being lived with, and now we have almost com­plete­ly set­tled in. Yes­ter­day we host­ed the home­own­er’s insur­ance apprais­er, and he com­pli­ment­ed us on our degree of being set­tled. All we’re wait­ing for is to find a prop­er wardrobe and chest of draw­ers for Avery’s room, so we can emp­ty the last three box­es. Her room is so charm­ing, set at the top of the house with her horsey rosettes strung along the ceil­ing and books every­where. And our room? Airy, light, sun­ny, gor­geous. We look out onto a long row of grot­ty look­ing hous­es that are most­ly flats, lived in by some very inter­est­ing look­ing peo­ple. And the street and gar­den are filled with birdsong.

At our Indi­an feast the oth­er night, we let Tacy out into the gar­den and she went away. Don’t know where, but she dis­ap­peared for a cou­ple of hours. So I have just now ordered a col­lar and tag for her, with my phone num­ber and her name on it. Just in case. Not that she has a mobile, but…

I’m a bit at loose ends because Avery’s class is going to the Globe The­atre tonight to see “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Drea,” and she’s spend­ing the inter­ven­ing post-school hours at Anna’s house to avoid the long com­mute there and back, both ways. We’ll pick her up late tonight at the the­atre, so I’ve got to come up with some Avery does­n’t like, for din­ner. But first I must tell you about two per­fect new sal­ads. My friend Olimpia in par­tic­u­lar is look­ing for bar­be­cue side dish­es, and I can rec­om­mend these total­ly. The first one I invent­ed, but the sec­ond one is the brain­child of the great Anglo-Indi­an chef Atul Kochhar, and boy can that man com­bine fla­vors to make you sing. And guess what? They’re both chock-ful of super foods.

Chopped Spinach and Chick­pea Salad
(serves four)

1 can chick­peas, drained
4 cups spinach leaves, some­what tight­ly packed
1/2 cup toast­ed pine nuts
1 red onion, diced

dress­ing:
3 tbsps olive oil
dash hot pep­per oil
1 tbsp bal­sam­ic vinegar
juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsps fresh corian­der pesto (or basil pesto)
dash salt
1/2 tsp oregano

In sev­er­al batch­es, care­ful­ly blitz the spinach leaves in the Cuisi­nart or Mag­im­ix, in short bursts of pow­er. Don’t let the leaves get mushy. Just pulse the pow­er and take care to shift the leaves with a spat­u­la occa­sion­al­ly if need me. You want the leaves chopped some­where between coarse and fine, but not mushy. Com­bine all the ingre­di­ents and dress­ing and toss VERY well. Lovely!

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Atul Kochhar’s Warm Sal­ad of Ten­der­stem Broc­coli and Chickpeas
(serves four)

2 tbsps olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves gar­lic, peeled and sliced very thin
1–2 small red chill­ies, deseed­ed and fine­ly chopped
2 hand­fuls ten­der­stem broc­coli, cut into whole flo­rets with stems sliced diag­o­nal­ly in bite-size pieces
1 can chick­peas, drained
1 medi­um red onion, thick­ly sliced
1 medi­um red pep­per, julienned
2 tbsps lime juice
sea salt
fresh­ly ground black pepper
hand­ful fresh corian­der (cilantro)

Heat the oil in a skil­let or wok and add the cumin seeds and gar­lic, cook­ing until the gar­lic is translu­cent but tak­ing care not to brown it. Add the chill­is and broc­coli and cook until ten­der. Add the chick­peas, onion and red pep­per and saute for 30 sec­onds. Toss with the lime juice and serve on a plat­ter, topped by the corian­der leaves. Very refreshing!

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Now Atul says to serve his sal­ad imme­di­ate­ly, but I could­n’t as I had guests to enter­tain and want­ed to cook ahead of time. Room tem­per­a­ture was won­der­ful, although I did wait to add the corian­der until just before serving.

Tonight is lamb chops because Avery’s not here to com­plain about our cru­el­ty to ani­mals, plus steamed pota­toes with pesto. And then tomor­row’s my writ­ing class and I’ve sub­mit­ted a piece on Moroc­can meat­balls, about which I’m quite ner­vous. I’m afraid that if some­one says, “I’m afraid I don’t quite see the point of the sto­ry, com­bined with the recipe,” I might just say, “Nei­ther do I,” and crawl under the desk. Such is the pres­sure of writ­ing for the public!