a bit of fizz…

Well, such is my life, sur­round­ed by the best pos­si­ble friends, that the gor­geous meat­balls shown here were shoved uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly into the back of the fridge this evening, nev­er eat­en. Let me explain.

Drum­roll, please… we are legal! Our visas final­ly came through today, after over three months’ lim­bo while the British pow­ers-that-be delib­er­at­ed over whether or not we were wor­thy to stay in the coun­try. So demo­bil­is­ing, so demor­al­is­ing, so depress­ing, so dis­cour­ag­ing! To feel as if our adopt­ed land did not want us here.

But after so much wait­ing, the noti­fi­ca­tion came, and with almost undeco­rous haste, a motor­cy­cle mes­sen­ger showed up on our doorstep with our pass­ports, full of excit­ing visas, pho­tographs, much stamp­ing and offi­cial­dom. It’s offi­cial! We’re staying.

Nat­u­ral­ly I turned imme­di­ate­ly to my phone and rang up Annie to tell her the good news, although equal­ly nat­u­ral­ly I had to tell it like it is. “I hope you can get the deposit from the cater­er back, because… the dou­ble wed­ding’s off.” A sigh of relief: Annie’s love­ly son Fred and daugh­ter Geor­gia can live in peace, not hav­ing to mar­ry me and John to give us legal means to stay. Hon­est­ly, the legal rela­tion­ships would have been too, too nau­se­at­ing. Avery’s best friend also her step-aunt? Let’s not go there.

Annie imme­di­ate­ly said, “Can you come for a bit of fizz?” But they declined din­ner togeth­er as the old­er chil­dren had to revise for exams. I should have known, know­ing Annie, but no, I slaved through the after­noon con­coct­ing meat­balls with ricot­ta and pars­ley, and a toma­to sauce with fresh basil and red wine, and left it on the stove, ready for us to return for din­ner, after the “bit of fizz.” HA!

We were greet­ed with many kiss­es, exhor­ta­tions to learn all the vers­es of “God Save the Queen,” cham­pagne (and for me, Zubrowka, my absolute favorite bison grass vod­ka, dear Kei­th nev­er for­gets), and… deep breath… smoked salmon and creme fraiche on bli­n­is, lit­tle skew­ers of buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la, fresh cher­ry toma­toes and pesto, chilled prawns with a remoulade, a plat­ter of sala­mi, par­ma ham and chori­zo, roast­ed aspara­gus spears, red pep­per hum­mous, a gor­geous chunky puree of edamame, a plat­ter of cru­dites! And just when we thought it was safe to take a breath, plates of lit­tle hot bites arrived: tiny falafels, puff pas­try filled with chori­zo paste, anoth­er with feta cheese…

Oh, Annie! Thank you, my friend.

We sim­ply lin­gered FOR­EV­ER. Their gar­den is sur­round­ed by ros­es, just flow­er­ing, and presided over by their two cats, Gra­cie and Cae­sar, and chil­dren wan­dered in and out, telling sto­ries, swip­ing good­ies (I won’t con­fess how many lit­tle skew­ers Emi­ly had from the moz­zarel­la plat­ter, nor how many bli­n­is Avery wolfed down). Bird­song, bub­bly, talk­ing over each oth­er as usu­al, rejoic­ing that there are so many such occa­sions yet to come: we’re here to stay!

So the meat­balls are shelved. Tomor­row night, per­haps. We’re all in a sort of stu­por of relief, a sort of light-heart­ed­ness that’s the lift­ing of a guil­lo­tine. Avery can stay at her beloved school, we can stay in our beloved house. Just this after­noon my phone rang and it was my next-door neigh­bor, the ever-ele­gant solic­i­tor Sara. “You know, there is a lit­tle fur­ry face press­ing itself against my study win­dow just now, and her tag pro­claims her to be ‘Tacey.’ She is a love­ly cat, and I don’t mind a bit…” We trad­ed sto­ries about the appar­ent ran­dom wan­der­ings of the cats up and down our street, with­in our hous­es. Yes­ter­day after­noon we came up the steps to the recep­tion room to find Char­lie, next door tab­by but one, calm­ly ensconced on the land­ing! And reg­u­lar­ly Mid­night and Smoky from next door roam through our kitchen, look­ing for food or trou­ble or both. Clear­ly they’ve tak­en on the neigh­bor­li­ness of their humans.

Sigh. A bit of fizz. Relief. And if you don’t have Annie…

Meat­balls with Ricot­ta and Pars­ley and Toma­to Sauce
(serves four, twice)

meat­balls:
2 tbsps sun­flower or oth­er veg­etable oil
1 kilo (about two pounds) pork mince
125 grams (about half a cup) ricot­ta cheese
gen­er­ous tbsp Ital­ian seasoning
large hand­ful flatleaf pars­ley, fine­ly chopped
large pinch sea salt

sauce:
gen­er­ous splash red wine
5 clove gar­lic, minced
1 white onion, minced
3 soup-size cans tomatoes
large hand­ful basil leaves, rolled and chopped into ribbons

Pour oil in a large, wide, heavy-bot­tomed fry­ing pan. Mix all meat­ball ingre­di­ents and form into balls of about an inch in diam­e­ter. You’ll end up with about 24 meat­balls. Set aside and heat oil till near­ly smok­ing. Turn on extrac­tor fan and open gar­den doors! Fry meat­balls in a sin­gle lay­er, in more than one batch, if nec­es­sary, for a cou­ple of min­utes on each side, just to brown. Don’t wor­ry about cook­ing them through; they’ll poach in the sauce. You just want a crust.

Set meat­balls on a plate cov­ered with paper tow­el, and pour wine into pan. Scrape up all love­ly bits from bot­tom, and then add gar­lic and onion, cook just till soft, then add toma­toes and basil and cook down on a medi­um heat till slight­ly thick­ened, about 10 min­utes. Add meat­balls care­ful­ly and turn heat down to just a sim­mer. Let cook for about 20 min­utes. Done.