autumn takes off

First, I must say, it’s simul­ta­ne­ous­ly heart­warm­ing and demor­al­iz­ing to real­ize one has com­plete­ly passed on the reins of cooldom to one’s child. Of course we want Avery to be cool. We make sure she has all the right oppor­tu­ni­ties to do cool things, and she takes full advan­tage. But when there is such clear pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence of her hav­ing sur­passed us COM­PLETE­LY… we waver ever so slight­ly. How did we get to be so old, and she so cool? Some­how it hap­pened. Surf­ing in Corn­wall with her friend Emi­ly’s fam­i­ly, sit­ting for a pho­to ses­sion in our gar­den for her act­ing agency… ah well, impor­tant­ly she’s still an enor­mous slob, leav­ing her wet tow­els and dirty horse­back rid­ing clothes scat­tered through the house, and she also could­n’t be any sweet­er to her tiny cat sib­ling, recov­er­ing from her vet ordeal. So in short, the real Avery, warts and beau­ty and all, is intact. But she’s also… very cool.

Autumn has appeared in full spate. Tonight as I type, the plane trees of Ham­mer­smith are brush­ing might­i­ly against our bed­room win­dows, the wind is high, the leaves blow into the room, occa­sion­al­ly the sheets flut­ter and cats rush to chase. In town, the trees are turn­ing ever so grad­u­al­ly, falling down upon the ten­nis courts near our house, near Avery’s school, remind­ing us all of the gor­geous sea­son to come. There is some­thing heart­warm­ing­ly beau­ti­ful and social about the courts near school, bound­ed on one side by a Green cov­ered with peo­ple stretched out dur­ing their work lunch hours, faces to the sun, bags of lunch near­by, and also, chill­ing­ly, peo­ple let­ting their dogs wee on the same grass: guess why I don’t pic­nic in the Green? Nev­er mind, no one seems to mind. The care­tak­er of Avery’s school, my part­ner in crime at Lost Prop­er­ty, strolls by walk­ing his dog. “Don’t watch my serve!” I cry. “You’ll lose any respect you ever had for me.”

On the oth­er side of the courts is a play­ground whose sign admon­ish­es, “Under 11s only”, so Avery is firm­ly barred, not that she has time for play­grounds these days. Home­work rules, for hours after school each day. Such is autumn. The cool­ing air rings with peo­ple call­ing the score, girls shout­ing in uni­formed girls’ school ener­gy… as far as one can see, there are lovers kiss­ing on the Green, peo­ple rid­ing Shet­land ponies, if you can imag­ine! Across the road is the Queen’s Head pub, under con­stant refur­bish­ment it would seem, with men paint­ing all the time, and the most tempt­ing scents of fry­ing fish ema­nat­ing from the premis­es with wicked accu­ra­cy the moment our ten­nis game is fin­ished. Din­ner? Let’s skip it and head straight for fish and chips!

Then there’s the per­fect autumn recipe: some­thing rugged, robust, fla­vor­ful and yet easy as pie, and best of all? In the end, it cooks itself, so you can do some­thing else: even leave the house for the Par­ents’ Guild meet­ing where you rep­re­sent Lost Property.

Moz­zarel­la-Stuffed Meatballs
(serves 4)

750 grams (1 1/2 lbs) mixed mince: pork, lamb and beef (or any one alone)
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup home­made breadcrumbs
hand­ful chopped basil
1/2 tsp Ital­ian seasoning
1 large, per­haps 1 1/2 buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la balls (you must judge by the size of yours)
2 tbsps olive oil
5 cloves gar­lic, minced
3 soup-size cans peeled plum toma­toes, whizzed in a food proces­sor till smooth
salt and pep­per to taste

Mix mince, eggs, bread­crumbs, basil and Ital­ian sea­son­ing togeth­er VERY well. Knead it like a dough, and you will be able to see when it’s tru­ly mixed, as it forms a love­ly dough-like con­sis­ten­cy, com­plete­ly amal­ga­mat­ed and coher­ent. Form into small hand­fuls about 1 1/2 inch across, then pinch off an inch or so of moz­zarel­la and push it into the small hand­ful of meat. Then form the meat­ball around the cheese, seal­ing it as best you can. Some cheese may ooze out dur­ing cook­ing, but don’t wor­ry. It’s deli­cious anyway.

Make all your meat­balls and set aside. Then cook the gar­lic in a large, shal­low, heavy saucepan, slight­ly in the olive oil, add the toma­toes and cook on a low heat for a bit, per­haps five min­utes. Then low­er the meat­balls in a sin­gle lay­er into the sauce and cov­er the pot. The meat­balls will poach in about 20 min­utes, but you can turn it off after that and let sit while you do oth­er things, just warm­ing it all slight­ly before you want to eat. Love­ly with or with­out spaghet­ti, and cheese on top.

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This meal is love­ly on so many lev­els: it smells MAG­I­CAL cook­ing, it’s fun to make the lit­tle meat­ball parcels, it can sit per­fect­ly cooked for ages while you go to meet­ings, or help with home­work, or take a nap, you name it. Then just warm it, and bob’s your uncle. Saute a lit­tle aspara­gus on the side, or oven-roast some beets… done.

I must think of anoth­er such recipe for tomor­row night because: drum­roll… we are going out. Out! And no, it’s not to a play, which is nor­mal for us, and no, we’re not tak­ing Avery, as would be nor­mal. We’re going for drinks and to a gallery open­ing with friends, NOT with Avery. Very abnor­mal! So I have con­vinced Avery she will not be kid­napped while we’re away for two hours. We’re look­ing for­ward to it (love­ly friends, and weird but inter­est­ing look­ing art­work in formed con­crete), but we’ve drawn the line at eat­ing out­side the home, nat­u­ral­ly. So I must find some­thing to cook tomor­row after­noon that Avery can eas­i­ly place in a cold oven (she’s not ready for a hot oven all alone), then turn the oven on and cook it. It all smacks of a casse­role, does­n’t it? Or lasagna, or… this is the sort of ques­tion that keeps me awake at night. How about chick­en stuffed with moz­zarel­la and pro­sciut­to, baked under toma­to sauce with some of the zuc­chi­ni my friend Jo brought from her allot­ment? There’s an idea. More on her vis­it, and oth­er pur­suits, on the mor­row. I’m going to be com­plete­ly self­ish now and return to my book of the moment, My Life in France, by Julia Child. No gim­micks, no fast talk, no queasy sub­ti­tles. Speak­ing of cool? Julia invent­ed it, and Avery can only wish.