get­ting back in the groove

This is indeed a rare sight in my life: sun­rise!  As you know, I am no morn­ing per­son.  Quite the oppo­site; I am at my very best late at night when all the expe­ri­ences of the day have fil­tered into my mind in all their vari­ety.  I tend to avoid ear­ly-morn­ing activ­i­ties when­ev­er pos­si­ble, as every­thing seems quite impos­si­ble to me at 7 a.m.

How­ev­er, vol­un­teer­ing at Avery’s school waits for no woman, and this week saw me at an ear­ly meet­ing of the Tutor Group Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at a school mum’s house in Chelsea.  So up I got, and my reward was this love­ly Lon­don sky.

There has been so much vol­un­teer­ing late­ly!  I always feel that since I don’t work full-time should donate all the time I can to school and else­where when­ev­er I can, but some­times I won­der if I’ve got in over my head.  We Tutor Reps dis­cussed hav­ing var­i­ous social events for the class par­ents, and I had to stop myself offer­ing up our house for drinks for 80.  What if it rained and we could­n’t use the gar­den and were all stuck in the kitchen, as cozy as it is?

On Fri­day I shall host my termly lun­cheon of the Lost Prop­er­ty vol­un­teers, which does mean stuff­ing 30 ladies into the kitchen-din­ing room.  I do love the lun­cheon, and have been spend­ing a lot of time in the mid­dle of the night try­ing to decide what two main dish­es to cook.  A whole side of salmon, roast­ed in hon­ey and soy sauce?  A crab and goats cheese tart with scal­lions and fresh thyme?  My cur­rent obses­sion: chick­en meat­balls in a creamy papri­ka sauce?  Or the peren­ni­al favorite of Lil­lian Hell­man chick­en, breast fil­lets baked in cheese and bread­crumbs with fresh thyme?

Lil­lian Hell­man Chicken

(serves 6)

6 bone­less chick­en breast fil­lets, well-trimmed

1 1/2 cups each may­on­naise and Pecori­no or Parme­san cheese, grated

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 stalks fresh thyme, leaves only

1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

1 tsp Fox Point Seasoning

hand­ful rocket/arugula leaves

In a wide, shal­low bowl or deep plate, mix the may­on­naise and cheese and lemon juice and thyme.  In anoth­er shal­low bowl or plate, mix the bread­crumbs and Fox Point Sea­son­ing.  Have a foil-lined cook­ie sheet ready.

Smear the chick­en pieces each with the may­on­naise mix­tures, then dredge in bread­crumbs on all sur­faces.  Bake at 425F/220C for 30 min­utes.  Serve sliced on the bias in thick slices and gar­nish with rock­et leaves.

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This recipe is a tremen­dous win­ner with men, women and chil­dren, and prob­a­bly will win hands down for Fri­day because it is fool-proof, pop­u­lar and easy.  We will all gath­er around two long tables and dis­cuss the var­i­ous ideas we have for get­ting the girls to “find” more of their Prop­er­ty.  I always feel there is some­thing rather hero­ic about all of us with our var­i­ous advanced degrees, reach­ing into dirty rub­bish bags to bring out mud-encrust­ed lacrosse boots stuffed with mouth­guards, hop­ing to find match­ing pairs.

Before that love­ly event, though, tomor­row is my first train­ing day for a new vol­un­teer­ing project, Home-Start.  This effort is fund­ed by the gov­ern­ment and sends vol­un­teers into “at-risk” house­holds with small chil­dren, try­ing to catch trau­ma­tised, depressed or just needy moth­ers and offer them help and sup­port, before the sit­u­a­tion gets so des­per­ate that the Social Ser­vices are called in.  I am a bit intim­i­dat­ed by the idea of try­ing to help these fam­i­lies, but I reas­sure myself that many hours of train­ing will take place before I end up on some­body’s sofa hold­ing a cry­ing baby.

And today I took on a new chal­lenge: find­ing ven­dors for the Christ­mas Fair at my beloved church, home of my bell-ring­ing efforts.

I had such fun sell­ing Christ­mas cards, set­ting up the Christ­mas tree, and tear­ing down and clean­ing up after the fair that I’ve been tapped for a bit more respon­si­bil­i­ty this com­ing year.  Isn’t it hard to believe any­one is even THINK­ING about Christ­mas yet?  But we are.  So if you find your­self with a com­pa­ny sell­ing teenag­er-friend­ly bracelets, or cash­mere throws, hand­made baby clothes or organ­ic soaps, let me know!  How I’m going to fit this new job into also help­ing John who is head­ing up Avery’s school’s Christ­mas Fair remains to be seen.

To be hon­est, though, I’ve spent an embar­rass­ing por­tion of the last week sim­ply try­ing to get back into Lon­don time.  The old­er I get, the hard­er I find it to come back East, espe­cial­ly after sev­er­al weeks get­ting used to liv­ing five hours ear­li­er.  There have been a fair num­ber of naps, and then the result­ing fair num­ber of sleep­less mid­dle-of-the-nights.  I find myself com­ing down to the kitchen for a cup of tea, feel­ing slight­ly con­fused as to whether I’ll see the roar­ing wood­stove fire of Red Gate Farm, or feel­ing the warm hum of the Aga of London.

Over the week­end we kept our­selves awake by anoth­er vis­it to Colum­bia Road, East End site of our hol­ly-wreath shop­ping trip before Christ­mas.  Avery is ter­ri­bly keen to live there, right now, how­ev­er unaf­ford­able and incon­ve­nient it may be to our West Lon­don lives.  But I can see her point.  Armed with her new cam­era, she cap­tured the sights and sounds.

Isn’t it hard to believe that this street view sim­ply hap­pened, with­out plan­ning?  And then there was this beauty.

The graf­fi­ti is com­plete­ly clever.  Check out this lit­tle mon­tage of paper fig­ures glued to the wall, their shad­ows paint­ed in ink on the pavement.

There are many mys­te­ri­ous mes­sages to be absorbed.

One won­ders what is expressed here, besides a love­ly visu­al image.

Final­ly, in need of sus­te­nance, we ambled into Cam­pa­nia Gas­trono­mia, a gor­geous Ital­ian out­post of total deli­cious­ness.  I had love­ly hefty meat­balls in a gar­licky toma­to sauce, John had a pump­kin and bel­ly pork risot­to, and Avery opt­ed for a decep­tive­ly sim­ple pan­no of the fresh­est moz­zarel­la, Par­ma ham, per­fect arti­san bread and fruity olive oil.

What a love­ly lit­tle restau­rant.  Next time I want the meat-and-cheese plat­ter which includ­ed any num­ber of cured pork, beef and sala­mi, and Gor­gonzo­la, Pecori­no, buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la, ahhh…

We had one evening over the week­end to feed our­selves whilst Avery was out on the town, so I invent­ed a dish con­tain­ing prac­ti­cal­ly every ingre­di­ent she does­n’t like.  But you will.

Roast­ed Salmon on Can­nelli­ni Bean Mash with Gor­gonzo­la and Parsley

(serves 4)

1 lb fresh salmon fillets

1 tbsp olive oil

sprin­kle Fox Point Seasoning

1/4 cup olive oil

2 soup-size cans can­nelli­ni beans, drained and rinsed

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

LOTS of fresh black pepper

sprin­kle red chilli flakes

large bunch flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped rough­ly (leaves only)

1 tbsp light cream

 Gor­gonzo­la or oth­er mild blue cheese, amount to your taste

1 tbsp tiny Eng­lish cress

Place salmon fil­lets on a foil-lined dish and driz­zle with olive oil, then sprin­kle with Fox Point.  Place in a hot oven, 425F/220C and roast for 25 minutes.

Mean­while, heat the rest of the olive oil in a large fry­ing pan.  Add beans, gar­lic, black pep­per, and red chilli flakes.  Cook over medi­um heat until gar­lic is soft­ened.  Add pars­ley and cook for anoth­er minute, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly.  When salmon is ready to serve, stir cream into the beans and then sprin­kle over as much Gor­gonzo­la as you like.  Place a serv­ing of mash on each din­ner plate and top with salmon fil­let.  Sprin­kle with cress and serve hot or warm.

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This bean dish is a REV­E­LA­TION of com­plex fla­vors.  The salmon is almost super­flu­ous, although the com­bi­na­tions are love­ly.  But a veg­e­tar­i­an could make a meal of the beans.  Intense­ly savoury, redo­lent of gar­lic, soft and com­fort­ing yet full of robust fla­vors, this dish is a real find.

I must love you and leave you.  Avery’s break­fast tomor­row will be lemon-blue­ber­ry cake and right now, there are lemons.  And blue­ber­ries.  Must get them togeth­er.  In the mean­time, let me ded­i­cate this blog post to a loy­al and enthu­si­as­tic read­er, my hus­band’s long­time fam­i­ly friend Anna, who died two days ago.  She and our fam­i­ly shared a love of res­cue ani­mals.  Why not take a look at Save a Mex­i­can Mutt, a char­i­ty dear to her gen­er­ous heart.  We will miss you, Anna, and I am proud of every moment of enjoy­ment my writ­ing brought to you.