of mat­zoh balls, liv­er, and dentistry

Let’s see, this evening we’re in a moment of calm between an adven­ture in Gold­ers Green, a mag­nif­i­cent week­end in the coun­try, and Avery’s den­tal surgery tomor­row. We’ll start with the mat­zoh balls.

Because that is why I went to Gold­ers Green, deep in North Lon­don. Hav­ing spent a fair amount of my adult life in New York City, I feel a deep and abid­ing love for most things Jew­ish, and all things Jew­ish food. Chick­en soup with mat­zoh balls. Pota­to Latkes, pas­tra­mi, bagels. I miss it all. And so when my food­ie friend Janet arrived for one of her all-too-infre­qent trips to Lon­don from LA, off we went to Gold­ers Green, on a pil­grim­age to find the per­fect spot for lunch. And we did, in Blooms.

“What are knei­d­lach?” I asked my adorable young waitress.

“Those are the, how do you say, the… noo­dles. Homemade.”

“Thank you. What are kreplach?”

“Those are the dumplings, they are filled with minced meat.”

“Excel­lent. What are lokschen?”

“Those are the mat­zoh balls.”

“Fine, I’ll have chick­en soup with ALL of them.”

This was love­ly. Gold­en, rich, sim­ple, with that fla­vor that can be impart­ed, I tru­ly believe, only by a Jew­ish hand, and with love of the dish. I have made it myself, to no real suc­cess (and I’m a mean soup-mak­er, I’d say). But get my friend Alyssa in front of a stove, in my very own kitchen, and her chick­en soup with mat­zoh balls is a rev­e­la­tion in health-giv­ing, life-giv­ing elixir. It’s about the love.

There is no one like my friend Janet to have a food adven­ture with. We wan­dered into a Pol­ish del­i­catessen where she encour­aged me to buy kiel­basa, sauer­kraut from an old wood­en bar­rel, lit­tle choco­late cook­ies and lit­tle sug­ar cook­ies in the shape of leaves (“leaf nov­el­ties” as I lat­er trans­lat­ed the label).

And then the next day, our lit­tle Cinque­cen­to stuffed like a tick with our overnight gear AND one of the chil­dren of our hosts, we were off to the country.

One gor­geous house, five won­der­ful chil­dren, a ten­nis court, an all-singing, all-danc­ing kitchen with an Aga, AND the fam­i­ly was hap­py for me to cook din­ner! Meat­balls stuffed with moz­zarel­la, with one of the mid­dle daugh­ters as my helper, gar­lic bread and sauteed sug­ar snap peas. The dad made bread in a machine, overnight! I am research­ing buy­ing just such a machine… the aro­ma was irre­sistible. Dur­ing the week­end I was tak­en to Beechcroft Farm where I hugged no few­er than two baby lambs, one born the day before, and met sev­er­al new­born calves and pigs, and bought pork sausages, bacon, sir­loin steaks and lambs’ liv­er. Let me elaborate.

Lambs’ Liv­er with Marsala Wine, Bacon and Onions
(serves 4)

4 slices bacon, cut in small pieces
3 tbsps butter
2 white onions, sliced thick
3 tbsps Marsala wine
squeeze lemon juice
sea salt and pep­per to taste
8 slices lambs’ liver
scat­ter­ing of fresh chives

Fry the bacon in a medi­um skil­let and push to the edges of it, then add but­ter and fry onions until soft. Pour in the Marsala and scrape up all the lit­tle bits from the bot­tom, then add lemon juice and salt and pep­per. Push every­thing to the sides and place the slices of liv­er in the cen­ter. Fry gen­tly per­haps 3 min­utes on the first side and 2 on the oth­er. This tim­ing will depend on sev­er­al things: how thick the slices are, how high your heat, and how rare you like your liv­er. I mean, THE liver.

Pile every­thing on a nice plat­ter and scat­ter chives over. Serve with some sharp sal­ad, like lentils with a chilli dress­ing, beet­root with bal­sam­ic vine­gar, toma­toes with lemon juice. Also toast­ed baguette if you like. Rich with iron, only a small serv­ing need­ed: elemental.

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Long walks in the coun­try­side as you see, with girls all around to make us laugh.

Tonight was the first night for pier­rade! Huge plat­ters of thin­ly-sliced duck and the sir­loin from Beechcroft: peer­less and deli­cious. Served with Sate sauce, Hoisin sauce, Dijon mus­tard. Plus dauphi­noise pota­toes (not beau­ti­ful, as you see, but gor­geous­ly rich and creamy) and roast­ed car­rots and parsnips. Spring HEAV­EN, although it sounds win­try. But to eat out­side, to saute each bite for one­self in the spring evening, EVEN though we were being rained on ever so slight­ly… heaven.

Roast­ed Car­rots and Parsnips
(serves 4)

8 car­rots
3 parsnips
driz­zle chilli oil
scat­ter­ing brown sugar
pinch sea salt
8 sage leaves
1 tbsp butter

Halve the car­rots length­wise (unpeeled, but washed), and quar­ter the parsnips length­wise (peeled). Lay in a bak­ing dish and driz­zle with chilli oil, then scat­ter brown sug­ar over, and salt, then scat­ter sage over all. Roast in a hot oven (200C, 400F) for 30 min­utes, then take dish out and add but­ter and toss the veg­eta­bles in the accu­mu­lat­ed oil and but­ter. Place in oven for anoth­er 10 min­utes. Perfect.

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All this has been love­ly. Ten­nis, even though I keep strain­ing some muscle/joint in my elbow. Lost Prop­er­ty: the Sale of goods made a record amount of mon­ey yes­ter­day! Twelve moth­ers, 6 hours, and we raised… £400. Well, it’s some­thing, and most impor­tant, it’s tra­di­tion and we were there, and the ways of Avery’s school go on.

Today saw me writ­ing up the Sales Pro­ceeds, mak­ing up the rota for next term, a sched­ule of requests for next ter­m’s fab­u­lous Lun­cheon, gen­er­al­ly accom­plish­ing things. And wor­ry­ing. About Avery and tomorrow.

One would­n’t think that a child’s per­fect­ly rou­tine surgery could throw a fam­i­ly into a tail­spin, but we are, a bit, sim­ply because of our lack of expe­ri­ence with… Avery being in pain.

I just don’t like it. I know with­out a doubt that she will be absolute­ly fine, by tomor­row evening she will be safe­ly ensconced back in the cir­cle of my arm (with a secret present in her hands), and a Chilly Bil­ly to suck on, if she wants to.

But it seems to me, as I sweat and fret and wor­ry, that there is some­thing ele­men­tal in a par­en­t’s make­up that says, “No pain, please, for my child.” We would always rather go through it our­selves, what­ev­er it is, even though we know that the expe­ri­ence of pain is nor­mal, part of life, and some­thing that every­one learns to sub­mit to, to over­come. In fact, I sup­pose, the job of a par­ent is not to smooth the path for the child, to take away all poten­tial sources of pain, but to teach her to shoul­der up to pain, to make friends with it, to set it on the side of the road and move on.

But I don’t like it.

Onward and upward to tomor­row after­noon, Avery and her brav­ery and what­ev­er chew-less foods I can invent, as long as she needs them.