deli­cious spring

Until today, I would have said that the Eng­lish air held an unmis­tak­able warmth of spring.  Then I got onto my bike for yoga and pos­i­tive­ly froze this morn­ing!  But a beau­ti­ful, crisp day, rem­i­nis­cent of Sat­ur­day’s “Wom­en’s Head of the Riv­er Race” on the Thames.  Fourth from the left in this pho­to is the divine Sarah Weaver, in from Cam­bridge, our house­guest from the evening before.  We screamed our­selves sil­ly when she went by.  We felt very cool to know some­one in the race, and sat with our cof­fee on the river’s edge, watch­ing the spectacle.

It’s just love­ly liv­ing so near to the Thames.  Some­day I will suc­ceed in get­ting a pho­to­graph of the riv­er rolling by out­side my bed­room win­dow.  In the mean­time, all I can do is assure you how hyp­not­ic it is, with the lights glit­ter­ing over the tidal movement.

Spring, how­ev­er chilly, has been deli­cious.  I could not have pre­dict­ed how relax­ing it would be to enjoy Life After Cook­book, pick­ing up the threads of my social exis­tence that had been put rather on hold in favor of things like acquir­ing ISB­Ns, import licences, writ­ing an index, mail­ing hun­dreds of books.  We’ve had time to enjoy the fre­quent vis­its of dear Cressie, the neigh­bor cat who defines “fluff.”

Cressie appears in the gar­den, meow­ing silent­ly out­side the glass door, des­per­ate for some love.  Of course, neigh­bor­hood opin­ion is divid­ed between those of us who think of her as Cressie and those of us who think of her as Oscar.  It’s not important.

Last week I mean­dered into Blooms­bury to meet my friend Jen at the phe­nom­e­nal­ly deli­cious Hon­ey and Co., brain­child of Sar­it Pack­er and Ita­mar Srulovich, Mid­dle East­ern chefs extra­or­di­naire.  We sat down to the crunchi­est cin­na­mon-flecked, sesame-cov­ered falafel to start, and pro­gressed to a sort of lamb and cau­li­flower shep­herd’s pie with a yogurt and sesame crust.  But the star of the lunch was the fresh, grilled sar­dines, my first ever.  Stuffed with herbs and intense­ly lemo­ny, these small fish­es were a rev­e­la­tion.  We ate every sin­gle bit.

Jen is the ulti­mate food-lov­ing lunch com­pan­ion, match­ing me for obses­sive­ness bite for bite.  We take for­ev­er over every dish, ana­lyz­ing ingre­di­ents, com­bi­na­tions of fla­vors, tex­tures.  It’s a great deal of fun, for us (and it means no one else has to put up with us).

I popped into this incred­i­ble book­store on the way home.  My the­atre-lov­ing friends and fam­i­ly would sim­ply be in heav­en, being able to do that.

Sim­ply shelf after shelf of dear Shakespeare.

Why not come home with choco­late bars named for Shake­speare­an hero­ines?  Tru­ly clever to have the sea salt choco­late named for Miran­da, don’t you think?

From that sub­lime after­noon, it was won­der­ful to get on the cosy local South­west train the next day to vis­it my friend Cather­ine — in from Philadel­phia again, just a month after she was here for my book launch!  She was in town to look after her nephews, two of the sweet­est boys on the plan­et.  Togeth­er with Cather­ine’s daugh­ter Mimi, we wore those lit­tle boys out build­ing train tracks, run­ning to the park.  Mimi dis­played her squir­rel-like climb­ing skills.

Artie watched in ador­ing astonishment.

Cather­ine and I sat peace­ably by, secure in the knowl­edge that we were no longer expect­ed to climb, run, jump or slide.  We won­dered to each oth­er if we had been able to appre­ci­ate our own chil­dren as effort­less­ly as we’re able to enjoy oth­er peo­ple’s now, with relax­ation and sim­ple enjoy­ment.  Why did we spend so much time in those days plan­ning for what came next — the next nap, meal, activ­i­ty — instead of rev­el­ling in the moment.  At least now we’re able to enjoy each oth­er unfettered.

When I suc­ceed in mak­ing Cather­ine’s delec­table dark choco­late coconut bars, I will let you know.

On the way home we took time to note the very strict neigh­bor­hood dog-walk­ing stric­tures.  Otis is indig­nant that any­one thinks four dogs are an appro­pri­ate limit.

I left their cosy, boy­ish house­hold, feel­ing quite envi­ous.  The best thing to do was to dis­tract myself with anoth­er girly lunch, this time with my boon com­pan­ion Sue, recent Elf at my birth­day bash.  I met her in Sloane Square, sure­ly one of the rich­est atmos­pheres in the world.  For a brief moment, it was fun and lux­u­ri­ous to be sur­round­ed with so many rich-look­ing peo­ple, such beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture, so many shops filled with beau­ti­ful things.

I bought some satin shorts for Avery and gor­geous leg­gings for myself at my new favorite shop, Club Mona­co.  Just a treat.  What fun for some­one who is a rub­bish shop­per, as a rule.

On to lunch!  This time at Rab­bit, a sis­ter restau­rant to the immense­ly pop­u­lar Shed, with the same ethos of extreme sea­son­al­i­ty — as in week­ly! — and for­ag­ing.  Three broth­ers run the vine­yard, farm and kitchen of the restau­rant, while the father wrote the text for their gor­geous cook­book.  And how we ate!  You can order lit­tle tiny dish­es called, appro­pri­ate­ly “mouth­fuls,” for £1.50, and we took full advan­tage: endive with goats cheese and pome­gran­ate jam, rab­bit ril­lettes on tiny cheese crack­ers.  Then we pro­ceed­ed to duck liv­er tem­pu­ra, beet­root-cured trout with caviar and shaved beets, veal “sto­gies,” which were a fab­u­lous con­coc­tion of shred­ded con­fit meat wrapped in won­tons and deep-fried.  Heav­en!  So inspiring.

What fun to sit with a dear friend, savor­ing unlike­ly and inven­tive fla­vors, solv­ing the world’s prob­lems, then to come home to cook din­ner myself, some­thing intense­ly savory and com­fort­ing.  This is a vari­a­tion of the veal chops recipe in our cook­book.  It’s also very good with chick­en, and with even more mush­rooms and a veg­etable stock,  could eas­i­ly be a mar­vel­lous veg­e­tar­i­an dish.

Pork Ten­der­loin in a Creamy Mush­room and Madeira sauce

(serves 4 with leftovers)

2 tbsps butter

2 tbsps olive oil

sea salt and fresh black pepper

2 small pork ten­der­loins, com­plete­ly trimmed of fat and gristle

6 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly chopped

8 leaves sage, rough­ly chopped

1 shal­lot, fine­ly minced

1 dozen mush­rooms, thick­ly sliced

1 tbsp flour

more but­ter if needed

1 1/2 cup/375ml beef stock

good splash Madeira or Marsala

1/2 cup/ 118 ml creme fraiche or sour cream

Heat the but­ter and oil togeth­er in a large fry­ing pan with the salt and pep­per until they stop foam­ing, then fry the ten­der­loins about 2 min­utes per side so they get nice­ly browned.  Remove to a plate, then fry the gar­lic, sage, shal­lots and mush­rooms until soft.  Remove to the plate with the pork, tak­ing care to leave as much of the but­ter and oil behind as pos­si­ble.  Sprin­kle the flour onto this fat, adding more but­ter if need­ed to make a stiff paste.  Whisk in the beef stock and Madeira until the sauce is thick­ened, then add the creme fraiche and whisk well.  Put the pork and mush­rooms, along with any juices left on the plate, back into the fry­ing pan and sim­mer in the sauce until the pork is cooked through.  This will take between 10–20 min­utes depend­ing on the thick­ness of the ten­der­loin.  When cooked, turn off the heat and remove the pork from the fry­ing pan and slice into thick slices, then return them to the sauce and heat through.  Serve with rice or mashed potatoes.

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This dish is delight­ful­ly com­fort­ing.  Per­fect for win­ter, or for spring that is act­ing like win­ter a bit past its prime.

I spent a beau­ti­ful lunch with my friend Claire and her two boys, watch­ing them devour my smoked and roast­ed salmon mousse, lit­tle slices of those French crispy toasts, radish­es, but­ter and salt.  Claire and I dis­cussed whether or not I, as a for­eign­er, should begin using British words in order to fit in.  Some­thing in me balks — as if it would be fake — at using terms like “mate,” “bloke,” or “blimey.”  “Oh, blimey’s one of my favorites,” Claire laughed, but then it can be, she’s got the most sub­lime Belfast accent.  But me?  I’d feel like a fake.  When she uses words like “sarky,” which I thought meant “snarky” but turns out to be an abbre­vi­a­tion of “sar­cas­tic,” I just wish, wish to be North­ern Irish.

“What does ‘mardy’ mean?” I asked.

“Now that, I don’t know,” she said.  It turns out to mean “grumpy” or “moody,” so it seems a very use­ful word to know, espe­cial­ly if I trav­el to the North where it is com­mon usage.

Before I left, it seemed like a very good idea to put the babies into my bag.  They seemed to enjoy it. Fred­die first…

Then Angus.

 I don’t know who enjoyed it more, the babies or Claire and me.  You sim­ply can­not have a care in the world when these two boys are around!

March has been very good to me, here in our Lon­don lives.  As much as Avery’s life, late­ly, is a com­bi­na­tion of stress­ful and bor­ing (exam prepa­ra­tions), I self­ish­ly enjoy these weeks when she spends a lot of time at home, curled up on the sofa with piles of notes and books, enter­tain­ing things to read about Ire­land and Phillip II aloud to us, ques­tions to ask.  It is ter­ri­bly hard to believe that next year, her spot on the sofa will be emp­ty.  It’s impor­tant to enjoy every cosy moment, how­ev­er incom­pre­hen­si­ble are many of the things that she reads aloud.  I final­ly do under­stand “Ulster­i­sa­tion,” but it took awhile.

Next week will see us in Zurich for a short archi­tec­tur­al tour, so watch this space.  Will it be deli­cious?  I will let you know.