a sleep­over hol­i­day, Belle­hop and Litchfield

Well, John’s par­ents have flown away, sad­ly. We’re hud­dling around a roar­ing fire, believe it or not, in August! Avery’s tack­ling the home­work her teach­ers sent home with her for the sum­mer, John’s at the den­tist (ick) and I’m keep­ing a box of Kleenex close by as I seem to have caught the cold lit­tle Jane brought for her sleep­over this week­end. But what a good time we had with her while she was here: jump­ing on the tram­po­line, play­ing on the teeter-tot­ter, catch­ing min­nows from the pond, eat­ing her favorite ham sand­wich­es, head­ing off to the library to trade in Avery’s huge stack of books for anoth­er huge stack of books. And the Ele­phan­t’s Trunk flea mar­ket in New Mil­ford! If you can get there ear­ly there are real trea­sures (our teeter-tot­ter, years ago, and a beau­ti­ful old mir­ror, I remem­ber.) But this time we came away with a soc­cer ball on a teth­er for guess who, and she ate two bananas as she walked along! We had a ball. But all good things must come to an end, and before we knew it, it was late after­noon on Day Two under a gray sky and Jill and Joel were pulling up in the dri­ve­way to take her home. Anne stopped by for a minute to say hi to John’s par­ents and left with a cou­ple of pieces of cake for David’s birth­day. Hap­py Birthday!

Can you believe we had an owl vis­it! To add to our live­stock col­lec­tion here at Red Gate Farm. I was not awake ear­ly enough to see him, but John’s mom was. I just hope he does­n’t swoop down to get any of our chipmunks…

And Avery had her best rid­ing les­son ever, I hear! Was I there? Of course not. That’s being a moth­er for you: sit­ting through count­less for­get­table lessons on both sides of the pond, traips­ing through Hyde Park and the Bronx and South­bury in the dusty wake of this or that pony, but when it comes to the per­fect pony, the high­est jumps, I’m sit­ting at a pic­nic table at home eat­ing a lob­ster roll, miss­ing it all. Nev­er mind: Non­na and John were there, and as you see, the pony, Belle­hop, is a sweet­heart. I did get to go the next day, and she was love­ly to watch, a real carousel pony. What a beau­ti­ful place: the red barns, blue sky, green pines, white fences, so many mem­o­ries of the hun­dreds of after­noons and evenings I spent up there either sweat­ing in the sun or hud­dling around the wood fire, watch­ing Avery and her friends ride, gos­sip­ing with the oth­er moth­ers. Such a cozy place to be.

But you know what: I missed the les­son last week because I was hang­ing around at home hav­ing a mean­ing-of-life chat with my father in law, and that does­n’t hap­pen very often. He is like an old-fash­ioned sage: his blue eyes look out on the world with enor­mous per­spec­tive and wis­dom, kind­ness and judg­ment, accep­tance and opti­mism. He does­n’t offer his opin­ions unless you real­ly ask, and even then he mea­sures his words to make his com­ments as gen­tle as pos­si­ble. We sat and ate lob­ster and crab rolls (just about the most mag­i­cal left­overs in the world, in my opin­ion), and toma­to and avo­ca­do sal­ad, and chat­ted. I can’t say I would have want­ed to be any­where else.

Then the weath­er changed com­plete­ly! The tem­per­a­ture dropped some twen­ty degrees, the wind turned and you could smell autumn com­ing. I’d real­ly like to think we have anoth­er week or so of sum­mer com­ing, but for now we’re bun­dled in sweaters. A cou­ple of nights ago I found myself the only one awake, walk­ing around the house watch­ing the flames flick­er in the liv­ing room, can­dles in the front win­dows, and I opened the tiny square win­dow in the kitchen and stuck my head out to lis­ten to the rain. This is the most pleas­ant place in the world, I think: peace­ful and calm. I have to think of how to trans­fer some of this peace to our lives in Lon­don: it’s got to be possible.

Then we ful­filled one of John’s mom’s life­time ambi­tions (she’s very easy to please!): a vis­it to Litch­field, Con­necti­cut. It is sim­ply the most beau­ti­ful town: all white hous­es with black shut­ters, wide green lawns, Amer­i­can flags every­where. And my most favorite store for cash­mere sweaters, R. Der­win on the Green. Just about four times in the past 20 years I have found myself in that store, and each time I find the per­fect sweater, and have a nice talk with the two gen­er­a­tions of Der­wins who linger behind the counter. Quin­tes­sen­tial New Eng­lan­ders: bright eyes, cor­duroys and poplin, a hap­py incli­na­tion to gos­sip about Litch­fiel­d­ans we have known.

Then it was onto a per­fect old-fash­ioned can­dy store, for Avery. The Litch­field Can­dy Com­pa­ny at 245 West Street, crowd­ed with all the old sweets I remem­ber from child­hood: Pixy Stix, Nec­co wafers, Lemon­heads! And a soda that we could­n’t resist for obvi­ous rea­sons: Always Ask for Avery’s! Can you imag­ine. I’m not one for old-fash­ioned sick­ly sweet sodas, but I can see that it’s the kind of thing you’d like if you like that kind of thing. John at least was pret­ty keen on the Birch Beer. We’re plan­ning to pour most of it down the drain and use the bot­tles for flower vas­es. If I get a good pic­ture I’ll post it.

But I think the best thing about Litch­field was our din­ner at the Litch­field Salt­wa­ter Grille. Run, don’t walk, get a table out back under the nice white duck awnings (even in a dri­ving rain­storm this spot was delight­ful!), and ask for Tra­cy, a bub­bly and effi­cient wait­ress who brought us any num­ber of fab­u­lous dish­es. The chef, one Albert Clugston III, has come up with some real win­ners. And our expe­ri­ence put to rest one of those old food rules: “Nev­er order oys­ters in a month with­out an R.” Well, August at the Salt­wa­ter Grille is def­i­nite­ly an oys­ter month any­way, as they must all be. The Blue Points were per­fect: freez­ing cold on a bed of ice, per­fect­ly fresh, served with the req­ui­site lemon wedges, horse­rad­ish and chili sauce. Yum yum. Then Avery had a chick­en breast wrapped in bacon and topped with mys­te­ri­ous­ly deli­cious red pep­per strips and crispy “match­stick” potatoes.

The seafood ruled, though: my moth­er in law and I both had enor­mous slabs of seared tuna with a pep­per­corn crust and some tru­ly tasty mush­rooms hid­ing under­neath. We could eas­i­ly have shared, so that’s some­thing to think about for those with less than gar­gan­tu­an appetites. John had a bouil­l­abaisse that he decid­ed lat­er was the weak­est of all we ordered, although good. The true star of the evening was John’s dad’s giant bowl of “Shrimp and Clams New­port,” swim­ming in quite the most divine sauce we had ever tast­ed (we unashamed­ly begged Tra­cy for more bread and all of us sopped it up). I think I’ll try to repro­duce it lat­er this week when Avery’s off vis­it­ing Cici in Mys­tic: we all diag­nosed but­ter, Pinot Gris, pars­ley, gar­lic, crushed red pep­per flakes and… clam broth? Maybe mixed with a bit of chick­en broth? Lovely.

Such won­der­ful mem­o­ries of John’s par­ents’ vis­it. Long after­noons sit­ting in our rat­ty old fold­ing deck chairs, pre­tend­ing to read but real­ly watch­ing Avery’s end­less­ly inven­tive tram­po­line rou­tines, named inex­plic­a­bly after her favorite Archie char­ac­ters. She nar­rates as she jumps, so the lawn rang with “Veron­i­ca, Veron­i­ca, Jug­head, Bet­ty, Veron­i­ca, Veron­i­ca…” and end­less games of Aggra­va­tion! John’s father, nor­mal­ly quite mild-man­nered, turns into an absolute ogre when faced with the lit­tle blue mar­bles. And John has been known actu­al­ly to make a move that is dis­ad­van­ta­geous to him­self if it can send some­one else home! “Wait­ing for a one… You can­not tell me ones come up with any­thing LIKE the sta­tis­ti­cal fre­quen­cy they should! You did NOT have to send me home!!” John’s mom hap­pi­ly accom­pa­ny­ing me on num­ber­less trips to the gro­cery store (why are we always fas­ci­nat­ed by even the most bor­ing lists?), chop­ping gar­lic for me. “Remem­ber that first time we cooked togeth­er in Lon­don, Kris­ten, and you told me in no uncer­tain terms how fine the gar­lic had to be minced?” I must have been one obnox­ious new daugh­ter in law, that’s all I have to say.

Need some­thing to give a ten-year-old girl? Pos­si­bly the most suc­cess­ful gifts of the sum­mer: the fab­ric mark­ers and sten­cils for dec­o­rat­ing t‑shirts that John’s mom brought, and The Enchant­ed Dolls’ House Wed­ding Book from my moth­er. Per­fect sum­mer activ­i­ties, thanks to the Non­nas. Thank you!

Well, I must close this mam­moth post and make some lunch. I’m think­ing dev­illed eggs. One thing I learned this sum­mer, although I hes­i­tate to dis­agree with the great Julia Child and her strin­gent instruc­tions on boil­ing eggs (some­thing about 17 min­utes and a tight-fit­ting lid), my method worked sur­pris­ing­ly well: bring­ing the eggs to a boil in cold water and then for­get­ting they’re on the stove, hav­ing your hus­band turn off the heat and let­ting them sit there for an untold peri­od of time until some­one said, “Weren’t you going to make dev­illed eggs?”, shriek­ing and run­ning them under cold water. Perfect.

Dev­illed-Eggs

Oh, and I suc­cumbed to yet anoth­er exam­ple of home­made being bet­ter than bought­en: I ran out of Hell­man’s, need­ed mayo. I’m sor­ry to say: home­made is much, much nicer. Lim­ber up your whisk­ing arm and make some:

Home­made Mayonnaise