All’s Well… (well you know)

I think that mag­i­cal phrase can be uttered: Sum­mer Has Arrived! Of course our stan­dards in Eng­land are slight­ly dif­fer­ent from those in Amer­i­ca, some bet­ter, some worse. We can’t count on the bright blue skies of Con­necti­cut, but there are the Eng­lish wild­flow­ers that make the heart sing. To see a lit­tle girl roam through the coun­try­side on a white pony through fields of tiny yel­low but­ter­cups is a love­ly experience.

But prob­a­bly the best of Eng­lish sum­mer, ear­ly sum­mer, are the soft fruits, and the rhubarb. Avery had a love­ly crum­ble last night before the the­atre (more on that in a moment), and so I came home and created:

Sum­mer Fruit Crumble
(serves 8 as a fine dessert or breakfast)

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup light brown or Demarara sugar
1 tsp cin­na­mon (less if you’re sensitive)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
dash ground cloves
1/2 cup cold but­ter, cut in small cubes

1 cup each:
chopped apple
sliced peeled rhubarb
raspberries
straw­ber­ries, quartered
1/4 cup light brown of Demarara sugar

Put the flour, sug­ar and spices in a food proces­sor and turn it on. Through the hole in the top, drop the but­ter cubes one at a time, let­ting them process for sev­er­al sec­onds after each drop.

Mix all the fruits and the sug­ar in a large bowl and stir well. Toss into a but­tered 9‑inch square glass dish and top with the flour mix­ture, cov­er­ing all the fruit. Bake in a 350F, 280C oven for about half an hour or until fruit is bub­bling up along the sides and the crum­ble top­ping is nice­ly browned.

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This was mag­i­cal, even for me, a per­son who does not like sweet things. The rhubarb is intense­ly sum­mery, and the bet­ter straw­ber­ries and rasp­ber­ries you can get, the bet­ter, because the sim­ple fla­vors real­ly sing. A but­tery, slight­ly crunchy crum­ble top­ping, plus you know ALL the ingre­di­ents and so have a clear con­science. A per­fect break­fast for a school­girl, trust me.

Yes, the the­atre last evening was “All’s Well That Ends Well” at the Nation­al The­atre, a des­ti­na­tion we seem to head to more than any oth­er. I adore the lit­tle inti­mate Olivi­er The­atre with­in, with its seats around three-quar­ters of the stage. And what a mag­i­cal, whim­si­cal pro­duc­tion it was. Still in pre­views, so there was a feel­ing of “what now?” about many of the moments: two par­tic­u­lar bits of total­ly unex­pect­ed slow-motion at times of supreme dra­ma: the action all slowed down almost imper­cep­ti­bly while fil­i­greed leaves fil­tered down from the ceil­ing… some bril­liant touch­es of play­ing around with the orig­i­nal lines: dur­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly long list-sort of speech by a char­ac­ter, she turned to the audi­ence in the mid­dle and said weari­ly, “Etcetera…” Brilliant!

Look out for the sin­gle scene-steal­ing instant of the entire play: the third, or even fourth girl is offered up for the Count as wife, and as she looks at him through com­ic-book spec­ta­cles, clutch­ing her knit­ting, she sim­ply squeaks, “Min­na min­na min­na!…” And as Avery point­ed out, “for that moment, she had the whole the­atre.” Oliv­er Ford Davies and Clare Hig­gins were prop­er main­stays for the play, but the younger set (includ­ing the Count who, when he bared his chest to change his shirt, an audi­ble gasp rip­pled through the audi­ence!) were more than enough to hold up the ener­gy. It is such fun to see a play ear­ly on in its run: the grins of sheer unabashed delight from the play­ers at the bow was a joy!

We were home so very, very late. It’s half-term break for Avery, but only in a way, because she and her oth­er first-year com­pa­tri­ots in senior school are giv­en fair­ly seri­ous amounts of what’s called “revi­sion” to do, what I sup­pose we Amer­i­cans call “study­ing.” Piles of papers of geog­ra­phy, Eng­lish, maths, Latin, sci­ence, art, French, every­thing, to dig through and try to remem­ber every­thing the teach­ers have said since Sep­tem­ber. So I felt some­what guilty throw­ing her into bed quite close to mid­night, but thought self-right­eous­ly, “It’s bl**dy Shake­speare!” She slept late, and stuck close to the kitchen today as I con­coct­ed my fruit crum­ble, pesto, water­cress and sweet­corn soup for lunch, and for din­ner, a quite mag­i­cal new ingre­di­ent, not for the faint of heart: black gar­lic. It’s not as evil as it sounds; rather, it’s sweet, sticky, coal black and near­ly weight­less in its papery out­er skin. Sim­ply peel away the skin to reveal the shriv­el­ly cloves, then squish the cloves into sub­mis­sion for the mari­nade of your life.

Pork Fil­let in a Black Gar­lic Mari­nade, Served in Lettuce
(serves 4 easily)

2 medi­um pork ten­der­loins, com­plete­ly trimmed of mem­branes and fat
1 whole head black garlic
2 tbsps soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp sesame oil

1 red pep­per, diced
1 large Por­to­bel­lo mush­room, diced
1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsps pinenuts, chopped
hand­ful cilantro/coriander leaves
1/4 cup plum sauce

1 head Boston or ice­berg let­tuce, pulled into large leaves

Place the trimmed ten­der­loins in a Ziplock bag. In a small bowl, com­bine the gar­lic, soy sauce, lime juice and sesame oil and mash them togeth­er, then leave for 5 min­utes or so to let the acid in the lime juice break down the gar­lic. Mash some more until nice and smooth, then pour all the mari­nade into the bag with the pork and seal well. Squish around until the ten­der­loins are com­plete­ly coat­ed with the mari­nade. Leave in the fridge for as long as you can, with­in rea­son: an hour to a day.

Jut before you’re ready to eat, assem­ble the rest of the ingre­di­ents, and saute the pep­pers and mush­rooms in the olive oil. Set aside. Cut the ten­der­loins into 1‑inch slices and place in a food proces­sor, then blitz until chopped but not pureed. Heat a heavy fry­ing pan to very hot, then add the pork and saute, break­ing up with a wood­en spoon as you go. When cooked, remove to a bowl.

Serve all ingre­di­ents with let­tuce leaves, and pile on as you like! Have plen­ty of nap­kins, as it’s a messy dish.

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Light, diety, but sat­is­fy­ing. If your chil­dren don’t like let­tuce leaves, pro­vide Chi­nese pan­cakes for them. It’s all love­ly and you can assem­ble each one as you like it.

Good­ness, it’s been a whirl­wind since Mon­day. In fact, it all began Sun­day evening when we picked up Avery’s friend Lille and brought her home for pier­rade and Eton Mess, then pack­ing up for their love­ly week­end away. It was that heart­warm­ing com­bi­na­tion of the famil­iar and the utter­ly lux­u­ri­ous. For many years our fam­i­ly, includ­ing John’s moth­er and much-missed father, have trav­elled from Lon­don to the cradling beau­ty of the Cotswolds, for that occa­sion­al break from crazy dai­ly life. Giv­en our druthers, our des­ti­na­tion has to be Lords of the Manor, sim­ply my favorite lit­tle hotel in the world, tucked away in Upper Slaugh­ter, a place where you can actu­al­ly bor­row Welling­tons if you need them, or order the finest sin­gle-malt Scotch in the world, and watch a heli­copter land on the back gar­den, and sam­ple the finest fried bread in an Eng­lish break­fast you ever tasted.

When we first began to retreat there, and I tru­ly can’t remem­ber why we ever first did, it was the ulti­mate in coun­try shab­by 17th cen­tu­ry chic: worn Ori­en­tal rugs, fam­i­ly por­traits in fire-stained oils, half-emp­ty bot­tles of Cal­va­dos on the well-worn bar, leather fend­ers before the fire­places. How we loved it. How many pre­cious evenings we got dressed up, in our rooms above the din­ing rooms, dawdling in old-fash­ioned ceram­ic baths with feet, lis­ten­ing to “Wogan” drift­ing in from the tel­ly in the bed­room, to meet up in the sit­ting room where a smil­ing wait­ress brought heavy menus of what was to me, then, very remark­able and unat­tain­able food. We chose, over much laugh­ter and Scotch­es, and then repaired to the din­ing room.

Well, all things must change, for bet­ter or worse, or prob­a­bly in this case from won­der­ful to worse to bet­ter, but always chang­ing. Two years ago we took a lit­tle friend of Avery’s there to stay for a week­end while her moth­er had a baby, and it was love­ly, but the food? I’m ashamed to say I’d out­grown it. It was nice hotel food. But I could do more than I could do in the old days, and I was loath to spend pre­cious food mon­ey on some­thing sort of tepid.

So this year I thought, “Right, we’ll have a fab­u­lous time in the coun­try, but have din­ner in a nice pub some­where, save some mon­ey.” In the end, after the girls had been put through their paces at Jill Caren­za­’s, rid­ing school (more on that in a moment!), all they and we want­ed for the evening was to col­lapse and order room ser­vice. I noticed with a mix­ture of delight and alarm and nos­tal­gia that the shab­by chic had all gone, in favor of a mut­ed ele­gance: all col­ors like mush­room, sage, brick red, stripes instead of flow­ers, love­ly damask in the place of the old chintz and vel­vet. No more flocked wall­pa­pers, no more shab­by old mis­matched books in the shelves, and the oil paint­ings had gone in favor of love­ly Cotswolds land­scapes in pas­tels. Gor­geous, but not quite the old days. John’s father, I felt, would have felt it too posh. And yet…

Girls ensconced in their room of our suite, clutch­ing the excit­ing gra­tu­itous sham­poos and lotions from a fan­cy French mak­er instead of the love­ly Molton Brown the hotel used to stock, we all col­lapsed. “Room ser­vice!” the girls crowed, and scrubbed the hors­es from their hands. Tagli­atelle all round, with ham and mush­rooms, we decid­ed. I opt­ed for an addi­tion­al “mixed salad.”

WELL.

When the food arrived, John and I looked at each oth­er. This was no sort of for­get­table pas­ta with a dull sauce of but­ton mush­rooms and ham. Home­made noo­dles, mixed wild mush­rooms in a sub­tle, slight­ly but light­ly creamy sauce, with smoky chunks of some arti­sanal ham. What was going on here? Then I pulled toward me the sal­ad. And my dear read­ers, you have nev­er tast­ed such a sal­ad. So light­ly and yet skil­ful­ly dressed that it appeared naked at first, but the mus­tardy, olivey, slight­ly gar­licky fla­vor clung to every leaf. And the leaves! Baby every­thing: minus­cule leaves of baby cilantro, baby radic­chio, baby endive, baby dan­de­lion, baby beet­root. GOR­GEOUS. “What has hap­pened here?” we asked silent­ly. And then, the girls’ desserts arrived. A sin­gle per­fect hol­low ball of spun sug­ar sit­ting on a bed of poached rhubarb and ice cream, a cof­fee pra­line souf­fle for Lille… and the most gor­geous petits fours you can imag­ine: a pas­sion­fruit jel­ly, a creamy carame­ly square the size of a postage stamp, a Turk­ish delight of the most per­fect pis­ta­chios. Perfection.

I high­tailed it straight to the front desk, and you know what? Since we there last, there is a new chef, a cer­tain Matt Wee­don, poached (as it were) from a Scot­tish cas­tle restau­rant who must have been dev­as­tat­ed to lose him. With his arrival and hard work, the hotel restau­rant has gained its first cov­et­ed Miche­lin star! How I wish we had sucked it up for the mon­ey and had the whole nine yards in the din­ing room! I had no idea. Next time. Per­fec­tion. Go!

In the morn­ing we end­ed up repeat­ing the girls’ incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence at rid­ing the day before: cross-coun­try event­ing! Quite sim­ply, all the scary things that moth­ers the world round dread that their girls will want to do, when they begin rid­ing. But I was fine! Jump­ing, in the coun­try­side, far­ther than I could see, across unmov­able jumps in the grass, on ponies they’d nev­er rid­den before. The skies were ulti­mate­ly change­able: blue, grey, scud­ding white clouds, grey threat­en­ing drops, all smil­ing down on fields full of but­ter­cups. I felt John’s father all around us, he who had smiled his Irish eyes so many times on Avery jump­ing in just this place. How his pride in her shone from his smile: lean­ing against the fence, rev­el­ling in the jumps get­ting high­er, nev­er fear­ing for her safe­ty, always con­fi­dent that his grand­daugh­ter would be equal to the chal­lenge. He was there, with us. And always will be. How he would have loved to see her red cheeks and grin­ning eyes, shout­ing, “That’s the most fun I’ve EVER had!” as she brought her pony in from the far­away fields, where metaphor­i­cal­ly and real­ly, she had left me far behind.

And yet even there, things change: Avery and Lille were taught not by the famous Jill, who pre­sides over the barn, but her up and com­ing daugh­ter Emi­ly. At first we harumphed silent­ly a bit, “What about Jill!” but quick­ly saw that the new gen­er­a­tion had tak­en over, and she gave as good as she got, shout for ear-pierc­ing shout the image of her moth­er. And the girls were in heav­en, hot, sweaty, scared to the point of exhil­a­ra­tion but nev­er for a MOMENT want­i­ng to say no, to do any­thing less than what they were offered. “More ring, you lot, or the field?” Emi­ly asked at one point, and Lille shout­ed, “Field field field!” “Tell us what you REAL­LY think,” John teased. What a com­plete joy to give this expe­ri­ence to them.

Back to the hotel, putting the top up in the poor tiny lit­tle con­vert­ible at one point for a brief rain­storm! Then to get food for the ducks in Low­er Slaugh­ter, anoth­er beloved tra­di­tion, end­ing once in a giant white duck tak­ing a giant bite out of John’s ancient Bar­bour coat! We always get duck food at the same place, where Avery always gets her favorite ice cream, and looks in the mir­rored front of the “AVERY” scale set out in front of the shop. And we were off with duck food. But again: changes. Where were the ducks? There were just two, or three, and they weren’t hun­gry, not sur­pris­ing­ly, since prob­a­bly every tourist all morn­ing had insist­ed on feed­ing them! “No ducks,” Avery said mourn­ful­ly, and just as I was plan­ning to go buy some so she could con­tin­ue her tra­di­tion, up popped a moth­er and at least sev­en tiny duck­lings! “What we lack in quan­ti­ty, we make up for in qual­i­ty,” John said, and all was well.

High tea at the hotel, the tra­di­tion­al search­ing through “Horse and Pony” Mag­a­zine for the ONE pony in the clas­si­fieds that they could agree on… and home. It’s actu­al­ly fun to go on a long dri­ve with two high­ly aca­d­e­m­ic near-teenagers: they spend the time singing their Latin noun declen­sions! And imi­tat­ing their Latin teacher in her high-pitched cheery tones, and singing “The Grand Old Duke of York” while skip­ping var­i­ous words… very entertaining.

As for me, the high­light was our vis­it to Stow, on the way home. Lam­bournes Butch­ers in Dig­beth Street pro­vid­ed not only the divine pork fil­let for our black gar­lic din­ner tonight, but also the most fla­vor­ful and oppor­tunis­tic toma­toes on the vine: why don’t more butch­ers offer fresh veg­eta­bles? It’s my favorite way to shop: “Hey, this would be good with that…” Then next door to the butch­er was Hamp­tons Fine Foods, spe­cial­iz­ing in the sorts of lux­u­ry ham­pers we can only DREAM about (my birth­day, any­one?) where I picked up local rape­seed oil and the BEST CHEESE EVER: Stow Soft, a sort of mild­ly smelly, intense­ly but­tery and fla­vor­ful creamy cheese, the kind you slice the top off and then spoon out, like an Epoisse or a Vacherin, not to be too food­ie all over you. But I wish so much I had bought more than two (I gave one to Lille’s moth­er when we dropped her daugh­ter off, dirty and near­ly as smelly as the cheese, oh, ponies!).

Home in a stu­por of fatigue, appre­ci­a­tion, extreme close­ness from 48 hours in each oth­ers’ com­pa­ny, dirty laun­dry, the small­est car ever, and so many mem­o­ries. It’s all we can do, in the end. Pull our chil­dren and our hus­bands through the tough­est moments, give them a kick when they need it (and take our kicks when they come!) and then sit back and LOVE the blinky after­noons when you’re watch­ing a not-so-lit­tle girl on a white pony, in a flow­ery field, hav­ing the time of her life.

Then come home to a fruit crumble…