autum­nal adventures

Imper­cep­ti­bly, the balmy days of Sep­tem­ber have giv­en way to the crisper, ener­gis­ing feel­ing of Octo­ber.  I always feel hap­pi­er as we get far­ther away from sum­mer and clos­er to Christ­mas, as the days get short­er and the breeze from the open win­dows is cool and fresh.

Of course, Sep­tem­ber did take us to Venice, which was pure joy.

The goal was the Archi­tec­ture Bien­nale, and of course we did peruse its halls with great enthu­si­asm (suf­fer­ing, final­ly, though, with Wall Text Fatigue).

But before we even arrived at the show, I had iden­ti­fied my one goal for the hol­i­day: to find an elu­sive “door­way with carved hedge­hogs” described in a Don­na Leon mys­tery.  “If it’s the last thing we do,” I vowed, “we are going to find that carving.”

Morn­ing num­ber one, we emerged from our love­ly flat in Castel­lo, turned a cor­ner, and saw this.

Some­times life brings you mag­ic, if you can open your eyes and heart to it.

We’ve all been to Venice before, togeth­er and sep­a­rate­ly, but this was a spe­cial plea­sure since we don’t have the lux­u­ry of Avery’s com­pa­ny all the time any­more.  She is so lovely.

Oh, the qui­et canals.

The tiny, nar­row walkways.

And the archi­tec­ture show was very stim­u­lat­ing, if exhausting.

John was in heaven.

The three days sped by far too quickly.

Back home, Lon­don life has been par­tic­u­lar­ly full of adven­tures these last few weeks, with the­atre, art, cook­ing, and most of all, cher­ished vis­i­tors.  How I looked for­ward for months to the arrival of one of my very favourite cook­ery writ­ers of all time, David Rosen­garten!  His clas­sic pro­gramme, “Taste,” was the very first on the Amer­i­can TV Food Net­work, and the episodes bear with nos­tal­gic rewatch­ing.  The accom­pa­ny­ing cook­book from 1998 reads like a fab­u­lous­ly inven­tive and tempt­ing nov­el, and the recipes are divine.  He’s addic­tive!  Add to that his author­ship of the bril­l­liant 1996 “Dean and Delu­ca Cook­book,” and you’ve got a total gem.

When John found him­self on a plane with him from NYC to LA, that love­ly man rang me up and thrilling­ly quot­ed the tag line of his show: “Because Life… is a Mat­ter of Taste.”  I near­ly screamed!

I have been a fer­vent fan since those ear­ly days, and when my own cook­book came out, I sent him a copy.  He reviewed it as one of the 25 best cook­books of 2015!  So nat­u­ral­ly I got in touch with him to say thank you, and we’ve been cor­re­spond­ing fer­vent­ly ever since.  “Kris­ten, I’m com­ing to Lon­don!” were among the most thrilling words ever to appear in my inbox, and it was but the work of a moment to invite him to din­ner.  He came!  Here he is, por­ing over the plans for Pot­ters Fields with John just like a nor­mal per­son.  Which, it turns out, he is.

That evening, with our dear friend Eliz­a­beth to join us, will remain for­ev­er in my mem­o­ry as a mag­i­cal one, even if I for­got to salt the pota­toes.  I admit­ted as much to David.

“I know as host­ess I’m not sup­posed to post-mortem the food, but I just want you to know, I know I for­got to salt the pota­toes.  I’d rather break an essen­tial host­ess rule than let you go away think­ing I did­n’t notice.”

He grinned.  “I get that.  Under­stood.  It happens.”

The fol­low­ing evening found us at the Globe for “Imo­gen,” a fem­i­nist rethink­ing of “Cym­be­line.”  It was a stun­ning expe­ri­ence, to see it with David.

Some­times life lives up to your wildest dreams.  And we are firm friends now!  We are already plan­ning our next get-togeth­er, back home in New York.

We made it, the fol­low­ing day, to the beau­ti­ful instal­la­tion at the Ser­pen­tine Gallery in Hyde Park in their annu­al archi­tect project.  This year was by Bjarke Ingels, sim­ply gorgeous.

And because the Tate Mod­ern is our next-door neigh­bor, we’ve become inti­mate­ly involved with its lat­est Tur­bine Hall instal­la­tion, “Any­when,” by Philippe Par­reno.  Its audio and video seg­ments are pow­ered by, you guessed it, yeast, which is in turn fed by the bac­te­ria brought in by the muse­um’s vis­i­tors.  Seriously.

This instal­la­tion was a favorite dis­trac­tion when Rose­mary came to vis­it.  Final­ly!  We could­n’t believe she had­n’t ever seen our new home before.  She loved liv­ing next door to the Tate.

The two weeks of her vis­it flew by in a flur­ry of activ­i­ty.  The British Muse­um, for the Parthenon Mar­bles (as they are now known; of course back in my day they were much more open­ly acknowl­edged as the “Elgin Marbles).

We had a pri­vate, hard-hat tour of One Tow­er Bridge, our neigh­bors at Pot­ters Fields.  We had lunch with my friend Ade­laide from Barnes, whose warm, intel­li­gent pres­ence takes me back to won­der­ful days past in our shared yoga stu­dio!  And there was lunch with my friend Sue, whose bound­less pos­i­tiv­i­ty is much need­ed these days!  How will I sur­vive when she moves, very short­ly, to Stan­ford?  It does­n’t bear think­ing about.

We invit­ed Gus­ta­vo to din­ner, which is always cause for hilar­i­ty and cel­e­bra­tion.  I absolute­ly love this flat just before a din­ner par­ty.  It is such a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of cosy and cool.

Rose­mary and Gus­ta­vo got along like a house afire, just as I knew they would.  I have yet to meet some­one whose life isn’t enhanced by meet­ing Gustavo.

It was such a joy to have Rose­mary here, to intro­duce her to our new life in SE1.

And as a crown­ing glo­ry, we went to Oxford for an overnight trip of epic excite­ment, gra­cious­ly host­ed by Avery.

There’s just noth­ing quite as much fun, and sin­ful­ly pride­ful, as a behind-the-scenes tour of Oxford secrets, with an actu­al Mem­ber of the University.

She shares her finds, like the Fri­day food mar­ket — oh, those dumplings, that hash!

All enjoyed in the shad­ow of the beau­ti­ful Rad­cliffe Cam­era, or “Rad­Cam” as those in the know call it (I nev­er would dare). 

We repaired to our hotel in the evening.  Just look at this view, out onto a land­scape that had turned rainy.

We had a fab­u­lous­ly exot­ic, deli­cious din­ner at Zheng, quite close to Avery’s new neigh­bor­hood, and then in the morn­ing had brunch (lis­ten­ing to three sad bells ring­ing at a church adja­cent to the restau­rant; I felt so guilty that I had­n’t offered my ser­vices).  After anoth­er won­der­ful wan­der around Oxford with our tour guide, we had to leave her to her work.  But what a won­der­ful two days it had been!

All too soon it was time for Rose­mary to return to Iowa, and for us to return to our worka­day lives.  Mine is soon to involve vol­un­teer­ing for a new (to me) chil­dren’s char­i­ty, The Rug­by Por­to­bel­lo Trust, hav­ing said good­bye to my lat­est Home-Start fam­i­ly.  My beau­ti­ful friend Dalia invit­ed me along to a deli­cious lunch in Ful­ham in aid of The Haven, a breast can­cer char­i­ty she’s become involved with.  To spend an after­noon with her irrev­er­ent sense of humor, her fear­less approach to the world, is always a delight.

Sud­den­ly it was the first anniver­sary of our move here!  How on earth has that hap­pened?  It feels simul­ta­ne­ous­ly much short­er, and much longer — short­er in that the time has passed in a blur, but longer in the sheer vol­ume of life that’s tak­en place between.  One of the best things about the year and our lives here have been our friends behind the desk, so I popped along with a warm apple, banana and choco­late spice cake for the lads.  Paul was so appreciative!

John is deeply immersed in get­ting to the next stage of Pot­ters Fields, so when our friend Sam came long for a vis­it this week­end, we just had to go over, to drink in the impos­si­bil­i­ty of it all, and to dream.

Of course Sam’s been along to PF with us before, when it was a pile of net­tles, when it was a park­ing lot.  Now it’s emp­ty, wait­ing for the next stage of life.

Back at home, John took off his archi­tec­ture hat and put on his chef’s toque!  Yep, he’s tak­en to the kitchen.  Basi­cal­ly, like most men who don’t cook often, he’s attract­ed to recipes that involve either sci­ence (like his pork chop recipe that involves ten­deris­ing by enzymes in fruit), or equip­ment.  And as far as the lat­ter goes, there is noth­ing more tech­ni­cal than a sous-vide machine.  It’s a water bath that bring food (usu­al­ly meat) up to a desired inter­nal tem­per­a­ture and then keeps it there.  Indefinitely.

John and Sam were so cute, admir­ing the machinery.

It’s the per­fect method for an inex­pen­sive cut of meat that requires long, slow cook­ing to break down its fibres.  And then once the meat has achieved its prop­er tem­per­a­ture, you can do any­thing to it.  Well, what John did was noth­ing short of a New York Mir­a­cle.  Feast your eyes.  Then make it at home.

Prop­er Clas­sic Pastrami

(serves 6)

1.25 kilo/2.75 lb beef brisket

1/2 cup crushed black pep­per­corns (the best qual­i­ty you can get)

1/4 sea salt

Coat the brisket in the pep­per and salt and place in a stur­dy zip­pered plas­tic bag (or vac­u­um pack it, if you’re John).

Place in the water bath that has achieved a tem­per­a­ture of 56C/132F.  Leave in this water bath for at least 36 hours.

At the end of this peri­od of time, remove the meat from the bag and in a very, very hot fry­ing pan, cook until browned on each side, about two min­utes per side.

Slice very thin.  You can eat this as a main pro­tein with side dish­es, or it will make the most stu­pen­dous Reuben sand­wich with sauer­kraut and Russ­ian dress­ing on toast­ed rye.

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The moment we sat down to this meal we realised what a spe­cial treat we had in store.  It was like being back in Man­hat­tan!  John is a pure genius with this dish, and as soon as we woke up this morn­ing we went back to the mar­ket for anoth­er brisket, to make more.  It was just that wonderful.

Hav­ing Sam around is always a gift.  He’s like the broth­er Avery does­n’t have, and it was a shame she was­n’t here to share our delight in his com­pa­ny and in our pas­tra­mi.  Sam is the sin­gle most hon­est per­son I know, and delights in punc­tur­ing ego, pre­ten­tious­ness or fal­si­ty.  It means you have to be at your most hon­est too, which always takes me a minute or two to remem­ber, then it’s pure bliss for the dura­tion of his visit.

And now I’m up to date, remem­ber­ing the very mem­o­rable days of our life.  This week will take us to Oxford with Tacy for Avery’s birth­day!  Watch this space…