birth­day week

I am an absolute glut­ton for birth­day cel­e­bra­tions.  I’ll tell you why.

Every oth­er “hol­i­day” is rec­i­p­ro­cal; every­one has to care about how every­one else is feel­ing.  Hal­loween, you have to make sure that every­one gets a say in the design of the jack o’lanterns.  Thanks­giv­ing involves so many hun­dreds of peo­ple that the enjoy­ment of it is most­ly in the chaos and mad social uncer­tain­ty!  Christ­mas… is Christ­mas, absolute tops in requir­ing that every­one’s wish­es are answered.  And don’t mis­un­der­stand me.  I love all those occa­sions, too.

But my birth­day is just for me!  Self­ish­ly, I love it.  Presents, of course.  Many years ago I declared that I was all grown-up and did­n’t need any presents.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly every­one took me at my word.  I cried.  Nev­er again.  I love presents!  John is a past mas­ter at choos­ing just the right quirky things: a bright blue sil­i­cone colan­der, the per­fect black turtle­neck, an orange mes­sen­ger bag to replace my tired handbag.

Part of the fun of a birth­day is, of course, stretch­ing it out over an entire week, or as close as I can get to it.  First was a jaunt to Brick Lane in East Lon­don, for Nordic Noir!  A whole fes­ti­val ded­i­cat­ed to Scan­di­na­vian crime tel­ly dra­mas.  I am not mak­ing this up.

We trooped off ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing to spend the entire day, shiv­er­ing in an aban­doned brew­ery, screen­ing (hip­ster-speak for “watch­ing”) episodes of our favorites, “Wal­lan­der” and “The Bridge,” and rev­el­ling in Q&A ses­sions with the actors.  It was, as John said, about as nerdy a thing as one could ever do, except per­haps for bell-ring­ing.  The fact that I left bell-ring­ing ear­ly to get to “Nordi­cana” says some­thing quite elo­quent about my life.  And there were Swedish meat­balls.  What fun.

The rev­el­ries con­tin­ued on Wednes­day with my dar­ling friend Elspeth treat­ing me to lunch at the new trendy local place, the “Olympic,” a cafe and cin­e­ma in the High Street.  We came in from the nasty, blowy Feb­ru­ary rain and feast­ed on roast­ed cod, hangar steak and roast­ed win­ter veg­eta­bles, washed down with a cel­e­bra­to­ry glass of Pros­ec­co, and then mean­dered into the unbe­liev­ably plushy red cin­e­ma, for a fab­u­lous screen­ing (again with the “screen­ing”!) of a live per­for­mance of the Nation­al The­atre’s “Cori­olanus,” star­ring the impres­sive Tom Hid­dle­ston.  Oh my.

What a sim­ple and yet bril­liant idea, such a demo­c­ra­t­ic way to share an extra­or­di­nary the­atri­cal expe­ri­ence: have prop­er cam­era peo­ple swan around a Shake­speare­an pro­duc­tion at the Don­mar Ware­house, get­ting far bet­ter inclu­sive views than a live per­son could get no mat­ter how good the seat, then show the film in cin­e­mas.  The film has been shown world­wide since Jan­u­ary 30, so if you get a chance at your local the­atre, do not miss this fab­u­lous (if bloody) pro­duc­tion.  Star-stud­ded, too, with even one of our favorite Scan­dy stars, Bir­gitte Hjort Sorensen, play­ing Vir­gilia, Mark Gat­tis as Mene­nius.  But it was Tom who stole the show, and it has made him a star of epic proportions.

We came away in a daze of admi­ra­tion for Hid­dle­ston’s nuanced, sen­si­tive per­for­mance (watch for the scene where he wash­es his bat­tle wounds in a show­er cas­cad­ing from the enor­mous­ly high ceil­ing).  Luck­i­ly I had a good, warm­ing win­ter sup­per planned: pan-fried pork ten­der­loin and roast­ed root veg­eta­bles in quite the most per­fect sauce ever.

Roast­ed Root Veg­eta­bles with Tahi­ni Gin­ger Sauce

(serves 4 as a main course)

4 medi­um beetroots

1 large but­ter­nut squash

1 medi­um head cauliflower

2 tbsps olive oil

1/3 cup tahini

2 tbsps clear honey

3 tbsps soy sauce

juice and zest of 1 lime

2‑inch knob ginger

4 cloves garlic

Peel the beet­roots and cut into bite-sized pieces.  Peel and seed the squash and cut into pieces twice as big as the beets.  Cut the cau­li­flower into flo­rets, halved if very large.  Toss all the veg­eta­bles in the olive oil and scat­ter in one lay­er in a foil-lined tray.  Bake at 425F/220C for about 40 min­utes, or until all veg­eta­bles are ten­der to a knifepoint.

Place the tahi­ni, hon­ey, soy sauce and lime juice in a medi­um bowl and grate the gin­ger and gar­lic into it.  Whisk togeth­er well, adding a bit of very hot water if too thick.

Driz­zle over the veg­eta­bles, hot or room tem­per­a­ture.  This sauce will also be deli­cious with what­ev­er meat might be on your plate, in our case roast­ed chicken.

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 And because I am incred­i­bly lucky in my girl­friends, a casu­al invi­ta­tion to have “a birth­day cof­fee” at a local hotel turned into a fes­ti­val of flow­ers, cup­cakes, sparklers, presents and “Hap­py Birth­day” played for me on tiny hand­bells!  We solved all the prob­lems of the local uni­verse, agreed that all our chil­dren are above aver­age, rec­om­mend­ed dozens of books and gen­er­al­ly had a quite per­fect time, over latte.

We went our sep­a­rate ways, me to Lost Prop­er­ty where I hoped to see Avery, but she was too busy.  It was, how­ev­er, as much fun as always to catch up with the staff and their news, espe­cial­ly Jon the Gar­den­er, a man as intim­i­dat­ing to the new girls as he is beloved to the old­er ones, with his long fairy-tale beard and hair, his sto­ries of depart­ed teach­ers buried under the lacrosse field, his iden­ti­ty as mere­ly “Jon” in a school full of Dr This and Miss That.  In fact, at a recent school play, our tick­ets were list­ed under “Cur­ran,” but Jon’s were list­ed under… “Jon.”  That made him laugh.  “Some­times I for­get I have a last name myself.”

And then it was home, laden with gor­geous ingre­di­ents from the butch­er, green­gro­cer and bak­er, to get ready for the next day’s birth­day lunch.  The gar­den woke up to wel­come me to the kitchen, with a rare Lon­don Feb­ru­ary sun shin­ing through the skylight.

For my birth­day cel­e­bra­tions, I decid­ed on the dish that embod­ies every­thing I love about food: slow, lov­ing cook­ing, rich duck and lamb, tons of hari­cot beans, and GAR­LIC.  Unlike most of my recipes which I can say with total hon­esty are quite sim­ple, this dish requires one or more com­plete days in the kitchen, about a thou­sand dif­fer­ent tech­niques and ingre­di­ents, and all your devo­tion as a cook.  It is worth every minute you put into it.

Cas­soulet

(serves 6 hearty eaters)

for the con­fit:

1/2 cup/120ml olive oil

1/2 cup/100g duck fat

4 duck legs

coarse sea salt

4 fat gar­lic cloves, fine­ly chopped

4 bay leaves, bro­ken in half

2 cups/570ml white wine

for the cas­soulet:

4 Toulouse sausages, ready-made or make your own

350g/12oz bel­ly pork, skinned and diced (slab bacon, or ordi­nary bacon if you must)

350g/12oz lamb neck fil­let, shoul­der or rolled breast, diced

1 large onion, chopped roughly

2 large car­rots, chopped roughly

2 cel­ery sticks, chopped roughly

400g/14oz can chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp toma­to purée

2 heaped tbsp fresh flat leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 heaped tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

sea salt and pepper

290ml/½ pint dry white wine

3 soup cans hari­cot or can­nelli­ni beans, drained and rinsed

3 1/2 cups/850ml chick­en stock, with more to add lat­er if needed

for the topping:

1 large day-old baguette (or 1 cup fresh home­made breadcrumbs)

2 fat gar­lic cloves, halved

4 tbsp butter

2 heaped tbsp fresh flat leaf pars­ley, chopped

1 heaped tbsp fresh thyme, chopped

In a large fry­ing pan big enough to accom­mo­date the duck, and which has a lid, heat the duck fat until melt­ed.  Place the duck legs skin side down in the fry­ing pan, sprin­kle with the salt, gar­lic and bay leaves and pour the white wine around. Place the lid on top and cook at the tini­est sim­mer pos­si­ble, for two hours. Of course, for real con­fit you’d pour the winey fat over the duck in a sealed con­tain­er and pre­serve it, but no need for that step here, as you’ll be using the duck straightaway.

Mean­while, place the sausages in a 220C/425F oven and bake for 20 min­utes. Set aside to cool.

In a large stove­top- and oven­proof dish that will hold all the ingre­di­ents, place the bel­ly pork and heat gen­tly until fat begins to be released, then raise heat and cook, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until all the fat has been released and the pork is crisp, but not dry. Lift the pork onto a plate with a slot­ted spoon, leav­ing all the fat behind.

Add the lamb to the pork fat and cook until col­ored on all sides, then lift out with slot­ted spoon and set aside with the pork.

Add the diced veg­eta­bles to the pork fat and cook till soft. Tip the ingre­di­ents from the plate back into the dish. Add the toma­toes, toma­to purée and herbs, then sea­son with sea salt and pep­per to taste.

Add the wine, hari­cot beans and chick­en stock to the dish and bring to the boil. Stir, then low­er the heat so the liq­uid is just sim­mer­ing. Keep the mix­ture in the same dish to cook or trans­fer it to an earth­en­ware dish.

When the duck has cooked for two hours, remove it from the duck-fat/wine and cool to han­dle. Remove the skin from the duck, then tuck the duck legs into the cas­soulet.  Set aside the duck-fat/wine mixture.

Peel off the sausage skins, slice the sausage­meat thick­ly on the diag­o­nal and tuck into the dish.

Cov­er the dish and bake for 1 hour, stir­ring once. Stir, then cook uncov­ered for a fur­ther 1–1½ hours, stir­ring halfway, until the meat is real­ly ten­der and the sauce is thick­ened. Take the dish out of the oven and remove the duck legs. Strip the meat from the bones (it will fall off eas­i­ly) and return the meat to the dish. Stir and add a lit­tle stock and some of the duck-fat/wine, if nec­es­sary. Sea­son if nec­es­sary, then return to the oven and bake for anoth­er 15 min­utes until all the meat and beans are very ten­der.  At this point the cas­soulet can be refrig­er­at­ed for up to two days, then reheat­ed to serve.

For the top­ping, cut the crusts off the baguette, tear the bread into pieces and put in a food proces­sor. Add the gar­lic and chop into coarse crumbs (you should have about a cup of gar­licky bread crumbs).

Heat the but­ter in a large fry­ing pan until siz­zling, then stir fry the bread­crumbs and gar­lic over a mod­er­ate to high heat for 7–8 min­utes until crisp and gold­en. Remove from the heat, toss in the herbs and stir to mix, then sea­son well with salt and pepper.

Ladle the cas­soulet in gen­er­ous serv­ings into warm bowls, sprin­kle on a bit of top­ping, and serve.

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As I labored, watch­ing “Gen­er­al Hospital“and “Days of Our Lives” on my com­put­er, I was sur­prised by Avery’s ear­ly arrival, tra­di­tion on Fri­days these days.  “I’m so glad you’re here!  Can you take some photographs?”

And we had the hap­pi­est after­noon, dis­cussing pol­i­tics, favorite books, the upcom­ing debate day for which she would have to miss my birth­day lunch.  It was the sort of after­noon I will miss great­ly when she goes off to university.

And then John came home and we made our own Toulouse Sausages to include in the cas­soulet.  No cut­ting cor­ners for me!  But it is a two-man job, with anoth­er to record it all.

Sat­ur­day after­noon saw us around the kitchen, joined by my dar­ling friends Elspeth, James and Susan, ready to lift a glass and celebrate.

The cas­soulet was heav­en­ly, though I say it myself.  We had sec­ond and third help­ings, along with a crisp, bit­ter rock­et salad.

And then it was onto Elspeth’s gor­geous lemon-polen­ta-almond cake, just about the only dessert I actu­al­ly request.

We fin­ished my Birth­day Week in the most unex­pect­ed­ly enjoy­able way: watch­ing the Olympic open­ing cer­e­monies with some­one who speaks Russ­ian!  “That’s not real­ly what he’s say­ing,” Avery said at cer­tain points, re-pro­nounc­ing ath­letes’ names in the prop­er man­ner, explain­ing the alpha­bet to us (why Cana­da and Korea were togeth­er, for instance; there is no hard C in the Russ­ian language!).

Alto­geth­er a most aus­pi­cious week to start my 50th year.  What will next year’s land­mark birth­day hold?  Watch this space, and rest assured what­ev­er hap­pens, it will be delicious.