Change is Afoot!

It’s been an extreme­ly busy, at times rather gru­elling autumn and win­ter, spent entire­ly with­in the world of Lon­don.  It’s been sev­en months of the week­ly rounds of social work, bell­ring­ing lessons and ser­vices, the con­stant mess at Lost Prop­er­ty, wor­ry­ing with Avery over her exams, end­less­ly cook­ing and writ­ing about cook­ing.  We can remem­ber the very days that weren’t cold, wet and grey pre­cise­ly because there were so few of them!  At least we had our vis­i­tor kit­ty Shas­tokovich to cheer us, seen here enjoy­ing a treat on the terrace.

So, it’s time for a break.  On Thurs­day, the school term final­ly ends and with it our self-imposed exile in Lon­don.  Sun­day will take us to Red Gate Farm!  Our moth­ers will appear for some much-need­ed fam­i­ly time, we’ll be reunit­ed with Jill, Joel and the girls, and all our unique Con­necti­cut friends will appear with their par­tic­u­lar­ly Amer­i­can per­son­al­i­ties and dear­ly-missed con­ver­sa­tion, adorable chil­dren and enthu­si­as­tic appetites.

I can’t real­ly com­plain about our Lon­don life, since so much of it is quite won­der­ful.  Our love­ly neigh­bors’ beau­ti­ful din­ner par­ty with bacon-wrapped monk­fish and a light and deli­cious shrimp risot­to (the chef says under his breath, “It’s made with that chick­en stock you gave us.”)…  We’ve had a love­ly sausage-roll par­ty here with dear friends, and I can tell you that is one fab­u­lous dish.  Sim­ply take your own home­made sausages or the best you can find at the shop, wrap it in puff pas­try, brush with egg white and sprin­kle with Parme­san.  Bake at 350F/180C for 35 min­utes.  Heav­en, a very pop­u­lar din­ner par­ty idea.

There have been long cosy after­noons sit­ting on the wide sofa with friends and a cup of tea, lunch­es at the gar­den end of the din­ing table with anoth­er chum, a sushi adven­ture with a vis­i­tor from New York, and “Mac­beth” with the divine James McAvoy.  You must try to see that if you can.  His is a vio­lent­ly phys­i­cal Mac­beth, vis­i­bly declin­ing from ambi­tion to mur­der­ous insan­i­ty, whilst spilling quite a lot of blood, jump­ing from table to chair, dis­patch­ing ene­mies right and left, once right onto the foot of an unsus­pect­ing audi­ence mem­ber in the onstage seats!  McAvoy is a brood­ing rev­e­la­tion, total­ly exhaust­ing to watch.

No, our lives are nev­er boring.

But it can get repet­i­tive, a bit pre­dictable to watch the parade of days spent emp­ty­ing dish­wash­ers and doing laun­dry.  How much more fun to spend two weeks at Red Gate Farm doing those things in a dif­fer­ent place.

And we’ll be able to see in per­son, with our own eyes, the tree branch that’s fall­en on Avery’s beloved child­hood tree swing, inves­ti­gate what­ev­er spring flow­ers are pop­ping up (it’s been eight years since we were “home” for East­er), and most excit­ing, we’ll be able to view the new mead­ow wall.  Or rather, the old, old mead­ow wall tak­en apart and put back togeth­er, with drainage pipes and invis­i­ble cement lay­ers to hold it all up for anoth­er 600 or so years.  This is what we last saw via email.  What — or who — IS under that tarp?!

Avery will be bring­ing along a heavy tote bag full of all the papers and books she needs to study, or “revise” as it’s called here, for her upcom­ing mas­sive exams in May and June.  How thrilled she will be when this is all over and she can set fire to all the notes relat­ed to the sci­ences, maths, Latin, French and Dra­ma.  Then the autumn will bring a whole new and beloved slate of sub­jects: Russ­ian, Eco­nom­ics, His­to­ry and Pol­i­tics.  But “vaca­tion” will cer­tain­ly have to encom­pass some work.  How won­der­ful to do it in the atmos­phere of our peace­ful Con­necti­cut home.

In oth­er news, before I fly away and get total­ly dis­tract­ed by life on the oth­er side of the pond, I’d like to offer you a piece of deli­cious advice.

Eat More Plants!

Now, I’m not talk­ing about veg­e­tar­i­an­ism here.  Lord knows our fam­i­ly like their roast­ed chick­ens, lamb meat­balls and sir­loin burg­ers! What I’m inter­est­ed in is find­ing ways to fit more veg­eta­bles into our diet as well.  As the revered food and cul­ture writer Michael Pol­lan tells us, the best way to a healthy diet is three­fold.  “Eat real food, eat less of it, and eat more plants.”  Avery is prob­a­bly the most fer­vent meat-eater among us, and I pre­dict that when the sad/wonderful day comes that she goes off to uni­ver­si­ty, we will eat a larg­er pro­por­tion of veg­eta­bles than we do now.  John could prob­a­bly be veg­e­tar­i­an, in fact, if I weren’t in charge of our diet.

Three sure­fire ways to intro­duce more veg­eta­bles into your diet are soup, dips, and slaws.  I am a soup junkie and will eat absolute­ly any­thing if it’s been cooked in chick­en stock and pureed with a hand blender, peri­od.  Dips are a decep­tive­ly seduc­tive way to eat more veg­eta­bles on a sim­i­lar prin­ci­ple: any­thing scooped up with a pop­pad­um or tor­tilla chip or rice crack­er or cel­ery stick is appeal­ing.  And slaws?  Most any firm veg­etable, low in mois­ture, is a delight to eat when cut into match­sticks and dressed in anchovy and lemon juice. Here are some of my favorite exam­ples of all these ideas.  Get inspired! 

But­ter­nut squash soup is real com­fort food.  The squash can be cooked in stock after being roast­ed, as in this recipe, but if you’re real­ly into sim­plic­i­ty, the squash can be sim­ply peeled and cut into cubes and then cooked in the stock.  Allow about 30 min­utes for this method.  There is some­thing very inspir­ing about the bright orange of this soup.

One of Avery’s absolute favorites is mush­room and thyme soup, fla­vored with Madeira or Marsala wine.  So smooth and heav­en­ly, and a per­fect way to use mush­rooms that are per­haps a bit elder­ly and not up to being eat­en raw.  There is no herb more appeal­ing than thyme, espe­cial­ly if you can get the ten­der young ver­sion like my broth­er in law Joel grows.  But it does­n’t real­ly mat­ter, as you’re going to puree this soup and you can put it through a sieve to catch any woody bits at the last minute.

Per­haps the most inex­pen­sive soup in the world is this one, and you can have every­thing in your pantry and fridge, no shop­ping needed.

White Bean and Rose­mary Soup

(serves 4)

knob of butter

4 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped

2 shal­lots, rough­ly chopped

2 cans white beans (small white, hari­cot, but­ter beans, all these work fine)

2 stems rose­mary, leaves only

veg­etable or chick­en stock to cov­er beans

splash white wine

salt and pep­per to taste

dash of cream

Melt the but­ter in a heavy saucepan and saute the gar­lic and shal­lots until soft­ened.  Add rose­mary, beans, stock and wine and cook for about 10 min­utes at a high sim­mer.  Sea­son with salt and pep­per to taste and add the cream.

And it’s time to dip!  I chal­lenge you to find any­one who does­n’t love dip­ping things in things.  It’s casu­al and fun, and reminds us all of Super Bowls, foot­ball match­es, Red Nose Day and the Oscars, every­one gath­ered around the tel­ly with a plat­ter of veg­eta­bles cut into sticks, chips of every sort, and large bowls of DIP.  But for­get the fat-filled com­mer­cial dips of our child­hood, loaded with preser­v­a­tives and unwant­ed sug­ar.  Try my favorites.

Black Bean Dip 

(hard to tell how many it serves: my hus­band can eat the lot at one go)

2 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 small white onion, chopped

1 tsp each (or to taste): turmer­ic, ground cumin, papri­ka, chili powder

2 soup-size tins black beans, rinsed and drained

juice and zest of 1 lime or lemon or both

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

Soft­en the gar­lic and onion in the hot olive oil and add the spices.  Fry for a bit, then add the beans and cit­rus juice.  Cook for five min­utes, then tip into a food proces­sor and process until as smooth as you like it.

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And who can for­get gua­camole?  This rich avo­cadoy delight is a clas­sic and requires only that most elu­sive of veg­eta­bles: a per­fect­ly ripe avocado.

But if you can find enough ripe avo­ca­dos, sim­ply mash­ing them up with red onion and lime juice is the eas­i­est thing in the world.  Add a blob of sour cream and you’re all set.

When you’re ready for some­thing col­or­ful and crunchy, try red cab­bage slaw with anchovy dressing.

The dress­ing is sim­plic­i­ty itself.  And you must try it with any firm veg­etable that you can cut into match­sticks: car­rots, beets, red pep­per, or sliced fen­nel bulb.  And if you add a table­spoon of whole­grain mus­tard, you will have the per­fect dress­ing for a remoulade of the hum­ble and yet rather exot­ic cele­ri­ac root.

There is just noth­ing like the mag­i­cal uma­mi fla­vor of anchovies in sal­ad dress­ing.  For fun, get them fresh and fil­let them your­self.  It’s like fish­mon­gery in a dollhouse.

In case you are crav­ing some­thing fat­ty and meaty to go with any of these treats, here is the ulti­mate such rich recipe, sim­pli­fied a bit from this orig­i­nal recipe, giv­en to me by my friend Frances. This dish is the last word in indul­gence.  After all, the essence of life is in its variety!

Red-Cooked Pork Belly

(serves 6)

1 lb/1000 g pork belly

thumb-sized knob/150 g gin­ger, sliced

2 tbsps peanut oil

1 tbsp sugar

a large/90g scal­lion, white part cut into 3‑inch pieces

3 dried red chili peppers

1 tsp red Sichuan peppercorns

2 tbsps Mirin (Chi­nese cook­ing wine)

3 tbsps dark soy sauce

1 star anise

1 1‑inch piece cin­na­mon stick or a pinch of ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 cup/250 ml water

“Red-cooked” sim­ply means that the main ingre­di­ent of the cook­ing liq­uid will be soy sauce.  So be ready with plen­ty, and extra to serve with the steamed rice you will want along­side. Bring a pot of water to boil. Immerse entire slab of pork bel­ly with gin­ger. Remove any scum that sur­faces. After five min­utes, dis­card water and rinse meat and gin­ger with cold water. Slice pork bel­ly into 1‑inch cubes.

Heat cook­ing oil and sug­ar in a clay pot over low flame and let the sug­ar begin to melt. Toss in the pork pieces and gin­ger with scal­lion, chili pep­pers, Sichuan pep­per­corns and brown over high flame. Add Mirin and dark soy sauce while con­tin­u­ing to stir fry. Add salt, star anise, cin­na­mon and water. Bring to a gen­tle boil then sim­mer over low­est flame, cov­ered for at least 2 hours. Stir occasionally.

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Now I must go pack.  East­er treats for the egg hunt we will host next week­end, presents for a cer­tain birth­day boy, presents for moth­ers who will be trav­el­ling far to be with us, many copies of the school news­pa­per with Avery’s first byline in it.  Hap­py East­er to you all!