conkers and cookers

What, you ask, are these lit­tle crea­tures? These are those famil­iar har­bin­gers of an Eng­lish autumn, the seeds of the horse chest­nut tree, also known as “conkers” because of the quaint games that can be played with them. When I was a lit­tle girl, and my hus­band a lit­tle boy, both of our native Mid­west­ern Unit­ed States called these nuts “buck­eyes,” which explains Ohio being named the “Buck­eye State” (a fact prob­a­bly entire­ly unknown to ALL my Euro­pean read­ers, but now you know). They are both, the Eng­lish and Amer­i­can vari­eties, known sim­ply as the aes­cu­lus glabra. You can hang them from strings and clunk them togeth­er, till one breaks (guess who los­es in THAT game), or toss them over a lev­el play­ing field like bowls.

On our recent walk across the GOR­GEOUS Barnes Green, col­lect­ing these lit­tle guys brought back many intense child­hood mem­o­ries of Hal­loween-ish times, find­ing these love­ly, smooth, col­lec­table items on the ground, hid­ing under­neath the fall­en leaves. John and I found our­selves in Barnes as a sort of time-spend­ing exer­cise, it being hand­i­ly near to the boys’ school where we had dropped Avery and her friend Emi­lie off at their rehearsal for the upcom­ing musi­cal. What? Have I not told you about the musi­cal? I’m sure I’ve men­tioned it, if only in pass­ing. Here’s the scoop: Avery’s school host­ed audi­tions for her year to take part in a play put on joint­ly with their broth­er school, and of course she turned up to do so. Cho­rus, it turned out to be, and her intense dis­ap­point­ment at not being award­ed a more illus­tri­ous part has fad­ed in a gen­er­al air of com­mu­nal excite­ment at being in the musi­cal at all. Well, I say excitement…

Barnes, how­ev­er odd­ly we came to it, is love­ly. It was a Wednes­day after­noon, and as many small-ish towns still do, observed the Wednes­day ear­ly clos­ing, so we just bare­ly reached sev­er­al estab­lish­ments and missed many oth­ers. Two Peas in a Pod, a gor­geous fruit and veg shop in the Church Road, afford­ed unpar­al­leled sug­ar snap (you guessed it) peas, uncom­mon­ly fresh, love­ly onions, fresh thyme, a whole host of red pep­pers for soup, and I saw shelves full of organ­ic flour, rice, stocks, you name it. The love­ly men who run it are friend­ly, knowl­edge­able, help­ful and, if this suits, very cute to look at. Alto­geth­er a very nice way to stock up for supper!

From there we were onto the Barnes Book­shop also in the Church Road, a tiny, crowd­ed, but clean and well-lit shop manned by two cheer­ful bib­lio­philes. I searched for a present for my niece Mol­ly’s birth­day, and for the dryclean­er’s baby, and for my niece Jane for Christ­mas… nev­er even got near the adults’ books, but it looked tempt­ing indeed. “You should have a book­shop,” John hissed, under cov­er of “The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar.” “Oh, so I could lose even more mon­ey than I did with the gallery?” I hissed back. “Oh, right.”

It’s always my dream thought: to have a book­shop that sold small works of art and had a lit­tle cafe with sand­wich­es and soups and sal­ads I could make myself. How could it go wrong? Let me count the ways.

Well, in terms of dreams… I’ve come to terms with “Julie and Julia,” I think. Or at least, I’ve decid­ed to con­cen­trate on what I loved about it. And it’s pret­ty much encap­su­lat­ed by the first-ish impor­tant line of the film. I para­phrase: after a long awful day at work, Julie arrives home and begins to cook. I think it’s veal chops, in a mush­room cream sauce. “Do you know why I love to cook?” she asks her long-suf­fer­ing hus­band. “Because when I have a ter­ri­ble day, where noth­ing goes right, I get to come home and put togeth­er din­ner, and I always know that if I add eggs to cream…” Essen­tial­ly what she’s say­ing is what I have ALWAYS said about cook­ing, and why I do it every sin­gle day even if I have a bad day (which unlike Julie, isn’t every day).

It’s because cook­ing is a price­less com­bi­na­tion of cre­ativ­i­ty, free­dom, sen­su­al­i­ty, exper­i­ment and sat­is­fac­tion. The whole process is sat­is­fy­ing to me: I adore any gro­cery store of any kind: the big super­mar­kets where every­thing’s wrapped in off-putting plas­tic? I love them because you always find what you need. The tiny exot­ic delis and bou­tiques? I love them because while you nev­er know exact­ly what you’ll find (fresh red pep­per pate? a new stinky French cheese? sar­dines in olive oil?), you know you’ll find SOME­THING. Chat­ting all the while with the beau­ti­ful and ener­getic pro­pri­etress, you get sam­ples. And that unex­pect­ed some­thing will lead your cook­ing ideas in a new direc­tion. And mar­kets? Who knew there were three dif­fer­ent vari­eties of bre­sao­la (dried cured beef) being pro­duced in one coun­ty of Eng­land? You do, because there they are, and you buy one of each to compare.

Then you get home with your wares. It may be impos­si­ble to han­dle var­i­ous ques­tions relat­ed to your daugh­ter’s physics home­work, your hus­band may be growl­ing about mar­ket con­di­tions about which you know less than noth­ing. The cats are hiss­ing through the win­dow at the neigh­bor cat, you’ve acci­den­tal­ly put your favorite black sweater through the hot cycle on the wash­ing machine: FELT.

But there is still gar­lic to be chopped, lamb and beef mince to mix with eggs and home­made bread­crumbs, olive oil and toma­toes to be sim­mered, basil to be chif­fon­ad­ed, Parme­san to be grat­ed. And at the end of an hour or so: VOILA. Meat­balls stuffed with buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la, poached in a rich toma­to sauce. The daugh­ter solves her physics prob­lems and comes to play piano for her les­son the next day, her friend from “Drake” rehearsals at her side, mak­ing her laugh. The hus­band shrugs his shoul­ders over the dread­ful stock mar­ket and comes to steal cucum­ber slices from your sal­ad with rock­et, and a dress­ing of fro­mage frais with mus­tard. Cook­ing is… COMFORT.

And if you’re not in the mood for Ital­ian? Just imag­ine what was for din­ner here last night. It’s a total win­ner in the com­fort department.

Chick­en Fil­lets with Mush­rooms and Creme Fraiche
(serves 4)

4 tbps butter
2 tbsps olive oil
4 chick­en breast fil­lets, well trimmed
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves
salt and pep­per to taste
1/2 white onion, minced, or 2 shal­lots, minced
gen­er­ous splash Marsala
6 large white mush­rooms, sliced roughly
1/2 cup chick­en stock
1/2 cup half-fat creme fraiche

Melt but­ter with olive oil in a large skil­let until (as Julia Child says) the but­ter stops talk­ing to you. Real­ly: wait until the bub­bling sub­sides, then slip in the chick­en breasts. Saute on one side for two min­utes, and flip over for two more min­utes. Remove to a plat­ter. Drop gar­lic and thyme leaves, salt, pep­per and onion (or shal­lots) in the remain­ing but­ter and oil and saute gen­tly till gar­lic is soft. Turn up heat and add Marsala, bub­ble strong­ly for a few min­utes. When it’s reduced, throw in mush­rooms and stir vig­or­ous­ly until they begin to let off juice. Cov­er with the chick­en stock and sim­mer for about 15 min­utes. Add creme fraiche and whisk till mixed.

Place chick­en breasts in sauce and sim­mer until the chick­en is thor­ough­ly, but not over-cooked. This may take about 15 min­utes. Serve with steamed rice and a nice green veg­etable: thin beans, sug­ar snap peas, aspara­gus, steamed broc­coli. GORGEOUS.

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My feel­ing is that no one should be blamed for not want­i­ng to cook din­ner every night. I have more free time than most peo­ple. But give it a try. See if you don’t find that pre­dictable source of giv­ing, and then eat­ing, a hap­py com­fort for you and the hun­gry peo­ple you live with.