def­i­nite­ly not panicking

I’m try­ing des­per­ate­ly not to feel like this lit­tle fel­low, here at Red Gate Farm tonight.

How I would love to keep Avery tied to my apron strings, or stuffed in my jeans pock­et, or even stored in a nice roomy glass Ball jar. Alas, tomorrow…

She gets on an air­plane by herself.

BY HER­SELF.

Now, as you well know, I have air­plane issues. I try to acknowl­edge them so they don’t peo­ple my night­time dreams, but I think it’s only rea­son­able that if you com­bine my big irra­tional fear of fly­ing with my big irra­tional love affair with my daugh­ter, there will be prob­lems. Like those won­der­ful pairs of cof­fee mugs in Lon­don: “Keep Calm and Car­ry On” and “Now Pan­ic and Freak Out.”

But the impor­tant point is, I’m let­ting her go. Tomor­row she flies off to Char­lotte, her big Christ­mas present, to spend two days with her beloved friend Anna who moved away from Lon­don a year and a half ago. How bereft they have been ever since. And isn’t that the point of being mature? We over­come things we fear in order to make good things come true for the peo­ple we love.

Or some­thing like that.

Sigh.

And in the ser­vice of liv­ing dai­ly life and not freak­ing out, I must report that last night the kitchen drain­board and coun­ters were full of the washed but un-dried dish­es of yet anoth­er din­ner par­ty, which must mean one thing: Rose­mary’s gone. She’s the kitchen elf of my blessed acquain­tance, the mag­ic helper who restores my house to per­fec­tion behind my back, fold­ing laun­dry, shin­ing sil­ver, set­ting the table, light­ing can­dles. And dry­ing pots and pans. So along with the gen­er­al lone­li­ness of her emp­ty bed­room, not help­ing her look for her cof­fee cup dur­ing the day (“I real­ly thought I left it just HERE”), not hav­ing her bright and inter­est­ed lis­ten­ing ear to all the details of dai­ly life, we also hav­ing a drain­board full of dispir­it­ing dish­es to remind us of her absence.

And the dish­es them­selves? The detri­tus of, seri­ous­ly, the LAST par­ty of our Christ­mas hol­i­day at Red Gate Farm. Last night it was my sis­ter and her fam­i­ly, and Rol­lie and Judy, bring­ing with them sev­er­al culi­nary gifts that reflect both who they are and who I am: a giant snow­man-shaped Rice Krispie treat, a pep­per­mint ice cream log, a choco­late ice cream log. These were from Judy, for the chil­dren. And from Rol­lie, for me? Two slabs of home­made smoked blue­fish. He winks rogu­ish­ly at me. “Judy yelled at me for putting them on top of the ice cream. They do smell, fishy, but I know you and you’ll want them.” Lord, how I do! “I even brought the crack­ers to go with,” Rol­lie nudged my arm. I could eas­i­ly have can­celled all of din­ner and sat down hap­pi­ly to a plate of smoked blue­fish and creme fraiche.

And because I was self­ish and did­n’t feed every­one my smokey trea­sure, we helped our­selves instead to:

Riga­toni alla Vodka
(serves 8)

3 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 white onion, fine­ly minced
5 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly minced
2/3 cup vodka
2 large cans peeled plum tomatoes
1/2 cup grat­ed Pecori­no or Parme­san cheese
1 cup light cream
sea salt and fresh ground pep­per to taste

1 1/2 lb rigatoni

Sim­ply saute the onion and gar­lic in the oil and but­ter in a large skil­let or saucepan, then add the vod­ka and cook high for 1 minute. Put the toma­toes through a food proces­sor and add to the skil­let. Stir togeth­er and add cheese and cream and sea­son with salt and pep­per, and sim­mer for at least 1 hour.

Cook the pas­ta and when it is drained, turn the heat up under the sauce and tip the pas­ta into it. Toss well and serve with LOTS more Parmesan.

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Rol­lie and Judy. They nev­er seem to tire of our ques­tions about the past life of Red Gate Farm. “Where was the sec­ond fire­place? Did Tessie’s heirs REAL­LY throw away all her chi­na and rag rugs when they inher­it­ed the house? Was she a good cook?” Tessie, Tessie, the last lov­ing inhab­i­tant of this house, famous­ly the first lady of her fam­i­ly to get a Christ­mas tree into the place. “Her father did­n’t believe in such things,” some­one told me when we bought the house. “So when her young man, John, brought on in the front door, we knew it was over, he’d won the day, and they got married.”

Tessie’s spir­it lives on in the “born­ing room” at the back of the house, now the kitchen, dou­ble-height­ed since the ren­o­va­tion opened it up to the old attic. And when­ev­er Rol­lie and Judy come, they give us anoth­er tid­bit or two about the past of this beloved place, end­ing always with, “How Tessie would smile, to see you here now, cook­ing and all.” I think of her so often, more than I think about any­one else I nev­er knew.

Today I drove to Green­wich to meet up with my girlie friend Alyssa from New York days, to shop and have lunch at Morel­lo Bistro, to gos­sip and catch up in that ellip­ti­cal style we have. “Are you wear­ing LIP­STICK, Kris­ten? Do I see lip­stick on you?” “What’s up with Elliot’s tooth? Some­body HAS to take that scary thing out of his mouth…” Dis­cus­sions that can­not be car­ried out on the phone about chil­dren’s school­bus sched­ules, Annabelle’s bat mitzah plans and presents (ha, Annabelle, I gave your present to your mom and it’s STILL a secret!), Avery’s fash­ion sense described but still not to the extent that we felt com­fort­able choos­ing a dress for her at Rug­by. I had no prob­lem choos­ing a tiny lit­tle plaid wool­ly skirt with fringe, and a pair of hound­stooth trousers, for myself.

And my lunch sal­ad? Divine.

Morel­lo Bistro’s Beet Sal­ad with Hazel­nuts, Ricot­ta and Scallops
(serves 1, GENEROUSLY!)

1 tbsp butter
2 large sea scallops
3 tbsps ricotta
2 hand­fuls arugula
2 medi­um beets, roast­ed, peeled and diced large
1/4 cup chopped toast­ed hazelnuts

dress­ing:

3 parts olive oil to 1 part bal­sam­ic vinegar
chopped chives
sea salt and fresh pepper

In a heavy skil­let, melt but­ter till it “stops speak­ing to you,” as Julia Child would say, then lay scal­lops in the but­ter and cook on one side, high heat, for 2 min­utes. Turn and cook for anoth­er 1–2 min­utes depend­ing on how you like your scal­lops cooked. Set aside.

On a large plate, arrange dol­lops of ricot­ta in three spots. Place hand­fuls of ricot­ta in the cen­ter. Scat­ter beets and hazel­nuts across the greens and driz­zle with dress­ing. Place scal­lops between the ricot­ta dol­lops. Serve with toast­ed bread.

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Sim­ply divine.

Home safe and sound with nary a wrong turn (stop the press­es) to an evening of mixed feel­ings for me: hap­py to sit on Avery’s bed and help her pack, but Pan­ick­ing and Freak­ing Out about WHY.

“So do you want this tiny t‑shirt any­more, or can it go to the char­i­ty shop?”

“Oh, I wore that night­gown for YEARS. Save it for Jane, unless she thinks it’s a dress.”

“Do you real­ly want to take the whole cal­en­dar of cute ani­mal pic­tures with you to Charlotte?”

“Yes, I have to show them to Anna, plus here’s the enve­lope of pic­tures from days that have already gone by.”

“Is this sweat­shirt REAL­LY dirty, or just sort of per­ma­nent lip­sticky dirty? And what’s that you’re kick­ing under your bed?”

“Do we have time for a library run tomor­row before I go?”

So hard to believe that the next time Avery’s installed in her tini­est-of-all liv­ing bed­rooms, it will be July. Jane and Mol­ly will be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent and lit­tle Kate across the road might well have trad­ed in her shoe obses­sion (they refer to her as “Lit­tle Imel­da”) for some­thing more sin­is­ter, like cut­lery. The house will be stuffy and air­less when we come in, far from the chilly regions of tonight. Avery will prob­a­bly be 1n inch or more taller. My blue­fish will be in the freezer.

In the mean­time, we have tomor­row to get through, I mean enjoy. And John and I will spend the next two days pack­ing up the house for the long win­ter ahead. Then we’ll col­lect Avery at the air­port and I can breathe again.

Wake me up when she’s back.