final­ly: a new crush!

Just what every girl needs to get her mojo back: yes, I’m back in crush world. I’ve sur­vived Matthew Mac­fadyen, James MacAvoy and Edward Pether­bridge, and they will all remain dear to my heart, but… it’s time for Richard Armitage. Do you get the smoul­der­ing thing? OK, he’s dressed in a leather suit for “Robin Hood,” but I could­n’t down­load the pho­to­graph of him as John Thorn­ton in the BBC dra­ma “North and South” which has led to my suc­cumb­ing to his charms. This love­ly pho­to­graph is from a great web­site called “The Stage News,” a great gos­sipy site per­fect for any­one who wants to keep up to date on what’s com­ing onscreen and stage. We have been watch­ing “North and South” late­ly and just fin­ished it last night: at times a bit too girly for John and at times a bit too gris­ly for me, so I sup­pose it’s the per­fect date-mini-series. He pos­i­tive­ly tow­ers over the sto­ry­line, and like all my favourite actors, can do more by lift­ing his eyes than most can do with an entire set of body lan­guage tips. He’s about to join “Spooks” next autumn, which will offer a tremen­dous lift to that pro­gramme and help them sur­vive the inevitable depar­ture of Rupert Pen­ry-Jones, also a lead­ing man not to be sneezed at, but blonde? Does­n’t do it for me. Give me the brood­ing dark lead­ing man every time. Poor John, hav­ing to put up with all this. At least he’s dark, if not the least brood­ing, smoul­der­ing per­son on earth. Jol­ly and indomitable, yes. Heath­cliff, no.

Let’s see, what have I been up to? East­er break is final­ly over, hav­ing spanned three weeks and far too much time on our hands. Although I argue that Avery is still recov­er­ing from exam and school accep­tance angst, and so prob­a­bly some down time accom­plish­ing absolute­ly noth­ing is no bad thing. The hors­es from the sta­ble are still down in Sur­rey for their spring break, so at least that part of our rou­tine has not got back to nor­mal, but there’s been ice skat­ing, time to see friends, and…cooking. I have a new fab­u­lous salmon recipe to tell you about, plus I can­not bur­ble on too enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly about the easy-peasy cheesy spinach I raved about recent­ly. And they’re nice together.

Salmon with White Wine and Mushrooms
(serves three)

3 salmon fil­lets, skin­less and boneless
2 tbsps butter
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
two hand­fuls but­ton mush­rooms, sliced (you could go more exotic)
good splash white wine
driz­zle of cream
sprin­kle of dried thyme leaves
salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

So all you do it: melt the but­ter in a large skil­let and siz­zle the gar­lic gen­tly till soft, then add the mush­rooms and toss around till coat­ed in but­ter. Move them to the sides of the skil­let and place the salmon fil­lets in the skil­let. Pour the splash of white wine around them and driz­zle the cream on top of them, sprin­kle with thyme. Cook over medi­um heat until the salmon is no longer bright pink but rather an opaque pink: per­haps 3 min­utes? All this while, spoon the mush­room sauce of the fil­lets. Now turn them over and turn off the heat. Pre­pare the rest of your din­ner and at the last minute, heat the fil­lets through again. Sea­son as you like. Done.

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The beau­ty of this dish are many-fold. Salmon is good for you. This method cooks it just through, but it’s super moist and ten­der from sim­ply lying in the hot skil­let. Dry salmon is ter­ri­ble, and this is not dry. Sec­ond, it’s flex­i­ble about time, so you can mash your pota­toes and steam your Chante­nay car­rots. And just the driz­zle of cream makes it lux­u­ri­ous, but it’s not over the top. The salmon actu­al­ly seems to absorb the sauce, and becomes infused with it. Lovely.

Well, John and I have decid­ed to go legal and get our dri­ving licens­es. Yep, you can all report us, we’ve been dri­ving with US licens­es. So we actu­al­ly became moti­vat­ed to study the High­way Code, then go online for prac­tice tests, which are a huge source of amuse­ment for us. “You have had an upset­ting argu­ment with a friend, and now you must dri­ve home. Which of the fol­low­ing should you do before get­ting behind the wheel: 1) have a cig­a­rette, 2) have a quick alco­holic drink to calm your nerves, 3) take a deep breath, or 4) wait until you have calmed down before dri­ving.” I love it! And how about, “You have come upon the scene of an acci­dent involv­ing a motor­cy­clist. You should not remove the hel­met because 1) his head could get cold, 2) you could scratch the hel­met, 3) the hel­met could roll away, or 4) you could exac­er­bate head injuries.”

So far we’re doing real­ly well, so now we can sched­ule an offi­cial the­o­ry exam, and then an offi­cial prac­ti­cal exam. I real­ly can’t say that I’m enthu­si­as­tic about dri­ving in Lon­don, always feel­ing much more defen­sive than I used to in New York, as if any­thing dread­ful were just about to hap­pen to me. But it’s not intel­li­gent to live in a town where you can­not dri­ve, so dri­ve I shall.

Oh! I can’t believe I got this far with­out telling you: we have a house! Just a rental, with this crazy mar­ket, but it’s a love­ly, sim­ple Vic­to­ri­an abode in a nice street, with a fair­ly won­der­ful kitchen, at least two work­ing gas fire­places, and two lit­tle rooms for Avery and her library (not sure which takes up more room) at the top of the house. The views from the top are just like watch­ing Mary Pop­pins: all uneven roofs and chim­neys and slate. And it has a paved gar­den with nice climb­ing things on the walls (you can tell I’m a real hor­ti­cul­tur­ist: “climb­ing things.”) and get this: a cat hole cut in the wall to let the cat out into the gar­den. But I’m sor­ry: none of my cats will fit through it! Wim­sey could­n’t even get his HEAD in that hole.

So we’ll move in the mid­dle of next month some­time. A very nice removal man came last week to look over all our pos­ses­sions, make enig­mat­ic notes, ask us if there’s any­thing we feel “espe­cial­ly strong­ly” about. That ques­tion always makes me ner­vous: why aren’t they going to pay atten­tion to EVERY­THING? Why must I triage my belong­ings? I’m cast­ing an eye over the two enor­mous piles of pho­to­graph albums, and think­ing, “Please don’t lose those.” Every­thing else could be replaced, but not those. Not to men­tion all the tubes of glue stick I’ve invested.

Lis­ten, I must go start din­ner. Avery and John have plant­ed them­selves in my kitchen every din­ner prep time late­ly, with a chess board between them and an air of mas­sive com­pe­ti­tion in the air. They have 50 pounds going that Avery will nev­er beat John, so this is seri­ous busi­ness. I thought John summed up his entire approach to life when he told her, after one spec­tac­u­lar­ly bad move, “Avery, you can’t move your pieces for their own sake. You’ve got to move your pieces in order to smash the com­pe­ti­tion before he gets YOU. Always be look­ing for what he has planned for you, not what you have planned for your pieces.” Wise advice!

Thank you all for your patience wait­ing for me to get my blog­ging mojo back: it feels so nice to type! And I have appre­ci­at­ed all your kind words so very much. Back to normal!