from Italy to a mid­dle school anniversary

It’s one of those dis­con­cert­ing nights that should be the answer to a par­en­t’s prayer: child away for a par­ty and sleep­over! And yet we knew we’d miss her, and we did. Twelve years old is a fun­ny thing: there’s almost no down­side (hor­ri­ble slang word), very lit­tle care­tak­ing or annoy­ing tasks or inter­rup­tion of one’s own agen­da. There’s just the amus­ing, enter­tain­ing, touch­ing con­ver­sa­tion, and the fun of hear­ing what’s hap­pen­ing in the world from Avery’s point of view. The only upside (sor­ry) is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cook some­thing she does­n’t like. But even the fun of that is real­ly over­shad­owed by her absence. I try to grab some irri­ta­tion against her by find­ing piles of dirty clothes every­where, like Hansel and Gretel’s trail. One out­fit under my desk where she changed to go to her par­ty, anoth­er set of out­er­gar­ments in the liv­ing room where she watched “The West Wing” with us before she left, and don’t even MEN­TION her bed­room! A fright­en­ing dis­play of sar­to­r­i­al dis­ar­ray. But in all hon­esty, the lit­tle piles just made me miss her more.

We’ve been unusu­al­ly busy this week. It is a truth of my life that mak­ing plans ahead of time are the only way I get out of my rou­tine. Let to my own spon­ta­neous devices, I would always choose to go home with John and Avery and be cozy! Thank­ful­ly, this week I had an invi­ta­tion to a tru­ly love­ly exhi­bi­tion of Ital­ian art, to which you should go if you get a chance. I am not real­ly a fan of even slight­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al art, pre­fer­ring com­plete abstrac­tion, prefer­ably black and white. I was invit­ed to this show because the artist is rep­re­sent­ed in Italy by the father (are you fol­low­ing this?) of Avery’s friend Jamie’s moth­er, who is in my writ­ing class. She is the most cul­tured per­son I know: not so much sophis­ti­cat­ed as unbe­liev­ably well edu­cat­ed. She speaks Eng­lish, French, Ital­ian and Ger­man flu­ent­ly. She is one of the few peo­ple in my life who could hon­est­ly give a rat’s what­ev­er that I have a PhD in art his­to­ry. To her, it mat­ters, a lot. And so I war­rant­ed a invi­ta­tion to her father’s event.

The night arrived. I had made anoth­er lemon cake dur­ing the day, this one stud­ded with blue­ber­ries (the jury’s out on how much they mat­tered, but it was still love­ly), so the kitchen was very bak­ery-cozy and entic­ing. To make mat­ters worse, I start­ed a saucepan of toma­to sauce and then hit upon a very unex­pect­ed and deli­cious addi­tion to it, and then added lux­u­ri­ous lamb meat­balls to the sim­mer­ing per­fume… and then I had to LEAVE and go out into the hor­rid rainy, spit­ty, cold dark Lon­don world and make it to the exhi­bi­tion, to return in time for din­ner. As I say, it’s a good thing I had made the plan ahead of time because with this in store, I would rather have stayed home.

Lamb Meat­balls in Fresh Herb Toma­to and Roast­ed Red Pep­per Sauce
(serves 6)

for the sauce:
3 tbsps olive oil
6 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 white onion, minced
1 tbsp Ital­ian seasoning
1/2 cup red wine
3 soup-size cans peeled plum tomatoes
1 tbsp each: chopped fresh oregano, rose­mary, sage, flat-leaf parsley
1 large red pep­per, roasted
2 tbsps creme fraiche
1 tsp sugar

for the meatballs:
1 kilo (2 lbs) minced lamb
3 cloves garlic
1 hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped fine

It’s an assem­bly job. Mince your gar­lic and onion and saute them in the olive oil till soft. Add the Ital­ian sea­son­ing and the wine and cook until the vol­ume of wine is reduced by half. Add toma­toes, crush­ing them into the saucepan with your hands and includ­ing the juice. Add fresh herbs and stir well over medi­um heat till bub­bling. Whizz the pep­per with the creme fraiche and sug­ar until a smooth-ish paste, then add to toma­to sauce.

While the sauce bub­bles, knead the lamb, gar­lic and pars­ley togeth­er until well mixed. Form into lit­tle balls about the diam­e­ter of a thumb, then drop into the sauce and poach until cooked through, at least 30 min­utes over a low sim­mer. Serve with grat­ed parme­san cheese, a nice sal­ad of rock­et, moz­zarel­la and arti­choke hearts.

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Believe you me, it was dif­fi­cult to leave home with this ambrosial con­coc­tion on the stove. But leave I did. And the show at the Ital­ian Cul­tur­al Insti­tute was worth the vis­it, espe­cial­ly if you groove to fig­u­ra­tive work. Go, it’s an aes­thet­ic adven­ture, and you can escape the crush I expe­ri­enced the night of the open­ing: all the crowds and wet coats of my own open­ings at my New York gallery lo these many years ago, with­out the authority!

Beyond that, we’ve been keep­ing the Jan­u­ary depres­sions at bay by play­ing ridicu­lous amounts of ten­nis. It’s been bl**dy freez­ing, but that does­n’t stop us. Out we go with our raque­ts, an enor­mous bot­tle of water, shiv­er­ing our way toward the courts near Avery’s school, hop­ing to see her as she slopes toward the games green for the dread­ed lacrosse or net­ball exer­cis­es, poor girl. Her Christ­mas report card point­ed up a lack of… stick skills. This replaces the old com­plaint of miss­ing… ball skills. Of all the skills in the world she might pos­sess — under­wa­ter bas­ket weav­ing, flu­en­cy in Louisiana dialects, fenc­ing — ball and stick skills or the lack there­of do not move me to tears.

Yes­ter­day was quite an anniver­sary: a year ago Avery took her exam, six long hours worth, for the school that would even­tu­al­ly become her home. And a lit­tle friend from her pri­ma­ry school sat the exam yes­ter­day, so we felt it would be nice to pick her up and give her a nice relax­ing after­noon as a reward. Sophie, Avery, John and I head­ed off to the dread­ed ice skat­ing rink, then, for a spin among the mass­es. I am com­plete­ly torn: the rink is a dread­ful place of noise, smells, scream­ing chil­dren and mis­ery, and yet… it’s the Fri­day rit­u­al and as such has a sort of irre­place­able secu­ri­ty about it. Fri­day, must be the rink. I always try to plow through a cook­book or mem­oir, pen in hand, make notes that will end up as part of a chap­ter, as I sit try­ing to catch a glimpse of my child who always man­ages to skate JUST out­side my range of vision. It is all part of the expe­ri­ence. Some­how, as soon as I leave the rink behind, I feel a week­ly sort of nos­tal­gia for the secu­ri­ty and sweet­ness of their fun on the ice, the half hour or hour that an expert is in charge of her edu­ca­tion. It reminds me of the half-hour mod­ern-dance les­son she used to take when a three-year-old. My moth­er would say, “It must be like herd­ing cats,” and it was, to gath­er up those tiny chil­dren, and when Loret­ta bent her south­ern drawl (by way of Tribeca) toward those lit­tle sprites in their pink leo­tards, I felt quite tear­ful at her author­i­ty! I was not in charge, for a whole half hour. Such love­ly mem­o­ries of the so-short time she was below my shoul­der and IQ level.

Today was a vis­it to the Vic­to­ria and Albert for a perusal with my friend Jo (in for the day from Oxford) to the William Mor­ris exhi­bi­tion. I always have a dif­fi­cult time remem­ber­ing quo­ta­tions, but one I do car­ry around with me is Mor­ris’s view that one’s home must con­tain “only that which one believes to be beau­ti­ful, or to be use­ful.” I am para­phras­ing, but the point is that his inte­ri­ors were utter­ly joy­ous in their cel­e­bra­tion of human cre­ativ­i­ty in use­ful objects: desks, car­pets, wall­pa­pers, chi­na, any­thing that would work must be made beau­ti­ful. It was a joy. We end­ed up up for tea across the road at the chic and tempt­ing Bromp­ton Quar­ter Cafe in Egerton Street, for a per­fect pot of fresh gin­ger, lemon and hon­ey con­coc­tion, the spot-on anti­dote for the cold and blowy day (of course I was wear­ing a VERY short tweedy skirt and a sleeve­less out­er gilet, stu­pid me to favor fash­ion over pro­tec­tion). Jo and had our usu­al con­fab of wom­an­ly wis­dom. What does one do with­out girl­friends? I hope I nev­er have to find out. A love­ly flirt with the charm­ing guy behind the counter at the adja­cent Quar­ter Gro­cer round­ed out a per­fect afternoon.

And our din­ner tonight? An old Ital­ian favorite. Light, spicy, complex.

Spaghet­ti Puttanesca
(serves 4)

1/2 lb spaghetti
3 tbsps olive oil
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 red onion, minced
1 hand­ful (200 grams-ish) oil-cured black olives, pitted
1 soup-size can peeled toma­toes, cut in sixths
3 tbsps capers, rinsed if held in salt
6 anchovies, rinsed
1 cup grat­ed parme­san cheese

Boil spaghet­ti. In the mean­time, mince the gar­lic and onion. Saute in olive oil in a saucepan, then when soft, add the olives, toma­toes, capers and anchovies. Saute till mixed. Throw in the drained spaghet­ti and serve with cheese.

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Tomor­row will see us pick­ing up Avery from her sleep­over par­ty (the theme: Black and White Films, how cool is that), drop­ping her at the sta­ble, and prepar­ing John’s longed-for pork ten­der­loin in milk for din­ner. I’m think­ing a lit­tle pre­ten­tious stuff­ing of chopped sage, gar­lic, mush­rooms, bacon and goats cheese can­not go amiss? Watch this space…