Hap­py East­er Eve

I love East­er Eve. I love dye­ing eggs and mak­ing a mess, and ever since Avery was two and a half, she’s been an enthu­si­as­tic side­kick, don­ning her apron (at first a Hel­lo Kit­ty spec­i­men, but now she’s grad­u­at­ed to plain white as befits the bud­ding gas­tronome), and we used to put wine glass­es in the sink, filled with dye, and let her dip to her heart’s con­tent, secure in the knowl­edge that any drips would run down the drain. I’m hap­py to report that at age 11 1/2, she’s still very hap­py to spend the day with her moth­er and father dye­ing eggs. “Whoa, this blue is too intense. Let’s add some red and dilute it, and see if we get lavender…”

We are com­plete­ly caught up this week­end with, if you can believe it, pol­i­tics. Now mind you, I haven’t been tru­ly polit­i­cal since grad­u­ate school when I cam­paigned for Dukakis (lord, that’s a long time ago now), but I’ve always been hap­pi­ly Demo­c­rat. My beloved has, by con­trast, always been a stal­wart Repub­li­can. We always vot­ed any­way, know­ing that we can­celled each oth­er out. One has to vote, after all. Well, since lis­ten­ing to the Barack Oba­ma speech on race issues in Amer­i­ca, I am pleased to say that we are unit­ed for the first time ever. Any pres­i­den­tial can­di­date who can com­bine his intel­lect and peace-lov­ing nature with the abil­i­ty to use “com­plic­i­ty” in a sen­tence (and I bet he can spell it too) has my vote, and amaz­ing­ly, John’s as well. To Avery’s cha­grin, we brought her in to watch the speech, and she was soon trans­fixed. “How can any­one not see the sense and the good­ness in this speech?” I asked rhetor­i­cal­ly. “Well, Mom­my, if there weren’t some of those sad peo­ple out there, he would­n’t have to make the speech to begin with.” It takes the wis­dom of a child.

Which led to a very inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion of the “I Have a Dream” speech and the Get­tys­burg address. Did every­one lis­ten­ing to those speech­es stand up and applaud? No, sad­ly, much as we all wish to think so now, and to revere these peo­ple, they were shot dead. Some­thing to learn about what sounds like absolute received wis­dom: for some peo­ple lis­ten­ing, it takes awhile.

But enough about seri­ous things. We went out this after­noon for a nice brisk walk and found our­selves, in the Maryle­bone High Street, in a HAIL­STORM! Some­thing between hail and snow, but at the end of March? Come on! Our heads low­ered, we pressed on to buy our East­er week­end’s worth of food, and by the time we got home, blue skies pre­vailed. But as my friend Becky report­ed lat­er, it did­n’t last long. These storms time them­selves for the moments one is out of doors and unpro­tect­ed. Ick!

I must tell you about these last pho­tos from our Cotswolds hol­i­day: the Cotwsold Farm Park! You must all go, right away. Sit­u­at­ed just between Stowe and Chip­ping Cam­p­den, it’s a nir­vana filled with baby every­thing you might want to hold: chicks (you can’t even see any­thing but a tiny black head in my hands!), lambs, goats, guinea pigs, bun­nies, you name it. We were able to see a lamb being born, believe it or not, and then the guys brought over a lamb need­ing a moth­er and cov­ered it in the birth flu­id and voila: the moth­er adopt­ed it. I felt quite woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate in my fuss­ing over Avery’s birth lo these many years ago: the sheep said noth­ing! Out in the acres beyond the birthing pen there were Exmoor ponies, pigs, goats with dread­locks, bison and sheep and ducks and pea­cocks, a heav­en of ani­mals. Do go, you’ll be so glad you did.

Before I go I must tell you about a love­ly tart I made for our lunch today, in between mad­ly juic­ing beet­root, cel­ery, gin­ger, car­rot and pear for break­fast, and dye­ing eggs. Here goes:

Goats Cheese and Par­ma Ham Tart
(serves at least 6)

1 full pack­age short pas­try, squeezed and prod­ded to fit a 12-inch tart pan
2 tbsps butter
2 shal­lots, sliced thin
8 but­ton mush­rooms, chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
6 slices Par­ma Ham, torn up into pieces
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sin­gle cream
100 grams goats cheese
grat­ed parme­san cheese to sprinkle

This is so heav­en­ly sim­ple. Just saute the shal­lots and mush­rooms in the but­ter and drain them on kitchen paper. Then cov­er the bot­tom of the tart crust with the goats cheese and the Par­ma ham. Beat the eggs with the cream. Pour them over the tart and top with parme­san cheese, and bake at 350 degrees for 15 min­utes or until the tart looks cooked and the top gold­en brown. Deli­cious hot or cold, as Avery and John can tell you, hav­ing eat­en slices both ways all afternoon.

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Tomor­row, once the East­er Bun­ny has come and gone, I shall tell you about two things: my new cook­ing method for all meats and fish­es done in a skil­let, and Avery’s invent­ed straw­ber­ry tart. Both are worth a look. In the mean­time, set out those car­rots for the bun­ny, and… wait.