Hap­py Valen­tine’s Day

I hope this finds you all as cosy as we are here in Con­necti­cut: snow with­out, a flick­er­ing fire with­in. Of course all is not joy: my poor par­ents and broth­er are stuck at lit­tle Janie’s house, their plans all awry with this win­ter storm that began last night and is still con­tin­u­ing. All the weath­er peo­ple are so hap­py! They have chris­tened it “The Valen­tine’s Day Storm,” which to me sounds like a ser­i­al killer who hits only on Hall­mark hol­i­days, but I guess it had to have a moniker. Any­way, but for the extreme annoy­ance being caused to many trav­ellers, it’s sim­ply beau­ti­ful here at Red Gate Farm. This pic­ture makes me laugh: it’s one of the Vic­to­ri­an can­dle hold­ers attached to the branch­es of our hydrangea tree, so as to be lit up for Christ­mas Eve lo those many months ago as we pre­pared our big move to Lon­don. I guess the lit­tle things were lost in the lush branch­es and leaves this sum­mer, when we arrived for our holidays.

Our trip here was a bit mud­dly as well: we arrived at the air­port on Fri­day evening to find that although the flight had been delayed, board­ing had been closed three hours ear­ly, and we were not allowed on. Grrr. There was noth­ing to do but go back home and return on Sat­ur­day, which we did with­out mishap, and hours lat­er found our­selves wait­ing out­side the ter­mi­nal at JFK for a “car” to pick us up and dri­ve us to Con­necti­cut. “Oh my lord,” John said, “that’s not a car.” “It’s a stretch limo!” Avery shrieked in some com­bi­na­tion of glee and total embar­rass­ment. “I just hope nobody is look­ing out the win­dow as we arrive,” I groaned, since the aus­ter­i­ty of our farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty does not real­ly run to enor­mous long gas-guz­zling vehi­cles too atten­u­at­ed to fit in our dri­ve­way. We sim­ply scut­tled out of the car and raced inside, to per­fect warmth from Rol­lie’s com­ing in and get­ting the house ready for us. Plus food in the fridge from Anne and David! So per­fect. We fell into bed, happy.

The next morn­ing we were each up just two hours ear­li­er than nor­mal, so I was, unusu­al­ly, hap­py at 7 a.m., in the gro­cery store. It was my favorite way to spend the day: sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly, cook­ing and eat­ing. My par­ents, broth­er, and Joel and Jane arrived and there were birth­day present exchanges, no-rea­son present exchanges, catch­ing up of news, and most­ly appre­ci­at­ing all the hilar­i­ous things Jane says. She seems very low to the ground for some­one who can say so much! She emerged from explor­ing the guest bath­room, hold­ing a sham­poo bot­tle and say­ing earnest­ly, “Ooh, I love bar­codes.” And she has sev­er­al jokes in her two-year-old reper­toire that require many, many rep­e­ti­tions. “Why chick­en cross road?” “I don’t know, Janie, why did the chick­en cross the road?” “OTH­ER SIDE!” and shrieks of uncon­trol­lable laugh­ter. This she tells to UPS guys, vis­it­ing farm­ers, wait­ers and wait­ress­es. Every­one seems to find it pret­ty enter­tain­ing. And she is so cute, just to look at. “Aunt Kris­ten, my shoes make fun­ny sound.” “Do they? You mean if you stamp up and down?” “No, just if I wig­gle them, they squeak.” Sure enough, as she twirled her lit­tle ankles around they squeaked in all their pink leather glory.

It seemed a good day for some hot soup, so I remem­bered that my beloved vichys­soise of sum­mer prob­a­bly start­ed out its life as creamy leek and pota­to soup. Give it a try; it could­n’t be any eas­i­er, or cheaper.

Creamy Leek and Pota­to Soup
(serves 8)

3 tbsps butter
6 leeks, just white part and a bit of the green, washed and sliced thin
3 medi­um onions
3 cloves gar­lic, coarse­ly chopped
6 medi­um potatoes
6 cups chick­en stock
1 cup half and half
chopped chives to garnish

Melt but­ter in a heavy stock­pot and sweat the leeks and gar­lic gen­tly until soft. Add onions and pota­toes and coat with the but­ter, then cov­er with chick­en stock and sim­mer high for 45 min­utes. Blend with a hand blender and add half and half, then return to the stove and heat gen­tly. Serve in warmed bowls and scat­ter chives on top.

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With this we had sim­ply obscene sand­wich­es of roast beef, turkey, red onion, avo­ca­do, toma­to and fresh pesto, on sour­dough toast. Oh, and some odd cheese that was com­plete­ly deli­cious, in a very Amer­i­can-deli kind of way: it was called “buf­fa­lo wing ched­dar” and was a creamy yel­low cheese stud­ded with jalapenos and laced with chili sauce. Delicious.

Then we just hung around. My moth­er is the best hang­er-arounder I know. She gets com­fort­able in the old south­ern-Indi­ana rock­er we bought 20 years ago for $15, and keeps me com­pa­ny, telling me what’s up with my 94-year-old grand­moth­er, all my cousins’ babies I’ve nev­er met and know only through birth announce­ments and send­ing pic­ture books to them. We gos­sip about my sis­ter’s job, Jane’s remark­able accom­plish­ments, Eng­lish mys­ter­ies we both love (includ­ing the new police pro­ce­dur­al from our favorite Deb­o­rah Crom­bie, “Water Like a Stone” which we have both ordered and can’t wait to read). She looks over my shoul­der as I cook, mar­veling at my abil­i­ty to do the sim­plest tasks, which makes her a very reward­ing com­pan­ion. I should make a men­tal note: when Avery is grown and I come to vis­it her, I need to find her as admirable and praise­wor­thy as my moth­er always claims to find me, even when I haven’t done any­thing to deserve it. It’s a nice feel­ing. My dad had tales of the enor­mous cel­e­bra­tions for the Colts’ big Super Bowl win, and my broth­er report­ed on the lat­est Bea­t­les reis­sue I gave him for my birth­day. And through it all, Jane talked. And threw a tiny rub­ber ball from one of us to the oth­er. And I stirred my brisket, and whipped up cole slaw for din­ner. Rol­lie came bar­rel­ing in to say hel­lo and that yes, he and Judy could come to din­ner after all, had Judy told me so? No. Small pan­ic! Real­ly? OK, Plan B: why not make a meat­loaf? To go with the brisket? That way, as far as the menu went, you could choose beef… or beef! Which led to Joel’s telling me that in some Indi­ana towns he’s trav­eled to for busi­ness, chick­en is offered as the veg­e­tar­i­an alter­na­tive. Oh, my home state.

I have to con­fess: the crazy social life of the past four days has caught up with all of us: two of us are asleep and I am nod­ding. More tomor­row. On tap: New York City adven­tures, horsey adven­tures, retail ther­a­py, and…gnocchi. I know, you can hard­ly wait.