home­ly adventures

How qui­et the house sud­den­ly seems.  John’s mom went home yes­ter­day, depart­ing in a dull, sprin­kling rain com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from the bril­liant blue skies of Flo­rence.  Quite sym­bol­ic of our time togeth­er.  She hugged, waved good­bye, we said, “Until Christ­mas!” and she was gone, tak­ing so much of the cel­e­bra­tion and fun with ther.  She radi­ates such an inter­est in every­thing we do that dur­ing her vis­it, we seem ter­ri­bly inter­est­ing!  And then she goes, and we are back to our every­day selves.

Since we returned from Flo­rence it’s been a rush: a hasty “every­thing on a pan­cake” sup­per Fri­day evening, try­ing valiant­ly to adhere to our no-carbs vow, John and I replac­ing pan­cakes with let­tuce leaves.  But Sat­ur­day John had to suc­cumb to the lit­tle bug that has been tick­ling around, and so I res­ur­rect­ed some chick­en broth from the freez­er, set­tled him with a mug and a hot water bot­tle, and we girls retreat­ed to the mall for a love­ly lunch at Kitchen Italia: giant king prawns in a sal­ad of romaine and rock­et, and then MAD­NESS as every­one in the world seemed to decide to go shop­ping.  Sure­ly if there were any san­i­ty in the world, even West­field could not allow so many peo­ple in its doors, and my dears, the RACKET.

Final­ly we three turned hunt­ed eyes on one anoth­er: get us out of here!  And home to bril­liant fried had­dock and roast­ed cau­li­flower, and Avery’s favorite hari­cots verts with loads of gar­lic and lemon zest.

Sun­day of course meant Avery spent the day in Hyde Park on Archie, hav­ing love­ly can­ters amid the tourists and the falling autumn leaves.

And so we adults repaired to the Star of India, pos­si­bly the best Indi­an restau­rant in Lon­don, and now the proud pur­vey­or of a cook­book to help us all pro­duce chick­en with cashews and mush­rooms, and spinach with paneer cheese.  I haven’t yet dared to try the lentil dumplings in a sauce of yoghurt and aso­faeti­da, but I will!

From there we drove to Shored­itch on one of John’s many, many quests to find an emp­ty lot on which to build his dream house.  So far the chase has been a cru­el dis­ap­point­ment.  He finds such a lot, or a seem­ing­ly aban­doned build­ing, and writes to the own­er, where­upon the own­er reveals he’s just sold the lot the pre­vi­ous after­noon, or that John’s enquiry has moved him to build his own dream house, start­ing tomor­row.  So far no luck.  But the love­ly neigh­bor­hood of Arnold Cir­cus with the per­fect cafe Albion for cheeses, organ­ic let­tuces, sea­son­al pears and a crois­sant for Avery, made the after­noon a nice adven­ture anyway.

Mon­day we braved the Tate to see the Turn­er Prize can­di­dates, and I will say no more, except that I have nev­er seen such sil­ly art in all my years as an art his­to­ri­an.  Go, and tell me why I should change my mind.  But the vis­it was made worth­while by one sim­ple piece: Michael Craig-Mar­t­in’s An Oak Tree.  How have I missed this artist and this piece all my life?  A glass of water, high upon a shelf, and a tex­tu­al “con­ver­sa­tion” with the artist on a sheet of paper beside it, explain­ing that the artist has changed this glass of water into an oak tree.  Absurd, call­ing up Mar­cel Duchamp, the whole his­to­ry of con­cep­tu­al art…

The inter­view­er asks, “Isn’t this a case of the Emper­or’s New Clothes?” but Craig-Mar­tin replies, “No, in that case the audi­ence actu­al­ly claimed to see the clothes.  I would be very sur­prised indeed if any­one claimed to see an oak tree here.  But it is one, nonetheless.”

Avery and I found it com­plete­ly hys­ter­i­cal, and then were some­what chas­tened upon doing some research, to find that the artist intend­ed the piece to be a reflec­tion on Catholic transsub­stan­ti­a­tion!  Well, it was still fun­ny, and the more we are allowed to think so, since the artist’s entire point is that art trans­fig­ures the object sim­ply by mak­ing it “art.”

It’s the kind of thing you like, if you like that kind of thing.  And I do.

Off to a nos­tal­gic lunch at Biben­dum’s Oys­ter Bar, in our old neigh­bor­hood from 20 years ago, and a hap­py walk in the sun­shine around far too much expen­sive real estate and cloth­ing!  All we could do that evening was to con­sume an enor­mous pile of lamb chops from my beloved butch­er at Green Val­ley, and rem­i­nisce about all we had done dur­ing our hol­i­day, over the past two packed-full weeks..

No!  Flo­rence must wait!  As tempt­ing as it is to tell you all our adven­tures there, I must remem­ber the joys of our time in Lon­don.  The din­ner par­ty with Annie’s fam­i­ly and my new friend Nell and her baby… Oh!  The cala­mari.  I have it down to a sci­ence: half home­made bread­crumbs, half Japan­ese Panko bread­crumbs, then a quan­ti­ty of corn­starch (corn­flour to my British friends), and a good sprin­kle of Fox Point Sea­son­ing… the squid per­fect­ly cleaned, but into rings, dipped into eggy creamy milk, then the bread­crumb mix­ture.  Then quick­ly fried in very hot rape­seed oil.

Per­fec­tion.  A slight devi­a­tion from no carbs, I admit!  But it was a won­der­ful par­ty.  The choco­late mousse?  Annie says I can no longer claim not to cook pud­dings, because it was a tri­umph.  I have to agree.  Thank you, Delia Smith.

Deli­a’s Choco­late Mousse

(quan­ti­ties for 1 per­son, sim­ply mul­ti­ply for your party)

1 egg, 2 ounces high-qual­i­ty chocolate

Sep­a­rate eggs.  Melt choco­late in a dou­ble-boil­er and beat egg yolks into it.  Whip egg whites until they hold peaks, then fold into choco­late mix­ture.  Chill for at least two hours.  Serve with whipped cream and fruit.

And the Sebas­t­ian Faulks lec­ture at Avery’s school.  Have you read “Bird­song”?  A young friend of mine years ago told me that it was his favorite book, and it had some­how slipped past me.  I picked it up and was entranced: for­bid­den pas­sion, trag­ic war, the essence of love, aban­don­ment, friend­ship.  A beau­ti­ful nov­el, and how on earth was it going to be made into a play this autumn?  Faulks’ lec­ture at school was fas­ci­nat­ing.  “The stu­pid­est piece of advice any­one can give a per­son try­ing to write a nov­el is, ‘Write what you know.’  NO!  Write pre­cise­ly what you DON’T know.  Put your­self in the shoes of a young girl, in France dur­ing World War One, in love with a young Eng­lish­man.  What would she say, do, feel?  Write about that.”

John’s mom and I lis­tened, look­ing around at all the rapt 17-year-old faces, sit­ting in that mag­nif­i­cent Hall, plan­ning what they would do with the rest of their lives, being inspired by this man who described his dai­ly life as “quite mad, real­ly.  I go all day with­out talk­ing to any­one, unless I am pro­mot­ing a book and then I talk all day long.”

And the play itself: some cast­ing prob­lems, we all agreed.  When the cen­tral focus of a dra­ma is a pas­sion­ate love affair, the two actors sim­ply MUST have mas­sive chem­istry, and these two did not, we felt.  We spent a great deal of time after­ward try­ing to recast the two main char­ac­ters… Ben Barnes played the war scenes with the oth­er men beau­ti­ful­ly, express­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment, cold cal­cu­la­tion, a sort of sense­less brav­ery.  But in the scenes with Genevieve O’Reil­ly, his obses­sive love inter­est, we did­n’t believe it.  Who could have played those parts more con­vinc­ing­ly?  But the play is worth see­ing.  The scenes with Jack Fair­brace, the con­science and soul of the war nar­ra­tive, are very mov­ing, and Lee Ross does a fine job as Jack.  See it, do.  But read it, even more so.

And “Social Net­work”!  What a film.  I know Face­book is one of those black-white things: you either love it or  you don’t.  I love it.  How else could I find out what all friends around the world are cook­ing for din­ner?  And see pic­tures of their kids’ Hal­loween cos­tumes, and see their vaca­tion pic­tures?  Sure, it can be sin­is­ter, and gos­sipy and cru­el, but not in my world.  The film is clever, clever, and I believe Andrew Garfield is the next huge star.  Charis­mat­ic, dark, brood­ing, vul­ner­a­ble.  More Andrew, please.

And those were our Lon­don adven­tures, an absolute whirl­wind.  On Mon­day, we were off to Flo­rence.  And I’ll tell you all about it soon… but to whet your appetite, two words: Wild Boar.