it’s all spin­ning out of control

Where on earth to begin?! I knew the last two weeks of school would be insane, but the real­i­ty was so much more out of con­trol than I could ever have guessed by look­ing at my scary to-do list. Let’s see, my moth­er in law arrived on Mon­day to kick off the fes­tiv­i­ties, and imme­di­ate­ly found her­self sucked into the mias­ma that is “our daugh­ter is grad­u­at­ing to mid­dle school, we’re leav­ing for Amer­i­ca in two weeks and my hus­band just got a job.” I real­ize that I could write an entire blog post on the com­pli­ca­tions of any one of these lit­tle details, but such is life that I will bare­ly be able to touch on them all, just to have a record of our lives, and then I’ll have to move on to the next bit of insan­i­ty. First off I must tell you of my very suc­cess­ful first time cook­ing “pork bel­ly,” an inaus­pi­cious­ly named ingre­di­ent that results, nev­er­the­less, in the glo­ri­ous dish of what is essen­tial­ly bone­less pork ribs. Try it: it costs next to noth­ing and cooks itself. And it’s RICH, as you can see.

Oven-Roast­ed Pork Belly
(allow about a 2–3‑inch slab per per­son, but keep it whole for roasting)

pork bel­ly
olive oil
gar­lic powder
fresh chopped or dried rosemary
salt and pepper

Yes, it’s just that sim­ple. Have the butch­er (or you can do it) score deeply into the skin of the pork. Then line a bak­ing dish with foil, and lay the pork bel­ly in it, skin side up. Make a paste of the oil, gar­lic pow­der, rose­mary, salt and pep­per. I know, gar­lic pow­der sounds very… not good cook­ing, but real gar­lic will burn and turn bit­ter. Trust me.

Spread the paste into the scored slits of skin. Then roast uncov­ered at about 400 F (210 C) for two hours. Done and dusted.

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Now, it’s rich as I say. So have a nice, unc­tu­ous but ulti­mate­ly ascetic side dish with it. I suggest:

Bor­lot­ti Bean Confit
(count on one can of beans for every two peo­ple, seriously)
(this serves four)

2 cans bor­lot­ti beans or about 4 cups dried and rehydrated)
1/2 cup olive oil
5 cloves garlic
1 large or 2 small red onions, diced
1 tbsp dried oregano
juice of 2 lemons
hand­ful each chopped corian­der (cilantro) and mint

Drain and rinse your beans in a colan­der and set aside to drain. Heat the olive oil in a large skil­let and gen­tly saute the gar­lic and onion, tak­ing care not to burn the gar­lic. Now add all the beans and the oregano and stir till mixed. Pour half the lemon juice over and turn the heat down. This can cook, being stirred occa­sion­al­ly, for at least 45 min­utes. At the very end, add the rest of the lemon juice and sprin­kle with the corian­der and mint. Perfect.

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Each day of the last 10 or so has been full enough of events, sur­feit of emo­tion, and micro­manag­ing of sched­ules to give me some­thing to think about for days. And yet they just kept com­ing. And get­ting more com­pli­cat­ed by the hour. In a good way!

I think part­ly that’s due to the inevitable adding of things (“yes, let’s buy a whole foie gras and cook it three dif­fer­ent ways, after pick­ing Avery up at horse­back rid­ing when my writ­ing class has just depart­ed from lunch here of Mor­ro­can meat­balls and mac­a­roni and cheese!”). Yes, it’s true: I did cook my two writ­ing-sam­ple recipes for my class­mates and we had a gor­geous time. Plus cucum­ber dill sal­ad, water­cress and rock­et sal­ad, and my friend Ange­la’s dona­tion of a superb Eton Mess. What’s that, you ask? I will tell all. First of all, she great­ly prefers Marks and Spencer’s meringues to any oth­er brand, much less home­made. Appar­ent­ly it’s to do with the sticky, gooey inside and crunchy out­side. Nev­er mind why, just do as she says.

Ange­la’s Eton Mess
(serves 10-ish)

2 pack­ets of M&S meringues, crushed in a freez­er bag
4 pun­nets (about a pint-ish) of straw­ber­ries, cut into quar­ters (and save a few big ones for dec­o­ra­tion at the end)

2 pints dou­ble cream, whipped until it is at a thick­ish consistency

Use quite a deep bowl and start lay­er­ing: meringue, straw­ber­ries, cream, until you get to the top of the bowl.

I told you it was very easy to make!

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The lun­cheon was love­ly, but then we bare­ly had time for any writ­ing busi­ness, so I end­ed up desert­ing my fel­low class mem­bers to hus­tle Rose­mary off to meet Avery at the sta­ble and watch her les­son. John was, mean­while, rac­ing around Maryle­bone col­lect­ing my spe­cial order of foie gras at the Gin­ger Pig and dish­es suit­able for the “foie gras creme brulee” I rash­ly planned to make. Out of whole cloth, as it were.

I can’t give you any foie gras recipes for the sim­ple rea­son that none of them turned out as I wished. The creme brulee itself was not foie gras-y enough (too much cus­tard) and did­n’t set prop­er­ly. And the slices I poached in a Hun­gar­i­an sweet wine were… bor­ing. The best bits? Scooped right out of the skil­let as we all stood over the stove sali­vat­ing! I will work on the recipes more and let you know. But we had fun.

Then it was onto the Form Six Leavers’ par­ty at the gor­geous house of one of Avery’s class­mates. John brought Avery and Julia straight from skat­ing: not for us the can­cel­la­tion of one activ­i­ty just because it rang smack dab into anoth­er! I brought my Thai larb (cold chick­en sal­ad with minced Thai herbs), that love­ly chick­pea and broc­col­i­ni sal­ad I told you about with cumin seeds, and an enor­mous bowl of mixed berries. But every­thing was eclipsed by the WHOLE LAMB brought by a Moroc­can fam­i­ly! I mean it, every­thing but the head. The hosts’ black Lab was beside her­self and had to be restrained with a severe lead, and final­ly tak­en for a walk! It was unbe­liev­ably juicy, ten­der and love­ly. Every oth­er dish was eclipsed, hon­est­ly. All the teach­ers were there, includ­ing the Eng­lish and maths teach­ers who retired in Jan­u­ary. So much fun to thank them all and get lots of love­ly com­pli­ments on Avery’s devel­op­ment from innu­mer­ate, inar­tic­u­late Amer­i­can dodo (well, they did­n’t put it QUITE like that) to accom­plished Eng­lish schoolgirl.

Sat­ur­day saw us at John Lewis shop­ping des­per­ate­ly for a bathing suit for Avery, for the upcom­ing Fourth of July birth­day par­ty of one of her class­mates. No luck, but the Brasserie was sim­ply LOVE­LY for lunch: the best fish and chips I’ve had in a long time, plus my own con­fit of duck and Rose­mary’s chick­en Cae­sar sal­ad. A real find, with glo­ri­ous views of Cavendish Square.

Sun­day, it must be told, was noth­ing but EAT­ING. We dropped Avery off at the sta­ble and then com­plete­ly impromp­tu (the nicest way to do these things!) we sim­ply sat down at an out­side table at Angelus in the adja­cent street and had a stu­pen­dous lunch: the cov­et­ed and inspi­ra­tion (but ulti­mate­ly secre­tive) foie gras creme brulee! And an inter­est­ing but, in Rose­mary’s and my final analy­sis odd, vanil­la-mar­i­nat­ed ceviche of salmon. Vanil­la and fish? No, sor­ry. But the qual­i­ty of the salmon, and the dar­ling lit­tle dice of steamed car­rots and cele­ri­ac under­neath, made it all right.

Then we cooked all day. Rose­mary is the ulti­mate com­pan­ion in the kitchen: she does all the nasty lit­tle bits like chop­ping untold amounts of gar­lic and onion and mak­ing all the skins dis­ap­pear into the rub­bish bin before I even see them! And she is so enthu­si­as­tic! And so inspir­ing, with unquench­able joy in each dish. It was won­der­ful! I had invit­ed Anna’s fam­i­ly for a farewell (gulp) Indi­an feast in advance of their depar­ture from Lon­don, and I put all my love for them into the din­ner, I can tell you. Rose­mary and I sim­ply churned out one dish after anoth­er, and I must say that were all deli­cious, and easy if time-con­sum­ing to do. It was a repli­ca of my Indi­an extrav­a­gan­za for our old neigh­bors right after we moved here: a love­ly chick­en biryani (a lay­ered rice and spice and veg and chick­en dish), a saag paneer (its sauce turned rather too thick, but it was all right), pota­toes sauteed in turmer­ic and peanut oil, and the sim­plest pos­si­ble chick­en cur­ry: mere­ly sauteed onion and gar­lic in sun­flower oil, chunks of chick­en, yel­low pep­pers and egg­plant, lots of cur­ry pow­der fried in the oil, and final­ly coconut milk and yogurt whisked in, and all left to sim­mer. What a treat.

The evening did not, thank­ful­ly, feel like a wake (that was yet to come at the last day crying/hugging ses­sion). We all relaxed on the lit­tle ter­race near the top of the house and spied on peo­ple, and quizzed Ash­ley, the ulti­mate teenag­er, about what Avery should shop for when she gets to Amer­i­ca. Sad­ly I fear that no such enthu­si­asm for fash­ion com­merce will vis­it Avery any time soon. Actu­al­ly I’m not ter­ri­bly sad about it: I’m sure it will change!

Lis­ten, for the first time in liv­ing mem­o­ry I am not cook­ing din­ner, so I must go order a piz­za. Heav­en! But I’ve lots more to tell you in the saga of “Bring Plen­ty of Tis­sues: It’s Going to be a Bumpy Good­bye”… We’ve still got the school play, Prize Day, the head­mistress’ leav­ing par­ty and the Last Day to cel­e­brate. And I will.