June’s glo­ries

Speak­ing of naughty, how naughty is it of me to go near­ly a MONTH with­out blog­ging?  Here’s my dilem­ma: it’s twofold.

For one thing, life has been over­flow­ing with activ­i­ty late­ly — the­atre, ring­ing, cook­ing, trav­el­ling, art!  And I hope I’ve learned the les­son that if I don’t make an effort more fre­quent­ly to memo­ri­alise all the won­der­ful, excit­ing adven­tures giv­en to us every day, the mem­o­ries will pass us by.

And so: June!

The sign above was a very fun­ny warn­ing about the Globe’s most recent stag­ing of my favorite Shake­speare play, “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream.”  This par­tic­u­lar inter­pre­ta­tion was placed in the “Hox­ton Hip­ster” moment of mod­ern life, with skin­ny jeans and lip balm, pouty teenagers and a tru­ly heart­warm­ing Puck.  Most mem­o­rably, the rela­tion­ship between Demetrius and Hele­na is turned into his rela­tion­ship with Helenus!  Both mod­ern and touch­ing, this clever alter­ation worked beau­ti­ful­ly.  As always, the Globe was fever­ish with excitement.

Then too, the ringers of my new tow­er have been on our sum­mer out­ing, for rea­sons too com­pli­cat­ed to explain called the “Christ­mas Out­ing.”  Of 2013, or per­haps 2014, I don’t remem­ber, but in any case, the scenes of ring­ing and laugh­ter in the gor­geous coun­try­side of Hamp­shire were mem­o­rable.  How many ringers does it take to hold up a medieval bridge?

We had a won­der­ful time, ring­ing in tow­ers of three bells, six bells, eight bells, ten bells!

And because bell ringers can be won­der­ful peo­ple on more than one lev­el at a time, my love­ly friend Eva has come home from her fam­i­ly hol­i­day with a new cook­book for me, filled with many tempt­ing dishes.

I’ve made one so far, an incred­i­bly sim­ple, tasty dish of pork ten­der­loins.  For this recipe, you can either buy ready-butchered ten­der­loins, or you can do as I did and buy cheap­er loin pork chops and cut off the bones, and make stock from them.

Hun­gar­i­an Pork Chops (Tor­dai lacipecsenye)

(serves 4)

4 pork ten­der­loin chops

1 tsp/5 grams sweet paprika

6 tbsps/40 grams plain flour

1 tsp/5 grams sea salt

fresh black pepper

3 tbsps pork fat/duck fat/butter

Place the chops on a cut­ting board one by one.  Cov­er each chop with plas­tic wrap and pound with a heavy spoon or mal­let until thin.

Mix the papri­ka and flour, salt and pep­per on a shal­low dish.  Dredge the flat­tened chops in this mix­ture and set aside.

Melt the fat in a large fry­ing pan until very hot, and place chops in a sin­gle lay­er.  Cook until just cooked through (pink pork is safe now, by the way), per­haps 2 min­utes per side.  Drain and enjoy.

We need­ed to keep up our strength because life includes Avery and all the excite­ment of her life, even though she’s a bit far away now.  Thank good­ness for texts like this one!

Can you just imag­ine the thrill of walk­ing along in Oxford and find­ing the divine Shaun Evans film­ing “Endeav­our” in your street?  Well, Avery can.  She was incred­i­bly gra­cious to relax her nor­mal dig­ni­ty and ask for this pho­to, just for her sil­ly mum.  I have enjoyed look­ing at it more than I can say!

And because life is a series of con­stant sur­pris­es, look who I ran into over the week­end in May­fair?  Seriously.

He remem­bered Avery very well!  (As who would­n’t.)  “Best of luck to her in her exams!” he said gra­cious­ly, in a gor­geous Liv­er­pool accent that came as a sur­prise, even though Avery had warned me.  He cer­tain­ly plays “Oxford” very con­vinc­ing­ly on the telly.

Sigh.  I’m verklemt just think­ing about it.  Do you believe in coin­ci­dences?  Or was this pre-ordained?  What was I doing in that street, any­way?  Well, that’s easy.  It was the Dorothy L. Say­ers Soci­ety’s walk through the loca­tions near Pic­cadil­ly that fea­ture in the nov­els.  Oh, to live in London!

If I had to choose between Lon­don and Oxford, which would I choose?  Luck­i­ly I don’t have to, for the next two years or so at least, because we are lucky enough that Avery does­n’t mind if we descend on her occa­sion­al­ly for a hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed vis­it.  With The Cat.

“We are not trav­el­ling with a cat,” John object­ed fee­bly, but even he knew that if it would make Avery hap­py in these stress­ful times lead­ing to exams, we would do it.  And in true Tacy style, she trav­elled beau­ti­ful­ly and enjoyed every minute of her adventure.

Friends came from far and wide to have an audi­ence with our tor­tie.  It was a com­plete­ly heav­en­ly after­noon, one to remember.

It took Tacy some time to recov­er from the excitement.

Can I inter­est you in a bak­ing project?  As you know, I’ve long been of the opin­ion that I don’t like to bake: I did­n’t think I liked fol­low­ing instruc­tions, mea­sur­ing or being exact.  But the fact is, oth­er peo­ple — name­ly my door­men, and my fel­low ringers! — love baked goods.  I con­fess I’m becom­ing a fan of mak­ing sweet things, if not of eat­ing them.  And I DO fol­low instructions.

Bakewell Tart by Jamie Oliver

(serves at least 8, or 12 if very small portions)

It’s always a joy to share treats in the ring­ing cham­ber, because they’re a very appre­cia­tive audi­ence as you can see.

Because one can nev­er ring enough, I made a spe­cial trip back to Barnes to ring with my old, pre­cious band.  Sim­ply heaven.

From there it was onto a deeply appre­cia­tive chat over cof­fee with dar­ling Trisha, lunch with my much-missed love­ly friend Eliz­a­beth, and a quick trip with her to the local book­shop where we were joined by Mad­die, late­ly of St Andrews!  I extract­ed a hug, and this beau­ti­ful pho­to.  How I miss liv­ing just down the road from them.

And of course there was a dou­ble-trou­ble hair­cut that could­n’t missed.  Angus went first.

Fred­die had wait­ed patient­ly, and final­ly it was his turn.

I will nev­er for­get the kind­ness Claire has always shown to me, shar­ing her boys when­ev­er I need them.

As a reward for their good behav­ior, Claire and I took them to the local pad­dling pool, where I was far too occu­pied help­ing her keep them safe to take a pic­ture!  Sim­ply adorable.

I final­ly repaired to a local cafe for a much-need­ed glass of bub­bly with my yoga friend Ade­laide, where by this time I was too exhaust­ed to take a pic­ture.  We sat over our drinks, rem­i­nisc­ing about our years togeth­er when Barnes was home for me.  There is no place quite so peace­ful, or beautiful.

But I could­n’t pre­tend to live there any­more.  All dur­ing the train ride I dreamt of that bucol­ic past.

And then was thrilled to be home once again.  Because it is, Bankside.

The real news in our lit­tle neck of the Lon­don woods has been, of course, the grand (and pro­tract­ed!) open­ing of the Tate Mod­ern Exten­sion, now known as Switch House.  Remem­ber what the site looked like when we moved here in Octo­ber?  “It will nev­er, ever be ready in June,” we said, shak­ing our heads.

Oh, the mess, the noise we lived with.

Even in March, we were still high­ly skep­ti­cal.  You can see why.

But it hap­pened.  Sud­den­ly overnight, there was per­fect grass sod, there were per­fect pave­ments, there were steps and door­ways and a very appeal­ing view in general.

The open­ing extend­ed over sev­er­al excit­ing days.  We our­selves were invit­ed for “Friends and Neigh­bours,” then 3000 school­child­ren descend­ed, as you can see!  Then what we could describe only as “Famous and Rich Peo­ple Night.”  We hung over a rail­ing and watched the crowd arrive.  Grayson Perry!

One evening, we strolled around the cor­ner of the build­ing on our after-sup­per neigh­bor­hood walk, to find our love­ly friend Gus­ta­vo ges­tur­ing wild­ly out his open win­dow, oppo­site the Tate.  “Come up for bub­bly!” he shout­ed!  So we did, of course.  Gus­tavo’s invi­ta­tions are nev­er to be turned down, quite sim­ply because he’s the hap­pi­est per­son I know, and he shares it with everyone.

We popped in again for a DJ evening, there­by bring­ing up the aver­age age in the build­ing by about 20 years.

And then one night, quite late after John was already asleep, the heav­ens opened upon the crowds try­ing to leave the Tate.  Oh, the fun of see­ing and hear­ing our street below trans­formed from a bleak con­struc­tion site into a glo­ri­ous­ly chaot­ic scene of honk­ing taxis and scream­ing wet people!

Of course it’s not all about the crowds, or the archi­tec­ture.  The art is stun­ning!  This piece by Ai Wei­wei nev­er dis­ap­points, and I’ve seen it now a half dozen times.  We just walk through for fun, every day.

And then this hap­pened.  Police hors­es?  Indoors?  Direct­ing human traffic?

Of course it was per­for­mance art!

It’s a real thrill just to pop over after lunch with vis­it­ing friends, this time my child­hood friend Brent with his love­ly friend Kate, on the 10th floor obser­va­to­ry.  The view behind us is actu­al­ly a reflection!

I’m going to leave you with one more recipe, again cour­tesy of my friend Eva who scored these incred­i­ble scal­lops at Bor­ough Mar­ket for me.  Into my head popped a com­bi­na­tion of fla­vors, and oh my, these were incred­i­ble.  With John’s per­fect KitchenAid mashed pota­toes, we were in heaven.

Sumac and Turmer­ic Seared Scallops

(serves 4)

20 large scallops

1 tbsp semolina

1 tsp very good salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

2 tsps ground sumac

2 tsps ground turmeric

3 tbsps very good but­ter (I used Echire, a present from Gustavo)

Clean the scal­lops well, remov­ing the tough mus­cle from the side and care­ful­ly peel­ing away any membrane.

In a flat plate, mix togeth­er the semoli­na and sea­son­ings.  Dip each scal­lop in this mix­ture on both sides and set aside.

Melt but­ter in a very large fry­ing pan, until it stops foam­ing.  Quick­ly lay the scal­lops in, in a sin­gle lay­er, and cook for about a minute.  In the same order in which you placed them, turn over each scal­lop to cook on the oth­er side, again for about a minute, or until pres­sure from your fin­ger yields the con­sis­ten­cy you like.   We err on just seared, assum­ing the scal­lops are incred­i­bly fresh as mine were.

Serve hot and driz­zle over a bit of the spiced butter.

*************

And that’s been our June.  I promise faith­ful­ly to be a bet­ter, more fre­quent cor­re­spon­dent!  Face­book does not a blog post make — it’s the mem­o­ries that count.