kebabs al fresco

Isn’t it fun­ny how each day has a sort of kar­ma of its own, an immutable fla­vor that you can’t alter, that real­ly has noth­ing to do with what you’re doing but sim­ply infus­es the day with a par­tic­u­lar mood? Well, yes­ter­day was a good one, a deli­cious day. Could it have been the per­fect blue sky and warm sun­shine? Pos­si­bly. After drop­ping Avery off at the sta­ble we head­ed over to Isling­ton for the lat­est install­ment of what has become akin to the search for the Holy Grail: a wardrobe for Avery’s bed­room. Hon­est­ly, some­times I won­der what on earth dif­fer­ence it makes when the child it the Com­pleat Slob: will she even hang things in it, put things in draw­ers if she has them? Not sure about that. But def­i­nite­ly she can’t if she does­n’t have a piece of fur­ni­ture to face up to.

We keep los­ing wardrobes on eBay, get­ting all excit­ed, agree­ing on how much we want to spend, and then in the last sev­en­teen min­utes some evil per­son grabs it away from us. So we thought maybe real fur­ni­ture, as opposed to vir­tu­al fur­ni­ture, would be eas­i­er actu­al­ly to buy. No luck on a wardrobe, but we did come away from Cas­tle Gib­son (our favorite place for vin­tage stuff, now sad­ly going out of busi­ness) with a love­ly lit­tle met­al table and two match­ing chairs for the gar­den, and leather foot­stool for the recep­tion room. John lat­er accused the foot­stool of being “leatherette,” but I say err on the side of opti­mism. For once we were com­plete­ly deci­sive and sim­ply bought the things, instead of dither­ing and find­ing the next day that some­one else had beat us to it. It was so much fun! We left the things at the shop to col­lect lat­er, and wan­dered up the high street, pop­ping into Oliv­er Bonas for a pic­ture frame for a birth­day gift, a tiny lit­tle fruit and veg stall for kebab ingre­di­ents (as you see!), and then dis­cov­ered (we must be the last to know) the Isling­ton Farmer’s Mar­ket! As it hap­pens, the old­est farmer’s mar­ket in Lon­don, would you believe it? A lot of the same pur­vey­ors as I encounter at the Maryle­bone Mar­ket, but it turns out that just before clos­ing time, as it was, you can get amaz­ing deals: two apple pies for the price of one and a choco­late muf­fin thrown in, an extra bunch of beet­root, the price of a jar of horse­rad­ish round­ed down… bargains!

Final­ly we loaded up the poor Mini with all our pur­chas­es and raced home to put the things in their new places: the recep­tion room looks amaz­ing! Our bril­liant art installer Mark is here as we speak, hang­ing all our bits and pieces on the walls and gen­er­al­ly turn­ing the place into an art gallery right before my eyes. I always for­get dur­ing moves how much I love all the pieces we’ve col­lect­ed over the years, so many of them from my very own gallery, gifts from artists, gifts from me to John and from him to me, a beloved por­trait of Avery here, an abstract col­lage there… and we’ve had sev­er­al things framed over the past cou­ple of weeks, so there are even new things to look at! The poor clean­ing lady is beside her­self: Mark’s tools are every­where, he’s leav­ing dust from drilling holes in the wall… con­flict­ing agen­das for sure.

Back to town to pick upu Avery who was com­plete­ly filthy and wilt­ed from the sun, and from lead­ing some hap­less lit­tle girl around the dusty rid­ing ring for an hour on Wode­house, nev­er a hap­py task I fear. “I know you’ll laugh when I say this, but I NEED ICE CREAM. I don’t just want it, I NEED IT.” Even her dis­may could not damp­en my enthu­si­asm for my day, and it got even bet­ter with:

Grilled Kebabs with Tamarind, Hon­ey, Saf­fron and Lime
(serves four)

2 chick­en breast fil­lets, cut in cubes
4 lamb steaks, cut in cubes
2 red bell pep­pers, cut in chunks
1 medi­um egg­plant, cut in chunks
1 dozen mushrooms
1 dozen small tomatoes

mari­nade:
1/2 cup honey
1 tbsp tamarind paste, mixed with 1 tbsp very hot water
pinch saf­fron threads, dis­solved in hot water
juice of 1 lime
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1‑inch knob gin­ger, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
sea salt and fresh­ly ground pep­per to taste

Place the chick­en and lamb in one shal­low dish and the veg­eta­bles in anoth­er (this is for rea­sons of raw meat hygiene). Mix all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents togeth­er and pour half over the meat and half over the veg and leave them as long as you like, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly. When you’re ready, shove all the bits and pieces onto met­al skew­ers (if you use wood or bam­boo be sure to soak them in water before­hand to avoid scorch­ing) and grill over an open flame about 4 min­utes, then turn over and grill anoth­er 4 min­utes. I did­n’t have an open flame, but I did have my handy grill with­in my oven which has ele­ments above the cook­ing sur­face, and the same tim­ing worked perfectly.

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With this (and did­n’t John take a bril­liant pho­to­graph?) we had a nice cous­cous dish, and I’m going to cheat and tell you what I did wrong so you don’t make the same mis­take. Make sure you don’t cook too much cous­cous! I near­ly always cook too much, or too much pas­ta for a pas­ta dish. Far nicer to err on the side of too many of the oth­er ingredients.

Cous­cous with Beet­root and Goats Cheese
(serves 4)

200 grams (a lit­tle less than a cup) raw instant couscous
2 tsps olive oil
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
125 grams (about 1/2 cup) chick­en stock
1 small white onion, minced
6 medi­um roast­ed beet­roots, cubed
1 cup crum­bled goats cheese
1/2 cup toast­ed pinenuts
sea salt and pep­per to taste

Put the cous­cous in a bowl and cov­er with water, JUST cov­er. The cous­cous will soak up this water instant­ly. Fluff a bit with a fork and set aside.

Saute the gar­lic and onion in the olive oil until soft. Heat the chick­en stock until boil­ing and pour over the cous­cous and fluff well. Add all oth­er ingre­di­ents and toss thor­ough­ly. Lovely!

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Well, then today decid­ed to have its own fla­vor, and it was not quite so mag­i­cal. Wim­sey, poor guy, has been tak­ing all the white fur off his bel­ly, the bot­toms of his feet and his fin­ger­tips. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. The vet calls it “over­groom­ing,” which seems like an enor­mous under­state­ment to me. It also sounds vague­ly voli­tion­al, which I’m pos­i­tive it is not. Nobody wants to remove all his white fur! There must be anoth­er rea­son. When he stayed in the coun­try at the Fam­i­ly Cat Chalet (I’m not mak­ing this up) dur­ing the move, he got a cor­ti­sone shot to see if that would help, and he man­aged to let the fur grown back for near­ly a week. But he’s been back it in a big way late­ly, so there was noth­ing for it but to get him back to the vet today. Sigh. I tried to dis­tract myself from his fate by study­ing all the items for sale in the wait­ing room. There is some­thing fun­ny about a cat food labeled “Adult Chick­en.” Of course there’s also “Senior Chick­en,” not to men­tion “Kit­ten Chicken.”

Alas, laugh­ter was far from my mind when the nurse emerged with a rip in her tunic and the terse com­ment that they had decid­ed to sedate the cat in order to draw his blood. I sim­ply saw the pound signs mount­ing up, but there was noth­ing for it, so off we went to leave him there being tor­ment­ed. Awful! Home to help Mark the art installer mea­sure and mark the walls for all the art to be hung. Our clean­ing lady fol­lowed him around glow­er­ing, and I can’t real­ly blame her, as the job sat­is­fac­tion meter can­not be very high when dust accu­mu­lates right where one just hoovered. A bet­ter organ­ised per­son than I am would have asked her to come tomor­row. Sigh. The sorts of prob­lems one has when one has no prob­lems, clearly.

Can I just tell you how much we adore our new neigh­bor­hood? Every day I dis­cov­er some­thing new to love about Ham­mer­smith. For one thing, a fab­u­lous lit­tle Ital­ian del­i­catessen tucked away on an unpre­pos­sess­ing street adja­cent to the Ham­mer­smith Tube Sta­tion, called Sun­dri­ca, full of tempt­ing olives, pates, cheeses, pas­tries, yum yum. I was restrained and bought only a bit of sop­pres­sa­ta for Avery’s break­fast and two lit­tle goats cheese disks swim­ming in her­by olive oil. Deliri­ous­ly good. Then on the way home I stopped at Turn­er’s Flow­ers, a lit­tle tiny bed­sit of a shop filled with grow­ing and green things. And a love­ly grand­moth­er­ly own­er who helped me, and then turned to the lady behind me and said, “You’re look­ing so well. Is it three and a half months now?” Imag­ine, a neigh­bor­hood where the shop­keep­ers know how preg­nant their cus­tomers are. We’re not in Mar­ble Arch any­more, clearly.

And why, you ask, did I need flow­ers? To say thank you to our next door neigh­bors, Sara and Sel­va and their two lit­tle chil­dren, who invit­ed us all to din­ner Fri­day night, and intro­duced us to two oth­er fam­i­lies, both with girls at Avery’s new school! That is, one is there already and one’s start­ing with Avery, so they already have plans to meet up at the New Girls’ tea next week and stand shoul­der to shoul­der, come what may. Isn’t it love­ly to have a famil­iar face or two to look for­ward to? Din­ner was love­ly: baked chick­en stuffed with sun­dried toma­toes on a cous­cous bed (that’s what inspired me) and yogurt. And the com­pa­ny: we laughed all evening long. Avery sim­ply dived in with the oth­er girls (and one boy) and our host report­ed that he heard a lot of laugh­ter there, too, and that they were dis­cussing Shake­speare, which were their favorite plays. I think that’s what hap­pens with you get a bunch of eggheady girls togeth­er: they will all have their own inter­ests to bring to the table, but they share a gen­er­al love of read­ing. After din­ner Sara gave us a tour of their house, the mir­ror image of ours, and then we all trooped next door and looked at OUR house. What a total plea­sure to be brought into the cir­cle, and to feel wel­comed. We are so hap­py here.

Well, lis­ten, some mind-bend­ing nois­es are com­ing from the kitchen where Avery, Anna and Coco are mak­ing a snack for us. Did we want a snack? Is the clean­ing lady hav­ing a thou­sand fits because not only was the art hang­er here, but three chil­dren are wreak­ing hav­oc in her until-then pris­tine kitchen? It’s bet­ter than com­put­er games… and a small price to pay for an after­noon of fun.

Last­ly, before I go I want to give you the recipe my read­er Jack told me about, and has kind­ly pro­vid­ed. I haven’t made it yet, and I think I’ll sub­sti­tute smoked trout for the had­dock, but it sounds love­ly. Give it a go.

Rick Stein’s Mild Pota­to Cur­ry topped with Smoked Had­dock and a Poached Egg
Serves 4

4 ounces undyed smoked haddock
2 tea­spoons white wine vinegar
4 eggs
Coriander

350g (12oz) waxy pota­toes, peeled and cut into small cubes
2 tbsps veg­etable oil (sunflower/rapeseed)
1/2 tsp (more?) yel­low mus­tard seeds
1/2 tsp (more?) turmer­ic powder
100gms (4oz) onions fine­ly chopped
2 toma­toes, peeled, deseed­ed, and diced
1 tbsp chopped coriander.
Mal­don salt and fresh­ly ground black pepper

Cook the pota­toes in salt­ed water for 6–7 min­utes until just ten­der, drain. Mean­while, heat the oil in the pan, add the yel­low mus­tard seeds and cov­er the pan with a screen, while you stand back from the pop­ping oil! When they pop, add the turmer­ic and onions and fry them until soft and light­ly browned. Add the pota­toes, Mal­don salt, black pep­per, and fry a cou­ple of minutes
.
Add toma­toes, stir in corian­der, set aside and keep warm.

Bring about 5cm (2 inch­es) of water to the boil in a shal­low pan. Add the pieces of had­dock, bring back to sim­mer and poach 4 mins. Lift out with a slot­ted spoon, cov­er and keep warm. At the same time bring anoth­er pan with 2 inch­es of water to a gen­tle sim­mer. Add the vine­gar, break in the eggs (as will fit), and poach for three min­utes. Lift out and drain on kitchen paper.

Serve pota­to cur­ry on warm plates, remove the skin from the fish, place on top of the pota­toes. Put the poached egg on top of the fish, and gar­nish with coriander.

Does­n’t that sound tempt­ing? I wish I had some right now.

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