last day of the holiday

And the win­ner of the most expen­sive store in Lon­don in which to spend sev­en min­utes: Rid­ers and Squires! It is a love­ly shop, I can’t com­plain, but it’s always a lit­tle stun­ning to walk in, choose four things and then just gulp. But Avery could bare­ly stuff her­self into her jodh­purs one more day, and shred­ded the fin­gers off one glove yes­ter­day, so it was a nec­es­sary trip. The only tack shop in this horsey town, can you imag­ine? The most ele­gant horsey young girl sold us our essen­tial items, dressed in what seems to be the uni­form for the smart Lon­don 20-some­thing lady: dark tights, bal­let flats, a long shape­less t‑shirt cov­ered with an even longer and more shape­less belt­ed cardi­gan, its sash trail­ing on the ground. Long untidy hair and a sort of lan­guid, well-bred atti­tude that is the per­fect demeanor for a girl sur­round­ed by rid­ing crops, polo mal­lets, vel­vet hats and the like. Doubt­less she is called Jem­ma, Ser­e­na, Annabel, Vic­to­ria or some oth­er blame­less name for an Eng­lish rose. “Mmm, yes, one does lose one’s gloves, does­n’t one? No point in buy­ing real­ly expen­sive gloves…”

This after a pleas­ant enough after­noon at the Queensway skat­ing rink, where despite the Mon­day half-price arrange­ments, it was dead qui­et. Per­fect for Avery to prac­tice her spins and what­ev­er else with­out tak­ing her life in her hands. We obses­sive­ly washed our hands all day as I am absolute­ly adamant that she not get this stom­ach virus that scarce­ly an hour goes but what I hear about anoth­er suf­fer­er. It sim­ply can­not hap­pen. Until Fri­day after­noon at 2 p.m, after Avery’s inau­gur­al exam, that is. And prefer­ably not at all. We repaired to the Man­darin Kitchen for a lux­u­ri­ous treat of lunch (a nice byprod­uct of the saint­ly ges­ture of watch­ing her skate round and round for two hours), and chat­ted. So nice to have her all to myself! Sor­ry, John, but it’s the one sil­ver lin­ing to your absence. I am quite self­ish on that point.

I’m afraid it’s left us with but lit­tle appetite for what­ev­er I might come up with for din­ner. Last night’s offer­ing yield­ed some left­overs, how­ev­er, and the recipe is so good and so sim­ple that it rates a sec­ond appear­ance here (I swear in 2008 I will invent a recipe index for you).

Roast Fil­let of Beef With Herbs and Spices
(serves 4 hun­gry peo­ple easily)

1 kilo beef fil­let, rolled and tied
1 tbsp each: Alep­po pep­per (it’s very mild but flavour­ful)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pep­per
1 tbsp sea salt (Mal­don is and always will be the best)
lots of fresh­ly ground black pep­per
2 tbsps veg­etable oil (not olive, it smokes too easily)

Rinse your fil­let to make sure it can pick up the herb mix­ture, which you’ve mixed togeth­er and placed on a cook­ie sheet. Roll the fil­let all over, help­ing the bits adhere if they don’t go on their own, mak­ing sure the coat­ing is even. Heat the oil in a large skil­let until near­ly smok­ing and sear the fil­let all over, hold­ing it with tongs (don’t pierce it with a fork!) and turn­ing it over till the whole thing is nice­ly browned. Then place in a bak­ing dish and roast at around 350–375 degrees for about 35 min­utes for rare, 45 for medi­um. Don’t even think about cook­ing it any longer than that.

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The great thing about the left­overs is that I could eas­i­ly toss them with some noo­dles and sprouts, or wrap them in pan­cakes, or make a sand­wich with some sharp ched­dar cheese and a red onion. And the place to go to get the fil­let itself: hands-down it’s Green Val­ley in Upper Berke­ley Street just off Edg­ware Road, one of my absolute favorite places to shop for cer­tain kinds of ingre­di­ents: any­thing Lebanese (the cucum­bers are per­fect: skin­ny and near­ly seed­less), fab­u­lous olives, fresh (often still-warm) pita bread, and any­thing in the red-meat line. As usu­al, I found plen­ty of time-absorb­ing things to peruse in the var­i­ous depart­ments: has any­one ever eat­en tinned “foul”? A sort of bean paste, it turns out, per­haps sim­i­lar to hum­mous? Must give it a try some­day. And I did suc­cumb to a large wedge of some­thing referred to only as “French white cheese,” which I imag­ine will turn out to be sheeps milk cheese? It’s repos­ing in my fridge await­ing… an appetite.

Well, the sec­ond half of “The Philadel­phia Sto­ry” beck­ons, for my old-fash­ioned child. All our favorite lines: “Isn’t it time for your milk and arsenic, dar­ling?” and “Don’t say ‘stinks,’ dar­ling. If absolute­ly nec­es­sary ‘smells,’ but only if it’s absolute­ly nec­es­sary.” Avery said, “I like it, def­i­nite­ly, but I miss the sort of point­less burst­ing into song of ‘High Soci­ety”. Leav­ing her at school tomor­row will be a nasty blow.