of bells, Shake­speare, and Ladies Who Lunch

Isn’t it fun­ny how a sim­ple head cold can make you feel like every­thing is beyond your grasp?  I knew when I sneezed 31 times in a row two evenings ago that some­thing was up, and sure enough.  The sil­ver lin­ing to feel­ing unwell is hav­ing a hus­band will­ing and able to make pos­si­bly the world’s most med­i­c­i­nal soup.

Home­made Tom Yum Paste

(makes enough for soup to serve 4)

1 stalk lemon­grass, light­ly crushed, or zest of 1 lemon

1‑inch knob of gin­ger, peeled

2 cloves garlic

2 Kaf­fir lime leaves sliced thin­ly, or zest of 1 lime

1 tbsp Thai roast­ed chilli paste or chilli gar­lic sauce

Thai bird’s eye chill­ies, to taste

2 tbsps Thai fish sauce

juice of 1 lime

1 banana shal­lot, peeled and cut into chunks

pinch sug­ar

hand­ful coriander/cilantro with stems

Sim­ply place every­thing in your food proces­sor and process till as smooth as you can get it.  Dump it in a saucepan with a can of half-fat coconut milk and 2 cups/473ml water or stock (fish or chicken).

Now for the soup:

1 pound raw peeled shrimp, or chick­en breast thin­ly sliced on the bias

8 chest­nut mush­rooms, thin­ly sliced

1 bunch scallions/spring onions, thin­ly sliced both white and green part

chopped red hot chill­is to taste

hand­ful coriander/cilantro leaves, no stems

Bring the paste and milk mix­ture to a sim­mer and put in the shrimp and mush­rooms.  Sim­mer for just a cou­ple of min­utes until the shrimp are JUST cooked. Add every­thing else and serve hot, with rice ver­mi­cel­li if desired.

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This soup has every­thing: spicy, sour, sweet, with the refresh­ing zing of plen­ty of gin­ger and the creamy lux­u­ry of coconut milk.  It may make your nose run just a tiny bit more, but in a good way.  That cold can’t last for­ev­er, and a lit­tle Tom Yum is pure comfort.

To think that over the week­end I was per­fect­ly well, well enough for an entire Sat­ur­day’s bell­ring­ing adven­ture.  The ivy-filled church­yard above was just one of the beau­ti­ful places on our agen­da, as we went from tow­er to tow­er along the banks of the Thames, ring­ing as guests of very hos­pitable peo­ple who were only too hap­py to open their ring­ing cham­bers for us.

It’s a fun­ny dis­tinc­tion, but I always think of us as vis­it­ing “church­es,” where real ringers think of them, and indeed refer to them, as “tow­ers,” as if the only rel­e­vant aspect of the struc­ture is the part that hous­es the bells.  I love the whole church­ly aspect to these places, the sense of the pas­sage of time, the acknowl­edge­ment of the way his­to­ry has affect­ed the parishioners.

We hap­pened upon one par­tic­u­lar­ly stun­ning mon­u­ment in the won­der­ful­ly-named St James the Less, parish church to Dor­ney Court, a gor­geous medieval pri­vate home that’s been in the Palmer fam­i­ly unin­ter­rupt­ed­ly for the last 450 years.

If you look close­ly, you can see that some of the 15 chil­dren of this par­tic­u­lar gen­er­a­tion of Palmers are hold­ing skulls, indi­cat­ing that they died before their par­ents.  How touch­ing, that even in the days when it was quite com­mon to have chil­dren die young, this fam­i­ly felt each loss so deeply.

We rang at three church­es in the morn­ing, had lunch, then rang in three more in the after­noon, before head­ing home in the dusk, tired, but sat­is­fied with our labors.  When­ev­er I feel dis­ap­point­ed in my ring­ing achieve­ments, know­ing I have so much more to learn, I have to stop and be sat­is­fied just a lit­tle bit that I could take part in a whole day’s out­ing, par­tic­i­pat­ing in many of the rings, a wel­come mem­ber of the group.

And my reward for all this activ­i­ty was to come home to a per­fect din­ner cooked by John, who although he does not love cook­ing, is hap­py to do it when I’ve been out (or ill), and it’s a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to test one of the cook­book recipes, and prove that it works.  This pas­ta dish is one of the all-time uma­mi favorites, fea­tur­ing very strong fla­vors of caper, anchovy and oil-cured olives.  One of the nice bits of this recipe is that aside from the Parme­san, you can have every­thing in your cup­board and not have to go shopping.

Spaghet­ti Puttanesca

(serves 4)

1/2 lb spaghetti

3 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves garlic

1/2 red onion

7 oz/200g oil-cured black olives, pit­ted and cut in half

1 soup-size can peeled toma­toes, cut in sixths

3 tbsps capers, rinsed if held in salt

6 anchovies, rinsed

1 cup grat­ed Parmesan

Boil spaghet­ti. In the mean­time, mince the gar­lic and onion. Saute in olive oil in a saucepan, then when soft, add the olives, toma­toes, capers and anchovies. Saute till mixed. Throw in the drained spaghet­ti and serve with cheese.

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It was absolute­ly heav­en­ly to rest in bed that night, full of Put­tanesca sauce, with a hot water bot­tle, a cat at my feet under the cov­ers, a glass of brandy at my elbow, a sleep­ing hus­band at my side, lis­ten­ing to Avery prac­tice for her upcom­ing singing exams up in her room, watch­ing the rain swish against the bed­room win­dows with the Thames just below.

We’ve been to two absolute­ly unfor­get­table Shake­speare pro­duc­tions which are still on, if you can but get a tick­et.  I don’t know which was more impres­sive: the tour de force that was Simon Rus­sell Beale’s “King Lear,” or the equal­ly out­stand­ing David Ten­nant as “Richard II.”  Two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent actors: Beale a burly, cru­el bul­ly, and Ten­nant a lithe and sen­su­ous poet, equal­ly at the top of their games.  We enjoyed both tremen­dous­ly, feel­ing our usu­al sense of exhil­a­ra­tion at being south of the riv­er in the thick of the theatre.

I am thrilled to say that I have my new Home-Start fam­i­ly!  Of course I can­not tell you any­thing about them for con­fi­den­tial­i­ty’s sake, but suf­fice it to say that they are very small babies, small­er than I had remem­bered they start.  What fun to go back to the begin­ning of the whole mater­nal adven­ture.  I found myself slight­ly envi­ous — although I don’t think I have it in me to start over — of hav­ing a child at an age where the things they could pos­si­bly need, or even want, are so few in num­ber, and it’s entire­ly with­in the par­en­t’s pow­er to pro­vide them all.  How much more con­fus­ing, I find, to have a child who isn’t even any longer a child, whose thoughts are entire­ly her own and usu­al­ly unknow­able to a par­ent, whose needs and wants are so much more complex.

How can we pos­si­bly be talk­ing about uni­ver­si­ty choic­es?  But we are.

Final­ly it was time for that most enjoy­able of Jan­u­ary activ­i­ties: the first Lost Prop­er­ty lun­cheon of the new year!  It’s always such fun to set out all the cham­pagne glass­es, put up the extra table and chairs, throw togeth­er a cou­ple of main cours­es for 20, and let the door­bell start ringing.

There is some­thing in the nature of a lady who would want to vol­un­teer at Lost Prop­er­ty that makes her a good friend.  It’s part­ly a lack of pre­ten­sion about get­ting dirty — those lacrosse boots can be pret­ty over­whelm­ing — and part­ly a desire to help, to make order out of mess, to reunite girls with their belong­ings (“oh, thank good­ness, I have chem­istry next and I had no idea I’d lost my file!”), to eaves­drop on their fun­ny con­ver­sa­tions, to get an hour’s glimpse once or twice a term into their dai­ly lives.

I offered them a lus­cious roast­ed side of salmon with a love­ly, sim­ple sal­sa of red pep­per and cucum­ber, and a bowl of gar­lic may­on­naise.  But the star of the show was the egg­plant casse­role.  How else can you use up about a half a bot­tle of olive oil in one go?  I’ve post­ed this recipe before, but it bears repeat­ing, as every lady want­ed to make it when she got home.

Egg­plant, Chick­pea and Toma­to Casserole

(serves about 6 as side dish)

4 medi­um egg­plants, cut in 1/4 inch slices

1/2 cup olive oil (add more as needed)

1 soup-size tin chickpeas

1 large tin plum tomatoes

2 medi­um white onions, sliced thin

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

3 balls buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la cheese

sprin­kling Parme­san or Pecori­no cheese

sea salt and fresh black pepper

hand­ful chopped flat-leaf parsley

With all egg­plants sliced and ready, heat olive oil in a large shal­low fry­ing pan.  In a series of sin­gle-lay­er batch­es, fry egg­plant slices until soft, adding olive oil as need­ed.  Set aside on paper towels.

Fry sliced onions in the left­over oil until soft, then add gar­lic.  Do not burn the garlic.

When all egg­plant and onions and gar­lic are fried, cov­er the bot­tom of a 9x13 casse­role dish with a lay­er of egg­plant, then spread the onions and gar­lic over them.  Add anoth­er lay­er of egg­plant and scat­ter over half the plum toma­toes, squeez­ing them into small­ish pieces as you take them out of the tin.  Add salt and fresh pep­per.  Add the chick­peas.  Add half the cheese, torn into bite-size pieces, then fin­ish with a lay­er of egg­plant and top with the rest of the toma­toes and scat­ter the remain­ing cheese on top.  Sea­son sauce to taste and stir in half the parsley.

Alter­nate­ly, just tip the egg­plants back in the fry­ing pan with the onions and gar­lic, then stir in the toma­toes and chick­peas and half the pars­ley, then sea­son to taste.  Sim­mer until you are ready to serve, then tear the moz­zarel­la into bite-sized pieces and scat­ter them over the casse­role with the rest of the pars­ley.  Serve hot or warm.

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This is the per­fect main course for the veg­e­tar­i­an in your life, or even the veg­an if you leave out the cheese.  Some of my friends swear by the sub­sti­tu­tion of tofu for moz­zarel­la in many dish­es, and this should cer­tain­ly be one of them.  It’s also an excel­lent side dish to any roast­ed or grilled meat.  I served a bowl of sliced Cum­ber­land sausages along­side the casse­role at the Lost Prop­er­ty lunch, for any­one who want­ed a hearti­er lunch.

Because it’s a potluck, I get the chance to eat oth­er won­der­ful dish­es like the roast­ed beet and wal­nut sal­ad brought by my love­ly friend Elspeth.

We all agree that the chance to get togeth­er with 30+ like-mind­ed, intel­li­gent and will­ing women, raise a glass of bub­bly with­in while cold rains per­sist with­out, is one of the moments to look for­ward to in this drea­ry month.

Sure­ly I can last two more days, and then the short­est month, and the one hap­pi­ly con­tain­ing my birth­day, will be here, ban­ish­ing Jan­u­ary for one more year.