of cab­bages and kings

Alice’s Wal­rus had it right: the time HAS come to talk of many things.  I’m not sure what falls under the cat­e­go­ry of cab­bages OR kings.  You can decide for yourself.

It’s approach­ing late Sep­tem­ber, so a young lady’s thoughts nat­u­ral­ly turn toward mov­ing house.  Yes, AGAIN.  One more move between now and our even­tu­al dream home I HOPE. Don’t you?  Has­n’t it been tedious, watch­ing us move all our lives from one place to anoth­er every two years or so?  Does the sea glass go with us?  The six lit­tle sil­ver shot glass­es we brought back from Moscow?

 Yes to the above, they made the cut.  But in sad and sym­bol­ic ges­ture, my tall piles of mis­matched din­ner plates, to host the Ladies of Lost Prop­er­ty, will find a home in the local char­i­ty shop.  There isn’t any more Lost Property.

The pantry came under the knife.  Why oh why do I have six dif­fer­ent kinds of rice?

I’ve culled the spices.  There are still about a thou­sand jars.

 And the books.  Again.

We feel reas­sured that every sin­gle thing we look at will find a place in our new, inter­im home.

House-hunt­ing!  How time-con­sum­ing it is to be sure!  Rose­mary came to help us choose.  The flat in Shad Thames on the riv­er with THIS view?  Lead me to it!

But John could touch the ceil­ing of that flat (per­fect word) with his hand and start­ed hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing with claus­tro­pho­bia, so onward to this gar­den, in a Geor­gian house in a bit of a remote area.  Yes please!
But the neigh­bor­hood was so depress­ing.  I want to be there when it livens up.  Right now there were at least two bet­ting shops, a few nail salons, anoth­er bet­ting shop, and an enchant­i­ng Potuguese deli.  Not enough.

Or how about a cheap­ly-done, for­get­table flat in the most stim­u­lat­ing and excit­ing neigh­bor­hood of Shored­itch?  How could we leave this build­ing-sized graf­fi­ti behind?

Or a cramped and bor­ing flat with this view?  That’s the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and the Lon­don Eye, if you can make them out in the distance!

What we could not seem to alight on was a place that had every­thing: enough space, a nice neigh­bor­hood, a pret­ty view.  And would put up with our three cats.  On Novem­ber 1.

After much repeat view­ing, and sub­ject­ing din­ner and house­guests to end­less pros and cons dis­cus­sions (even drag­ging Avery along now and then, so she had a say in a room which she’ll come “home” to at Christ­mas), we set­tled on a place called Neo Bank­side, right along­side the Tate Mod­ern (nev­er mind that it’s a giant con­struc­tion site right now while they work on a mas­sive addi­tion; I like urban clut­ter), just a hop from the Globe The­atre, and if we lived in one of the apart­ments fac­ing north, we’d have THIS view!  Yes, it’s St Paul’s Cathedral.

We do not, how­ev­er, have an apart­ment fac­ing north.  We have an apart­ment fac­ing south, which is basi­cal­ly city streets and urban clut­ter.  And only two bed­rooms.  What the new place has in its favor is a fan­tas­tic array of places for cof­fee — the Albion gets my vote — a great “Win­ter Gar­den” where can have our desk in glassy splen­dor, and a fab­u­lous door­man called Tyrone.  You can bet I’ll get a pic­ture of Tyrone the moment I arrive.  “I will con­sid­er it my work to make you as hap­py here as I pos­si­bly can,” he assured me solemn­ly, hold­ing open the ele­va­tor door.  I could get used to that.

So we’re set.  We felt pret­ty good about it, col­lapsed at the Albion over a plate of their superb dessert, a creme brulee with apple com­pote and apple sor­bet.  I will learn to make it.

Per­haps it’s good in a way, as we approach say­ing good­bye to Avery next month, to be mov­ing on our­selves?  I am con­fi­dent it will be bet­ter to miss her in a place she’s nev­er been, than in a home that in the past two years has been so good to us.  There are so many mem­o­ries of her tak­ing pho­tographs for the cook­book in this house; the next kitchen will be neu­tral.  For a bit.

What a fun­ny late sum­mer it has been.

This year, I went off to Amer­i­ca on my own, Avery went off on her incred­i­ble sum­mer adven­ture of trav­els through France, Italy and Greece, and John stayed in Lon­don to push his house-build­ing project ever clos­er to a spade in the ground.

Then, I came home and began a month of very demand­ing jobs as a “paid work­er” for my beloved char­i­ty Home-Start — replac­ing the var­i­ous vol­un­teers who go away (as I used to!) for the month of August.  I worked with four fam­i­lies for a month, three hours at a time, get­ting myself hope­less­ly involved and inter­est­ed in their tri­als and tribu­la­tions, and hope­less­ly attached to their beau­ti­ful chil­dren.  And then I said good­bye.  Forever.

It did­n’t suit me.  I know, it’s not about me, it’s about the chil­dren.  But I think I do bet­ter work when I have the wide-open spaces of a year to be with a fam­i­ly, not a month.  How­ev­er, they report­ed that it was use­ful hav­ing me there, so there I was.

At least dur­ing this com­pli­cat­ed month, we had the fun of our house­guest and friend Elise, between uni­ver­si­ty and her first big job.

For he, we gave a Burg­er Bash — home-minced to be sure.  To feed a med­ley of our favorite friends, the burg­ers were to be piled high, even­tu­al­ly, with rock­et, fresh toma­toes, red onions, fresh pesto, blue cheese and FOIE GRAS.  Heaven.

Who could not come pre­pared to have fun, know­ing there would be creamy red pep­per soup and French fries?  Not to men­tion Lucy’s fab­u­lous “apple crum­ble cake” and Eliz­a­beth’s per­fect berries and cream, and Suzan­ne’s peach tri­fle (page 242 in the cook­book!).  How lucky I am in my friends.  It was my last chance to feed Mad­die before she left for uni­ver­si­ty. Sob.

Elise bus­ied her­self enjoy­ing one last bit of care­free hol­i­day, liv­ing the glam­orous Lon­don life, while we two looked at hous­es, went to Paris, and missed Avery.  To con­sole myself, I cooked a com­plete­ly ridicu­lous amount, lots of favorites from the cook­book: spaghet­ti put­tanesca, three-bean chilli, chick­en ten­ders with spicy mayo, tuna tartare, roast­ed salmon with Fox Point, then salmon mousse with the left­overs.  John was happy.

I invent­ed a few things, like:

Many-Veg­etable Couscous

(serves at least 6)

1 but­ter­nut squash

1 head cauliflower

1 1/2 cups whole­meal couscous

boil­ing chick­en stock to cov­er, plus an inch extra on top

sprin­kling Fox Point Sea­son­ing or poul­try seasoning

3 tbsps olive oil

2 tbsps butter

1 red pep­per, diced

hand­ful mush­rooms, diced

a bunch aspara­gus, diced

hand­ful broc­coli florets

4 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine

Cut the but­ter­nut squash in half and scoop out seeds.  Driz­zle olive oil over it.  Place it, with the head of cau­li­flower, on a bak­ing tray lined with foil, and roast at 220C/425F for about 45 min­utes, or until each is soft. Cool.

Pour the cous­cous into a very large bowl and cov­er with the chick­en stock, then cov­er the bowl for five min­utes.  Uncov­er and fluff the cous­cous till the grains are light and separated.

Cut the but­ter­nut squash into bite-sized pieces, and pull the cau­li­flower apart into flo­rets of the size you wish.  Pour onto the couscous.

Place the oil and but­ter into a fry­ing pan and cook all the remain­ing ingre­di­ents in it until soft­ened.  Pour over the cous­cous and mix well.

Oh, this was good.  So was the:

Grilled Whole Herbed Sea Bass

(one fish per person)

1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves and stems if not too woody

1 bunch fresh pars­ley, chopped coarsely

1 stalk lemon grass, chopped fine

2 lemons, sliced and deseeded

gen­er­ous sprin­klings sea salt and fresh black pepper

2 tbsps olive oil

Have the fish­mon­ger gut and scale the fish, but leave the heads and tails.  Then stuff them with the herbs and lemon grass, and lay the lemon slices along the herbs.  Sea­son well and close the fish as best you can.

Bar­be­cue or grill on medi­um heat for 6 min­utes per side or until flesh is cooked through.  Yummo!

My new year-long Home-Start mum taught me to make sub­lime “daal,” that creamy con­coc­tion of slow-cooked lentils in an incred­i­ble broth of spices and yogurt.  When I make it at home, I will let you know how it all works.

And final­ly, Avery came home.  It was sim­ply love­ly to see her after so many weeks!

How hard it was for her to re-enter the cru­el real world, after so many days of gra­cious Greek liv­ing, not to men­tion her adven­tures in Paris, Rome, Flo­rence, Bologna and Venice.  She was HOME.  Know­ing she’ll be going away again so soon makes me par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­ate the light com­ing from her room at the top of her stairs.  A treat.

And Rose­mary arrived.  Such a won­der­ful feel­ing to know every­one was safe and sound under my roof.

To cel­e­brate, we pulled out all the stops for a din­ner par­ty, tak­ing time to pol­ish the nap­kin rings before­hand, a lux­u­ry I nor­mal­ly don’t both­er with!  But it was a spe­cial occasion.

We made a Greek-ish dish, to wel­come Avery home, inspired by the great British chef Rick Stein’s recent jour­neys from Venice to Istanbul.

Slow-Roast­ed Greek Lamb and Potatoes

(serves 8 easily)

3 lamb neck fil­lets (or the equiv­a­lent amount of bone­less shoul­der), cut in serv­ing pieces

8 large potatoes

1 bunch fresh oregano, leaves only

1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves and stems if not too woody

1 bunch rose­mary, leaves only

12 fresh (if pos­si­ble!) bay leaves

10 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 cup white wine

2/3 cup olive oil

lots of sea salt and fresh black pepper

This dish could­n’t be sim­pler.  Sim­ply lay the lamb pieces in a sin­gle lay­er in a bak­ing dish, then tuck the pota­toes in with them.  Scat­ter over the oregano, rose­mary and thyme, and tuck in the bay leaves.  Scat­ter over the gar­lic and lemon, and pour over the wine and oil.  Sea­son well.

Bake at 260C/320F for three hours.  That’s it.

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

This dish is fan­tas­tic because it uses a lit­tle-known cut of lamb which is inex­pen­sive.  Also, the pota­toes (should you be wicked enough to eat such things) cook right long with the meat — no fuss­ing with an extra prep.  With a big bowl of green things (we had beans, aspara­gus and broc­col­i­ni), you’re DONE.

What a fab­u­lous evening, so much fun we for­got to take a pic­ture!  Among our guests were my beloved Sue and her hus­band Paul, who’s a very loy­al alum­nus of Avery’s soon-to-be col­lege, so that was fun, to get his per­spec­tive on her upcom­ing life.  Though truth be told, we talked even more about real estate, kids, recipes and Avery’s adven­tures with Laun­dry In Europe!  “We shoved euros into a wash­ing machine and then realised it took TOKENS!”

The fol­low­ing morn­ing found Rose­mary and me in a cheer­ful Lon­don driz­zle at, wait for it, St James’s Palace!

Of course you already know what takes me to that gor­geous place every Sep­tem­ber: the fold­ing of clothes and then dis­tri­b­u­tion of clothes with the Queen Moth­er’s Cloth­ing Guild, which fan­tas­tic char­i­ty my friend Fiona has includ­ed me in every year for years.  I adore it, and Fiona was glad to wel­come Rose­mary.  As indeed EVERY­ONE did.  She was like a mas­cot!  All those won­der­ful Eng­lish ladies took her under their wings to include her, explain things, show her around.  Susan even took time to lead her down a weapon­ry-lined roy­al cor­ri­dor in time to see the Chang­ing of the Guard from with­in the Palace walls!  Strict­ly NO pho­tog­ra­phy allowed, I’m sor­ry to say.  Trust me, it was glam­our personified.

And the Prince of Wales’s Red Read­ing Room!  And the tall-ceilinged rooms liked with Gains­bor­oughs in which we labored.  Glamor!

We came away in the after­noon ready for a change and a bit of fresh air, so it was onto Fort­num and Mason for us, to buy bis­cuits and spices for Christ­mas gifts, and of course a mush­room for din­ner. Why not?  They sell them!  And then Hatchards, where I found this trea­sure.  It brought tears to my eyes.

Of course I knew, when I named our cook­book “Tonight at 7.30,” that it was a poem by W.H. Auden, in hon­or of the great food writer MFK Fish­er.  And I’d read the poem online (remem­ber­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly that he felt the per­fect din­ner par­ty includ­ed chil­dren being in bed and out of the way!).  But some­how I had­n’t reck­oned with how emo­tion­al I would feel, see­ing the poem in print.  Rose­mary bought the book for me!

We were back at the Palace the next day to meet Princess Alexan­dra, our patron!  How the ladies laughed to try to push Rose­mary (“stop, I’m real­ly quite shy!” she insist­ed, to no avail) to the front of the receiv­ing line.  How we laughed fur­ther when she maneu­vered her­self to the back of the line, only to find that the Princess had reversed her direc­tion and she was now FIRST!  We took pity and shoved her between us, but she still got to curt­sy and shake the Princess’s hand.  That was fun.  Because Roy­al Things Are Fun.

“What is this, an out­post of Lost Prop­er­ty?” my irre­press­ible friend Prathi­ma asked, hands on hips.  And sure enough, we realised as we looked around that a good half of the vol­un­teers on the “6–15” stall were my Lost Prop­er­ty team!  Now Fion­a’s, of course, bless her.  It’s very much the same sort of per­son, an LP per­son and a QMCG per­son.  Order out of chaos, and a strong sense of teamwork.

We said good­bye for anoth­er year, and rushed to first Maryle­bone to see a house, a dar­ling mews affair that did­n’t make the cut. Sadly.

 Of course our Lon­don adven­ture began in Maryle­bone, with Avery’s school there!  It would have been fun to re-vis­it, or “regress” as Avery termed it.  There was even a small girl from her school scooter­ing by, com­plete with the heart-rend­ing uniform!

But it was not to be.  They were just too small, felt too tem­po­rary.  And John kind­ly point­ed out that there would be no place for my walls of books, which seem to have dom­i­nat­ed our lives all out of pro­por­tion.  But there you are.  “If you were just here for six months,” Rose­mary said right­ly, “you could just accept it.  But two, three years?”

From there we rode in state­ly exhaus­tion in a black cab to Neo Bank­side and pret­ty much decid­ed.  Sighs of relief.

Because then we could turn our atten­tion to real­ly nec­es­sary things like bak­ing bagels!  I used my very own recipe, but because I did­n’t pay atten­tion to details, I messed up the first batch.  Avery and Zoe gazed at them cau­tious­ly.  “They’re very… flat, aren’t they?”  “Well, maybe they’re FLAT­BREADS,” I coun­tered.  We ate our way through them brave­ly, Rose­mary point­ing out sweet­ly, “Bagels are real­ly just vehi­cles for cream cheese and smoked salmon any­way,” but we had to admit they were very, very heavy vehicles.

I had to try again.  And read­ers, they were per­fect.  Don’t stir the yeast until you are damn well told to!  And don’t let the dough get too hot.

Since our bor­rowed KitchenAid mix­er was being picked up by its moth­er, my friend Nora, the fol­low­ing morn­ing, we went whole hog and made Avery’s favorite beignets too, rich with pow­dered sug­ar.  To clear our heads we took a love­ly walk through Sep­tem­ber Barnes, spend­ing mon­ey at the book­shop, hav­ing cof­fee at the lit­tle Ital­ian place.  Isla, the book­shop own­er, smiled at me.  “Why would you leave Barnes?”  Why indeed.

Lunch at Peter­sham Nurs­eries!  Is there any­thing more deli­cious?  Deep-fried nuggets of polen­ta with pick­led pump­kin, red mul­let with pesto, bruschet­ta with wild mush­rooms, grouse, poussin and John Dory!  But we all agreed Avery’s hand­made spaghet­ti with girolles mush­rooms was the best.  As the rain pat­tered on the green­house ceil­ing, we had FUN.

Sat­ur­day dawned with the sen­sa­tion that we were at the bot­tom of a very steep hill: why had I planned so many things for the same day?  Because that’s when they hap­pened, and that’s all there is to it.

First up in the morn­ing was a long-await­ed tour of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry!  I have nev­er been, which seems sil­ly giv­en how obsessed I am with bells.  Rose­mary and I went off in uncer­tain­ty as to my abil­i­ty to get us some­where com­plete­ly new, with no help, but I was fine!  And it was love­ly.  We learned so much, from our tour guide, a mem­ber of the orig­i­nal found­ing fam­i­ly, an employ­ee for 49 years.

The old song rang in my head…

See­ing so many bells in one place, all where we could study them and admire them with­out hav­ing actu­al­ly to RING them, was a total treat!

I could even drum up some enthu­si­asm for the con­cept of a hand­bell, so beau­ti­ful­ly made.

 

We raced home in order to make the next big spe­cial event: the Barnes Food Fair!  Always deli­cious.  We met up with Eliz­a­beth and enjoyed the day: spicy mut­ton sand­wich­es, goose sala­mi, Pimms!  And it was a cool, beau­ti­ful afternoon.

And my book at the book­shop table.  Isla is a sweetheart.

We bare­ly took time to lie down for five min­utes before it was time to pop onto South­west Trains (where I spent the bulk of my sum­mer, going on Home-Start vis­its), to Twick­en­ham to see… the rugby!

If this sur­pris­es you, all I can say is that the three tick­ets were giv­en to me by Rich­mond Coun­cil!  In a com­plete­ly unnec­es­sary but love­ly ges­ture of appre­ci­a­tion for my work with Home-Start.  A major award!  A Com­mu­ni­ty Commendation.

So we went!  We and 76,000 oth­er sports fans, if you can imag­ine!  It was utter­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble, but we had an amaz­ing time anyway.

I stag­gered up in the morn­ing to ring my bells.  And because they are prac­ti­cal­ly per­fect in every way, Sue and Rose­mary came along to sup­port me.  I was giv­en the job of call­ing changes, by Trisha, who always likes to show peo­ple off to their fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends.  There was a lot of jollity!

How I adore Trisha.

We went along to a glo­ri­ous brunch at the Olympic, in the sum­mer sun, under the per­fect blue sky.  Smoked salmon and scram­bled eggs, love­ly con­ver­sa­tion.  I wish I could bot­tle the sense of per­fec­tion of that morning.

Rose­mary’s vis­it had come to an end.  We had packed in every sin­gle cel­e­bra­tion we could, eat­en every won­der­ful meal, had every lux­u­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion.  And we had found a home!

Life has been a lit­tle bit of all right late­ly, with more adven­tures to come: Avery’s depar­ture to Oxford, our big house move.  Take a deep breath, and read a lit­tle Alice.