of good neigh­bors and great dinners

Oh, Sat­ur­day was a day. Or rather, Sat­ur­day night was a night. There I was, inno­cent­ly con­coct­ing focac­cia in my cozy after­noon kitchen, Avery and Emi­ly bick­er­ing in their sib­ling-ish way in the study, when the door­bell rang. It was my friend Char­lotte, hav­ing sloped over from her house down the road and across the street, bear­ing a recipe I had asked for and look­ing for a cup of tea. “Have I inter­rupt­ed some­thing?” she asked, and I thrust the focac­cia recipe in her hand and said, “I’m at ‘place in a warm spot cov­ered with a tea tow­el until it dou­bles in bulk…’ ” and after that we sipped tea and chat­ted and peeked in the oven to see if the dough was doing any­thing. Then she super­vised my addi­tions of olive oil, pesto, cheese. The door­bell rang again.

“Sel­va!” we said togeth­er, greet­ing my gor­geous next-door neigh­bor. He inclined his head from his con­sid­er­able height, joined the tips of his fin­gers togeth­er in bar­ris­ter-fash­ion (I’d love to see him in his robes and wig, hon­est­ly), and said, “I know, I know, I should have invit­ed you first, and now I’ve learned my les­son… I have a gor­geous pork roast, mar­i­nat­ed in Marsala, in the oven and my din­ner guests have can­celled with a sick child. Can you all come to dinner?”

So I fin­ished my focac­cia in a rush, had a love­ly cock­tail with John, left Avery get­ting dressed, and head­ed next door with a plate of fresh­ly baked bread and a bowl of:

Roast­ed Arti­choke Dip
(serves lots, maybe 10, as an appe­tiz­er with, say, focaccia)

1 cup mar­i­nat­ed arti­choke hearts, drained well
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1 tbsp tahini
juice 1 lemon
1 clove gar­lic, rough­ly chopped
small hand­ful flat pars­ley leaves
2 tbsps cream
salt and fresh­ly ground pep­per to taste

Put all ingre­di­ents in food proces­sor and process until very smooth indeed. This will take longer than you expect: at the end the dip will be a bit airy and tru­ly velvety.

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Well, the evening began at 8:30 or so, din­ner past 9. The pork was stun­ning, crack­ling to end crack­ling, a gor­geous­ly rich le Puy lentil stew cooked with with red wine, and a horse­rad­ish-apple sauce. Then a sort of tri­fle of apri­cots sim­mered in car­damom water, Ital­ian bis­cuits bro­ken up, and whipped cream. Then the cheese board made the rounds around mid­night, and still Avery sat at the table with us: all adults and my child. She was a troop­er: gra­cious­ly try­ing all the food, mak­ing all the right con­tri­bu­tions to the con­ver­sa­tion, cat-whis­per­ing their black kit­ten toward the end of the evening… next time we’ll make sure her bed­room light is left on at the top of the house and she can just creep next door and sit cozi­ly in bed while we adults spin down the hours. A love­ly evening; how lucky are we to have these neigh­bors at door­bell-ring­ing dis­tance, on any giv­en week­end, to feed us and be fed? This is the neigh­bor­hood I always dreamed of hav­ing, in New York or in Lon­don. I will nev­er take it for granted!

Today, Mon­day, found me at the Chelsea Saatchi gallery with my excel­lent cul­ture friend (quite the most tal­ent­ed writer I know, I think) Gigi… but more on that tomor­row. Just for now, think of a neigh­bor you can invite to din­ner. They’ll be so glad you did.