of kit­tens, the old-fash­ioned life, and the ulti­mate scallops

Let’s see, how do we recov­er from say­ing good­bye to Rose­mary (sad­ly afflict­ed with the Medieval Curse of Red Gate Farm: tru­ly vir­u­lent poi­son ivy, poor lady)? Well, the eas­i­est way is for clever Avery to research local ani­mal shel­ters who would, believe it or not, like to find fos­ter fam­i­lies for home­less kit­tens? Yes, it’s true: you should look in your com­mu­ni­ty for such an oppor­tu­ni­ty: you agree to take home­less kit­tens home with you for just a short time, to help social­ize them, make them cozy and affec­tion­ate and depen­dent on human inter­ac­tion, so that they’re more appeal­ing for the ulti­mate adop­tive fam­i­lies who will find them at the shel­ter when you take them back (WHEN, not IF, John points out severe­ly, when he’s not wor­ship­ping Nemo, the lit­tle fel­low in this pho­to with Avery).

So Avery tracked down the Dan­bury Ani­mal Wefare Soci­ety in not Dan­bury but near­by Bethel, Con­necti­cut, where every week­day from 6–8, week­ends 2–4 you can go apply to fos­ter a kit­ten, or if you’re us, three kit­tens. And about an hour lat­er, we found our­selves host­ing Amelia, Lit­tle Dor­rit and Nemo, the last named, Avery explains, from “Twen­ty Thou­sand Leagues Under the Sea,” not the sil­ly ani­mat­ed film “Find­ing Nemo,” since the lat­ter is a fish and the for­mer is a tuxe­doed sea cap­tain. As you can see, Nemo is nice­ly tuxe­doed. And friend­ly, and they are mad­ly run­ning through the house, leap­ing on com­put­er cords (“No, Nemo!”), spilling peo­ple’s water glass­es (“No, Amelia!”) and reach­ing for the shrimp on the din­ing table (“No, Lit­tle Dorrit!”).

Fur­ry, friend­ly, purring mad­ly most of the time, scat­ter­ing cat lit­ter all over the guest bath­room where we’d tried to sequester them while they got used to their new envi­ron­ment. That took about twen­ty min­utes. The cra­zi­est moment? When Amelia, in her new­ly arrived anx­i­ety, decid­ed that the best defense was TO TAKE APART the dry­er vent in the laun­dry room and… wig­gle her­self all the way through it, through sev­er­al unreach­able U‑bends, to the near end where the vent ends on the out­side wall of the house. Can I just tell you how great was our fear? The only solu­tion was to unscrew the vent from the out­side wall, place the kit­ty car­ri­er up against it, and then… turn on the dry­er. Cov­ered with lint, she emerged in very short order, unscathed! Deep breath, we all relaxed again.

So we spend a lot of time track­ing them down under beds, chests of draw­ers, desks, to draw them out and play with them, and then Shel­ley arrived this morn­ing en route to a lunch date, bring­ing springy cat toys for us to fling at them which they can then plant into their water dish­es. Shel­ley also brought, for Avery, the most sub­lime and tempt­ing pile of “Fam­i­ly Cir­cle” mag­a­zines from 1952, which has put Avery into a tizzy of long­ing for the fash­ions of a half-cen­tu­ry ago, as well as the food­stuffs: baby for­mu­la for John­ny which trans­lates into baby food for John­ny and final­ly a fine pho­to of strap­ping 12-year-old John­ny, in a bowtie and glass­es to match his father’s! “Did peo­ple real­ly DRESS their chil­dren this way?” she crowed. Then there are the ads for canned spaghet­ti which look like tape­worms, and the baby bot­tles where we’re assured “the nip­ple makes the nice­ness!” Dear Shel­ley, to know Avery well enough to bring these adorable magazines.

Which reminds me, I’m get­ting very excit­ed about my upcom­ing pub­li­ca­tion of my first food writ­ing piece, in a mag­a­zine called “Vin­tage,” to come out in Sep­tem­ber. What brav­ery does it require for this love­ly edi­tor, Ivy Sher­man, to start up a print mag­a­zine in the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate? Nev­er mind, I’m thrilled to have my piece appear, all about my grand­moth­er’s recipe file, adapt­ed from a blog post I pub­lished sev­er­al months ago. I’m try­ing to gear up for work­ing on a piece I want to sub­mit to a writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion in Lon­don next month, although I must say with the dis­trac­tions of life at Red Gate Farm it’s dif­fi­cult. Life in Lon­don does­n’t even seem real these days, when I’m whol­ly absorbed in enjoy­ing our friends and fam­i­ly, house­keep­ing and cook­ing. Which means ridicu­lous things like savor­ing a din­ner by clean­ing out the fridge of all the lus­cious left­overs from days past: home­made piz­za with chick­en and gin­ger sausage, Olimpia’s incom­pa­ra­ble meat­balls on the crunchy crusts!

And today I adored my vis­it to the local South­bury Farmer’s Mar­ket which is like an episode from Martha Stew­art Liv­ing, espe­cial­ly the Suz­i’s Seafood stall, every­one dressed in impec­ca­ble whites and pro­vid­ing me with the incom­pa­ra­ble raw mate­ri­als for QUITE the best way you will EVER eat scal­lops, I promise you.

Skew­ered Grilled Scal­lops with Bacon and Basil
(serves 6 as a main course)

24 large scallops
12 strips bacon, cut in half to make 24
24 large basil leaves
fresh ground black pepper
6 skew­ers (the kind made from rose­mary stems, if you’re lucky to have them as a Christ­mas gift from your moth­er-in-law, Rosemary)

This could­n’t be sim­pler. Wrap each scal­lop first in a basil leaf, then in a strip of bacon, and string them on the skew­ers, four per skew­er. Grill on one side at the high­est heat (450-ish) for four min­utes, then for the sec­ond four min­utes, turn fre­quent­ly so the bacon cooks well, then blast it for 30 sec­onds with the grill lid shut at the very end.

PER­FEC­TION! The bacon is crisp and salty, the scal­lops ten­der, soft and creamy, the basil a refresh­ing zip of green beauty.

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We’ve devel­oped a very good exer­cise rou­tine the last few days: an hour of ten­nis in the morn­ing while Avery swims, then we, red-faced and com­plete­ly sweaty and exhaust­ed, take a quick dip and a few swift laps, then home for lunch. Tomor­row, I swear… the gut­ters. Real­ly. Then late after­noon, Avery goes rid­ing in the dusty sun­shine, we watch in a com­bi­na­tion of pride and extreme bore­dom (the only inter­est­ing bits are the jump­ing bits, and when Avery and the instruc­tor lock horns over the dif­fer­ence between Eng­lish and Amer­i­can ter­mi­nol­o­gy and tech­niques!), and anoth­er ten­nis game and dip in the pool!

And the piano! I’ve been slav­ing through “Clair de Lune,” and my rather pathet­ic but enter­tain­ing book, “It’s Easy to Play Chopin!”, plus the theme song to “Band of Broth­ers,” and the Japan­ese tune “A Riv­er Flows Through You,” plus the music from the 2006 movie “Pride and Prej­u­dice.” Such fun, no mat­ter how lame I am.

Last­ly, I offer you the fol­low­ing slaw with a dress­ing whose star ingre­di­ent was a gift from my friend Renee, which I looked upon with some skep­ti­cism, but can I tell you, how deli­cious maple vine­gar is? Get some, do, and make this slaw to go with the Ulti­mate Scal­lops, and thank me later.

Savoy and Red Cab­bage Slaw with Jicama
(serves at least 6)

1 large head Savoy cab­bage (per­haps 4 cups?), shredded
1/2 head red cab­bage (per­haps 4 cups?), shredded
1 cup shred­ded carrots
1 cup match­sticked jicama

dress­ing:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup maple vinegar
juice 1 lemon
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp cel­ery salt
loads fresh ground pepper

Sim­ply toss the veg­eta­bles, then dress with the dress­ing you’ve shak­en up in a jar with a tight lid. Leave for at least an hour to let slaw mel­low, but overnight is even nicer. Crunchy, spicy, with a mel­low­ness and depth from the maple vine­gar that is the per­fect foil for the refresh­ing lemon. Per­fect for any­thing rich and love­ly as a main course, or as lunch after a ten­nis game.

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Right, I must get rid of these love­ly kit­tens before they sev­er the con­nec­tion between my cam­era and my com­put­er, or destroy all the love­ly 1950s fash­ion draw­ings Avery’s pro­duced since her inspi­ra­tional after­noon with her mag­a­zines (thanks, Shel­ley!)… after all, tomor­row will bring more sweat, kit­tens and… maybe those gut­ters, finally.