or she could just stay in London…

On this hot, hot, HOT Wednes­day after­noon, we all con­verged on Avery’s one Lon­don choice of uni­ver­si­ties: The Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, known through­out the world as sim­ply “LSE.”

One of the “col­leges” of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, it’s just what it says on the tin, a true “Lon­don School.”  Set in the mid­dle of Ald­wych, a fun­ny lit­tle island in the Lon­don bor­ough of West­min­ster (can’t get much more cen­tral than that), it’s bustling with urban life, spread out among many build­ings a brisk walk from Hol­born Tube sta­tion.  The passers­by are a mot­ley assort­ment of obvi­ous local busi­ness­peo­ple, stu­dents, and the odd tourist prob­a­bly look­ing for Trafal­gar Square.

Avery, fresh from a morn­ing’s tour of the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment (“Every­thing in the House of Lords is gold leaf”), and we, not so fresh from a ses­sion men­tor­ing girls at school who want to run a stall at next year’s Christ­mas Fair, arrived at LSE sep­a­rate­ly.   She took her­self off to a taster His­to­ry lec­ture and we repaired to a daunt­ing parental dis­cus­sion of finan­cial aid.  Bril­liant­ly, here in the UK stu­dent loans’ pay­back is direct­ly tied to the post-grad­u­a­tion income of the stu­dent in ques­tion.  You make £21,000 or less?  Pay­back is halt­ed until your income goes up.  Very civilised, and so dif­fer­ent from the pun­ish­ing life of an Amer­i­can stu­dent labor­ing under the weight of six-fig­ure debt in perpetuity.

The prospec­tive stu­dents surg­ing out from the lec­tures were by far the most diverse-look­ing of any group we’d seen so far at uni­ver­si­ty vis­its, as befits a city set­ting, we sup­posed.  A pos­i­tive box to tick, for LSE.

We set out in the broil­ing sun to walk along the Embankment.

Then we crossed the Thames at Black­fri­ars Bridge to land south of the riv­er at Bank­side, the neigh­bor­hood stretch­ing from that Bridge to Lon­don Bridge, where some of the LSE stu­dent hous­ing is locat­ed.  Inter­est­ing­ly, every sin­gle first-year stu­dent is guar­an­teed Lon­don accom­mo­da­tion, even if her par­ents are liv­ing right in Cen­tral Lon­don.  Thank good­ness, because it would be a def­i­nite deal-break­er if Avery were forced to live at home.

The accom­mo­da­tion could­n’t have been more urban, less like a col­lege campus.

In the debate called “to stay in Lon­don or not to stay in Lon­don,” the citi­fied, apart­ment-block nature of the accom­mo­da­tion was def­i­nite­ly in LSE’s favor.  The puce-coloured kitchen walls, the soul-destroy­ing over­head flu­o­res­cent light­ing?  Not so much.  But the bed­room’s ceil­ings were high and the win­dows gen­er­ous.  We stood about self-con­scious­ly, the par­ents and their chil­dren, each try­ing to imag­ine the future, set not in our cosy, per­son­al homes, but in these lit­tle ran­dom box­es which it will be our kids’ job to make their own.

To put LSE in per­spec­tive with our future home-to-be, we tax­ied over to the erst­while “plot of net­tles and dirt,” to find THIS amaz­ing sight.

The next-door build­ing project has rent­ed our lit­tle plot of land from us to use as a park­ing lot, until we begin to break ground.  It was quite stun­ning to see the bit of land not so much as a wild, untamed, garbagey rec­tan­gle where fox­es sleep per­chance to dream, and more a nice flat piece of real estate on which to build a house.

Final­ly we walked weari­ly to the Tube, then to the train, then the hot walk home, our heads filled not so much with sug­arplums as with almost impos­si­ble visions of our futures stretch­ing out: a home with­out Avery, a new home we can’t even envi­sion yet, a vista of uni­ver­si­ty choic­es now sup­ple­ment­ed by a Lon­don option.  We all felt quite over­whelmed, ready to come in out of the sun, rest our tired feet and imag­i­na­tions, down a few hun­dred glass­es of cold, cold water.

And because there is not rest for the wicked, tomor­row will take us, bright and ear­ly, to Oxford.  The jew­el in the crown of the uni­ver­si­ty world, one might think (Oxford cer­tain­ly thinks), and a fit­ting end to our jour­neys across the coun­try in search of Avery’s future.  But first, a nice sum­mer­time bar­be­cued veal chop.

The Ulti­mate Bar­be­cue Sauce, For a Nice Veal Chop

(serves 4)

4 1‑inch thick rose veal chops (the humane sort, from hap­py lit­tle calves)

for the mari­nade (allow 7 hours, no cheating)

about 250g/1/2 lb each: man­go, papaya, pineap­ple, peeled, seed­ed and cut in chunks

large knob gin­ger, peeled

8 cloves gar­lic, peeled

5 small red Thai chill­is, or to taste

4 stems fresh thyme, leaves only

for bar­be­cue sauce:

extra mari­nade, plus left­over from mar­i­nat­ing bag

200g/7 oz ketchup

40g/1/1/2 dark brown sugar

2 tbsps Worces­ter­shire sauce

cayenne pep­per to taste

large pinch salt

large pinch fresh ground pepper

In a small food proces­sor, pul­ver­ize all mari­nade ingre­di­ents until smooth as pos­si­ble.  Smoth­er veal chops in mari­nade and place in zip­pered plas­tic bag. Reserve any extra mari­nade, in a small saucepan. Refrig­er­ate chops for 3 hours, then turn over, mas­sag­ing plas­tic bag to coat all meat.  Refrig­er­ate a fur­ther 3 hours or longer, then remove from refrig­er­a­tor for 1 hour before cook­ing the chops.

Pour the left­over mari­nade from the plas­tic bag into the saucepan con­tain­ing the extra mari­nade.  Add the bar­be­cue sauce ingre­di­ents.  Cook over a low heat, cov­ered, for at least 15 minutes.

Heat grill to 425F/220C and place chops on grill, coat first side with bar­be­cue sauce, and grill for 4 min­utes, then turn and coat the sec­ond side and grill for a fur­ther 4 min­utes.  Repeat the bar­be­cue pro­ce­dure once more per side, cook­ing for about 2 min­utes each side until done to your desired done­ness.  Rest for a few min­utes, then slice each chop on the bias and serve with the rest of the bar­be­cue sauce.

***********

Then we’ll get a good night’s sleep, and up again for the next adventure.