springtime energy
How is it possible that another month has sped by? Spring has sprung here in London, reminding me that I’m the only person I know who prefers winter! I love short, cosy days, warm, woolly jumpers, cold winds and hot comfort food. So I’m always a bit saddened when the days get longer and warmer, leading to that London summer that here in our neighborhood simply means the arrival of every tourist under the sun, to our sidewalks.
Ah well, the nice thing about gentler weather is the ease of taking long, long walks. And the beauty of living in this vibrant, endlessly surprising city is that walk in a new direction (avoiding said tourists!) brought us last week to a completely unexpected and charming new neighborhood called “Lower Marsh.” Bookshops, one-off bars and coffee shops, a knitting shop! But best of all is Greensmiths, a beautiful and inspiring little grocery store that somehow manages to provide absolutely everything anyone would want to buy, except fresh fish.
A fabulous butcher counter!
Don’t see what you want? Just ask! Bone-in‑, skin-on chicken thighs for last night’s dinner party? No problem, they’re in “the back.” Unrolled brisket for John’s magical homemade pastrami? No problem, it will be waiting for us on Friday when we need it. I look forward to eating my way through this gorgeous glass case.
What vegetable to have with that pork belly tonight? Just feast your eyes on Greensmith’s vegetable stand.
The offerings are endless: a jar of Greek preserved lemons, a chocolate pudding to take when we visit Avery, a special wedge of Delice de Bourgogne (one of those incredibly rich triple creme French cheeses), housemade hummous rich with lemon and garlic. I plan to spend all my money there, until further notice.
Going even farther from home was a welcome trip to visit lovely Nora and her beautiful boys, on the occasion of their Auntie Catherine’s latest Mary Poppins visit from America. Otis, the eldest of the three, was more than happy to roll up his sleeves and make savoury Chicken Tonkatsu with me.
“I like playing with the glue stuff, Kristen,” he said proudly, referring to the eggy, mustardy, garlicky mess that we squish the chicken in. “But the crunchy bits are fun too.” He and Artie both had been thrilled at the chance to reduce a Ziplock bag full of cornflakes to a nice, fine crumb. What fun!
The seasonably warm weather made for a gorgeous day for my dear friend Claire to bring the boys to Bankside for a walk along the Thames. Who needs toys, or electronic devices, or even friends, when you can stroll, head down, finding treasures of sea glass, shoe soles, zip-ties, bottle tops, flat rocks to skip. And oh no! Wet shoes!
I won’t use the word we’re all thinking of, obviously, but this cake really is. Sticky, juicy, “not dry.” Delicious, in other words. I made this cake in a Bundt pan, for old-fashioned fun, but you could use two ordinary cake tins and pile them on top of another with glaze in the middle, or with whipped cream, or you could use a 9x13 inch pan and cut the cake in squares to serve.
Citrus Olive Oil Cake
(serves about 16)
3 cups/330g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups/330g granulated sugar
1 cup/245g plain yogurt
3/4 cup/170ml extra virgin olive oil
freshly grated zest of 3 oranges or lemons
1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract or the contents of one vanilla pod
2 cups/110g confectioners/icing sugar
juice of 3 oranges or lemons
Set your oven to 350F/180C.
Butter your cake pan and dust with flour.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a standing mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the egg yolks until they are pale and light, then add the sugar and mix well. Add the yogurt and olive oil and mix until thoroughly combined. Add the orange zest and vanilla and mix until just incorporated. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in two parts, beating until just combined (this will take about 10 seconds). Scrape down the bowl and beat again for five seconds.
In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Scoop half the egg whites into the batter. Using a rubber spatula, fold them gently together. After about 30 seconds of folding, add the second half of the egg whites and again, gently fold until they are combined. Do not rush the folding process.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin/s and bake for 40–50 minutes, rotating the cake halfway through. The cake is done when it is stiff to the touch in the middle, or a small knife inserted comes out clean.
While the cake cools, mix the confectioners sugar and juice. If the glaze is too liquidy, add more sugar. If it is too thick, add more juice. The glaze should rest on top of the cake, not sink in completely. Pour the glaze over the cake. If using a Bundt pan, unmold the cake first onto a serving plate and allow the glaze to run over the sides.
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How good is this cake? A gift to the doormen downstairs (traditional by now!) resulted in a spontaneous hug and kiss from Atilla, and a request for the recipe from Andras, and simple eye-rolling delight from Tyrone and Paul. It’s just that good. I decided to make it lemony instead of orange in another incarnation, and that was wonderful, too.
Last week saw the tables turned and Avery was our hostess, on a quick and miraculously delightful visit to Oxford. The event was a “Formal Dinner,” for which Avery donned her special puffy black gown and escorted us to the Harry Potterish dining hall. First, though, was the fun of checking into the beautiful Randolph Hotel and hearing a soft knock on the door to find her in the hall, hungry, tired and ready to tuck into the chocolate cake I’d brought to celebrate our February birthdays. It was so simply wonderful to sit with her, sipping cocktails and listening to her describe her exhausting life, as the spring rain fell outside. Oh, the work she is doing!
On our way out of the hotel, which is undergoing some endless renovations, we found this sign, a bright joke in our uncertain political times.
The dinner itself was just what we expected — terribly impressive architecture, gowns, and awful food. What a bizarre, old-fashioned tradition it is to have the Master rap on the head table with a gavel or dead bird or something, and total silence reigns as everyone gets to their feet. Long prayers in Latin (“When you hear the first ‘amen,’ don’t be fooled,” Avery warned us. “There will be more.”) So long! And then after we’d all tucked into the rather peculiar jammy, wobbly pudding, there was another peremptory “rap” on the table and everyone stood again, and remained standing until the final member of the high table had left the dining hall. Oxford has its own way of doing absolutely everything, and it’s endlessly fascinating.
After dinner we popped reverentially into the chapel with its soaring ceilings, panelling, stained-glass.
Tired, tired Avery led us through the wet evening, past the ghostly nighttime Radcliffe Camera…
… through Univ’s drippy, dramatic quad…
She was happy to come back to our room with us for a brief rest under the beautiful bedcovers, and a bit of screen time with her father.
We walked her back to her lodgings rather far out of town, happy to accompany her, but generally reassured that the walk is safe on her own. A happy byproduct of the longer days — someday soon it won’t be pitch dark every time she walks home.
In the late morning we took her a big bag of treats — Parmesan cheese, Parma ham, fruit and biscuits and juice. Having stocked her fridge and pantry, washed all the dishes in the kitchen sink and insisting that she retrieve from her room one of her Christmas tea towels to supplement the common stock of towels I was itching to take home to boil, we repaired to the lovely Quod in town for a sumptuous lunch, and thence to the brand-new and totally charming Jericho Coffee Traders for a rich cappuccino. Such a delight just to get to sit next to her and look at her, to be honest. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
It was back home for us, then, filled with the memories of all we’d seen and done in that remarkable city, but mostly reliving all our conversations with Avery and looking forward so much to the end of term and her arrival home.
Social work proceeds apace, with each week taking on its own rhythm of my three different jobs. Of course Home-Start is heavenly, with a small girl and even smaller siblings to play with.
“Here is something you can help me with,” I say to the little girl. “I know there is a difference between jumping and hopping, but what is it?”
“Oh, that’s easy. Jumping is two feet, and hopping is one.”
Those afternoons are warm, cosy, filled with constant conversation about Barbies, Lego, puzzles, picture books, and a truly creepy doll called “Betty Spaghetti,” who unaccountably has rainbow-colored rubber hair, and comes TOTALLY apart. Legs, arms, head, torso. Seeing her in parts on the sitting-room floor always gives me pause, but my little client is unperturbed. “She doesn’t even need glue. You just snap her back together, like THIS.”
Thursday afternoons take on a completely different and much more chaotic quality, at my after-school group of 25 or so children between 4 and 11, boys and girls. Last week was my maiden voyage teaching a small group of them to cook! Here’s how it was described on the week’s activity sheet, a phrase that made my Facebook friends laugh.
“How do you cook 8 children, in a pot or the oven?” We made pizza, which was a huge success. Crusts ready to bake, then using my hand blender to puree tinned tomatoes with fresh basil and garlic powder, then reduce pizza mozzarella to shreds with my box grater (“watch your fingers, kids!”), then tearing more basil leaves into ribbons, then assembling the whole thing amid hilarity and mess, finally baking and eating. They are just lovely little nippers, hard to keep in line but lots of fun. Tomorrow will be shortbread — half chocolate, half lemon.
Friday mornings are the most chaotic of all — the Baby Bank giving away baby clothes, and a playgroup of largely refugee families with lots of tiny children, all speaking different languages. I was pounced on immediately by my boss Katherine. “Kristen, you speak French, don’t you?” Well, I do, sort of, but speaking “when is your baby due, and what sort of clothes would you like to have for him?” French in response to a very Ghanian-accented lady’s questions was a challenge! From there I went to teaching the mums and kids to sing “Frere Jacques” in rounds, a total success and heartwarming joy.
All this activity requires sustenance, of course, and I must tell you that I have come up with a new and exciting main dish. As you know, “Cottage Pie” contains beef, and “Shepherd’s Pie” is made with lamb. After seeing “Mary Berry’s Everyday” telly programme last week, it was clear that venison could be pressed into service. I call this:
Deerstalker Pie
(serves at least 10)
6 large potatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 white onion, minced
3 stalks celery, minced
3 medium carrots, minced
8 large mushrooms, minced
1 1/2 pounds diced venison (with some fat), ready to mince
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup whole milk
1 large can peeled plum tomatoes
pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 cup grated parmesan or Romano
fresh black pepper and sea salt to taste
3 tbsps butter
1 cup/225ml hot milk
handful grated Parmesan
Peel the potatoes and put them in a large saucepan, covered with water, and bring to a boil. Boil for about 45 minutes or until completely soft.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan with a heavy bottom and add the vegetables, cook until softened. Add meat. Cook until just cooked through, stirring frequently to break up the meat. Add the white wine and turn up the heat. Stir and cook for five minutes. Add the milk, still with heat high. Stir and cook for five minutes. Add the tomatoes, breaking them up with your hands as you do so. Turn down the heat and cook for at least 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Shortly before serving, add nutmeg and cheese and stir thoroughly. Season to taste.
Meanwhile, once potatoes are cooked thoroughly, drain them and mash them with the butter and hot milk.
Spread the sauce in a buttered serving dish. Spread the mashed potatoes over the top and scatter the Parmesan over the surface. Bake at 350F/180C for about 45 minutes or until nice and bubbly.
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I watched Mary make her pie, and I loved the idea of venison, but I had to admit, reading her recipe, that I don’t like to cook with red wine (or drink it either), nor did I want beef stock or rosemary. At that point I decided that I wanted my own, comforting Bolognese recipe as my base, with venison substituted for my traditional chicken. That is the recipe I have given you above. It was a sheer DELIGHT. Make it!
Of course, life wouldn’t be mine without the joys and sorrows of ringing.
Happily, for the last few weeks, it’s all been a joy. A mind-bogglingly difficult Quarter Peal, a first for me, “inside on an affected bell” to Plain Bob Doubles! Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to understand. But you’ll be happy for me. Fifty-two minutes of sheer fear and drama, then it was over, a success!
For me, the greatest joy of ringing isn’t even related to a bell. It’s the delightfully eccentric, supportive, intensely intelligent and friendly PEOPLE. Just look at these faces, so pleased for me, and for us as a team. A further triumph came just this last Sunday at the divinely dramatic St James Garlickhythe, home of the Queen’s Jubilee Bells.
On that morning, I successfully “Treble Bobbed” to a method called Cambridge, which again I would never expect anyone to understand, but the upshot is that if I can manage to ring that reliably, I will be an exponentially more useful member of any ringing band. Sweaty and shaky, I felt quite thrilled, and as if I had turned a real corner. It’s important, in a life full of challenges, ups and downs, to take stock of these moments when perseverance pays off, and one feels the thrill of a job well done.
So there you have it — a busy month of all the usual and some unusual, as we draw our way towards spring in London.