strings, hooves and real estate

But first, did you ever see such a Christ­mas present? John’s mom, over the fall months, asked me for one of Avery’s school uni­forms, and cre­at­ed this: the first known Amer­i­can Girl doll to attend our school! I am absolute­ly con­vinced that she could take all of Lon­don by storm if she made dress­es for all the lit­tle girls’ schools in town. Except that, from her descrip­tion, these are not items to churn out. I think she slaved for weeks! What a touch­ing and per­fect gift. Two of them, so Avery and a friend can each dress up a doll and play. Thank you, Nonna.

As for my post title, well, per­haps not in that order, but that’s what’s been hap­pen­ing around here in these last fran­tic days before The Big Day. Yes­ter­day, on her way to Angel­i­ca’s car­ol­ing par­ty, Avery became the proud… renter? yes, of a vio­lin! From the gor­geous old shop, real­ly like a stage set for some bygone era, JP Guiv­i­er, in Mor­timer Street. The instru­ment is for school use, but we hear it came in handy when they began to sing “Ding Dong, Mer­ri­ly on High,” which had been prac­ticed in advance of the school con­cert last week. She is so proud! We dropped her off at her par­ty and I end­ed up in Wig­more Street at Boosey and Hawkes, a com­pre­hen­sive music store staffed with delight­ful Eng­lish ros­es, lit­tle sheet music elves, who helped me find the music required by QCPS, and some oth­er cute sur­pris­es besides. What a glo­ri­ous win­ter evening, pink and laven­der sky in the west over Port­man Square, every­one out shop­ping and being fes­tive. I stopped in Mar­garet How­ell and while I was sore­ly tempt­ed by sev­er­al sweaters and skirts, I end­ed up with a Christ­mas present for John! For obvi­ous rea­sons, I can­not divulge its nature in these pages, but suf­fice to say that the design sec­tion of that shop is just won­der­ful. All mod­ern, sleek and ele­gant, just what he likes. 

Home to con­coct my mus­sels, but since I don’t like mus­sels, I had left­over oys­ter stew from our Christ­mas evening with his par­ents, before they, sad­ly, left for Iowa. That is, I don’t know if they’re sad to have gone, but we’re bereft now that we’re on our own. We had such fun. Any­way, we had our tra­di­tion­al oys­ter stew for Christ­mas Eve, and I greed­i­ly bought far too many oys­ters so that we would have extra. It’s sin­ful­ly easy, and this year, because of my var­i­ous food shop­ping obses­sions, we had the Rolls Royce of oys­ters, as well as the sub­lime raw, unpas­teurised milk from the farmer’s mar­ket, as well as the French organ­ic pink onions and gar­lic, and cel­ery salt from the Spice Shop in Not­ting Hill. Don’t miss a vis­it to this shop, if you’re ever in the neigh­bor­hood. The Ger­man pro­pri­etress is love­ly. Any­way, the stew was quite with­out peer. You should make it your tra­di­tion, too.

Christ­mas Eve Oys­ter Stew
(serves per­haps 10 if you’re not greedy)

6 tbsps but­ter
4 tbsps flour
2 medi­um onions, minced
6 cloves gar­lic, minced
4–6 stalks cel­ery depend­ing on size, plus leaves, minced
4 dozen fresh­ly shucked oys­ters with their liquor
1 gal­lon whole milk
3 shakes Tabas­co
1 tbsp cel­ery salt
salt to taste

In a very large pot, make a roux with your but­ter and flour, and cook until it bub­bles. Add the onion, gar­lic and cel­ery and saute until slight­ly soft­ened. Then add the oys­ters and their liquor and stir until the oys­ters’ edges have curled up in that pret­ty ruffly way they do. Now add the milk and bring to a high sim­mer. Add the Tabas­co, cel­ery salt and sea salt, and taste. Just a lit­tle! Actu­al­ly I find it requires an unusu­al num­ber of spoon-dip­pings to get the sea­son­ings just right, but then that’s the sort of sac­ri­fice I’m will­ing to make for my guests. Once you’ve got the sea­son­ings prop­er­ly adjust­ed, let the stew cool out on your back porch or wher­ev­er, if you’re not eat­ing it right away, and believe you me, it’s bet­ter reheat­ed. Serve with oys­ter crackers.

Per­fect!

But it was not to be ours to eat right away, on Sun­day morn­ing when I made it, because Twig­gy and Eddie were com­ing to Sun­day lunch and they are strict veg­e­tar­i­ans. At least, as strict about any­thing as two such fun-lov­ing, charm­ing peo­ple can be. So I buck­led down and pro­duced a suit­able feast. It required all my con­cen­tra­tion to make sure I did­n’t put the wrong ingre­di­ents on the var­i­ous pots on my cook­top, because at one point, they all con­tained olive oil, minced gar­lic and onion! Then I had to remem­ber which pot was which. Once I fin­ished the oys­ter stew and it was cool­ing, I moved on to:

Red Pep­per Soup with Cal­va­dos and Fresh Thyme
(serves six with sec­ond helpings)

3 tbsps olive oil
6 large red bell pep­pers, very rough­ly chopped
1 large onion, rough­ly chopped
4 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped
veg­etable stock to cov­er (per­haps 5 cups), or chick­en if not veg­e­tar­i­an
1/2 cup Cal­va­dos
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 cup sin­gle cream
1/2 cup creme fraiche for gar­nish, if desired

Because you are going to puree this soup, noth­ing has to be chopped nice­ly. Sim­ply saute the veg­eta­bles in the oil until the gar­lic is cooked, then throw in the stock and Cal­va­dos and thyme, and set it boil­ing. After 45 min­utes, the pep­pers should be quite soft and ready for the hand blender. What a mar­velous tool. It can turn any­thing into soup. Blend thor­ough­ly, and taste to see if any pep­per skin bits annoy the tongue: if they do, strain through a colan­der into anoth­er pot. NOT, mind you, for­get­ting that oth­er pot! Believe it or not, I have been known to pour soup, and stock, right the way through the colan­der, into… noth­ing. Just down the drain. Do not suc­cumb to any such idio­cy. Then add the cream and the soup can sim­mer gen­tly until you’re ready for it. Ladle into warm bowls and drop a spoon of creme fraiche on top, if you like.

So sim­ple! But tasty.

While the soup was sim­mer­ing, then, I was onto the main course. I think these two dish­es were fine togeth­er, but there was a lot of red, and if you don’t need to adhere to a veg­e­tar­i­an menu, I’d serve them sep­a­rate­ly. I should think of a real­ly good green main dish to have with the pep­per soup. But no one com­plained at what we did have:

Egg­plant Stew
(serves six)

6 tbsps olive oil
6 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 large onion, minced
2 large egg­plants, or four small, peeled and cut into cubes
2 large cans or four small cans peeled plum toma­toes
1 large bunch flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped
hot chilli flakes to taste
salt to taste
fresh ground pep­per to taste
1 cup fresh­ly grat­ed parmesan

Saute the gar­lic, onion and egg­plant in the olive oil until soft­ened. Some peo­ple nat­ter on about soak­ing egg­plant in salt­ed water to take away the bit­ter­ness, and then strain­ing it, and dry­ing it on kitchen tow­els. Both­er! I would­n’t make the stew if I had to go through all that. And I nev­er find egg­plant bit­ter. So there. Add the toma­toes and sim­mer a long while, prob­a­bly an hour, stir­ring occa­sion­al to break up the toma­toes. Don’t start out with chopped toma­toes, though, or you will end with mush. Toward the end of cook­ing, add the pars­ley and sea­son­ings, and taste. The green of the pars­ley is very fes­tive, and whole dish is won­der­ful topped with lots of parme­san cheese. I served the stew on steamed rice, but you don’t have to.

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Twig­gy and Ed turned up with a fab­u­lous bot­tle of old Talisker sin­gle malt scotch, love­ly! And a whole bevy of tiny mince pies from Kon­di­tor and Cook at Bor­ough Mar­ket. We had love­ly cham­pagne, and sat around the Christ­mas tree lis­ten­ing to its nee­dles drop­ping, and talked… real estate. They have just set­tled into their new house, and we are increas­ing­ly pan­ick­ing over our sit­u­a­tion. At least, I am. John is in heav­en. I don’t think he actu­al­ly cares where we live! It’s shop­ping to him. Makes me insane. We have seen a lot of hous­es to buy, and flats to rent should we not find a house to buy in time. So nice and relax­ing, that sce­nario. Every­thing is unbe­liev­ably, unfath­omably expen­sive. At least John did­n’t quit his job. Oh wait, he DID! I find it all quite wor­ry­ing, but he seems relaxed so I am try­ing to stay out of it. Except that I keep hav­ing to vis­it real estate.

We saw a love­ly, love­ly house in Not­ting Hill yes­ter­day, both the home and the surgery (I love the Eng­lish use of that term, noth­ing to do with scalpels! just the doc­tor’s office) of a very posh and suc­cess­ful GP. In a three-piece tweed suit! Doc­tor to the stars, in Not­ting Hill. The house is on five storeys, pris­tine in con­di­tion, all the orig­i­nal charm­ing details like plas­ter­work kept in. I just want­ed to lie down on one of the exam­i­na­tion tables and stay. Just let John move us out of here and into there, maybe leav­ing Avery at the sta­ble for the dura­tion. He likes it too, but we must keep look­ing. Aargh. Out again today, in West Kens­ing­ton. I don’t think he real­izes how much I wor­ry! He just hap­pi­ly sees hous­es, where­as I men­tal­ly move us in, have our favorite peo­ple to din­ner, play­dates, Christ­mas par­ties, find a place for the lit­ter­box, alpha­bet­ize my books, and oops! It’s onto the next can­di­date. I find it all very tir­ing and wor­ri­some, frankly. But we have to move.

But I am get­ting out of order. Last night was the final evening of the Olympia Horse show, and it was impres­sive. The finals of every­thing! Show jump­ing, and dog agili­ty, just won­der­ful. The announc­ers are so… Eng­lish! “Come on, folks, is that the best you can do? This evening, well, it’s going to be a right crack­er!” And when one of the dogs miss­es a jump, “We know how you feel, Thomas, there now. It’s not your fault!” And guess who was there to present prizes? The Duchess of Corn­wall! I know, I know, it’s That Woman, but I have to con­fess that all judg­ments about Diana, Princess of Wales, and that nasty lady who broke them up, go out the win­dow when there she is, right in front of you, in all her green vel­vet “you’ll nev­er be Queen” glo­ry. Pret­ty impres­sive. She sat up in her Roy­al Box, receiv­ing the Hanove­ri­ans’ salutes, and was served cham­pagne and prob­a­bly love­ly things to eat, all clink­ing chi­na and whisk­ing white nap­kins across her lap. Avery stroked my hand sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly. “I know, Mom­my, it’s prob­a­bly foie gras. Maybe next year.”

We came home close to mid­night and all of us knack­ered, as they say. Imag­ine if we’d actu­al­ly rid­den! Or done any­thing at all! I’m get­ting too old to stay out late.

Near­ly time to get Avery at the sta­ble. Tomor­row, I’m bit­ing the bul­let and get­ting… a new Christ­mas tree. I just don’t think I can enjoy the hol­i­day lis­ten­ing to nee­dles tin­kling to the floor. Espe­cial­ly with Annabelle and her fam­i­ly com­ing on Sun­day, yippee! Alyssa emailed today to say that they were up for a full Christ­mas do, although her Jew­ish side will still be marched into the kitchen to make mat­zoh ball soup for me. Cel­e­brate every­thing, is our mot­to! So in the mean­time I must remove every orna­ment from the tree, give it a decent bur­ial in the gar­den, get a new one, put it up, and then have the fun of dec­o­rat­ing it again. Wish me luck.