thank you, Face­book, for Charlie

A dis­trac­tion, a mas­sive time-waster, a post­mod­ern con­ver­sion of true friend­ship into a series of “likes,” call it what you will.  I love Face­book.  The rea­son was nev­er clear­er than in this past week, when we’ve been reunit­ed with one of our dear friends from uni­ver­si­ty days, Charlie.

There are just cer­tain peo­ple in your life, and you know who they are, for whom the pas­sage of time has made no dif­fer­ence.  Iron­i­cal­ly, these are often peo­ple with whom you’ve lost touch, usu­al­ly because one of you stayed in the same place and the oth­er flew the coop, or because both of you went mer­ri­ly off in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, and oth­er friends, oth­er expe­ri­ences, oth­er ties, came to fill the gap.

When you  have the chance to be reunit­ed, you are thor­ough­ly flood­ed with mem­o­ries of the joys of that past friend­ship, and you grab it back with both hands and come away absolute­ly deter­mined not to lose each oth­er again.  Such has been our week with Char­lie.  And we owe it all to Face­book, to bring us togeth­er, remind us how much we always made each oth­er laugh, and make a point of spend­ing as much time togeth­er as pos­si­ble when he made his jaunt to Lon­don this week.

First he appeared at our lit­tle house, laden with flow­ers and a much-need­ed injec­tion of Fox Point Sea­son­ing, whose lev­el had dropped alarm­ing­ly since my Christ­mas fix.  You should all  know that the way to my heart — and a home-cooked din­ner of your choos­ing — when your trav­els bring you to Lon­don is mere­ly a glass jar of dried shal­lot mix­ture.  I’m so easy.

We talked non­stop, Avery lis­ten­ing bemus­ed­ly to our ram­blings, for hours and hours, first over drinks, then din­ner, then tea.  Since he would­n’t tell me what he real­ly want­ed to eat, I fed Char­lie what I real­ly want­ed to eat.  The nicest thing about this dish (aside from its sheer lux­u­ri­ous deli­cious­ness) is that it cooks itself.

Sev­en-Hour Braised Leg of Lamb with Uma­mi Rub

(serves at least 6)

This recipe com­bines two of my favorite lamb dish­es: a slow-cooked one from my friend Orlan­do’s divine cook­book, “A Table in the Tarn,” and a very sim­ple one I’ve invent­ed myself that com­bines every savoury ingre­di­ent in your pantry for a spec­tac­u­lar­ly messy rub.  And the beau­ty is, this dish cooks itself all day while you do oth­er things.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 whole bone-in leg of lamb (the size does not mat­ter as the leg cooks very slow­ly and thoroughly)

1 whole lemon

6 cloves garlic

hand­ful fresh rosemary

hand­ful fresh thyme

2 tbsps capers

four anchovies in oil, drained

plen­ty of black pepper

hand­ful flat-leaf parsley

4 onions, sliced

6 car­rots, cut in large chunks

300ml white wine

300 ml chick­en or beef stock

2 cups Bel­u­ga lentils, pre­pared and cooked

Heat the oil in a heavy pot with a close-fit­ting lid (or a tent of alu­mini­um foil can do to cov­er the dish if you have no lid).  Brown the lamb all over in the oil, for about 10 min­utes, until as much of the sur­face has been scorched as pos­si­ble.  Lift the lamb onto a dish to wait.

Put ALL the ingre­di­ents up to and includ­ing the pars­ley in your food proces­sor — real­ly, the whole lemon, quar­tered — and blitz until a nice smooth paste.  Rub the mix­ture all over the shoul­der of lamb, on both sides.

Cook the onions and car­rots in the oil and lamb fat for about 10 min­utes, until the onions are translu­cent, then add the gar­lic and cook for anoth­er cou­ple of min­utes.  Scat­ter the lentils over the onions and car­rots and pour over the wine and stock.  Lay the lamb in its rub on top of the veg­eta­bles and seal with the lid or foil.

Braise slow­ly at 120C/220F for up to sev­en hours, but at least six hours.  In the last half hour, drain all the cook­ing liq­uids from the dish, and sep­a­rate the fat from the cook­ing liq­uids.  Dis­card the fat, then heat the cook­ing liq­uids in a fry­ing pan with a table­spoon of flour whisked in, sim­mer­ing until the gravy is thickened.

Sim­ply tear the meat apart with two forks.  The meat will fall off the bone.  Serve with the gravy or home­made mus­tard, or both.  The lentils, onions and car­rots will still be edi­ble, as well, although very soft.

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We did our lev­el best — with many side­tracks, anec­dotes and Char­lie’s bril­liant quip­ping (“There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’, but there are plen­ty in ‘nar­cis­sis­tic‘”) to cov­er the last quar­ter cen­tu­ry of our lives.  Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Vir­ginia, Chica­go for Char­lie, fol­low­ing polit­i­cal cam­paigns and con­gress­men, PR and invest­ing, New York, Lon­don, art his­to­ry, cook­ing and prop­er­ty devel­op­ment for us.  Avery chipped in with tales of hideous mock AS lev­el exams and mis­takes made in Olympic Russ­ian interpretation!

Not hav­ing bro­ken the sur­face of what we need­ed to say to each oth­er, we met up mid-week at Har­rods, of all places!  There is noth­ing like out-of-town vis­i­tors to get you out of your rut, to see a lit­tle of what makes Lon­don a des­ti­na­tion for so many peo­ple, and not just home to us.

In the old­en days, the Ter­race Restau­rant was the place I hung out with John’s beloved dad when they vis­it­ed.  It was the scene of many a Christ­mas-shop­ping lunch, plot­ting what to give John’s mom, going over our hap­py past as daugh­ter-and father-in-law.  Hap­py mem­o­ries.  They do a love­ly cham­pagne tea, too.

And pre­cise­ly NOTH­ING had changed.  Oh, the club sand­wich is now described in amus­ing­ly “mod­ern” terms like “Don­ley Farm bacon,” “heir­loom toma­toes,” and “free-range hard-cooked egg.”  But it’s still a club sand­wich, and what bet­ter to have at Har­rods?  The sun came out for Char­lie and his moth­er, who could not have been more delight­ful, guid­ing us into the past to find out how we met, what we’ve been doing all these years, to extract descrip­tions of just how above-aver­age our child is.  Won­der­ful people.

And Char­lie came with gifts: a James Bond nov­el for Avery, an archi­tec­ture book for John, and for me, my new favorite book of the hour and one I would like to give to every­one, “Love Let­ters of the Great War.”  A col­lec­tion of gen­uine­ly mov­ing epis­tles from the bat­tle­fields to lovers back home, from wives in Poland and Moscow and Philadel­phia to their sol­diers.  You will love it.

Today, on Char­lie’s last day in Lon­don, we met up at our crazy Plot of Dirt, at the foot of Tow­er Bridge, to show him just in how insane a fash­ion John spends his days.  Will this Plot of Dirt ever be a home?

As you can see, the devel­op­ment next door is com­ing along con­sid­er­ably faster than ours.  We were giv­en a tour of the pent­hous­es as they shoot up into the sky (sad­ly obscur­ing our view of the bridge, but one can­not stand in the way of progress).

I real­ly, real­ly hope I did not get nits from that hardhat.

What will nev­er be obscured is the view over the Thames.  How majestic!

Once we’d had our fill of imag­in­ing the future, we saun­tered along the riv­er to Bor­ough Mar­ket, which amaz­ing­ly will be my local food pur­vey­or when we even­tu­al­ly move into our new home.  John groans in dis­may at the dent this will make in his wal­let, as I sim­ply can­not resist the lure of the butch­ers (a plump duck came home with me), the cheese­mon­gers (a quite mag­i­cal sheep-goat Robi­o­la, yum yum), the bak­ers.  Check out these gar­lic and olive breadsticks.

Oh, the fruit and veg pur­vey­ors.  There are so many, each more beau­ti­ful than the last.

And just to under­line how my pho­tographs of food pale in com­par­i­son with Avery’s, look what she did with the toma­toes when we got home.

How DOES she do it?

We drove Char­lie to Trafal­gar Square and dropped him at St Mar­t­in’s in the Field, loath to say good­bye.  But he’ll be back.  We must hope so, because he is one of those givers that you meet too sel­dom in life: some­one who packs joy into his suit­case along with the Fox Point, who approach­es every new per­son, new adven­ture, new idea with ener­gy and the kind of curios­i­ty that makes you feel much more inter­est­ing than you real­ly are.  His mot­to is “Be the good ener­gy in the room,” and my good­ness, he ful­fills it.

John and I man­aged to have one bit of fun with­out Char­lie this week, and that was our joint birth­day lunch, a gift from his mom, to Benares in Berke­ley Square, quite the most incred­i­ble Indi­an restau­rant in the world, the only one in Lon­don with a Miche­lin star.

Crispy soft-shell crab with squid rings and man­go-pas­sion fruit sal­sa, cumin-dust­ed scal­lops with cau­li­flower six ways, fried Indi­an-spiced John Dory with super-spicy chilli dip, lamb rump and shoul­der samosa with corian­der chick­peas and a tamarind sauce… heav­en.  I can cook fair Ital­ian food, not-embar­rass­ing Chi­nese food, and real­ly pret­ty darn good Japan­ese food, but Indi­an eludes me.  I think you have to be Indi­an.  What a treat.

Still, we were hap­py to have my jazzed-up spaghet­ti car­bonara that evening for din­ner.  The added chick­en and aspara­gus make the tra­di­tion­al gar­licky, bacony fla­vors even more spe­cial, in my opinion.

Spaghet­ti Car­bonara with Aspara­gus and Chicken

(serves four generously)

1 pound bacon (Amer­i­can or Eng­lish), diced

1/2 small white onion, fine­ly minced

a bunch asparagus

2 chick­en breast fillets

4 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly minced

1/2 cup/118ml light cream

1/2 cup/118ml creme fraiche

1 egg yolk

sprin­kling fresh grat­ed nutmeg

sprin­kling fresh black pepper

3/4 pound spaghetti

1/2 grat­ed pecori­no romano or parmesan

Boil water for pas­ta. Then in a large skil­let, saute bacon bits over low to medi­um heat, stir­ring near­ly con­stant­ly and tak­ing care that the bacon does not scorch. If you are using Amer­i­can bacon, you will need to drain the fat fre­quent­ly.  British bacon will pro­vide just enough fat for a nice sauce.  When bacon is cooked, add onion, aspara­gus and chick­en and fry until chick­en is JUST cooked through, then add gar­lic, stir­ring for a moment, then turn off heat.

In a medi­um bowl, com­bine cream, creme fraiche, egg yolk, nut­meg and pepper.

Cook pas­ta and drain, reserv­ing about 1/4 cup of the pas­ta water. Whisk hot water into creamy sauce, then throw the pas­ta into the sauce skil­let and toss well with the sauce and reserved hot water. Serve imme­di­ate­ly with cheese sprin­kled on top.

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And so our Feb­ru­ary, filled with sor­rows and joys, pres­sures and adven­tures, rain and sun­shine, and a tru­ly won­der­ful reunion, has come to and end.  Spring is in sight, here in Lon­don town.