what to give?

But first: a mile­stone! The first evening that my fam­i­ly have tak­en more than 20 min­utes to eat din­ner. I am sor­ry to say that I do take these things into account now and then, espe­cial­ly when the time and effort put in are SO out of pro­por­tion to the length of time spent chew­ing and swal­low­ing. I’m pleased to say that this evening’s exam­ple was a healthy 2:1. It was easy, every­one loved every­thing, and if I was still left with the dish­es while Avery and John trot­ted down to catch “Top Gear,” at least that meant I did­n’t have to watch. And the evening’s fare, brill? My first choice was and always is lemon sole, but there was­n’t any left. And some gor­geous and mys­te­ri­ous Euro­pean-look­ing man was saun­ter­ing away from Fish­Works as I approached and was iden­ti­fied as the fel­low who grabbed the last Dover sole. So brill was sug­gest­ed, and not a bad thing INDEED.

Brill with Butter
(serves 4)

2 whole brill fish, fil­let­ed and skinned (I’m squea­mish) by your fishmonger
4 tbsps butter
sprin­kle sea salt

First of all, go over your fish from the fish­mon­ger. Much as I love Fish­Works, they’re not as metic­u­lous as I am. For one thing, in my expe­ri­ence fish­mon­gers believe you should buy and go home with the WHOLE fish. Well, I don’t do whole fish. Except at the restau­rant itself where it’s been cooked by some­one else and all I have to do is gal­lant­ly eat one half then lift up the tail and there­by the spine and atten­dant bones. No, if I’m going to cook it, I want some­one to clean it beforehand.

But it’s nev­er clean enough. So on a nice clean cut­ting board take each fil­let and search it for skin, extra bones, what­ev­er, and remove them so you have a per­fect­ly soft and love­ly eat­ing experience.

Then in a large non­stick skil­let (I don’t have one! waah!) melt the but­ter and bring it to fair­ly high heat with­out brown­ing it. Then in go the fil­lets, as many as you can fit (I had to go in two rounds). Sprin­kle with salt and let cook. After per­haps 2 min­utes, turn, and swish the but­ter round. Add more if you need it. That’s IT.

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With this we had my most sin­ful lazy indul­gence, pota­toes dauphi­noise from Wait­rose. Sim­ply fab­u­lous and so much bet­ter than my attempts at home (prob­a­bly because of my shy­ing away from buy­ing a con­tain­er with “dou­ble cream” on the label). And sauteed sug­ar snap peas with red pep­pers, so it was colour­ful and tasty and every­one was hap­py. Plus sal­sa verde and gar­lic may­on­naise, do you know about those? Every­thing tastes bet­ter with:

Sal­sa verde
(makes plen­ty, save it)

1 large bunch flat-leaf pars­ley, leaves only
1 clove garlice
juice of half a lemon
sea salt to taste
extra vir­gin olive oil till liq­uid (per­haps 1/2 cup?)

Blend every­thing in the cuisi­nart and bask in the green glo­ry. It’s lovely.

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Aioli
(again, makes plenty)

1 tsp white vinegar
3 egg yolks
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp white pepper
3–5 gar­lic cloves
3/4 cup olive (not vir­gin) oil
1/2 tsp salt
juice of a lemon

Mince the gar­lic as fine­ly as pos­si­ble and add it to the olive oil. If you have a small food proces­sor or blender, the two can be blend­ed togeth­er. Whisk the egg yolks with the mus­tard in a small bowl. Whisk for two min­utes, then as you whisk, begin to driz­zle in the gar­lic oil in a very thin, steady, slow stream.

The yolks and oil will begin to come togeth­er. When about half the oil is in, and the mix­ture is begin­ning to resem­ble may­on­naise, add the vine­gar and salt and pep­per. Whisk togeth­er, then con­tin­ue to driz­zle in the oil while whisk­ing. Stop before you’ve used all the oil.

Squeeze in a lit­tle lemon juice, stir it in well, then taste. If it needs more salt, lemon juice, pep­per or gar­lic oil, add it now and whisk it in until it tastes right. It should be thick and creamy, not over­ly gar­licky, with none of the oth­er fla­vors too strong.

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These two lit­tle gems with fish are just bril­liant (I love that “brill” is Brit short­hand for ‘bril­liant’), and not bad with the pep­pers and peas either. I was trans­port­ed back to our hon­ey­moon days when, I kid you not, every Sat­ur­day evening we had lob­ster (cold and gor­geous), sauteed red pep­pers, crusty warm baguettes, and sal­sa verde and aioli. EVERY WEEK. How deca­dent is that? But so deli­cious, col­or­ful and not at all bad for you.

Let’s see, back to Christ­mas. If I could morph all the lit­tle per­fect gifts I have for my niece Jane (near­ly three) and turn them into things to give to all the peo­ple I’m stuck for… sad­ly this does not seem to be pos­si­ble. Also, I am sor­ry to say that near­ly every oth­er gift I have to offer is… a book. Not the same book mind you, but… books. Well, it’s the gift that keeps on giv­ing, isn’t it? Fathers are com­plete­ly impos­si­ble, and some moth­ers are hard­er than oth­ers. Sis­ters, don’t get me start­ed. I’m hop­ing some seri­ous inspi­ra­tion will hit me, say, tomorrow.

We did pick up a num­ber of excit­ing things to give at Sat­ur­day’s Christ­mas Fair at the Godol­phin and Latymer School, one of Avery’s choic­es (we hope) for next autumn. Our friends the McBs have two girls there now, and were in the stal­wart posi­tion of sell­ing Christ­mas cards to ben­e­fit the schol­ar­ship fund, so a num­ber of you will see the beau­ty of this in your post soon! We wan­dered all around the school, bemoan­ing the uni­ver­sal cos­tume of SUPER skin­ny jeans, scary scarves draped around LONG hair with lots of prod­uct, shiny gold bal­let flats and lit­tle t‑shirts that leave much too much exposed between shirt and jean, in our opin­ion. Oh dear. But Avery assures us that if she does­n’t care about the fash­ions now, she prob­a­bly won’t when she gets to senior school. “I’m most­ly about the 1940s any­way, and if I don’t mind that it’s not fash­ion­able now, it should­n’t be a big deal next year.” Fair enough.

It’s com­plete­ly exhaust­ing, I find! Tonight at the Form Six moth­ers’ choir prac­tice, Anne’s moth­er and I com­mis­er­at­ed about the joys and pains of their get­ting to be so OLD. “You know, Kris­ten, next year I keep think­ing, we won’t be wel­come at the school. We won’t sing togeth­er, or even know each oth­er. Last year at the Christ­mas sing I caught Anne’s eye as we both sang a car­ol, and I have to tell you, FLOODS of tears. From me!” I admit­ted to just the same and we both got teary just remem­ber­ing. And this evening’s dra­ma! As we moth­ers were blame­less­ly singing, Avery and her friend Car­o­line were in the school cafe­te­ria work­ing on a book of remem­brance for their two teach­ers who are retir­ing (one will not be missed), when the fire alarm rang. “Nev­er mind,” the singing teacher ges­tured, and on we sang. At the end, when we had par­tak­en of Car­o­line’s moth­er’s PER­FECT pump­kin dip with apple slices, she and I mean­dered down to the cafe­te­ria to find them, and there they were, draw­ing away, but SHAK­ING with fear.

“We thought it was a real fire!” Avery broke out. “And we obeyed all the fire drill instruc­tions and tried the fire door but it was LOCKED! We though we would burn up!” The care­tak­er, Mr Nixon, came for­ward and said proud­ly, “They behaved beau­ti­ful­ly! Nev­er strayed from their instruc­tions [although lat­er Avery con­fessed that if she could have got to the music room soon­er she would have been hot on my trail, what­ev­er the instruc­tions].” Good­ness. The poor child had post trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der in the super­mar­ket after­ward when some­one’s cart went past the bar­ri­er and an alarm went off. Poor dear.

But noth­ing com­pares to her thrill at hav­ing won a duet with Ami at the upcom­ing car­ol fes­ti­val for which we’re all prac­tic­ing. Whew, she has a part. That’s a relief.

Let’s see, aside from the Christ­mas school fair over the week­end, most­ly… it rained. All over our Not­ting Hill shop­ping trip to Gra­ham and Greene and Veran­dah, with a glo­ri­ous lunchtime side trip to E&O. That restau­rant just can’t put a foot wrong, in my opin­ion. We had a starter of “sesame crispy spinach,” but the rev­e­la­tion was a lay­er of some­thing vague­ly mush­roomy, sub­tly salty… it was tofu! Soaked, we decid­ed, in a mix­ture of soy sauce and tahi­ni, prob­a­bly. But a lit­tle sesame crack­er with a slice of this stuff, then topped with crispy fried spinach and sesame seeds. Delight­ful. It made me feel more con­fi­dent in my side dish of the weekend:

Warm Asian Hand­ful Salad
(serves 4)

1 tbsp peanut oil
dash sesame oil
3 car­rots, grat­ed on a box grater (mind your knuckles!)
hand­ful red cab­bage, grated
hand­ful white cab­bage, grated
hand­ful baby kale, chopped
hand­ful bean sprouts
hand­ful mint leaves, chopped
hand­ful fresh corian­der, chopped
hand­ful peanuts, chopped
dress­ing: 2 tbsps fish sauce, juice of a lime, 1 tsp sug­ar, shaken

Now, sim­ply heat the oil in a wok or large skil­let, and throw in all the veg­eta­bles up to the mint. Saute till slight­ly soft. If you don’t want liq­uid in the bot­tom, spoon it out, but oth­er­wise pour into a large bowl and add all the rest of the ingre­di­ents and toss well. LOVE­LY. Espe­cial­ly with lamb chops. Go on, don’t be intim­i­dat­ed. They’re tiny, del­i­cate, and from Green Val­ley not too expen­sive, and every­one can gnaw. But allow at least three per­son, even children:

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Per­fect­ly Sim­ple Lamb Chops
(serves 3)

2 tbsps olive oil
10 rib lamb chops (room temperature)
2 tbsps chopped fresh rosemary
sea salt
fresh pepper

Heat oil in a large skil­let and lay in the lamb chops, sin­gle lay­er. Sprin­kle with rose­mary. Cook about 2 min­utes, then turn to oth­er side and add salt and pep­per. Now, after anoth­er minute or so, care­ful­ly turn each chop to its fat­ty side and sear the fat, so you can hap­pi­ly eat it if you like. When the fat is brown (anoth­er minute or so), turn back to the chops’ flat sides and roll skil­let so oil trav­els about. Done.

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Even the most hard­ened “I can’t eat lamb, they’re too cute” child will suc­cumb to the aro­ma. Enjoy.

I’m back to Christ­mas shop­ping… what do you want, anyway?