when cats make friends (and I make Stroganoff)

Well, the pace of life is ratch­et­ing up as it does dur­ing this fes­tive, con­fus­ing, pres­suris­ing and love­ly sea­son! Tacy has cho­sen her own inim­itable way to han­dle the stress: she’s going visiting.

The first lit­tle widen­ing of her tiny life was around Avery’s birth­day when we gave Avery the horse jumps for the gar­den. We opened the gar­den door to take them out, and before we knew it, Tacy was out and about. I felt ner­vous about it at first because of her no-front claws sit­u­a­tion, and her gen­er­al air of adorable naivete, but hey, you only live once. Or nine times. So out she went, and then we began leav­ing our bed­room win­dow open and she and Hermione, the only two svelte enough to fit, spend many hap­py hours com­ing in and out.

Then one day in Novem­ber our neigh­bors Janet and John knocked on our door, and said, “Do you know that Tacy comes to vis­it us?” Appar­ent­ly one fam­i­ly’s devo­tion is not enough. So she shows up at their sit­ting room win­dow, and if they’re in view, they open it, and she wash­es her lit­tle feet on the hand tow­el I can see in their win­dow sill, and spends a lit­tle time being pet­ted by oth­er peo­ple. Well, now it’s got so cold that we can’t just leave the win­dow open, so if I see their light on, and one of them in the win­dow, I open ours and out she goes like a flash. Then I look over at their win­dows and there is Janet or John, open­ing up, and in she goes. One night it got quite late and I was con­cerned, see­ing no Tacy facey at my win­dow to be let in. But at the stroke of 11, I heard their win­dow scrape open, and there she was. When I saw Janet the next day she said in all earnest­ness, “Does Tacy have a cur­few? I thought 11 was all right.” And on Sun­day she came home at 10. “Well,” I rea­soned, “It’s a school night.”

The rest of us do not find the hol­i­day sea­son quite so escapable. It’s all love­ly in and of itself. It’s the aggre­gate that gets to me! The sched­ul­ing, and deci­sions about what gift is appro­pri­ate for a teacher who has Avery part of the day but not every day, singing rehearsals, clean uni­forms, trans­port, mak­ing sure every­one eats prop­er­ly, the insis­tence of SOME CAT of sleep­ing on all the Christ­mas cards that arrive in the post. I line them up nice­ly on the lit­tle Chi­nese chest, and next minute they’re flat under a cat.

We dropped in one evening at the love­ly, if neglect­ed and falling down, Vic­to­ri­an St Mark’s Church here in May­fair, and heard an enthu­si­as­tic and inspi­ra­tion rather Bap­tist style of Christ­mas car­ols, lots of hand wav­ing and “Yea, Lord,” very heart­warm­ing. And the rev­erend (or what­ev­er the prop­er term is) gave a short speech express­ing the con­gre­ga­tion’s wish that the church remain a place of wor­ship, and not a nail salon. A lit­tle research after­wards revealed the sad future of the build­ing itself, Grade I list­ed but lack­ing a donor to keep it up as a reli­gious insti­tu­tion. And in this real-estate obsessed town, of course some­one will snap it up and turn it into lux­u­ry con­do­mini­ums. I have to say I saw a look of cun­ning and avarice on my own hus­band’s coun­te­nance. “Grade I list­ed, you say?” But it was a sweet evening.

In the midst of all the play­dates, present wrap­ping, shop­ping, dili­gent home­work efforts and trips to and from the sta­ble, I have become addict­ed to a char­i­ta­ble web­site called FreeRice. I have to warn you: do not go there if you have any­thing press­ing to do in the next hour or so. Hour! I’ve spent more than that to reach lev­el 50 (it took ages! and then I was obsessed with get­ting back). Here’s how it works. It’s a vocab­u­lary quiz, and for every word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to feed the hun­gry. It’s all non-prof­it and paid for by the adver­tis­ers who get seen every time you click and get a new screen. Go on, try it when you’ve been online for 2 hours try­ing to order a t‑shirt for your fourth cousin once removed and you can’t take e‑commerce for anther moment.

And when you need to feed your own fam­i­ly but don’t have a ton of time of mon­ey to spare, try this inex­pen­sive, fool­proof and deli­cious repast, per­fect with some mashed pota­toes and steamed broc­coli for a com­fort dinner.

Pork Ten­der­loin in Milk
(serves 4)

1 pork tenderloin
2 sprigs rosemary
2 small onions, quartered
6 cloves gar­lic, peeled and squished slightly
2 cups whole milk
salt and pepper

Now line a 9x13 dish with alu­mini­um foil and lay the rose­mary in the cen­ter. Then lay the ten­der­loin across it, sur­round with the onions and gar­lic, and pour over the milk. Salt and pep­per, and roast in the oven at 425 degrees for 35–40 min­utes, depend on how done you like it. Roast­ed, that’s all it takes.

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I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a clas­sic Ital­ian prepa­ra­tion. And while we’re on the com­fort-food/­cold night culi­nary theme, how about:

Meat­balls Stroganoff with White Wine and Fresh Thyme
(serves 8)

1 pound each: ground lamb, ground pork
4 tbsps butter
2 tbsps flour
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 white onion, minced
1 pound white mush­rooms (or fan­cy if you like), chopped
1 cup white wine
2 cups beef stock
2 cups sour cream (or creme fraiche, or a mix­ture as I used)
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
salt and pepper

Mix your meats and form into 2‑inch balls, or what­ev­er size you like. Place on a plate and set aside.

In a large, heavy saucepan, melt the but­ter and add the flour. This is an ordi­nary roux, for thick­en­ing, so cook it but don’t burn it, until it’s gold­en and bub­bling. Now add the gar­lic, onions and mush­rooms and stir until they’re all mixed up in the roux. Add the white wine and stand back! Low­er the heat and stir, then add the beef stock, and stir until thick. Add the sour cream, thyme, salt and pep­per. Now gen­tly drop the meat­balls, in a close sin­gle lay­er, into the sauce. Cov­er light­ly, turn down the heat and sim­mer for 25 min­utes. You can stir and turn them occasionally.

Serve with but­tered noo­dles and steamed car­rots. Lovely.

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Well, I’m off to pick up some last-minute Christ­mas gifts for Avery, then the final school pick­up of the term (yippee! no more alarm until Jan­u­ary), then lunch with a cou­ple of friends from school, and to see a skat­ing per­for­mance by the instruc­tors at Avery’s rink. Is John going with us? Let’s see, his exact words were, I believe, “I would rather poke my eye­balls out with hot nee­dles.” Fair enough. I, on the oth­er hand, will mar­tyr myself. Sigh. That’s the hol­i­day spirit.