when life throws you risotto…

Ah, you ask: why a film reel when I’m meant to be talk­ing about risot­to? Because I want to give you the links to my film friend’s amaz­ing blogs, all about the films and plays she man­ages to see in this glo­ri­ous town of ours. Go on, you’ll learn a lot about all the things you’re not doing while you’re stir­ring your risot­to instead of going to the the­atre. Oh, wait, that’s my life.

But yes, about risot­to. I am hav­ing a whole bunch of peo­ple over for Sun­day lunch tomor­row, which would be a no-brain­er, an ordi­nary enough event, except that Twig­gy and Eddie are very ded­i­cat­ed veg­e­tar­i­ans. So I’ve been ask­ing all my friends what I should make. These love­ly peo­ple have been here before and I admit to cook­ing two of my best veg­e­tar­i­an dish­es then, a love­ly creamy red pep­per soup and an aubergine (that’s egg­plant to us Yanks) stew with toma­toes and tons of gar­lic. You can cook them too; here are the recipes. But alas, what now?

Well, my Ital­ian friend Vic­to­ria said to me yes­ter­day that “aranci­ni” are the answer to a maid­en’s prayer. By typ­ing “aranci­ni” into my google search engine, I found a hilar­i­ous and very use­ful blog called “Ama­teur Gourmet” that I think you would enjoy. He’s post­ed over 1000 posts. I can but admire, with my low­ly 200-some­thing efforts. But I admit to a cer­tain ner­vous­ness, not to say trep­i­da­tion, at cook­ing some­thing I have nev­er cooked before, for… Vin­cent. I know he’ll try to be kind, but friend­ship will not get in the way of a gen­uine response to a mis­con­ceived or bad­ly exe­cut­ed dish.

But how hard can it be to roll up some love­ly risot­to (mush­room, saf­fron and pars­ley? with white wine? fresh thyme, as my friend Susan made this sum­mer?) in a ball, stuff it with moz­zarel­la and toma­to sauce, roll it in bread­crumbs and fry it? It can’t real­ly go too far wrong, can it? With cream of cele­ri­ac soup to start, per­haps? Except that, hmm, both dish­es will be white? No, fry­ing the risot­to will make them crispy and brown. Sigh of relief. I know, I know, I’ve been watch­ing too much “Mas­terchef.” I find myself wak­ing up in the mid­dle of the night wor­ry­ing that my pre­sen­ta­tion is tepid. Clear­ly I need to get a life. John just lis­tened to my poten­tial menu and said stern­ly, “What else will be on the plate?”

Avery has a life. Yes­ter­day she achieved Lev­el 10 in her skat­ing les­son, and the world is her oys­ter. In a moment of mater­nal weak­ness I agreed, months ago, that when she got to Lev­el 10 she could buy spark­ly some­things to put on her skates, so last night found her glued to the com­put­er look­ing up “crys­tals,” and find­ing all sorts of ridicu­lous­ly priced options that seemed, sud­den­ly, unlive­with­outable. We shall see. As well, I can report that she achieved the cov­et­ed “Dis­tinc­tion” for her efforts with the Eng­lish Speak­ing Board, talk­ing about her stamp col­lec­tion (thank you, Grand­pa Paul!). A big improve­ment over last year’s mere “Mer­it,” how amaz­ing that it’s been a whole year. So some of us are thriving.

Well, we’re off to take a nice long walk on this grey day, through the park. I’ll still be think­ing about side dishes…