I know “The Book of Com­mon Prayer” tell us that “in the midst of life we are in death,” but it seems to me that more to the point, in the midst of death we are in *life*. Now Mar­tin Luther had a much more eso­teric and philo­soph­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion of this idea, but it’s very sim­ple actu­ally. You can’t just turn your­self off, or stop the world and get off. In fact you can­not really even pause to give due atten­tion to the sig­nif­i­cance of loss, some­times, because the vast and yet minutely par­tic­u­lar machin­ery of life tugs at you relent­lessly. Just so was our day yesterday.

It began with a dri­ving rain­storm and an early alarm clock because, in the midst of our sad­ness and lone­li­ness, The Exams Must Go On. Well, I don’t know if they must, but they did. So in the dark of early Jan­u­ary morn­ing, we got our­selves to Godol­phin and Latymer School for the first of the three every-Friday exams that have loomed so long on Avery’s hori­zon. She, full of blue­berry muffins, pancetta and straw­ber­ries (never let it be said that anx­i­ety affects her appetite, bless her heart), packed up her Pony Club pen­cil case (her lit­tle rit­ual of tak­ing every item out and describ­ing it to me broke my heart: such a seri­ous lit­tle girl) and we set off in a taxi. Not for me the search for a park­ing spot, not on such a day.

I let the taxi go and walked Avery to the door, but before I could prop­erly hug her or any­thing, she was swept up by the throngs and I just pecked her cheek and off she went. I felt totally bereft! Slogged my wet way to the Ham­mer­smith bus sta­tion (a place that has the poten­tial to kill com­pletely any inter­est you might have in humanity’s con­tin­u­ing past today). Home on the bus, frankly half asleep, and stag­ger­ing into the flat. So depressed. But there in the sink was a beau­ti­ful bou­quet of white lilies from Avery’s school. That’s the sort of ges­ture that makes things worth­while. So I did my lit­tle chores, look­ing at my watch, and then finally suc­cumbed to an hour under the duvet with my cats and a hot water bot­tle. The alarm (two in one day! what a hor­ror) woke me in time for the sec­ond bus ride of the day, back to the school.

You would have laughed at the pickup rit­ual! I sup­pose if they had actu­ally poked the chil­dren with hot lit­tle pins it MIGHT have been more unpleas­ant, but not much. The hun­dreds of wet par­ents, all smelling like dogs or bears, crowded into the assem­bly hall, lined with ginor­mous wooden plaques list­ing all the gulls in per­pe­tu­ity who have won this or that schol­ar­ship, nearly all with the words “Oxford Uni­ver­sity” or “Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity” after their blame­less names, with the occa­sional “Yale Uni­ver­sity” sprin­kling the Eng­lish tra­di­tion with a lit­tle hereti­cal Amer­i­can dust. At pre­cisely 12:15 a for­mi­da­ble young woman stepped up onto the stage, smashed a gavel down on a table and shouted from a micro­phone that she was the deputy head. I can­not lisp the ten­der syl­la­bles of her name because of the babel of parental tongues that would not shut up. Finally she got across the infor­ma­tion that our gulls would come out onto the stage under the aus­pices of the room num­ber in which they had under­gone (to say “taken” does not ade­quately con­vey the anx­i­ety in the room) the exam. Then she pro­ceeded to bel­low out room num­bers, and groups of six or eight cow­er­ing lit­tle shapes would slink onto the stage, where­upon six or eight adult arms would wave fran­ti­cally and the bod­ies attached to the arms push in a MOST un-English way toward the stage. Just awful. There were tears, lots of tears. Had the exam been that bad, or could the gulls in ques­tion not find their parental arms? I never found out.

Finally Room 14 was announced and there was Avery in her lit­tle group, look­ing remark­ably calm, pen­cil case under her arm. I retrieved her and we went out (the rain hav­ing, mer­ci­fully, stopped), and we ran away as fast as we could. “So? How was it?” I asked, and she stopped dead on the pave­ment. “If,” she said dra­mat­i­cally, “you were ever to run into the per­son who wrote that exam, in a dark alley… RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.” I had to laugh. “No, seri­ously,” she insisted, “it was two and a half hours of PURE EVIL.” This made the whole awful morn­ing worth­while, I have to say, and there was more where that came from. Spe­cific exam­ples of evil, like “a+b-c=41″ and also “a-c+b=52.” What are the val­ues of a, b, and c? These two prob­lems (or some vari­ables like them) were appar­ently true at the same time. Pure evil! There’s no other word for it.

And the com­pre­hen­sion! And the essay. Thirty pages of hell. She has no idea how she did. I have to say I was impressed that she had done any of it at all. My last expe­ri­ence with test-taking was the night before the GRE (Grad­u­ate Record Exam­i­na­tion to those of you lucky enough not to take it). There we all were, seniors in col­lege in Octo­ber of the year, at the bar nat­u­rally, hav­ing those last six drinks before going to bed. “What do you have on tomor­row, Kris­ten?” some­one asked, and I looked at my watch and said, “Oh no! I’d bet­ter go, I have the GRE tomor­row.” From this anec­dote it will be appar­ent that I did not pre­pare over­much, nor worry. Well, Avery is made of dif­fer­ent stuff. After all the work that child has put into her stud­ies, she had bet­ter be rewarded. That’s all I can say.

She was suf­fi­ciently recov­ered at lunchtime to eat an enor­mous bowl of mac­a­roni and cheese. Then we headed off to the skat­ing rink. I sat with her friend Jamie’s mother Vic­to­ria, who was just what the doc­tor ordered. A really sup­port­ive, lovely talk with her about John’s dad, about the exams, about pri­or­i­ties in life and parental respon­si­bil­ity and grief and faith. What I would do with­out my friends I do not know. Becky took me in hand on Thurs­day after­noon and fed me hand­made beignets and sym­pa­thy. I think the only point in grief and loss (not there has to be a point, but it would help) is that after one has been through a thing one­self, one has true empa­thy for other peo­ple going through it, and help­ful advice. That is, one does if one is a good per­son as Becky is. Her kitchen is always so com­fort­ing. With three chil­dren of her own and mine there as often as not, there are always four bowls of each tasty snack, four glasses of what­ever to drink, four voices bab­bling and clam­or­ing for atten­tion. It was lovely to see the girls express their sym­pa­thy for Avery, and then in typ­i­cal child fash­ion, move directly to their dress-up clothes and imag­i­nary ani­mals. Most reassuring.

Any­way, back to dread­ful Fri­day. After skat­ing we went out to din­ner with Becky’s fam­ily and it became appar­ent that nei­ther Avery nor I had what it took to get through an entire evening. We finally made our apolo­gies and slumped off home, where­upon we both alighted on the per­fect sit­u­a­tion: under the duvet in my bed­room, hot water bot­tles all round, cats on our laps, and Lord Peter Wimsey’s “The Nine Tai­lors” on the telly. A lit­tle girl in a white night­gown, a cold wind blow­ing out­side, and a long phone con­ver­sa­tion with John, his mom and sis­ter from Iowa, helped to dis­pel the hor­rors of a day that had started so early and been so dif­fi­cult. It’s the per­fect movie for one (or two in our case) in need of com­fort: bell-ringing, snowy New Year’s Eve, lots of scotch and hot water, and an unloved vic­tim. Per­fect. We slept well.

And today was much the same. We hung around in bed fin­ish­ing the movie until nearly noon, and then it felt like the right thing to do to open the cur­tains, get a fresh breeze, make our beds, and some chicken soup. Guess what? Although I stand firmly behind a chicken soup made with the remains of a good organic roasted chicken from your own homely oven, you know what you can do in a pinch? Make sure you have good qual­ity chicken stock in your cup­board, dump it in a saucepan with some sweet lit­tle Chante­nay car­rots, some sliced cel­ery and a hand­ful of Man­is­che­witz fine noo­dles, and ten min­utes or so later you’re in busi­ness. The per­fect lunch for me for whom any sad­ness or trou­ble goes right to my tummy, and for Avery who, though intre­pid in every way, loves a good bowl of chicken soup.

I took her off to her first act­ing class of the term and she has a new teacher! Some­one who pur­ports to have some high-level cast­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties! And he stopped her in the hall­way after class and said, “That was very good,” so we feel sure fame and for­tune are just a mat­ter of time. There was, how­ever, a brief ker­fuf­fle at pickup. She didn’t see the car, I couldn’t see her, and we both thought some­thing hor­ri­ble had hap­pened. It’s so lux­u­ri­ous when John is here to drive, while I go in to get her! Avery wailed, “A lit­tle per­son like me needs two par­ents!” I had to laugh. Isn’t it pathetic that I con­sider it an accom­plish­ment sim­ply to get to the act­ing school with­out get­ting lost, get from there to the gro­cery, and back again, and home, no acci­dents and remem­ber­ing to lock the car. Most peo­ple can accom­plish this whilst at the same time com­pos­ing sym­phonies or trad­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in junk bonds.

We are sur­viv­ing. Actu­ally more than that. I won­der if it isn’t maybe even more use­ful and sat­is­fy­ing a parental expe­ri­ence to get a child suc­cess­fully through an awful time, than it is to enjoy a good time. It’s hard not to be able to do any­thing to pre­vent a sad loss, or to put out a hand to make the hurt go away. But if you can take the job you’ve been given, not curl up in a ball and give up, and come out the other side still stand­ing, it’s not a bad thing. And tomor­row she gets the whole day at the sta­ble. And… it promises to rain ALL day. After all, we wouldn’t want any­thing to be too easy.

The world is darker and colder today, because yes­ter­day we lost my beloved father-in-law. I can’t describe to you prop­erly the feel­ing of a world with Jack in it: it was like hav­ing a per­pet­ual strong, warm arm around your shoul­der, a pro­tec­tive, gen­tle shield that noth­ing bad or scary could pen­e­trate. He went through the world with absolute gen­eros­ity, want­ing noth­ing more than to see the peo­ple he loved happy and safe. And when he was with us, we were happy and safe. He was opti­mistic, ener­getic, unerr­ingly believ­ing all the best of the peo­ple around him, and con­se­quently, in the face of that belief, we were more often at our best when he was with us. With all his expe­ri­ence of the world, his was nonethe­less an inno­cent spirit that met life with exu­ber­ance and end­less energy, unswerv­ing hon­esty and strength of char­ac­ter. I see a great deal of him in John, and more than a lit­tle in Avery, too: an inner essence of good­ness and truth.

John is there in Iowa with his dear mother and sis­ter, and Avery and I feel so very far away, far­ther than an ocean and miles can account for. Yes­ter­day was a day when I sup­pose I finally grew up. You know, you can coast along look­ing like an adult for a very long time before you hit a wall that says, “You are no longer a child, so buck up and play your part.” My part was to break the news to my sweet child, and try to pro­vide for her, as best I could, the sort of unques­tioned love and sup­port that Jack gave me, all the twenty-four and a half years I was priv­i­leged to know him. He is the best exam­ple I could have had of a great many things: father, grand­fa­ther, hus­band, friend. We love you, John’s dad, and we will do our best in this life to deserve the love you gave us.

Well, I’m ashamed to say I have noth­ing of any impor­tance to tell you about from my grey, dis­mal town today. Aren’t the first weeks after Christ­mas hard to rec­om­mend. All the bor­ing things you (or at least I) shoved to the far­thest cor­ners of your desk in favour of receipts for glam­orous presents, Christ­mas cards from farflung friends, invi­ta­tions to con­certs and par­ties… all those bor­ing things come back to bite you in the bottom.

So Tues­day came, I dropped Avery off at school feel­ing some­what for­lorn as her straight lit­tle back walked up the steps, unbent by the enor­mous back­pack full of her respon­si­bil­i­ties. I came home, looked at my desk and thought, “I won­der what’s under there?” and lifted up the giant file folder full of Christ­mas cards to find… all sorts of dread­ful things I had neglected to do! School fees? Hadn’t paid them (it’s lucky they let her in the door). Had I signed her up for her school singing lessons? Nope. Or renewed her beloved Sat­ur­day act­ing class? Not exactly. Then there was the dona­tion to the Moor­land Mousie Trust that she was so keen to make, after her expe­ri­ences on Exmoor. I hadn’t seen that form in WEEKS. Never mind, off it went, along with insur­ance forms for last fall’s doc­tor vis­its, and birth­day cards for neglected chums, and all those recipes I cut out of mag­a­zines at Christ­mas? What­ever made me think I’d make “Stem Gin­ger and Cran­berry Fudge”? I don’t even have a sweet tooth! But there it was, along with instruc­tions for mak­ing the Ghent altar­piece out of cro­quem­bouche. Well, I exag­ger­ate, but that’s the sort of hol­i­day ambi­tion that I never ever achieve, but always plan to around Decem­ber 15.

What I’m not get­ting down to with any enthu­si­asm is my even­tual dri­ving test. I hope no traf­fic cop reads this blog, because I am def­i­nitely, but def­i­nitely super ille­gal. Would you believe that John gave me, for Christ­mas, two spe­cial books about traf­fic laws and park­ing reg­u­la­tions in Lon­don? Let the bells chime. But seri­ously, I have to buckle down. I am very lazy when he is away and almost never move the car from its prime park­ing spot. I tell myself I need the exer­cise and walk every­where, but truly, it’s just lazi­ness and fear that I’ll com­mit some minor infrac­tion and my dirty lit­tle secret will be found out.

Avery’s nerves are reach­ing some­thing of a fever pitch about these dread­ful exams, which begin on Fri­day and con­tinue for the fol­low­ing two Fri­days. To the powers-that-be in British girls’ edu­ca­tion: have the wretched things BEFORE Christ­mas, and have them three days in a row. For­get this drag­ging it out over three weeks. It’s tor­ture. Yes­ter­day she actu­ally told a taxi dri­ver that it’s impos­si­ble to be friends with one’s school­mates dur­ing Jan­u­ary because if you think about it, “we’re all com­pet­ing for the same spots in school. So we sort of learn to not think about each other too much, until next month.” Well, that’s just awful!

I hate to think what I have con­tributed to this state of affairs, but actu­ally I am pretty sure the answer is: not much. I really lack the com­pet­i­tive spirit nec­es­sary for the Olympic sport called “get­ting your child into the right school.” First of all, I have very lit­tle con­vic­tion that there IS a “right school.” Sec­ond, as soon as any­thing becomes a com­pe­ti­tion, I want to with­draw. This slacker atti­tude is in direct con­trast to my husband’s instant wish to turn every­thing into a con­test, so between our influ­ences I sup­pose Avery will come out nor­mal. I hope.

Ah, well, at times like this you can but clear your desk, and cook some salmon. I’m quite sure all the Omega What­ever oils will increase her test scores by at least nought point something.

Tagli­atelle with Salmon and Broc­col­ini
(serves four)

1 1/2 lb organic fresh salmon (in one fil­let if pos­si­ble)
3 bay leaves
1 tsp Mal­don sea salt
fresh ground pep­per
3 tbsps creme fraiche
juice of half lemon
3/4 lb tagli­atelle
large bunch (per­haps 8 stems?) ten­der­stem broc­col­ini, cut in small pieces
1/2 cup light cream
salt to taste

In a bak­ing dish lined with alu­minium foil, lay the salmon skin side down. Lay the bay leaves across, then sprin­kle with salt and pep­per and smear (hate that word) the creme fraiche across the fil­let with a but­ter knife. Sprin­kle the lemon juice over all and bake at 425 degrees (about 215 cel­sius) for 25 min­utes or until done in the mid­dle, but not overdone!

Mean­while, steam the broc­col­ini just until it turns bright green and set aside.

At the same time, boil the tagli­atelle for the rec­om­mended time (about 11 min­utes, prob­a­bly). Heat the light cream in the microwave or a lit­tle saucepan. Remove the salmon skin and the bay leaves from the bak­ing dish and then break up the salmon into bite-size pieces with a fork. Toss gen­tly with the tagli­atelle, broc­col­ini and warm cream and salt to taste.

******************

This is LOVELY. Of course you could always serve the broc­col­ini in whole stems on the side if you like, but I like the green and pink of the salmon together. This is a hit with a child, believe it or not. Of course just to be per­verse, Avery claims to pre­fer ordi­nary broc­coli flo­rets, just because I do not. So we have to com­pro­mise: some­times one, some­times the other. And inter­spersed with the Undis­puted King of All Veg­eta­bles, the red pep­per sauteed in olive oil.

Well, I just got a call from Avery’s school inform­ing me that my tuition cheque spec­i­fied “2007.” I do this on cheques all through­out the month of Jan­u­ary, not from any evil desire to post­pone pay­ment for a cou­ple of days, but because I just can­not get my mind around the new year in time for the first few bills. So I must rec­tify it and get ready for “Enchanted, Part Three,” after school. Or rather “Enchanted, Part One, Seen for the Third Time.” Sigh, the things we do for our children.

And the win­ner of the most expen­sive store in Lon­don in which to spend seven min­utes: Rid­ers and Squires! It is a lovely shop, I can’t com­plain, but it’s always a lit­tle stun­ning to walk in, choose four things and then just gulp. But Avery could barely stuff her­self into her jodh­purs one more day, and shred­ded the fin­gers off one glove yes­ter­day, so it was a nec­es­sary trip. The only tack shop in this horsey town, can you imag­ine? The most ele­gant horsey young girl sold us our essen­tial items, dressed in what seems to be the uni­form for the smart Lon­don 20-something lady: dark tights, bal­let flats, a long shape­less t-shirt cov­ered with an even longer and more shape­less belted cardi­gan, its sash trail­ing on the ground. Long untidy hair and a sort of lan­guid, well-bred atti­tude that is the per­fect demeanor for a girl sur­rounded by rid­ing crops, polo mal­lets, vel­vet hats and the like. Doubt­less she is called Jemma, Ser­ena, Annabel, Vic­to­ria or some other blame­less name for an Eng­lish rose. “Mmm, yes, one does lose one’s gloves, doesn’t one? No point in buy­ing really expen­sive gloves…”

This after a pleas­ant enough after­noon at the Queensway skat­ing rink, where despite the Mon­day half-price arrange­ments, it was dead quiet. Per­fect for Avery to prac­tice her spins and what­ever else with­out tak­ing her life in her hands. We obses­sively washed our hands all day as I am absolutely adamant that she not get this stom­ach virus that scarcely an hour goes but what I hear about another suf­ferer. It sim­ply can­not hap­pen. Until Fri­day after­noon at 2 p.m, after Avery’s inau­gural exam, that is. And prefer­ably not at all. We repaired to the Man­darin Kitchen for a lux­u­ri­ous treat of lunch (a nice byprod­uct of the saintly ges­ture of watch­ing her skate round and round for two hours), and chat­ted. So nice to have her all to myself! Sorry, John, but it’s the one sil­ver lin­ing to your absence. I am quite self­ish on that point.

I’m afraid it’s left us with but lit­tle appetite for what­ever I might come up with for din­ner. Last night’s offer­ing yielded some left­overs, how­ever, and the recipe is so good and so sim­ple that it rates a sec­ond appear­ance here (I swear in 2008 I will invent a recipe index for you).

Roast Fil­let of Beef With Herbs and Spices
(serves 4 hun­gry peo­ple easily)

1 kilo beef fil­let, rolled and tied
1 tbsp each: Aleppo pep­per (it’s very mild but flavour­ful)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pep­per
1 tbsp sea salt (Mal­don is and always will be the best)
lots of freshly ground black pep­per
2 tbsps veg­etable oil (not olive, it smokes too easily)

Rinse your fil­let to make sure it can pick up the herb mix­ture, which you’ve mixed together and placed on a cookie sheet. Roll the fil­let all over, help­ing the bits adhere if they don’t go on their own, mak­ing sure the coat­ing is even. Heat the oil in a large skil­let until nearly smok­ing and sear the fil­let all over, hold­ing it with tongs (don’t pierce it with a fork!) and turn­ing it over till the whole thing is nicely browned. Then place in a bak­ing dish and roast at around 350–375 degrees for about 35 min­utes for rare, 45 for medium. Don’t even think about cook­ing it any longer than that.

********************

The great thing about the left­overs is that I could eas­ily toss them with some noo­dles and sprouts, or wrap them in pan­cakes, or make a sand­wich with some sharp ched­dar cheese and a red onion. And the place to go to get the fil­let itself: hands-down it’s Green Val­ley in Upper Berke­ley Street just off Edg­ware Road, one of my absolute favorite places to shop for cer­tain kinds of ingre­di­ents: any­thing Lebanese (the cucum­bers are per­fect: skinny and nearly seed­less), fab­u­lous olives, fresh (often still-warm) pita bread, and any­thing in the red-meat line. As usual, I found plenty of time-absorbing things to peruse in the var­i­ous depart­ments: has any­one ever eaten tinned “foul”? A sort of bean paste, it turns out, per­haps sim­i­lar to hum­mous? Must give it a try some­day. And I did suc­cumb to a large wedge of some­thing referred to only as “French white cheese,” which I imag­ine will turn out to be sheeps milk cheese? It’s repos­ing in my fridge await­ing… an appetite.

Well, the sec­ond half of “The Philadel­phia Story” beck­ons, for my old-fashioned child. All our favorite lines: “Isn’t it time for your milk and arsenic, dar­ling?” and “Don’t say ‘stinks,’ dar­ling. If absolutely nec­es­sary ‘smells,’ but only if it’s absolutely nec­es­sary.” Avery said, “I like it, def­i­nitely, but I miss the sort of point­less burst­ing into song of ‘High Soci­ety”. Leav­ing her at school tomor­row will be a nasty blow.

And the win­ner of the most expen­sive store in Lon­don in which to spend seven min­utes: Rid­ers and Squires! It is a lovely shop, I can’t com­plain, but it’s always a lit­tle stun­ning to walk in, choose four things and then just gulp. But Avery could barely stuff her­self into her jodh­purs one more day, and shred­ded the fin­gers off one glove yes­ter­day, so it was a nec­es­sary trip. The only tack shop in this horsey town, can you imag­ine? The most ele­gant horsey young girl sold us our essen­tial items, dressed in what seems to be the uni­form for the smart Lon­don 20-something lady: dark tights, bal­let flats, a long shape­less t-shirt cov­ered with an even longer and more shape­less belted cardi­gan, its sash trail­ing on the ground. Long untidy hair and a sort of lan­guid, well-bred atti­tude that is the per­fect demeanor for a girl sur­rounded by rid­ing crops, polo mal­lets, vel­vet hats and the like. Doubt­less she is called Jemma, Ser­ena, Annabel, Vic­to­ria or some other blame­less name for an Eng­lish rose. “Mmm, yes, one does lose one’s gloves, doesn’t one? No point in buy­ing really expen­sive gloves…”

This after a pleas­ant enough after­noon at the Queensway skat­ing rink, where despite the Mon­day half-price arrange­ments, it was dead quiet. Per­fect for Avery to prac­tice her spins and what­ever else with­out tak­ing her life in her hands. We obses­sively washed our hands all day as I am absolutely adamant that she not get this stom­ach virus that scarcely an hour goes but what I hear about another suf­ferer. It sim­ply can­not hap­pen. Until Fri­day after­noon at 2 p.m, after Avery’s inau­gural exam, that is. And prefer­ably not at all. We repaired to the Man­darin Kitchen for a lux­u­ri­ous treat of lunch (a nice byprod­uct of the saintly ges­ture of watch­ing her skate round and round for two hours), and chat­ted. So nice to have her all to myself! Sorry, John, but it’s the one sil­ver lin­ing to your absence. I am quite self­ish on that point.

I’m afraid it’s left us with but lit­tle appetite for what­ever I might come up with for din­ner. Last night’s offer­ing yielded some left­overs, how­ever, and the recipe is so good and so sim­ple that it rates a sec­ond appear­ance here (I swear in 2008 I will invent a recipe index for you).

Roast Fil­let of Beef With Herbs and Spices
(serves 4 hun­gry peo­ple easily)

1 kilo beef fil­let, rolled and tied
1 tbsp each: Aleppo pep­per (it’s very mild but flavour­ful)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pep­per
1 tbsp sea salt (Mal­don is and always will be the best)
lots of freshly ground black pep­per
2 tbsps veg­etable oil (not olive, it smokes too easily)

Rinse your fil­let to make sure it can pick up the herb mix­ture, which you’ve mixed together and placed on a cookie sheet. Roll the fil­let all over, help­ing the bits adhere if they don’t go on their own, mak­ing sure the coat­ing is even. Heat the oil in a large skil­let until nearly smok­ing and sear the fil­let all over, hold­ing it with tongs (don’t pierce it with a fork!) and turn­ing it over till the whole thing is nicely browned. Then place in a bak­ing dish and roast at around 350–375 degrees for about 35 min­utes for rare, 45 for medium. Don’t even think about cook­ing it any longer than that.

********************

The great thing about the left­overs is that I could eas­ily toss them with some noo­dles and sprouts, or wrap them in pan­cakes, or make a sand­wich with some sharp ched­dar cheese and a red onion. And the place to go to get the fil­let itself: hands-down it’s Green Val­ley in Upper Berke­ley Street just off Edg­ware Road, one of my absolute favorite places to shop for cer­tain kinds of ingre­di­ents: any­thing Lebanese (the cucum­bers are per­fect: skinny and nearly seed­less), fab­u­lous olives, fresh (often still-warm) pita bread, and any­thing in the red-meat line. As usual, I found plenty of time-absorbing things to peruse in the var­i­ous depart­ments: has any­one ever eaten tinned “foul”? A sort of bean paste, it turns out, per­haps sim­i­lar to hum­mous? Must give it a try some­day. And I did suc­cumb to a large wedge of some­thing referred to only as “French white cheese,” which I imag­ine will turn out to be sheeps milk cheese? It’s repos­ing in my fridge await­ing… an appetite.

Well, the sec­ond half of “The Philadel­phia Story” beck­ons, for my old-fashioned child. All our favorite lines: “Isn’t it time for your milk and arsenic, dar­ling?” and “Don’t say ‘stinks,’ dar­ling. If absolutely nec­es­sary ‘smells,’ but only if it’s absolutely nec­es­sary.” Avery said, “I like it, def­i­nitely, but I miss the sort of point­less burst­ing into song of ‘High Soci­ety”. Leav­ing her at school tomor­row will be a nasty blow.

Well, it’s deja vu all over again in my lit­tle Lon­don house­hold: John has gone off to Iowa to help out his par­ents dur­ing a truly awful time. And instead of sink­ing down and wor­ry­ing, dwelling on what can­not be changed, or any other self-indulgent thing, I must be… a grownup. Which means tak­ing Avery once more to the Hyde Park Win­ter Won­der­land and going on lots of sick-making rides, eat­ing the hot dog you know will give you indi­ges­tion, lis­ten­ing to her enthu­si­as­tic account of the BEST ride ever on Smokey, the whole nine yards. At least the carousel was lovely, and so is she. Best to con­cen­trate on the positive.

As well as being forced to feign inter­est in things I could not be less inter­ested in (a third trip to see “Enchanted”, any­one) I’m forced to acknowl­edge that I am… in charge. I can­not sum­mon up any sig­nif­i­cant enthu­si­asm for this role! You’d think it would be kind of fun to be cap­tain of the ship, with no other adult whose feel­ings needed to be taken into account before mak­ing deci­sions. Don’t feel like fix­ing din­ner? Throw some mac­a­roni and cheese into a stock­pot for your child and pour a cock­tail! Don’t feel like tak­ing a shower? Never mind, there’s no one to look at you! But alas, so far I am not feel­ing the joy. I’ll have to think of some strate­gies to buck up, be brave, sol­dier on. I hate sol­dier­ing on.

Isn’t it nasty, as well, when you think of pick­ing up the phone to vent to one of your best friends, only… the bad thing is hap­pen­ing to one of your best friends. John’s mother is always a per­fect sound­ing board for all sorts of news, good and bad, but right now the last thing in the world she needs is a whingey, com­plain­ing daugh­ter in law who can’t seem to pull her socks up, take her fin­ger out (I love these Eng­lish expres­sions) and be… a grownup. Thank­fully I can ring up my own mother, a woman who wrote the book on offer­ing sympathy.

Let’s see, before I buck myself up, I think a lit­tle ener­getic whinge­ing might be just what the doc­tor ordered. First up, I hate to drive in Lon­don! For­get the minor con­cern that I have no driver’s license (except for the New York one with the really ter­ri­ble pho­to­graph that car­ries pre­cisely no author­ity here in my adopted land). John asked me to take him to Padding­ton to catch the Heathrow Express, and of course I was happy to do so. He loves to drive in Lon­don, so “tak­ing him” meant sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat as he nego­ti­ated all the insane traf­fic laws and insane other dri­vers. How icky to lit­er­ally be in the driver’s seat on the way home! How many thou­sands of times have I sat in the pas­sen­ger seat while he purrs down the Bishop’s Bridge Road and onto the round­about? And yet was I ABSOLUTELY sure which exit to take to get to Edg­ware Road? Of course not! That would be like being a grownup!

Still and all, I made it home and parked with about an inch and a half to spare. I am a BRIL­LIANT par­al­lel parker, for which I fully intend to pat myself on the back all after­noon. I remem­bered to lock the car. I had remem­bered my front-door key. Well done me. John’s been gone a whole half hour and I haven’t destroyed any­thing yet.

OK, sec­ond up for whinge­ing: Avery’s exam sched­ule. Some­how all the paper­work, all the bossy, peremp­tory and snooty let­ters from the var­i­ous schools, all the absorp­tion of Avery’s annoy­ance at exam prep, none of these things con­vinced me that Jan­u­ary 2008 would actu­ally arrive and the *&^% exams would really turn up on the cal­en­dar page. Well, the other shoe has dropped and here we are. I printed out a large cal­en­dar for just Jan­u­ary, wrote all the exam times and loca­tions, all the inter­view times and loca­tions, and taped it to the refrig­er­a­tor door. Ha! I will not be defeated. Would you believe: each of the three exams has 1) a dif­fer­ent start time, 2) dif­fer­ent school sup­plies required, and 3) a dif­fer­ent pickup time? If I don’t take her to the wrong school or try to pick her up from the wrong one at the wrong time it will be a mir­a­cle. How do peo­ple with more than one child ever man­age? Or peo­ple with a job, for that matter?

Sigh. Avery is, of course, her nor­mal intre­pid self, say­ing good­bye quite calmly to her father, much more con­cerned with what bev­er­age I had packed in her barn lunch for today than any pesky grownup con­cerns WE might have. More power to her, I say. School starts day after tomor­row and I have announced quite cat­e­gor­i­cally that bed­time tonight will NOT include any whinge­ing about jet­lag or any­thing else. I have cor­nered the mar­ket on whinge­ing and I’m not giv­ing up my spot for anyone.

What to cook for din­ner? Cer­tainly NOT the extremely fash­ion­able, spicy and delec­table lunch I made ear­lier in the week. Too fash­ion­able. I need com­fort food. But you should try it, espe­cially if par­al­lel park­ing and school inter­views are not part of your January.

Spicy Seared Tuna with Wasabi Dress­ing
(serves two)

2 tuna steaks, the VERY best qual­ity you can get
2 tsps each: pre­pared wasabi, miso paste, lime juice, soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Can you get pre­pared wasabi and miso paste where you live? I don’t know. But you can order them. Just fol­low the links.

Mix all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents together and pour over the tuna steaks on a large plate. Turn the steaks over to coat both sides. Mar­i­nate for at least an hour, or even overnight.

Heat a non­stick skil­let as hot as you can (within rea­son) and plop the tuna steaks into it, then pour the mari­nade over the top. Sear on one side for 1 minute, then turn and sear the other side for 1 minute. Place on top of a salad of rocket, water­cress, avo­cado and halved baby toma­toes and top with a dress­ing of exactly the same pro­por­tions as the mari­nade, with a table­spoon of sun­flower, saf­flower or any other mild oil added.

******************

Well, let’s see. What to accom­plish while John is away? Such scin­til­lat­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties as order­ing the autumn’s pic­tures from iPhoto and get­ting up to date on my photo albums, find­ing an uphol­sterer to repair Keechie’s dam­age to both the sofa and the liv­ing room bench (ouch), mak­ing sure Avery washes her hands every 42 sec­onds to avoid get­ting the mon­ster stom­ach virus that’s mak­ing its way across the UK. That would really tear it, wouldn’t it? No vom­it­ing dur­ing the exams, def­i­nitely not! Fin­gers crossed.

I’ve decided the bet­ter part of val­our would be to walk to the barn to pick her up, instead of weav­ing my way uncer­tainly through the mine­field of Lon­don traf­fic one more time today. Besides, any­one who thinks I’m giv­ing up that park­ing spot can think again. And any extra good vibra­tions you had to send to Iowa would be much, much appreciated…

Well, it’s deja vu all over again in my lit­tle Lon­don house­hold: John has gone off to Iowa to help out his par­ents dur­ing a truly awful time. And instead of sink­ing down and wor­ry­ing, dwelling on what can­not be changed, or any other self-indulgent thing, I must be… a grownup. Which means tak­ing Avery once more to the Hyde Park Win­ter Won­der­land and going on lots of sick-making rides, eat­ing the hot dog you know will give you indi­ges­tion, lis­ten­ing to her enthu­si­as­tic account of the BEST ride ever on Smokey, the whole nine yards. At least the carousel was lovely, and so is she. Best to con­cen­trate on the positive.

As well as being forced to feign inter­est in things I could not be less inter­ested in (a third trip to see “Enchanted”, any­one) I’m forced to acknowl­edge that I am… in charge. I can­not sum­mon up any sig­nif­i­cant enthu­si­asm for this role! You’d think it would be kind of fun to be cap­tain of the ship, with no other adult whose feel­ings needed to be taken into account before mak­ing deci­sions. Don’t feel like fix­ing din­ner? Throw some mac­a­roni and cheese into a stock­pot for your child and pour a cock­tail! Don’t feel like tak­ing a shower? Never mind, there’s no one to look at you! But alas, so far I am not feel­ing the joy. I’ll have to think of some strate­gies to buck up, be brave, sol­dier on. I hate sol­dier­ing on.

Isn’t it nasty, as well, when you think of pick­ing up the phone to vent to one of your best friends, only… the bad thing is hap­pen­ing to one of your best friends. John’s mother is always a per­fect sound­ing board for all sorts of news, good and bad, but right now the last thing in the world she needs is a whingey, com­plain­ing daugh­ter in law who can’t seem to pull her socks up, take her fin­ger out (I love these Eng­lish expres­sions) and be… a grownup. Thank­fully I can ring up my own mother, a woman who wrote the book on offer­ing sympathy.

Let’s see, before I buck myself up, I think a lit­tle ener­getic whinge­ing might be just what the doc­tor ordered. First up, I hate to drive in Lon­don! For­get the minor con­cern that I have no driver’s license (except for the New York one with the really ter­ri­ble pho­to­graph that car­ries pre­cisely no author­ity here in my adopted land). John asked me to take him to Padding­ton to catch the Heathrow Express, and of course I was happy to do so. He loves to drive in Lon­don, so “tak­ing him” meant sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat as he nego­ti­ated all the insane traf­fic laws and insane other dri­vers. How icky to lit­er­ally be in the driver’s seat on the way home! How many thou­sands of times have I sat in the pas­sen­ger seat while he purrs down the Bishop’s Bridge Road and onto the round­about? And yet was I ABSOLUTELY sure which exit to take to get to Edg­ware Road? Of course not! That would be like being a grownup!

Still and all, I made it home and parked with about an inch and a half to spare. I am a BRIL­LIANT par­al­lel parker, for which I fully intend to pat myself on the back all after­noon. I remem­bered to lock the car. I had remem­bered my front-door key. Well done me. John’s been gone a whole half hour and I haven’t destroyed any­thing yet.

OK, sec­ond up for whinge­ing: Avery’s exam sched­ule. Some­how all the paper­work, all the bossy, peremp­tory and snooty let­ters from the var­i­ous schools, all the absorp­tion of Avery’s annoy­ance at exam prep, none of these things con­vinced me that Jan­u­ary 2008 would actu­ally arrive and the *&^% exams would really turn up on the cal­en­dar page. Well, the other shoe has dropped and here we are. I printed out a large cal­en­dar for just Jan­u­ary, wrote all the exam times and loca­tions, all the inter­view times and loca­tions, and taped it to the refrig­er­a­tor door. Ha! I will not be defeated. Would you believe: each of the three exams has 1) a dif­fer­ent start time, 2) dif­fer­ent school sup­plies required, and 3) a dif­fer­ent pickup time? If I don’t take her to the wrong school or try to pick her up from the wrong one at the wrong time it will be a mir­a­cle. How do peo­ple with more than one child ever man­age? Or peo­ple with a job, for that matter?

Sigh. Avery is, of course, her nor­mal intre­pid self, say­ing good­bye quite calmly to her father, much more con­cerned with what bev­er­age I had packed in her barn lunch for today than any pesky grownup con­cerns WE might have. More power to her, I say. School starts day after tomor­row and I have announced quite cat­e­gor­i­cally that bed­time tonight will NOT include any whinge­ing about jet­lag or any­thing else. I have cor­nered the mar­ket on whinge­ing and I’m not giv­ing up my spot for anyone.

What to cook for din­ner? Cer­tainly NOT the extremely fash­ion­able, spicy and delec­table lunch I made ear­lier in the week. Too fash­ion­able. I need com­fort food. But you should try it, espe­cially if par­al­lel park­ing and school inter­views are not part of your January.

Spicy Seared Tuna with Wasabi Dress­ing
(serves two)

2 tuna steaks, the VERY best qual­ity you can get
2 tsps each: pre­pared wasabi, miso paste, lime juice, soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Can you get pre­pared wasabi and miso paste where you live? I don’t know. But you can order them. Just fol­low the links.

Mix all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents together and pour over the tuna steaks on a large plate. Turn the steaks over to coat both sides. Mar­i­nate for at least an hour, or even overnight.

Heat a non­stick skil­let as hot as you can (within rea­son) and plop the tuna steaks into it, then pour the mari­nade over the top. Sear on one side for 1 minute, then turn and sear the other side for 1 minute. Place on top of a salad of rocket, water­cress, avo­cado and halved baby toma­toes and top with a dress­ing of exactly the same pro­por­tions as the mari­nade, with a table­spoon of sun­flower, saf­flower or any other mild oil added.

******************

Well, let’s see. What to accom­plish while John is away? Such scin­til­lat­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties as order­ing the autumn’s pic­tures from iPhoto and get­ting up to date on my photo albums, find­ing an uphol­sterer to repair Keechie’s dam­age to both the sofa and the liv­ing room bench (ouch), mak­ing sure Avery washes her hands every 42 sec­onds to avoid get­ting the mon­ster stom­ach virus that’s mak­ing its way across the UK. That would really tear it, wouldn’t it? No vom­it­ing dur­ing the exams, def­i­nitely not! Fin­gers crossed.

I’ve decided the bet­ter part of val­our would be to walk to the barn to pick her up, instead of weav­ing my way uncer­tainly through the mine­field of Lon­don traf­fic one more time today. Besides, any­one who thinks I’m giv­ing up that park­ing spot can think again. And any extra good vibra­tions you had to send to Iowa would be much, much appreciated…

Would some­one please remind me of my New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion? That is, please to refrain from putting EVERY sin­gle poul­try car­cass that emerges from my kitchen into a stock­pot, cov­er­ing it with water and putting it into my “larder,” the space out­side my gar­den door? Because guess what? If I put, say, a turkey leg that was, after serv­ing as a lovely din­ner, into such a stock­pot and then leave for a week for Christ­mas, and then come back and for­get it’s there for another four days… it is an unlovely thing. It does seem a ter­ri­ble waste sim­ply to chuck the leg bone into the bin and con­sign it to obliv­ion, but it is prefer­able, on the whole, to dis­pos­ing of its mouldy incar­na­tion 10 days later. Wel­come home to me.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself: did you ever see such a lovely hydrangea– nearly-on-fire? It wasn’t really. But there were some crackly moments that gave us pause, and there was, as well, quite a lot of wax in my hair when all was said and done, my hav­ing suc­cumbed to the sheer beauty and sat for a long time on the bench you see here where Avery perched for the pre­cise num­ber of sec­onds required for the photo and then scarpered. This was two nights after Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut, two days of rain, unfor­tu­nately, so that John’s and my valiant attempts to light the can­dles were thwarted for quite some time. We nearly exhausted three of those turbo lighter thingys I love so much. But it was worth it, wasn’t it? For over two hours the can­dles burned, we took pic­tures and oohed and ahhed, and Anne came across the road to admire. She, John and I stood there, our feet grow­ing ever colder, just gaz­ing at the flames and wax­ing philo­soph­i­cal about the mean­ing of life. John’s mom came out to join the admir­ing throng, as did Avery and Grandpa Jack, but not for long. They suc­cumbed to the tem­per­a­ture, and finally Anne and John did too, and I just sat on the bench among and under the can­dles, try­ing to fig­ure out a way to cap­ture the seren­ity and quiet and glory, and carry it inside with me. Maybe even a way to bring it all back to Lon­don, where seren­ity is a com­mod­ity rather thin on the ground.

Lovely! And the next day we trekked up the meadow on the other side of the big red barn and vis­ited the bench we acquired from a dona­tion to the South­bury Land Trust. What do you give the man who has every­thing (John’s dad)? Why not a bench to ben­e­fit the Trust, with “John’s Dad’s Bench” writ­ten on a lovely bronze plaque on its back? That worked as a gift. We all sat and drank in the gor­geous views from all sides. The bench is sit­u­ated in the mid­dle of an enor­mous meadow, pre­cisely between the only two trees to grace the expanse: two lovely old gnarled apple trees (some rot­ten spec­i­mens on the ground attest to their pro­duc­tiv­ity, so we’ll have to visit some autumn). What was it about this hol­i­day and the mean­ing of life bit? We med­i­tated on that again, while Avery iden­ti­fied win­ter fairies in all the sparkling bits of ice and snow cling­ing to the branches. Why not find a spot and a wor­thy recip­i­ent your­selves and be a bet­ter per­son for your dona­tion? I bet your town has a Land Trust too. “I’ve got a lit­tle piece of immor­tal­ity now,” John’s dad glowed. Oops, I just typed “immoral­ity,” and had to cor­rect it. That sounds like more fun than immor­tal­ity, actu­ally. But I get his point.

We had an inor­di­nately busy week at “home,” much of which is a blur to me now after three days back “home.” You see the schiz­o­phrenic nature of my life. We came home to face the mas­sive job of unpack­ing all the glo­ri­ous Christ­mas presents (the day spent with Jill, Joel and Jane, along with my fam­ily, was quite PER­FECT, how we miss every­one). Then the New Year’s Day “Ride to Buck­ing­ham Palace” with Avery’s sta­ble. An annual tra­di­tion not to be missed. It’s so touch­ing to see it all unfold again: the pro­ces­sional down the Mall, the cross to the Palace, all the tourists tak­ing pic­tures of our lovely girls. And Avery nearly iden­ti­cal to her self a year ago, only… two inches taller! We have the mea­sur­ing marks in the Con­necti­cut kitchen to prove it. How is that possible?

Well, finally after ten days of cook­ing very tra­di­tional, Amer­i­can hol­i­day foods, I am pleased to offer you a truly exotic recipe! Remem­ber a while ago I rec­om­mended Vicky Bho­gal to you? Well, she’s really proved her­self now. Last night I was long­ing for some­thing really… not Amer­i­can. No gravy, no pota­toes, no turkey. Spices, that’s what I wanted! And what I made was indeed spicy, not in a hot way, but in a fes­tive, flavour­ful way. The house smelled like an Indian restau­rant! It’s called a biryani, and while the recipe looks com­pli­cated, and was a bit, let me share with you a slice of culi­nary wis­dom that I gained through my cook­ing. Your expe­ri­ence with this dish will be a smoother one, and less prone to intim­i­da­tion, I think, with this insight. Lis­ten, dear read­ers, and learn.

Pic­ture a generic sort of… casse­role. In Amer­i­can cook­ing, it could be, say, tuna noo­dle casse­role. In Ital­ian, it could be, say, lasagna. In Greek cook­ing, it could be, say mous­saka. But the gen­eral idea is this: cook you up a starch and set it aside. Then cook you up a meaty thing and set it aside too. Now nonstick-spray a deep dish. Then layer the starch with the meat, bake it, and bob’s your uncle (or ahmed, luigi, con­stan­tin, or what­ever). And in Indian cook­ery, it’s… a biryani. I will explain.

The dish requires cooked rice, and cooked chicken. Then you layer them and bake it all. It’s just that the ingre­di­ents look intim­i­dat­ingly for­eign, and the method unfa­mil­iar. But cast your mind back to the last time you made lasagna, and do not suc­cumb to fear. It’s the same thing, I promise. Only Indian. I’ve adapted this recipe slightly to accom­mo­date a child’s taste buds, which do not accept whole spices. But you could leave them in if you felt brave.

Chicken Biryani
(serves 8)

2 cups bas­mati rice
5 car­damom pods
5 whole cloves
1 tsp black pep­per­corns
1 bay leaf
1 stick cin­na­mon, snapped in half
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil (not olive, bet­ter sun­flower)
3 onions, finely sliced
1/2 cup yogurt
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 1/2 tsps grated fresh gin­ger
4 green chill­ies, finely chopped

2 lb diced chicken
1/4 cup chopped toma­toes
5 car­damom pods, slightly split
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cloves
dash freshly ground pep­per
2 bay leaves
1 tsp ground cin­na­mon
2 tsps corian­der pow­der
1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsps lemon juice
hand­ful chopped corian­der
large pinch saf­fron, soaked in 4 tbsps warm milk
but­ter for dotting

Now. I know that looks like a lot. But I’ve divided the ingre­di­ents up into the cat­e­gories in which they’re cooked together. Pic­ture the rice and spices as the pota­toes in a mous­saka, or the pasta in a lasagne. Then then onions and chicken and such are the meat sauce. And the last bits are the parme­san cheese top­ping. Trust me.

So steam the rice with all the spices in it. Stop it cook­ing just before it’s fully cooked, because it will cook fur­ther in the oven. Now, I myself removed the whole spices because Avery would never eat them. But aside from the car­damom pods, one could eat them all. You decide. Set the rice aside.

Now brown the onions in a large skil­let until quite, quite brown. Save about 2 tbsps on a dish, and put the rest in a large bowl. Com­bine with the yogurt, gar­lic, gin­ger and chillies.

Brown the diced chicken in the onion skil­let for about five min­utes, and then add the yogurt mix­ture. Mix well, add all the other ingre­di­ents down to the cin­na­mon and cook VERY VERY low for 30 min­utes. The oil will begin to sep­a­rate. This is good. Remove the bay leaves.

Now you’re ready to layer. Start with a chicken layer, then a rice layer, then chicken, then fin­ish with a rice layer. Spread with the remain­ing sliced browned onions, then sprin­kle the lemon juice over, the corian­der, then the saffron-milk mix­ture. Dot with but­ter, cover tightly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

DELI­CIOUS. You should serve this dish with some fresh-made pap­pad­ums (noth­ing eas­ier in the world: 90 sec­onds in the microwave on full power: they’re like a magic trick) and the appro­pri­ate gar­nished (I love cucum­ber raita and lime pickle, but choose your own), and a good side veg­etable. We ended up with sauteed pep­pers, but they were SO BOR­ING. I have to think of a bet­ter side, to marry with such a com­fort­ing yet exotic main dish. Sug­ges­tions grate­fully accepted.

***********************

Well, I have spent my sec­ond straight after­noon at “Enchanted,” for which I feel I deserve a prize although it’s enjoy­able. Per­fect for 10-year-old girls, maybe a bit too scary an end­ing for a lit­tle, lit­tle girl. And a cute sound­track, for which I’m grate­ful because I’m being forced now to lis­ten to it inter­minably on iTunes. So as a reward I shall repair to my cher­ished copy of “The Lord Peter Wim­sey Com­pan­ion,” THE Christ­mas gift from my ador­ing fam­ily. Only they know how much only I could love such a vol­ume. And I do.

So Happy New Year to you all, and may it be a healthy and pros­per­ous one!

Would some­one please remind me of my New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion? That is, please to refrain from putting EVERY sin­gle poul­try car­cass that emerges from my kitchen into a stock­pot, cov­er­ing it with water and putting it into my “larder,” the space out­side my gar­den door? Because guess what? If I put, say, a turkey leg that was, after serv­ing as a lovely din­ner, into such a stock­pot and then leave for a week for Christ­mas, and then come back and for­get it’s there for another four days… it is an unlovely thing. It does seem a ter­ri­ble waste sim­ply to chuck the leg bone into the bin and con­sign it to obliv­ion, but it is prefer­able, on the whole, to dis­pos­ing of its mouldy incar­na­tion 10 days later. Wel­come home to me.

But I’m get­ting ahead of myself: did you ever see such a lovely hydrangea– nearly-on-fire? It wasn’t really. But there were some crackly moments that gave us pause, and there was, as well, quite a lot of wax in my hair when all was said and done, my hav­ing suc­cumbed to the sheer beauty and sat for a long time on the bench you see here where Avery perched for the pre­cise num­ber of sec­onds required for the photo and then scarpered. This was two nights after Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut, two days of rain, unfor­tu­nately, so that John’s and my valiant attempts to light the can­dles were thwarted for quite some time. We nearly exhausted three of those turbo lighter thingys I love so much. But it was worth it, wasn’t it? For over two hours the can­dles burned, we took pic­tures and oohed and ahhed, and Anne came across the road to admire. She, John and I stood there, our feet grow­ing ever colder, just gaz­ing at the flames and wax­ing philo­soph­i­cal about the mean­ing of life. John’s mom came out to join the admir­ing throng, as did Avery and Grandpa Jack, but not for long. They suc­cumbed to the tem­per­a­ture, and finally Anne and John did too, and I just sat on the bench among and under the can­dles, try­ing to fig­ure out a way to cap­ture the seren­ity and quiet and glory, and carry it inside with me. Maybe even a way to bring it all back to Lon­don, where seren­ity is a com­mod­ity rather thin on the ground.

Lovely! And the next day we trekked up the meadow on the other side of the big red barn and vis­ited the bench we acquired from a dona­tion to the South­bury Land Trust. What do you give the man who has every­thing (John’s dad)? Why not a bench to ben­e­fit the Trust, with “John’s Dad’s Bench” writ­ten on a lovely bronze plaque on its back? That worked as a gift. We all sat and drank in the gor­geous views from all sides. The bench is sit­u­ated in the mid­dle of an enor­mous meadow, pre­cisely between the only two trees to grace the expanse: two lovely old gnarled apple trees (some rot­ten spec­i­mens on the ground attest to their pro­duc­tiv­ity, so we’ll have to visit some autumn). What was it about this hol­i­day and the mean­ing of life bit? We med­i­tated on that again, while Avery iden­ti­fied win­ter fairies in all the sparkling bits of ice and snow cling­ing to the branches. Why not find a spot and a wor­thy recip­i­ent your­selves and be a bet­ter per­son for your dona­tion? I bet your town has a Land Trust too. “I’ve got a lit­tle piece of immor­tal­ity now,” John’s dad glowed. Oops, I just typed “immoral­ity,” and had to cor­rect it. That sounds like more fun than immor­tal­ity, actu­ally. But I get his point.

We had an inor­di­nately busy week at “home,” much of which is a blur to me now after three days back “home.” You see the schiz­o­phrenic nature of my life. We came home to face the mas­sive job of unpack­ing all the glo­ri­ous Christ­mas presents (the day spent with Jill, Joel and Jane, along with my fam­ily, was quite PER­FECT, how we miss every­one). Then the New Year’s Day “Ride to Buck­ing­ham Palace” with Avery’s sta­ble. An annual tra­di­tion not to be missed. It’s so touch­ing to see it all unfold again: the pro­ces­sional down the Mall, the cross to the Palace, all the tourists tak­ing pic­tures of our lovely girls. And Avery nearly iden­ti­cal to her self a year ago, only… two inches taller! We have the mea­sur­ing marks in the Con­necti­cut kitchen to prove it. How is that possible?

Well, finally after ten days of cook­ing very tra­di­tional, Amer­i­can hol­i­day foods, I am pleased to offer you a truly exotic recipe! Remem­ber a while ago I rec­om­mended Vicky Bho­gal to you? Well, she’s really proved her­self now. Last night I was long­ing for some­thing really… not Amer­i­can. No gravy, no pota­toes, no turkey. Spices, that’s what I wanted! And what I made was indeed spicy, not in a hot way, but in a fes­tive, flavour­ful way. The house smelled like an Indian restau­rant! It’s called a biryani, and while the recipe looks com­pli­cated, and was a bit, let me share with you a slice of culi­nary wis­dom that I gained through my cook­ing. Your expe­ri­ence with this dish will be a smoother one, and less prone to intim­i­da­tion, I think, with this insight. Lis­ten, dear read­ers, and learn.

Pic­ture a generic sort of… casse­role. In Amer­i­can cook­ing, it could be, say, tuna noo­dle casse­role. In Ital­ian, it could be, say, lasagna. In Greek cook­ing, it could be, say mous­saka. But the gen­eral idea is this: cook you up a starch and set it aside. Then cook you up a meaty thing and set it aside too. Now nonstick-spray a deep dish. Then layer the starch with the meat, bake it, and bob’s your uncle (or ahmed, luigi, con­stan­tin, or what­ever). And in Indian cook­ery, it’s… a biryani. I will explain.

The dish requires cooked rice, and cooked chicken. Then you layer them and bake it all. It’s just that the ingre­di­ents look intim­i­dat­ingly for­eign, and the method unfa­mil­iar. But cast your mind back to the last time you made lasagna, and do not suc­cumb to fear. It’s the same thing, I promise. Only Indian. I’ve adapted this recipe slightly to accom­mo­date a child’s taste buds, which do not accept whole spices. But you could leave them in if you felt brave.

Chicken Biryani
(serves 8)

2 cups bas­mati rice
5 car­damom pods
5 whole cloves
1 tsp black pep­per­corns
1 bay leaf
1 stick cin­na­mon, snapped in half
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil (not olive, bet­ter sun­flower)
3 onions, finely sliced
1/2 cup yogurt
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 1/2 tsps grated fresh gin­ger
4 green chill­ies, finely chopped

2 lb diced chicken
1/4 cup chopped toma­toes
5 car­damom pods, slightly split
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cloves
dash freshly ground pep­per
2 bay leaves
1 tsp ground cin­na­mon
2 tsps corian­der pow­der
1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsps lemon juice
hand­ful chopped corian­der
large pinch saf­fron, soaked in 4 tbsps warm milk
but­ter for dotting

Now. I know that looks like a lot. But I’ve divided the ingre­di­ents up into the cat­e­gories in which they’re cooked together. Pic­ture the rice and spices as the pota­toes in a mous­saka, or the pasta in a lasagne. Then then onions and chicken and such are the meat sauce. And the last bits are the parme­san cheese top­ping. Trust me.

So steam the rice with all the spices in it. Stop it cook­ing just before it’s fully cooked, because it will cook fur­ther in the oven. Now, I myself removed the whole spices because Avery would never eat them. But aside from the car­damom pods, one could eat them all. You decide. Set the rice aside.

Now brown the onions in a large skil­let until quite, quite brown. Save about 2 tbsps on a dish, and put the rest in a large bowl. Com­bine with the yogurt, gar­lic, gin­ger and chillies.

Brown the diced chicken in the onion skil­let for about five min­utes, and then add the yogurt mix­ture. Mix well, add all the other ingre­di­ents down to the cin­na­mon and cook VERY VERY low for 30 min­utes. The oil will begin to sep­a­rate. This is good. Remove the bay leaves.

Now you’re ready to layer. Start with a chicken layer, then a rice layer, then chicken, then fin­ish with a rice layer. Spread with the remain­ing sliced browned onions, then sprin­kle the lemon juice over, the corian­der, then the saffron-milk mix­ture. Dot with but­ter, cover tightly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

DELI­CIOUS. You should serve this dish with some fresh-made pap­pad­ums (noth­ing eas­ier in the world: 90 sec­onds in the microwave on full power: they’re like a magic trick) and the appro­pri­ate gar­nished (I love cucum­ber raita and lime pickle, but choose your own), and a good side veg­etable. We ended up with sauteed pep­pers, but they were SO BOR­ING. I have to think of a bet­ter side, to marry with such a com­fort­ing yet exotic main dish. Sug­ges­tions grate­fully accepted.

***********************

Well, I have spent my sec­ond straight after­noon at “Enchanted,” for which I feel I deserve a prize although it’s enjoy­able. Per­fect for 10-year-old girls, maybe a bit too scary an end­ing for a lit­tle, lit­tle girl. And a cute sound­track, for which I’m grate­ful because I’m being forced now to lis­ten to it inter­minably on iTunes. So as a reward I shall repair to my cher­ished copy of “The Lord Peter Wim­sey Com­pan­ion,” THE Christ­mas gift from my ador­ing fam­ily. Only they know how much only I could love such a vol­ume. And I do.

So Happy New Year to you all, and may it be a healthy and pros­per­ous one!