friends reunit­ed

I have risen from my metaphor­i­cal bed of mis­ery to post this dar­ling pho­to of Avery reunit­ed with her beloved Anna and Ellie. It has been an absolute and utter joy to see Beck­y’s fam­i­ly again: the lazy fun of shared mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences, “remem­ber when…”, “You’ll know what I mean when I say…”, “Of course you were there when…” The dark Scan­di­na­vian side of me bows its depres­sive head and says woe­ful­ly, “But they go home on Sun­day,” but the slight­ly sun­nier John-influ­enced side shakes itself and says, “Enjoy the week.” I got in a short but sat­is­fy­ing lunch with Becky today, albeit cough­ing all the while, but the whole ill­ness thing is grad­u­al­ly get­ting bet­ter. Then we have anoth­er lunch with all her girls (alas, Avery is in school) at Beck­y’s old favorite steak place in Maryle­bone, and ice skat­ing and din­ner togeth­er on Fri­day, shop­ping and hang­ing out on Sat­ur­day. We are monop­o­liz­ing them as much as we dare.

Friend­ship is, I believe, the fifth basic food group. Although Avery assures me there are no more food groups, any­more. It’s a pyra­mid, or some such non­sense. What hap­pened to meat, dairy, fruit and veg and starch? Weren’t those the cat­e­gories? I still think of food in those groups, and my old-fash­ioned din­ner plates reflect it: a chop, a pile of beloved mashed pota­toes, and stack of some­thing green. Nine nights out of ten, I am ashamed to say. Now for lunch I can branch out into your legumes and puls­es, your grains and oils, seeds and such. John will eat any­thing that does­n’t move. But Avery is quite the rabid lit­tle food conservative.

Any­way, we are rejoic­ing in our reunion. I have been unde­served­ly lucky in my friend­ships: Alyssa to share all my loves and hates in Tribeca, Becky to step up and gos­sip and com­mis­er­ate on rais­ing daugh­ters here in Lon­don, and then when she departs, my dear Annie appears in the next street to talk cook­ing and Lost Prop­er­ty. Pep­pered in and out are Dalia, Gigi, JoAnn, all the girls who make the process of liv­ing a lit­tle less iso­lat­ed and mys­te­ri­ous, a lit­tle fun­nier, more hope­ful. And what would I do with­out the friends who pop up in emails through­out the day? The spice of life.

It has been heart­warm­ing to see Ellie fall right back into her broth­er-sis­ter­ish rela­tion­ship with John: he throws her upside down, tick­les her relent­less, inspects what teeth are loose, pokes her in the side and chas­es her around the room. Avery and Anna are just the same: end­less­ly sup­port­ive of each oth­er, shar­ing obses­sions with ani­mals and fash­ion (although their ver­sion of fash­ion is to find innu­mer­able ways to arrange one t‑shirt: there are no labels in our lives, YET). Mark is his usu­al imper­turbable, gen­er­ous self, a sort of liv­ing embod­i­ment of intel­li­gence and kind­ness. Only Becky could deserve him, although she nev­er lacks a cer­tain twin­kle in her eye to let me know that some gos­sip would not go amiss. Ash­ley, the supreme teenag­er, has been com­plete­ly inac­ces­si­ble. “In eight days here,” Becky moaned to me today, “I will have seen her for two hours and forty-five minutes!”

We all nat­ter on about how much we love liv­ing in Lon­don: the the­atre, the food, the archi­tec­ture, the schools, the his­to­ry. But you know what is NOT nice about liv­ing here? There is an unspo­ken aware­ness that how­ev­er much you grow to love peo­ple, this is essen­tial­ly a tem­po­rary town, filled with peri­patet­ic, rest­less peo­ple. We all live in the total under­stand­ing that any of us could pack up and leave at any moment, and most of us will, at some point. Com­ing here from New York, from Hong Kong, from Toyko, from Paris, from Moscow. About to go back to one of those places, or to Chica­go or Green­wich or Hous­ton. On the one hand it makes you very flex­i­ble, but on the oth­er hand, your heart breaks. I sup­pose if I were wise, I’d decline to get so very involved with every­one, but that nev­er seems to be an option with me. So I pine.

Let’s see, what else it hap­pen­ing? John fell down the stairs, cream­ing his ankle in the process but of course sav­ing his beloved com­put­er from dam­age. Some­how I’d rather he’d thrown the com­put­er aside and saved his own body, but no, he had his pri­or­i­ties firm­ly in place. So he’s been limp­ing around with an ice pack and Ace ban­dage wrapped around the offend­ing limb, by and large tak­ing his infir­mi­ty fair­ly well, but feel­ing bad that he can’t run errands for me while I’m puny, so he lash­es out. “Lie down! Stop mov­ing around! We won’t die on a Tues­day at twelve if you don’t cook three things for din­ner!” We have ordered piz­za. Twice. I wait­ed for the sky to fall, but noth­ing hap­pened, so I am learn­ing I’m not as indis­pens­able as I thought. But tonight is an old favorite, because I just can’t help myself.

Avery’s Favorite Baked Salmon with Brandy and Creme Fraiche
(serves four)

1 pound salmon fillet
3 tbsps butter
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
2 shal­lots, minced
1/3 cup brandy
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1/3 cup chick­en stock
1/2 cup light cream
squeeze of lemon juice
dried thyme (enough to fit in the hol­low of your palm if you cup your hand, is a good mea­sur­ing tool for a lit­tle girl)
sweet papri­ka, same amount
salt and pep­per to taste

In a heavy skil­let, melt the but­ter and saute gar­lic and shal­lots till soft. Now pour in the brandy, tak­ing time to explain “deglaz­ing” to your child. Cook down until reduced by half, then whisk in a lit­tle more but­ter till it’s glossy. Then whisk in the creme fraiche, cream, lemon juice and herbs. Taste and season.

Place your salmon in a glass non­stick-sprayed dish and pour the sauce over the fish. Bake at 425 for 25 min­utes. Glorious.

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And guess what will be on the plate with the salmon? A nice mound of mashed pota­toes and a stack of sauteed sug­ar snap peas.

Avery’s com­ing home late tonight after a rehearsal for the school play, which airs tomor­row evening. One hopes by then I will not be a chat­ter­ing, cough­ing pile of bones. I think the salmon will help.

And my lat­est food find? Yogurt from Sta­ple­ton Farm: I picked some up at Wait­rose just on a whim, pas­sion fruit and peach­es, was it, or apri­cots? and was delight­ed to find that although very low in fat, it was beyond creamy, very fruity, and fla­vor­ful enough to pen­e­trate my con­ges­tion-fogged taste­buds. I love to find lit­tle tiny pur­vey­ors, and am even hap­pi­er when I find they’re being sup­port­ed by the big bad super­mar­kets. Get your­self a pot or two. Maybe the live bac­te­ria will save you from The Virus That Ate Lon­don. Then I can give you a hug and all bets will be off.