last hol­i­day revels

Well, it’s been a flick­er­ing and love­ly end to the Christ­mas hol­i­days… our anniver­sary lunch at Nobu on Wednes­day was, quite sim­ply, the best meal ever eat­en by either one of us, any­where. It’s going to be painful to get used again to ordi­nary won­der­ful Lon­don sushi, because Nobu exceed­ed any of our gold­en mem­o­ries, from Tribeca days gone past, when it was, unbe­liev­ably, our neigh­bor­hood hang­out. The times, the times the maitre d’ looked over the heads of hope­ful would-be din­ers, telling them, “I’m so sor­ry, we’re COM­PLETE­LY booked,” to beck­on to us, with lit­tle Avery, and say, “Come right in, how’s the family?”

All the old remem­bered favorites: the yel­low­tail tartare with caviar and wasabi-ponzu dress­ing, sus­pend­ed on a bowl of ice. The tuna with jalapeno and cilantro, the tuna tata­ki with ponzu sauce, the big­eye tuna sashi­mi that a baby could gum, it was so impos­si­bly ten­der! Soft-shell crab rolls, spicy tuna, giant clam sashi­mi. Final­ly rock shrimp tem­pu­ra with creamy sauce, shi­itake mush­rooms and minced chives… all washed down care­ful­ly with a pre­cious Mat­suhisu mar­ti­ni com­plete with float­ing cucum­ber and sake…

And our con­ver­sa­tion wan­dered every­where: best play seen in 20 years of mar­riage? Ralph Fiennes in Ham­let in 1994, or David Suchet in Tim­on of Athens in 2000? Or “War Horse” last year? Best vaca­tion? Sey­chelles, or Rome with Avery, or one of the end­less Eng­lish Land­mark Trusts? Best Avery mem­o­ry? Her school noti­fi­ca­tion day last year. Favorite apart­ment in 20 years? Prob­a­bly where we are right now.

While we were indulging in this unbe­liev­able fish­fest, Avery and her Non­na were uptown, rev­el­ling in shop­ping galore! Takashimaya, Ben­del (where Avery acquired a peer­less green flow­ery head­band), Saks to see the win­dows and try on EVERY pair of shoes, and end­ing at Dylan’s Can­dy Bar on 60th Street, where we picked them up in the late, bloomy after­noon. Hap­pi­ness all around.

Awake the next morn­ing to find SNOW! Snow falling with a vengeance, for New Year’s Eve. Blowy bursts of flakes rush­ing past the win­dows, high­light­ed against the red barns and black tree branch­es, impos­si­ble to pho­to­graph and sim­ply gor­geous. Fes­tive and beau­ti­ful! How we wor­ried that the weath­er would pre­vent our guests from mak­ing it from New York City, and in the midst of all of it, up pulled a car con­tain­ing Avery’s first best friend ever, Cici, and her love­ly fam­i­ly, on their way from NYC to their house on the coast! Cof­fee all round, the kids out to give the pugs a walk in the fresh snow, all of us rem­i­nisc­ing as you do, with old, old friends (Avery met Cici when she was 3 days old!) with whom you’ve shared school days, Sep­tem­ber 11, gallery ups and downs, being sep­a­rat­ed by 3000 miles. And yet friend­ship endures. A shared his­to­ry warms the heart, and see­ing two girls (and broth­er Noah!) stretched up tall, with mem­o­ries of their baby selves hov­er­ing in the back­ground, brings tears to the eyes.

At sun­set, they drove away, and Rose­mary and I resumed our work of all day to pre­pare the New Year’s Feast to come. Salmon to roast with olive oil and my beloved Fox Point sea­son­ing, a side dish of can­nelli­ni beans with rose­mary, bread­crumbs and parme­san, aspara­gus with hol­landaise. Pos­si­bly Avery’s favorite of the evening:

Pro­sciut­to-Stuffed Mushrooms
(serves 6)

6 large flat mush­rooms, stems removed, set aside and chopped
olive oil to drizzle
12 slices pro­sciut­to, chopped
2 tbsps butter
1 small white onion, fine­ly minced
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1/2 cup fresh bread­crumbs, toasted
sprin­kle fresh thyme leaves
hand­ful grat­ed Parme­san or Pecorino
3 slices deli Pro­volone, torn in half

Sim­ply set the mush­rooms on a cook­ie sheet and driz­zle with olive oil. Then in a heavy skil­let, saute the pro­sciut­to till cooked and set aside, then add but­ter to the skil­let and cook the onion and gar­lic till soft. Add bread­crumbs, thyme and cheese, toss the pro­sciut­to in and mix well. Spoon the mix­ture into the mush­rooms, top each mush­room with a fold­ed half of Pro­volone, and bake at 350F for 20 min­utes. Perfect.

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So can­dles lit, the Christ­mas trees look­ing love­ly for one last evening, Anne, David and Kate trooped across the road for one more hol­i­day par­ty, and we had a stu­pen­dous time. There is noth­ing nicer than a whole SIDE of salmon, oven-roast­ed for 25 min­utes, moist (though I hate the word) and fes­tive and cel­e­bra­to­ry! Glass­es of bub­bly all around, Kate ask­ing for Avery to sit next to her! I even for­got to toss the Parme­san in with the can­nelli­ni beans and no one seemed to mind, we ate like peo­ple pos­sessed. Hap­py New Year’s to everyone!

New Year’s Day found us sled­ding in the back mead­ow with an enthu­si­as­tic Avery and a ter­ri­fied Kate: not ter­ri­fied for her­self, but for the loved ones she saw putting them­selves in mor­tal dan­ger as they hur­tled down the bumpy hill. “Done! Mom­my done, Dada done, Avery done!” The sun slant­ed on the shim­mer­ing, crisp snow and we all remarked on the land­scape. “I love this view of your com­pound,” David said wry­ly, as we all sur­veyed the out­build­ings. “Every­thing is falling down,” we agreed with no great degree of dis­may. Some­how that seems all right, dark, weath­ered boards creak­ing under the weight of crack­ing glass and heavy snow. Weath­ered is the word for our whole prop­er­ty, here at Red Gate Farm.

Final­ly, the last cel­e­bra­tion of the hol­i­day sea­son: prime rib at my sis­ter’s house! My broth­er in law is sup­plied with every pos­si­ble gad­get and recep­ta­cle to make cook­ing such a scary piece of meat fear-free, and John helped by sup­ply­ing advice from the side­lines about ther­mome­ters, bone con­tact, the usu­al back­seat dri­ver non­sense. I escaped all the deci­sion-mak­ing by cre­at­ing place cards with dear Jane (“I love these mark­ers, they’re so… chem­i­cal­ly!”) and Avery, while Mol­ly slith­ered around under­foot. My sis­ter was as usu­al the most patient of all peo­ple, being every­thing to every­thing, while Joel sup­plied his gor­geous hot arti­choke-cheese appe­tiz­er. There is noth­ing better.

Joel’s Hot Arti­choke Dip
(serves 6‑ish)

1 cup arti­choke hearts, drained of oil and chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grat­ed Pecori­no or Parme­san cheese

Sim­ply non­stick-spray a large ramekin or sev­er­al small, then mix all and decant mix­ture among the ramekins. Bake at 350F for 30 min­utes. Serve with crackers.

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A per­fect cel­e­bra­to­ry end to the fes­tive sea­son: my sis­ter’s house glow­ing with the crazi­ness of Jane and her “Cere­bral Hul­la­baloo” Twister-like game, Mol­ly’s fur­rowed brow and deter­mined “trans­fer­ring” of her hand from one walk­ing-helper to anoth­er. Warm, fam­i­ly, red meat. Noth­ing could be better.

Home to elec­tric blan­kets to pro­tect against the cold, snowy wind, and a mid­night snack of a lime cook­ie from Rose­mary’s stash, packed in her car­ry-on. Who else has a moth­er in law who arrives with gin­ger­bread men, cap­puc­ci­no cook­ies, lime cook­ies, Chex Mix, brown­ies and home­made caramels? They all bring out the hid­den sweet tooth in me… but I think it’s more the secret ingre­di­ent: love.

It’s over, isn’t it? The pack­ing of hol­i­day fun into suit­cas­es, trav­el, the fran­tic wrap­ping and dec­o­rat­ing to the back­ground of “Char­lie Brown Christ­mas,” the oys­ter stew and turkeys and stuff­ing and Christ­mas cook­ies, the cham­pagne and par­ties and cel­e­bra­tions. Some 300-some­thing days from now it will all begin again, but for the moment, a sigh of hap­pi­ness at fam­i­ly near­by, food trea­sured, presents opened and loved. Well done, every­one. Surfeit.