Two words: vol­canic ash.

Who knew that two words could have such a dev­as­tat­ing, dis­com­bob­u­lat­ing, dis­ori­ent­ing effect on much of the world.

No flights.

In or out of the UK, as you all know by now, and this since Wednes­day night. So my poor mother in law, who wanted noth­ing more than to be in Iowa on Thurs­day evening, is bravely stick­ing it out with us here this week­end, hop­ing to get out on Tues­day if the reports are safe and healthy.

I keep think­ing how much I would like to get to Indi­ana on Wednes­day. I do NOT want, how­ever, to be part of the sort of seis­mo­log­i­cal exper­i­ment enti­tled “How Much Vol­canic Ash Does It Take To Shut Off Transat­lantic Air­plane Engines Headed for Detroit?”

In short, we’re stuck. Can you believe it?

We’ve done:

Pic­cacilly: Hatchards (my favorite book­shop ever), plus lunch at the Woles­ley with my friend JoAnn (duck liv­ers in Madeira, hal­ibut steaks and end­less laugh­ter) and the Van Gogh show (total yawn from Avery’s and my per­spec­tive: we spent the entire time mak­ing up irrev­er­ent replace­ment titles for the very repet­i­tive paint­ings (“Peas­ant With Bot­tom in Air Tak­ing Care of Chick­ens and Pos­si­bly Dead Dog”)

High­gate Ceme­tery (fas­ci­nat­ing, ask for Josephine the Guide who is knowl­edge­able, funny and loyal to the cemetery)

Covent Gar­den (lovely spices from the Ara­bica com­pany, includ­ing some­thing called “Dukka” which was lovely on duck)

Avery’s audi­tion for a very silly-sounding sit­com like “Han­nah Montana”

Por­to­bello Mar­ket where we bought loads of presents I can­not describe here because their recip­i­ents will read about them! and lunch at E&O, pos­si­bly the best Asian fusion food in the city: seared tuna with miso aiol, crispy chilli squid, a beef dish with chopped peanuts in let­tuce… words fail me. Per­fec­tion on a plate.

The Crim­i­nal Courts in the City (a mur­der case involv­ing a young Kurd in a chicken shop who killed a man with a mop to get his cell phone)

The Lock and Canal Walk from Padding­ton Basin (a good five or six miles, be pre­pared, but in good weather it’s delightful)

Cam­den Mar­ket (hideously crowded but found the BEST presents for every­one in Indi­anapo­lis, should I ever get there, and excel­lent donuts)

.….……

We’re in a tailspin.

All I can do is cook. Can I inter­est you in:

Salmon in Teriyaki Sauce
(serves 4)

4 fil­lets of salmon
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
1-inch knob gin­ger, grated
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1/4 cup Japan­ese mirin (or sake)
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp sesame oil
zest and juice of 1 lime
hand­ful chives, chopped long

Line a bak­ing dish with foil (very impor­tant as the sauce is very dif­fi­cult to clean from bak­ing dish!). Place salmon fil­lets in it.

In a small saucepan, place all mari­nade ingre­di­ents except chives and sim­mer until reduced just a bit, per­haps 5 min­utes. Cool slightly, then pour over salmon fillets.

Cook either in a very hot oven (425F, 210C) for 20 min­utes (or until opaque in cen­ter) or grill on one side for about 6 min­utes, then turn and grill for another 4–5 min­utes, JUST until cooked through.

Scat­ter with chives.

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

Had­dock with Tar­tar Sauce and Savoy Cab­bage and Curly Kale Saute
(serves 4)

2 inches high (in a wide, shal­low pan) taste­less oil like rape­seed or sun­flower oil

4 pieces had­dock loin fil­lets
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsps cream

1 1/2 cups fresh bread­crumbs
3/4 cup corn­starch (corn­flour)
salt and pepper

3/4 cup may­on­naise
tbsp capers, chopped
6 cor­ni­chons, chopped
juice of 1 lime
pinch dried dill
pinch dried tar­ragon
black pep­per and salt to taste

CAB­BAGE:
3 tbsps but­ter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 head Savoy cab­bage, chopped
2 hand­fuls curly green kale, chopped
salt and pep­per to taste

Mix eggs with cream in a wide bowl. Mix bread­crumbs with corn­flour and salt and pep­per in a flat plate.

Mix fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents for the tar­tar sauce and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, over low heat, toss but­ter, oil, cab­bage and kale until JUST slightly limp, then sea­son and turn off heat.

To pre­pare fish, heat oil to nearly smok­ing. Mean­while, coat each fil­let of had­dock in egg mix­ture, then in breadcrumb/cornflour/seasonings mix­ture. One at a time, lower into hot oil care­fully. Cook on each side about 2–3 min­utes, until firm. Drain on paper towel.

Serve with sauce and cab­bage. Per­fectly crunchy, light and you’ll never go for fish and chips again. At least, until I learn to make chips and teach YOU.

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

So until the air clears, I’m stuck cook­ing for my grow­ing house­hold. Tonight, close to mid­night, Avery and I walked to school to pick up a friend back from a school trip in Italy, to stay with us until her par­ents, stranded in Amer­ica, can get back.

“Can I just tell you,” chor­tled Avery as we trun­dled along with Lille’s suit­cases through the dark neigh­bor­hood toward home, “How extremely funny it is that your trip back from POM­PEII was delayed by… a volcano.”

Trust a teenager to make it funny.

My good­ness.

Life has been sim­ply crazy of late. The last two weeks have sim­ply SPED by in the com­pany of my beloved mother-in-law who always makes every event three times as much fun, just by being there. And there have been SO MANY events.

The bur­glary has also set me back as I just can­not retrieve pho­tographs from our old iPhoto sources with any ease. I depend on poor John to teach me to do every­thing, since my old sys­tem was stolen out from under me.

For my own san­ity, may I list: “Six Degrees of Sep­a­ra­tion” was a mixed bag, theatre-wise. Strong per­for­mances, the most thought-provoking notion just in and of itself: how many degrees sep­a­rate you from any­one you can imag­ine? Us from the Queen? Not so many as you’d think. John worked once at Gold­man with some­one who is now a Gor­don Brown staffer. There you go: three degrees. Angelina Jolie? Avery had a school chum whose mother was best bud­dies with Elton John. At most, three degrees? Mother Teresa? Just add one from the Queen to Princess Diana, and there you go. We couldn’t come up with ANY­ONE for whom we needed six actual degrees. And nei­ther do you, if you know me. That’s just one extra degree.

The play itself? Mem­o­rable mostly for the two naked male bod­ies fresh from a gay encounter, leap­ing about the stage. “Con­ceal­ing a gun? Look at me! I don’t think so!” Poor Avery didn’t know where to look. Today, as I was recount­ing the story, she said, “I was FINE about it, it was just sit­ting next to YOU when it hap­pened that was embarrassing!”

Ditto “The Last Sta­tion”, a film about Tol­stoy, with my adored crush James McAvoy in the sup­port­ing actor role. Well… one of the major plot lines was his deflow­er­ment, by a young Tol­stoyian maiden. Again, averted eyes, and “if you hadn’t been next to me…!” A bit too much edu­ca­tion, all of a sud­den. But as my dear friend Jo said today, none of it is the first, nor will it be the last, so get used to it all!

There have been count­less fab­u­lous shop­ping trips (Ben­e­fit for Avery, food for me in many dif­fer­ent places, the Apple store for John to replace our stolen com­put­ers)… and meals, my good­ness! Last night’s fried had­dock with fresh olive oil-rosemary bread­crumbs from Gail’s in Hamp­stead, home­made tartare sauce on the side! The Easter ham and its accom­pa­ny­ing dauphi­noise… fil­let of beef with mush­room dux­elles… pork medal­lions with sage, cream and brandy sauce…

Most of all, it’s been the com­pany of one of my favorite peo­ple on earth, plus two other of my favorite peo­ple on earth. Together, the four of us hud­dle down wher­ever we are, enjoy­ing each other, rais­ing a glass as many times as we can to John’s beloved, much-revered, completely-missed father, feel­ing that as long as we can remem­ber him to each other, laugh over our mem­o­ries, he is still here.

Right. Tomor­row I shall con­sol­i­date pho­tographs and tell you about Wilt­shire. Specif­i­cally, Sal­is­bury. Its Cathe­dral Close formed our home for six days, and its peo­ple were a com­plete delight. One in par­tic­u­lar… but that’s another story.

I promise I’m get­ting back on track and tomor­row? A recipe.

Just the tini­est of updates to let you know all is well…

We are pho­tograph­less for two rea­sons: one, we were uncer­e­mo­ni­ously bur­gled last week, AGAIN, and all pho­tos are gone. Except for the ones we have taken since, and we have come away to Wilt­shire (MUCH more on this soon!) with­out that essen­tial piece of equip­ment that allows us to con­nect com­puter to cam­era, and to exchange all the bless­ings thereof.

So all I can say, briefly is this: 380 Cathe­dral steps up to the spire (whew), 5+ miles walk today to see the set­tings of sev­eral piv­otal scenes of “Pride and Prej­u­dice” (pro­posal in rain: swoon on cue).

And tonight: the best Indian meal EVER in the his­tory of mankind: black lentils in honey and yogurt? Twice-roasted pork in vin­daloo? Spinach with gar­lic and fenu­greek leaves?

But wait: tomor­row will bring… din­ner here with an exalted guest: our guide of the Sal­is­bury Tower Tour. He is quite sim­ply the most charm­ing gen­tle­man any of us has met in about a thou­sand years, so it was but the work of a moment to invite him to mozzarella-stuffed meat­balls in the Wardrobe, our abode high above the Cathe­dral Close, tomor­row evening. Watch this space.

Don’t you find you get on food kicks? I do. I get an urge to cook scal­lops and then I have them one night with loads of olive oil, pars­ley, bread­crumbs and gar­lic. The next night I want them with beets, pota­toes and bacon.

Or pasta, when I cook riga­toni alla vodka sauce one night and then the night after that feel I can’t live with­out carbonara.

Won’t it be won­der­ful SOON when you can look up all these recipes on the mag­nif­i­cent INDEX that’s com­ing? Just yes­ter­day I sent my spread­sheet of cat­e­gories to my Blog Angel Julian, the dear young man who is going to drag me into the land of the Search Opti­mized and Google Pop­u­lar­ized. It will be sim­ply bril­liant for you, and for me, to be able to sim­ply click on “Main Courses” and find “Shell­fish” and there will be scal­lop recipe after scal­lop recipe.

But I digress. My point is, I’ve been on a “how to make more inter­est­ing sal­ads” kick this week. I started with your basic “how many beans can you fit into a bowl” recipe, but then my pas­sion was whet­ted and, as well, John’s pho­to­graphic ambi­tions. And thus were born these two com­pletely lus­cious, ver­sa­tile, and yet com­pletely dif­fer­ent salads.

I have had read­ers sug­gest that I add grilled chicken to them, that I add crispy tor­tilla strips to them, that I add a piece of lightly toasted baguette with olive oil to them. To all these sug­ges­tions I shout HUR­RAY and also throw in: how about some seared fil­let steak? Some, dare I say it, sauteed scal­lops? Even some shaved Parme­san, to either one. These sal­ads are mar­vel­lous, and JUST the begin­ning. Just you use your imag­i­na­tion, and I don’t mean just your taste­buds. Imag­ine how they will LOOK, too, because I’m con­vinced, with sal­ads at least, that con­trast­ing color will auto­mat­i­cally equal good fla­vors. I really think so. Can you imag­ine adding together any two red and green things and hav­ing it not be deli­cious? Plus, what ingre­di­ents can­not be mar­ried with chilli oil and lemon juice? I chal­lenge you.

Red Pep­per, Cour­gette and Black Bean Salad
(serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 as a main course)

1 red bell pep­per
1 large cour­gette (zuc­chini)
1 soup-size tin black beans, well rinsed and drained
1 large clove gar­lic
juice of 1 lemon
pulp of as much of a lemon as you can gather
1/2 tsp sea salt
lots of fresh-ground black pep­per
1 tbsp chilli oil
1 large hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped

Dice the red pep­per and the cour­gette in same-size bites, then mix in a large bowl with the black beans. Mince the gar­lic WITH the lemon juice and pulp and salt (this com­bi­na­tion will break down the gar­lic into a mush, per­fect for eat­ing raw). Toss with the red pep­per and cour­gette and beans and chilli oil, and sprin­kle with black pepper.

Mound as high ver­ti­cally on a plate as you can, and scat­ter the chopped pars­ley on top.

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

Beet­root, Goats Cheese and Wild Rocket and Sor­rel Salad
(serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 as a main course)

3 medium beets
2 tsps bal­samic vine­gar
hand­ful wild rocket
hand­ful wild sor­rel leaves
hand­ful goats cheese in dice
1/4 red onion, diced
hand­ful chives, chopped long
1 tbsp chilli oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
fresh black pep­per and sea salt to taste

Roast the beets by wrap­ping them, in a group, in foil and cook­ing in a very hot oven (425F) for an hour and a half. Leave them in the foil on the counter for 10 min­utes or so before unwrap­ping and slip­ping the skins off (this time lapse allows the beets both to cool and to let go their skins by steaming).

Dice the beets and sprin­kle with the vinegar.

Arrange the rocket and sor­rel on a pretty place and pile the beets on them. Scat­ter with goats cheese, onion, and chives, and sprin­kle the chilli oil and lemon juice on top. Sea­son as you like.

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

Try these when you feel you’ve had just too much red meat, or fried food, or have been away from home and feel dis­con­nected from the finer, most basic things in life. And if your chil­dren don’t love sal­ads (Avery won’t eat any­thing with let­tuce included), just decon­struct it. Beets and goats cheese are two of her favorite foods. But not together.

Let’s see, part of what’s put a sparkle in my step tonight is the arrival today of John’s mom, a per­son we all hold so dear that all we can do most of the year is to avert our thoughts. We are sep­a­rated for so much time that we can only enjoy the moments we are together, not dwell on the months spent apart.

She arrived this after­noon to a flurry of wel­comes, kisses and hugs and “Oh, I love these pho­tographs!” in the entry hall, and excla­ma­tions over the delight­ful cats, her cozy white bed­room over­look­ing the gar­dens of Ham­mer­smith, the small gifts we had left on her bed with its fluffy white duvet. As always, presents emerged from her suit­case: a tea towel for me say­ing, “After a good din­ner one can for­give almost all, even one’s rel­a­tives.” (Dear Oscar Wilde, such a clever boy.) And a gor­geous black shirt, and lots of clothes and pre­cious makeup for Avery… just like Christmas!

We set­tled down to the busi­ness of appre­ci­at­ing her, her spe­cial way of mak­ing every­thing we say seem inter­est­ing, our lives inter­est­ing, Avery’s accom­plish­ments remark­able (well, her school report WAS pretty spec­tac­u­lar). And to think we have two weeks of her com­pany to enjoy. Maybe if we eat enough veg­eta­bles, we’ll live for­ever and have all the time in the world. Bring on the beets.