So…

Drum­roll please…

Here is a link to the new and improved “Kris­ten in Lon­don,” still in the plan­ning stages and we’re still build­ing that recipe index!

But I’d like to ask your opin­ion on how it looks, what you see on the first page, how the hot links work. In short…

Do you like it?

I’m open to all ideas, so let’s get the ball rolling!

There is no sub­sti­tute for going “home.” No mat­ter how strongly I feel about my own home in Lon­don, or how much I loved our var­i­ous apart­ments in New York, when I walk into my mother and father’s home in Indi­anapo­lis, I know I am “home.”

I feel so tall there now! The kitchen where I spent so many happy child­hood hours seems smaller than I remem­ber, the ceil­ings lower, the coun­ters lower, the lights dim­mer. All the cup­boards (or “cab­i­nets” as they were called in my child­hood) are within my reach, but my strongest mem­o­ries of them are from the van­tage point of being 10, crouch­ing on my knees on the counter, to get down a can of corn or the blender, which lived far in the back, on a dark shelf.

Every room in the house is tes­ti­mony to my mother’s intensely per­sonal dec­o­rat­ing skills, and every object has been cho­sen with delib­er­ate care to reflect her taste in any given year. When I was lit­tle, every­thing was yel­low: checked sofa, chairs and cur­tains, the whole liv­ing room a sunny haven, flanked by the fire­place on one end and her conservatory/plant room on the other. Very 1970s! Now, yel­low has been replaced by deep browns and clear whites, in the tuille of the chairs she inher­ited from her mother’s house, in the southern-style shut­ters at the win­dows, the masses of brown and white trans­fer­ware china she has col­lected all her life. The walls are cov­ered with sam­plers she stitched her­self in the long days she spent look­ing after the three of us chil­dren, and there are dis­plays of antique eye­glasses, sym­bol­iz­ing my grandfather’s career as a promi­nent optometrist in south­ern Indiana.

The plants are still there in the plant room: lus­cious ferns, tiny baby prim­roses in hang­ing bas­kets, the ter­rar­ium we chil­dren planted, with even the step­ping stools sten­cilled beau­ti­fully by mother, reflect­ing her belief that every­thing one uses or looks at should be dec­o­ra­tive, should add to the visual landscape.

She has a squir­rel col­lec­tion! No, not taxi­dermy (she is far too fond of liv­ing furry things to do that), but every other con­ceiv­able mate­r­ial: fuzzy Steiffs, cast-iron doorstops, paper­weights, carved wood, all sit­ting demurely on a painted tray, tails tightly curled.

And every­where are pho­tographs. My mother has a pos­i­tive genius for mak­ing arrange­ments of touch­ing, sig­nif­i­cant, his­tor­i­cal (she likes to call them “hys­ter­i­cal”) objects, com­bin­ing them with pho­tographs, plac­ing them all in deep boxes behind glass: all our fam­ily his­tory hung on the walls. My great-grandmother’s pass­port, wed­ding cer­tifi­cate, teach­ing degree, chris­ten­ing dress, string of pearls, pho­to­graph of her hold­ing my grand­mother, smil­ing at her baby from under a cloche hat. My mother col­lects printer’s type, and makes boxes for baby gifts, for my daugh­ter a box filled with types of cats, sym­bols of New York City where she was born, my and my husband’s ini­tials, her birth announce­ment, a photo of her as a new­born baby.

The many, many pho­tographs of our fam­ily reunions, grand­chil­dren arranged stairstep-fashion, the tini­est child chang­ing as more babies appeared! My beloved grand­fa­ther, dead so pre­ma­turely at 64, in the hap­pi­est fam­ily days you can imag­ine, all of us grand­chil­dren being pulled in a cart behind his lawn­mower on the acres of lawn in front of their big, ram­bling stone house, on the street named for him… he with pipe in mouth, billed cap on head, broad smile as he spent his days the hap­pi­est way he knew, sur­rounded by his grand­chil­dren. How he would have adored Avery. This is some­thing my mother and say to each other at least four times, every time we get together. “Wouldn’t he have thought her the lit­tle princess,” for that’s what he called all of us grand­daugh­ters. We were each a princess, when he was with us.

So I went home, last week. My father valiantly dragged in my impos­si­bly heavy suit­case, and I brought out presents for every­one, talk­ing and lis­ten­ing, catch­ing up on fam­ily and neigh­bor­hood gos­sip. Who had sold a house, whose chil­dren had got divorced, how many cars were in the next-door garage in var­i­ous states of dis­re­pair, who had turned gay or got arrested (it’s an inter­est­ing neighborhood)…

And in the morn­ing there was time to sit out on my mother’s screened-in porch, sur­rounded by hang­ing plants, with a giant box of mem­o­ra­bilia from my 98-year-old grandmother’s house. My mother was glad to have me go through it, mak­ing a pile of things I wanted to bring home with me, includ­ing a pho­to­graph of some ran­dom great-aunts, old ladies in their flow­ery print dresses, eye­glasses with rhine­stones at the cor­ners, gnarled hands folded in their laps. And guess what? They were 45 years old when the photo was taken! Times have cer­tainly changed… some­how I don’t think there was a “cougar” among them.

There is a dusty film in some unfa­mil­iar for­mat, of my baby mother held in her father’s arms, and an old photo album belong­ing to my grand­mother with pic­tures of long-ago East­ers spent look­ing for eggs under their giant spruce tree, and Christ­mases in poly­ester paja­mas with tou­sled hair, all of us grand­chil­dren grad­u­ally get­ting older until I sup­pose she stopped putting pho­tos away, and just let them pile up on her bed­side table.

That was the one quiet day at home! From then, time speeded up in a blur of vis­i­tors. My mother’s best friend Janet, gor­geous as ever, host­ess of many, many sleep­overs with her daugh­ter who grew up with me, always the more glam­orous, pop­u­lar and beau­ti­ful! Just look­ing at her famil­iar face made me feel as if the inter­ven­ing 30 years had never hap­pened, and we were once again jump­ing off the dock at their lake house, or our lake house, or speed­ing on water skis behind one of our boats, all of us with per­fect ath­letic fig­ures and per­fect tans, eat­ing hot dogs and steaks and get­ting up at the crack of dawn in 1981 to watch Princess Diana’s wed­ding, on our dodgy aer­ial television.

And along with her came her great friend Dal­lene, famous in my life for teach­ing me to play piano, a joy that has stayed with me all these years; if I’m not as good as I was at age 12, it’s not Dallene’s fault! How many hun­dreds of hours I spent at the piano in her ele­gant Vic­to­rian house, with her son under my feet, try­ing to keep me from reach­ing the ped­als! And her hus­band our high school foot­ball coach, the two of them burst­ing with energy to teach all of us every­thing they knew… Many years later, they turned up in Lon­don on a school trip, and I cooked some­thing for them, a pork roast, Dal­lene thinks, and of course she says, “That was the best pork roast I ever ate!”

It was sim­ply lovely to sit with them and my mother, feel­ing pet­ted and loved, remem­bered as a skinny lit­tle kid tag­ging after the cooler kids, prac­tic­ing my piano and mak­ing choco­late chip cook­ies, see­ing them always in the bleach­ers at my div­ing and gym­nas­tic meets, a set of ladies ready to take care of me and all our friends, stal­wart moth­ers. I love to think that there are girls in Avery’s lit­tle social cir­cle who see me as just such a mother, there to pick them up at the train sta­tion after school trips, to pro­vide pop­corn while they watch a movie. Every time Avery asks for help with her piano music, I think of Dal­lene and what she added to my life, once a week, for years and years, and I told her so! Which made us both happy.

Then it was onto pro­duc­ing lunch for my dear friends Bob and Ann, Bob who mar­ried us in his infi­nite philo­soph­i­cal wis­dom, 20 years ago. Ann was and is a total fem­i­nist and icon­o­clast, and she was more than happy to turn the tra­di­tional mar­riage ser­vice into some­thing that reflected who we were. To get ready, my mother pol­ished the brown and white china, spread­ing a match­ing table­cloth on the din­ing table where we NEVER eat unless com­pany comes! More china shone down from the cherry side­board that my dad made with his very own hands.

It was tricky for me, queen of but­ter, cream and other fat­ten­ing things, to make some­thing that would please Bob and Ann who are 80+ for a good rea­son. They really take care of them­selves, bik­ing through Hol­land last year, play­ing ten­nis twice a week. So I really felt I didn’t want to poi­son them at lunch, and I spent a lot of time think­ing of just the right dish: savoury and fes­tive, yet not heavy and guilt-inducing. I think I invented just the ticket, and I have to tell you that I served the chicken salad in… a cham­ber pot. I really did, as you see.

Chicken Salad with Bas­mati Rice, Arti­chokes, Pinenuts and Cour­gettes
(serves 8)

3 bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tsp Fox Point sea­son­ing
2 cups bas­mati rice, steamed in 1 1/2 cups water
2 heads Boston let­tuce, well trimmed and leaves sep­a­rated
1 large globe arti­choke
2 stalks cel­ery, chopped
1 cup pinenuts, lightly toasted
2 medium cour­gettes (zuc­chini), cut into bite-size batons
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves gar­lic, minced with salt and lemon juice
juice and zest of 1 lemon
hand­ful chives, chopped
hand­ful fresh dill, chopped

dress­ing (optional):
2 tbsps may­on­naise
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp bal­samic vinegar

Saute the chicken breasts in a large fry­ing pan with the oil and Fox Point, till just cooked. Don’t over­cook. Slice thin and set aside to cool, reserv­ing the sea­soned oil in the fry­ing pan.

Steam rice and set aside to cool.

Line a large bowl (or cham­ber pot) with leaves of Boston let­tuce, just the sweet inner leaves. In a sep­a­rate large bowl, mix all the ingre­di­ents (includ­ing chicken and rice) for the salad and toss well. Add the sea­soned juicy oil from the chicken pan and as much of the dress­ing (or none) as you like and mix well.

Arrange the salad in the bowl lined with let­tuce leaves and serve with baguette slices, rolls, or as my mother did, but­tered biscuits.

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

This was so deli­cious! So many dif­fer­ent tex­tures, col­ors and fla­vors that each bite was inter­est­ing. Be sure to serve a cou­ple of let­tuce leaves on every plate. If you’re the type of per­son who likes things wrapped in let­tuce, eat the salad that way, wrapped in a leaf.

For dessert we had blue­ber­ries, black­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries and straw­ber­ries tossed in a lit­tle lemony sugar water, and my mother’s all-time, old-fashioned favorite sweet:

Lemon Bars
(serves 12)

1 box lemon cake mix
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup but­ter, melted
1 pack­age lemon frost­ing mix or 1 cup lemon frost­ing
1 8-ounce pack­age cream cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup lemon frost­ing for top

But­ter a 9x9 cake pan and heat oven to 350F/180C.

Mix the cake mix, 2 eggs and melted but­ter and press into the cake pan evenly. Mix frost­ing mix or frost­ing, cream cheese and 1 egg and spread on top. Bake for 35–40 min­utes or until set and golden brown. Cool and spread remain­ing frost­ing on top. Cut into 12 squares.

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

Now I know you will sit up at this and say to your­self, “Self, what is Kris­ten doing with processed foods full of high-fructose corn syrup and arti­fi­cial fla­vor­ings?” And to this I can only say, this was the first dish I ever cooked in my entire life, age per­haps 10, and that’s what we did in those days. I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I could come up with a pre­ten­tious recipe using all organic pure ingre­di­ents, and it would be a page long and cost about $20. But why? How often are you going to eat Lemon Bars, any­way? Once a year? Go for it.

Bob and Ann and we sat around the table for hours, rem­i­nisc­ing about my col­lege days (where he was my pro­fes­sor, to be sure, but he started when my par­ents were there!), our lives in Lon­don, dis­cussing the recent elec­tion, my sister’s career, and the­o­ries of chil­dren in fos­ter homes, all sub­jects dear to our hearts. Best of all were the sto­ries about old pro­fes­sors my par­ents and I had had in school.

“Remem­ber old E., how blind he got in his old age?” Bob asked.

“Sure,” my mother said promptly. “Once there was a kid in my class who had a bet that he could crawl out down the cen­tral aisle, and E. thought he was a dog. ‘Who let that mutt in my classroom?’”

“Ver­sions of that story are leg­endary,” Bob laughed, “but the best is that one kid bet another a quar­ter that he could crawl out. When E. saw him, he walked back where the kid was on his hands and knees and said, ‘Young man, what are you doing?’ And the kid said, ‘I just lost a quar­ter,’ so E. got down on HIS hands and knees to look for it!”

Finally they had to go, hav­ing dri­ven an hour from my col­lege town to see me.

Thurs­day saw me hav­ing cof­fee (I really needed it at that point, jet­lag threat­en­ing to catch up with me!) with my old high school friend Brent, now the direc­tor of the Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity jazz radio sta­tion. We talked over and over each other, try­ing to fill in the gaps between 1983 and now. Indi­ana pol­i­tics, the his­tory of our lit­tle neigh­bor­hood where we grew up, adven­tures in col­lege, and of course the joys of Face­book, where we found each other after all these years!

He raced me home where we jumped in the car and drove two hours to the lit­tle town in South­ern Indi­ana where my mother grew up, and where her mother now lives in a gor­geous lit­tle retire­ment home, where she is the undis­puted Queen. And the old­est lady at 98! “Well, hey there, Bet­tye,” per­son after per­son called to her, while we were there. And she remem­bered me per­fectly, although it’s been sev­eral years since I saw her, iso­lated as she is in that town, so far from Lon­don. “I’d like to go back there,” she said rem­i­nis­cently, “and spend more than two weeks. I was there for two weeks with your grand­fa­ther, and it surely was not enough to see all there was to see…” her voice trail­ing off as she looked into the past, two dead hus­bands ago, another life­time it must seem.

I con­fess to a lit­tle heart-thumping fear when I first saw her. So much older than I remem­bered, liv­ing not in the houses where I vis­ited her as a child, but as a patient, really, in a nurs­ing home. I know that my life is impov­er­ished by not spend­ing enough time with her, and with the other old, old peo­ple who exist in my life. Old­ness can start to seem scary, so far away, as if they aren’t really peo­ple any­more. But the longer I sat with her, the more we exchanged sto­ries, and she looked through the pho­tographs of Avery and John that I had brought, the more I rec­og­nized the silly, chatty, res­olute matri­arch of our fam­ily who held us all together for so many years. When we got up from the table where we’d been sit­ting as she had a cup of ice cream, she started to stand up and abruptly sat back down in her wheel­chair, laugh­ing. “I almost for­got I was liv­ing in this con­trap­tion, honey! Almost stood up on my own two feet. Got to remem­ber I scoot, now, not walk. It’s hell to get old!”

We left after an hour or so, and I kissed her soft cheek and she clung to my arm for an instant, say­ing, “It’s good of you to come see an old lady, honey,” and I could only hug her back and see her old, old eyes over­laid with the snappy brown ones in the pho­tos on my mother’s porch. How odd it is to try to see the con­ti­nu­ity between that buxom, beau­ti­fully dressed young lady hold­ing my baby mother, and this lady so dimin­ished and tiny. But when I said, “Now you behave your­self, young lady, till I see you again,” she squeezed my hand and said, “What would be the fun in that?” She’s still in there, after all.

As if this wasn’t over­whelm­ing enough, I was then taken out for a super-fancy din­ner with eight of my best friends from high school! Sim­ply unbe­liev­able, that I have been friends with Amy, in par­tic­u­lar, since I was five (and she is still exactly the same, with an enor­mous boom­ing laugh and sparkling black eyes, always look­ing for trou­ble), and most of the oth­ers since our high school days. What struck me was the con­ti­nu­ity of their per­son­al­i­ties! Jami, still a veg­e­tar­ian as she has been since one thun­der­struck day at age 14! Tawn, her sis­ter, eccen­tric, bril­liant and white-haired, as beau­ti­ful as ever. Lynette, ever the Fran­cophile among us, who man­aged to marry a French­man! The “other Amy,” older than we, sophis­ti­cated and lawyerly but with the same wicked gleam in her eye. And the lit­tle sis­ters of the group: gre­gar­i­ous Jill, serene and gen­tle Jen­nifer, and Shel­ley, full of zest for life and well she might have, with a boyfriend who is, shall we say, con­sid­er­ably more YOUTH­FUL than the rest of us! She too, is a dis­cov­ery of Face­book, and say what you will about social net­work­ing, if it brings together friends from 25 years ago, I say, bring it on.

It was a good thing we started out at an out­door table, because we sim­ply shouted with laugh­ter! Catch­ing up with sto­ries of our ado­les­cent chil­dren (“is it OK if she has a total atti­tude, or should I nip it in the bud?” was a com­mon topic!), our hus­bands (some of them high school sweet­hearts!), our par­ents, old teach­ers we remem­bered. “Remem­ber how that health teacher told us that if you have a tape­worm, all you have to do to get rid of it is to hold a bowl of mac­a­roni and cheese under your chin, breath in through your mouth, and then when the tape­worm appears, grab it and pull it out?” EEEW! A strong ped­a­gog­i­cal mem­ory for us all!

Home very late, as I really felt I had to talk at some length with every­one! We parted, vow­ing not to leave it another long space of years before we see each other again. How lucky I felt, to have had such good judg­ment in choos­ing friends, so long ago.

And that was that. Hugs and kisses all round with my mother, father and brother the next morn­ing (and of course Maisie the cat!), and off to the air­port. There I sat, not read­ing, not people-watching as I usu­ally do, but lost in the space of years that comes to you when you step back in time. Four days of mem­o­ries… and a lot of love and fun remembered.

Before I devote myself to the con­tin­u­a­tion of our Wilt­shire story (ponies!), I must tell you that not only is today the UK Gen­eral Elec­tion, in which we’ll get a new Prime Min­is­ter, but also tomor­row is the 65th anniver­sary of VE Day, Vic­tory in Europe Day, and as such, I’ve been read­ing sev­eral books that I would rec­om­mend to any­one even remotely inter­ested in the Sec­ond World War. I con­fess it’s the period in his­tory that inter­ests me more than any other, partly because it still feels present here in Lon­don (in Amer­ica we’re not accus­tomed, for exam­ple, to walk­ing past build­ings with pock­marks labelled as war dam­age). But also we’ve been watch­ing “The Pacific”, the nom­i­nal sequel to “Band of Broth­ers,” not so much as enter­tain­ment, I must say (hideously vio­lent and depress­ing), but as a trib­ute of appre­ci­a­tion to the sol­diers who lived through such horrors.

I offer you Cit­i­zens of Lon­don, a fas­ci­nat­ing account of sev­eral famous Amer­i­cans who chose to stay in Lon­don dur­ing the Blitz… and Amer­i­cans in Paris, the same story in that belea­guered, occu­pied city. But per­haps even more over­whelm­ing have been In Memory’s Kitchen, a cook­book (imag­ine) writ­ten by Czech ladies in a con­cen­tra­tion camp out­side Prague. A COOK­BOOK writ­ten by starv­ing ladies. And In My Hands, the story of a Pol­ish teenager who became a Holo­caust res­cuer. You will cry with hor­ri­fied sym­pa­thy, you will wish you could meet these peo­ple, express your grat­i­tude, you will look around you at the riches and free­dom we have and see the tiny, thin, wav­ery line that sep­a­rates nor­mal life from unbe­liev­able suf­fer­ing. All worth the read. And thank you to my friends Anne, Bina, and Alyssa, who made these heart­break­ing, enrich­ing books known to me.

Happy VE Day.

Well, I felt I couldn’t leave you all with the last post, the story of our adven­tures at Sal­is­bury Cathe­dral, with­out some mar­vel­lous pho­tos of those times, those views, those places. We were up SO HIGH! I can’t explain exactly what hap­pened to me in Sal­is­bury — was it lack of oxy­gen? — but it con­tained for me a sort of magic, a cocoon of safety, kind­ness, his­tor­i­cal fas­ci­na­tion and peace that will stay with me always. I can’t sing enough the praises of the Land­mark Trust, and I hope you will spend your next hol­i­day in one: to be enveloped in a prop­erty who exists for us only because some very far-seeing bril­liant archae­ol­o­gists and archi­tects decided to save it, to be sur­rounded by its his­tory, to find in each and every house the most min­i­mal but per­fect fur­nish­ings, always quite the same in each one, to read and write in the exten­sive Log Books… to fol­low in some places 30 years of vis­i­tors and their sto­ries! Go, do, and write your story. I have passed the reins of this job to Avery.

And now for some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent: my cur­rent obses­sion with… teriyaki sauce. Now, before you jump down my throat, I am fully aware the “terikyaki” is a method of grilling meats, and does not refer to any spe­cific sauce. In this, I think it shares space with the West­ern con­cept of “satay sauce,” because “satay” really refers to the skewer method of cook­ing, but we all think it means a peanut sauce.

My point is, drop your skep­ti­cism for a bit and imag­ine what you think of as “teriyaki sauce.” You know what I mean: dark, salty, spicy, sticky. I know. That’s what I mean, too. And here it is.

Teriyaki Sauce
(you arrange the amounts, I’m giv­ing the pro­por­tions)

2 parts dark soy sauce
1 part Japan­ese mirin
1 part honey
1/2 part sesame oil
zest and juice of limes
fresh grated gin­ger (to taste)
fresh minced gar­lic (to taste)

So imag­ine you want to make enough of this sauce to coat fil­lets of salmon for four. That’s what I typ­i­cally make.

You will want 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup mirin, 1/4 cup honey, 1/8 cup (just a driz­zle, in short) sesame oil, the zest and juice of 1 lime, and a 2-inch knob of gin­ger, peeled and grated, and 2 cloves gar­lic, minced.

Mix all in a saucepan and sim­mer till the sauce bub­bles like a tof­fee, per­haps 3 minutes.

Cool and pour over the salmon fil­let, then bake at 425F, 210 C for 20 minutes.

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

Believe me when I tell you that this sauce is DIVINE. Sim­ple, whole­some, spicy, sticky. Try it on chicken thighs and breast fil­lets, which you can then saute in a fry­ing pan. For a veg­e­tar­ian meal, you can eas­ily toss steamed broc­coli, pep­pers, cau­li­flower, baked squash, in the sauce and serve with rice. Sub­lime. Make it.

But back to Wilt­shire. At least, it’s strictly speak­ing Hampshire.

The New For­est! It’s a pro­tected area much like Exmoor or Dart­moor, with ponies stand­ing by the side of the road, and in the hillocky areas in park­land. Big ponies and small, brown, black and white, as you see: sim­ply there for the pet­ting! Well, actu­ally we were told off by a park worker who at first claimed we might be bit­ten, then once Avery’s extreme eques­trian expe­ri­ence was made known, said that pet­ting them encour­aged them to demand pet­ting! And what’s wrong with that! John’s mom was the per­fect paparrazza, fol­low­ing Avery every­where to get the best pos­si­ble shot. We repaired then to nearby Lyn­d­hurst for a pizza lunch at Prezzo, lovely and relax­ing in the garden.

Oh, the adven­tures we had. Back to town finally where the vol­cano hit and forced us into tourist des­ti­na­tions FAR off the beaten path (plus Avery bliss­fully shop­ping in Regent Street! did you ever see such a happy shop­ping face!), and my own per­sonal ambi­tion to cook some­thing dif­fer­ent for EVERY night of John’s mother’s stay, which by the end was approach­ing the four-week mark! But I did it. And now I just notice how often I repeat things, our favorites like… teriyaki salmon.

Quiet reigns here tonight, then, and elec­tion cov­er­age is begin­ning NOW. So I shall love you and leave you, and tomor­row, we have a new Prime Minister.

Life: speeded up. I can­not believe it’s been a month since our unfor­get­table trip to Wilt­shire, most espe­cially the mag­i­cal town of Sal­is­bury, and that I am just now sit­ting down to look at these evoca­tive pho­tographs, and to describe a bit of our fun.

Just before we left, of course, was the hor­rid bur­glary and the loss of my lap­top and my cam­era. Bril­liant John was able to retrieve our pho­tos from some Big Brother umbrella online, so every­thing is safe. But I have been aston­ished at how naked I feel with­out a cam­era! I have got­ten so used to sim­ply whip­ping it out to record a dish, or some­thing Avery’s doing, or a beau­ti­ful sight in the coun­try­side, that to have an empty hand and just eyes to remem­ber has been an unpleas­ant surprise.

Thank good­ness John’s mother had a cam­era in her pos­ses­sion when we were out of the house being bur­gled, and she is the Com­pleat Recorder of Every­thing That Hap­pens, so we have mar­vel­lous pho­tos of Wiltshire.

Since then, of course, we’ve had The Adven­ture of the Vol­canic Ash, and all the mess that went with it. Finally, though, every­one is back in place at home, at school, and I’ve been on an adven­ture: to Rye, in East Sus­sex, on a reunion with my foodie and food-writing friends from the Arvon Foun­da­tion. Three solid days of FOOD. I dragged with me all the ingre­di­ents for my grilled teriyaki salmon, three-cabbage slaw with fen­nel, cel­ery and car­rots, pesto, many, many pack­ets of sausages and bacon from my beloved Gig­gly Pig in the Ham­mer­smith farmer’s mar­ket… you can imag­ine the weight of my suitcases!

All week­end we did noth­ing but shop for food, cook, talk about meth­ods, ingre­di­ents and mem­o­rable dishes, then EAT. And sit around talk­ing about cook­ing and eat­ing! Pure heaven. Every­one con­tributed, with very lit­tle dis­cus­sion or arrange­ment, spe­cial dishes, and the table groaned night after night. Rosie’s slow-roasted pork belly with rose­mary, lemon and superb crack­ling, Pauline’s cau­li­flower roasted with chilli olive oil, a sauce of pork juices, Cal­va­dos, red wine and but­ter… Beets roasted and tossed with chopped pars­ley and lime juice, and finally Sun­day lunch of two gor­geous legs of lamb, slow-roasted with Adam’s ambrosial mari­nade of every savoury ingre­di­ent imag­in­able: harissa, anchovy fil­lets, lime juice, gar­lic, rose­mary, olive oil…

And the desserts! I started out as I usu­ally do, say­ing warn­ingly, “Don’t have your feel­ings hurt. I don’t really like sweet things.” But maybe it’s just that I don’t like rub­bish sweet things! Because I liked every­thing: Sam’s Vic­to­ria sponge with rasp­berry jam fill­ing, Rosie’s choco­late and Amaretto slice, and her incom­pa­ra­ble Bram­ley apple crum­ble with home­made tof­fee sauce and cus­tard! The choco­late slice, ah… quite won­der­ful: a kick of alco­hol, a crunch of crushed bis­cuits, fluffy per­fect creamy chocolate.

Through it all, we dis­cussed food. What would be our Desert Island Ingre­di­ent (but­ter, for me). Does bread count? Last dish on earth? Foie gras creme brulee for me, smoked salmon for some­one else, a per­fectly cooked steak…

Con­vivi­al­ity, humor, gen­eros­ity beyond belief. That is my group of friends, the Gath­er­ing of Nuts in May. Susan’s humor, Caro’s sparkling wit, Louise’s boom­ing laugh, Katie’s smil­ing appre­ci­a­tion of us all… every­one so tal­ented, warm and sup­port­ive. One of my favorite lines? I was com­plain­ing that too many Eng­lish pud­dings con­tained gela­tine, and said pompously, “Amer­i­cans don’t like any­thing wob­bly!” And nearly every­one cho­rused, “Except themselves!”

Rosie’s Celes­tial Choco­late and Amaretto Slice
(serves about 8)

10 crushed Amaretti bis­cuits
125 grams high-cocoa-content choco­late (Valhrona is excel­lent)
1 tbsp unsalted but­ter
1 tbsp strong espresso cof­fee
1 tbsp Amaretto liqueuer
4 eggs, sep­a­rated
1 tbsp caster sugar
300 ml dou­ble cream

Line a loaf tin with grease­proof paper, then place half the crushed bis­cuits on the bottom.

Melt the choco­late in a dou­ble boiler, then stir in the but­ter, cof­fee and Amaretto. Set aside.

Whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until fluffy, and set aside. Whip cream, then mix it with choco­late mixture.

Beat egg whites till stiff and gen­tly fold into choco­late mix­ture. Pour into loaf pan and refrig­er­ate overnight, very impor­tant. When ready to serve, unmold from pan and scat­ter remain­ing crushed bis­cuits on top. If you want to be posh, Rosie sug­gests a shot glass of Amaretto on the side. HEAVENLY.

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

One lunch out: should you find your­self in Cam­ber Sands, a stretch of sandy beach a few miles out­side Rye, slip into “The Place at the Beach” and pre­pare for a treat. A sim­ply gor­geous starter of creamy smoked had­dock gratin with spinach, then mas­sive fish and chips with a truly mem­o­rable tartare sauce. Don’t get Caro started on the risotto, how­ever: uncooked, taste­less and quite ined­i­ble. Back to our lit­tle rented house on a sheep-filled hill­side to cook another per­fect meal for ourselves…

Now I am home. For a brief moment, it seems. My head is spin­ning a bit from what’s on my desk and mind right now: just home from Rye, I’m now head­ing off to Indi­anapo­lis on Mon­day to visit my dear mother, father and brother for five days. Before that, I’m sign­ing the per­mis­sion slip for Avery’s trip to Bath on the 15th, lis­ten­ing to John talk­ing about going to Dublin the next week­end to look at his beloved Geor­gian archi­tec­ture, look­ing into tick­ets for our return home in July, sign­ing per­mis­sion slips for Avery’s trip to St Peters­burg before Christmas!

Yes­ter­day after­noon, I just wanted to sit down and breathe for a moment. So I did.

I took a nap! Just col­lapsed on the sofa in peace, lis­ten­ing to Avery prac­tice her singing les­son down­stairs in the kitchen, and Tacy lay across my legs while I watched the trees along the road wave their springy yellowy-green leaves, where bare branches had accom­pa­nied my late-afternoon naps in the approach­ing dark of late win­ter. Peace.

Peace was what char­ac­ter­ized Sal­is­bury, no doubt! We arrived at the Wardrobe, a Land­mark Trust build­ing in the heart of the Cathe­dral Close, and prac­ti­cally in the shadow of the spire. As with all Land­mark Trust houses, total sim­plic­ity and per­fec­tion. “Old Chelsea” china, per­fect clean­li­ness, a lit­tle bar of soap with LAND­MARK carved into it, harsh white sheets and piles of woollen blan­kets on all the beds, and VIEWS. Of the red roofs of Sal­is­bury, the Avon river stretch­ing out under the win­dow, the man­i­cured gar­dens of Ted Heath’s house next door!

Oh, the gor­geous cob­ble­stoned court­yard of our ancient lit­tle house (a mil­i­tary museum sits under­neath, part of the agree­ment with the Land­mark Trust to have the lit­tle apart­ment for hol­i­day lets)… and then the Green, stretch­ing in a serene square bounded on three sides by Geor­gian houses and exquis­ite gar­dens, and then the Cathe­dral itself sits in medieval splen­dor, its spire reach­ing far into the sky. How far? I’ll tell you… it’s a long, long walk.

But we did it! We booked a tour of the Tower with one of the Cathe­dral guides, and I may tell you that as soon as our eyes met, I felt a deep and appre­cia­tive kin­ship. His name was Alas­tair, and he took to our lit­tle Amer­i­can party straight­away. Amer­i­cans, I can tell you from long expe­ri­ence of both being one and observ­ing them in and out of cap­tiv­ity, put to shame any other nation­al­ity when it comes to get­ting the most out of a tour guide. We ask ques­tions! And right away it was clear that this was no ordi­nary guide, armed with a few facts and Health and Safety warn­ings about preg­nant women not being allowed to climb the Tower.

“Why did the work­ers bother putting so much of them­selves into this Church?” I asked, try­ing to imag­ine them work­ing end­less hours with no elec­tric­ity or proper equip­ment, sand­ing mar­ble pil­lars, carv­ing lime­stone, killing them­selves. “Ah, yes, that is a cru­cial ques­tion,” Alas­tair jumped in at once, his eyes sparkling as he warmed to his theme. “Their lives were nasty, brutish and short, spent in dark­ness and filth in lonely lit­tle cab­ins. Their chil­dren died, they them­selves had a life expectancy of between 25 and 35 years… how impor­tant it must have been to think that there was another life to come, a much bet­ter one, and this place was the step­ping stone to that bet­ter life…”

We climbed the hun­dreds of steps up a wind­ing stair barely wide enough to accom­mo­date us one at a time, the worn stone steps barely deep enough for our feet, Avery and me with our com­bi­na­tion of ago­ra­pho­bia and claus­tro­pho­bia. I swear I could feel the tower sway­ing in the breeze! We stopped for breath in the clock cham­ber, and in the bell cham­ber, while Alas­tair pointed out medieval iron­work, ancient rooflines, and the water pipes climb­ing all the way from the ground. So many tow­ers sim­ply burned down.

DING DONG, DING DONG!

Avery and I had heart attacks. We had not been expect­ing the chime! Alas­tair smiled indul­gently at us and led the way, at the top of the inner tower, to the stand­ing area out­side, look­ing FAR below us to the green below, and we could see our Wardrobe! Sim­ply stun­ning, and stun­ningly fright­en­ing. But we did it. “I am stand­ing here imag­in­ing the tower just top­pling over,” Avery moaned, and I com­pletely agreed. It felt very insub­stan­tial, and VERY high up.

Back down, so much less fright­en­ing than going up. And worth the trip! We chat­ted more with Alas­tair, ask­ing ques­tion after ques­tion, and he knew far more than we could even think to ask. Finally at the bot­tom, he asked if we had seen the Magna Carta yet, and upon hear­ing no, strolled over to the desk to ask if he could lead us through the exhi­bi­tion. How intrigu­ing to think that the Char­ter that the Pil­grim fathers were so keen to pro­tect was their own copy of the great Magna Carta, ensur­ing a swift and speedy trial to all free men.

The doc­u­ment itself was strangely dimin­ished: tiny and impos­si­ble to read, even if one read Latin. So small, to have accom­plished so much.

The feel­ing of reli­gion, of the place of the church in life, both medieval and present, was all around us. A ghostly organ­ist prac­ticed in the moon­lit evenings, alone in the giant Cathe­dral. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” Avery chuck­led, “if he broke into the theme from ‘The Phan­tom of the Opera’?” Late at night, after a roast chicken and cous­cous, I said, “Lis­ten! Bells…” and sure enough we could hear ring­ing. We wan­dered into the sleep­ing vil­lage and fol­lowed the sound, and there, mag­i­cally, was a church, on bell-ringing prac­tice night. Avery cow­ered in the grave­yard, sure she saw an open grave just wait­ing to wel­come her, and bats flew over­head as I stood in bliss, lis­ten­ing to the chimes, imag­in­ing Lord Peter Wim­sey in that great­est of all crime nov­els, “The Nine Tai­lors,” ring­ing away on a snowy Christ­mas Eve… heaven!

“Go in and ask to meet them!” John and his mother urged. “Just intro­duce your­self and see if they will show you around,” but I was too shy.

Our days were so splen­didly quiet and peace­ful: we devoted our­selves to one of the many puz­zles we accom­plished over the week: you sim­ply MUST order a puz­zle from the Went­worth Com­pany: all wooden pieces, and a few whim­si­cal among them shaped like the sub­ject of the puz­zle! So a puz­zle about a gar­den included pieces shaped like tiny spades, flower blos­soms, gar­den hoses. How peace­ful the after­noons were, John’s mom hov­er­ing with one of her inevitable cups of cof­fee, Avery with a slice of apple cake, me with a glass of sparkling water, fight­ing over “that’s my piece!” John napped or worked on the com­puter, John’s mom tried to get through “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Man­tel, Avery curled up with Sher­lock Holmes, I put­tered in the kitchen. Sim­ple peace.

The night of the tower tour, we decided to spring for din­ner out, and ended up, after mature con­sul­ta­tions with the house Log­book and pre­vi­ous vis­i­tors’ reports, at Anokaa, a fusion Indian restau­rant right in the heart of Sal­is­bury (which is a com­pletely charm­ing town in an of itself, although our loy­alty was to the Cathe­dral Close). Starve your­self for the day and be pre­pared to be over­whelmed by Anokaa, its inven­tive menu, the charm­ing and gen­er­ous wait­ers… crispy lamb’s liver with a chick­pea pan­cake! Lentils smoth­ered in gar­lic, spinach and okra, chicken in unusual sauces, the crunchi­est papadum, the soft­est naan. Avery went tra­di­tional and ordered a creamy chicken korma, and the scent of del­i­cate coconut milk wafted over us all.

And guess who was there as well? Alas­tair! With his fam­ily. I quickly suc­cumbed to one of my usual impulses, and invited him to din­ner the next night, and to my joy he accepted, just on his own because his wife would be away that evening. Glo­ri­ous! More time to ask him questions.

He turned up pre­cisely on time, with a gift for us: a glo­ri­ous pic­ture book of the Cathe­dral, its his­tory, its floods and famines, great tomb­stones and inscrip­tions. How lovely. We sat down to din­ner, talk­ing nine­teen to the dozen, and John’s mother said gen­tly, “Why not ask Alas­tair if he knows any­one at that church in town, some­one you could ask ques­tions about the bells?”

A moment’s silence. Then he said, “Stay right here,” and went to fetch his phone. He demon­strated its ring­tone: hand­bells! “I am a ringer at that church,” he said, “and let me make one phone call…” And then he was on the phone to the head of the ringers, explain­ing that he had a friend he’d like to bring by in the morn­ing. To hear their ring­ing before services!

And guess what his favorite book in the world is? “The Nine Tai­lors.” “It was read aloud to us as school­boys,” he rem­i­nisced, “and those were won­der­ful evenings, work­ing out the change-ringing in the plot, imag­in­ing our­selves as Lord Peter…” He spent the rest of the din­ner work­ing out changes for me on a scrap of paper, explain­ing every­thing so that I under­stood, finally, after years of read­ing that novel in puzzlement.

Unbe­liev­able.

So the next morn­ing found me in the bell cham­ber, sit­ting quiet as a mouse on a bench along the wall, lis­ten­ing to the ancient calls I’ve read about so often… “Treble’s going, treble’s gone…” and read­ing tablets on the walls about great peals they’ve rung, and the instruc­tions for the changes in Kent Tre­ble Bob. Just like in the book, I kept think­ing, and their pulls down, the rhyth­mi­cal flight of the ropes, the men’s (and one woman’s!) faces as they looked to each other to know when to pull their ropes. The half hour flew by as I watched and lis­tened. Then they all smiled indul­gently at me, tied up their ropes and went on their ways, jok­ing about how he who rings the tre­ble bell does so only because it’s all the poor man’s capa­ble of, bring­ing up the rear, mak­ing fun of each other’s accents, lots of inside Eng­lish jokes that I would have to live there a hun­dred years to under­stand. But, oh, I was in heaven trying!

Alas­tair unlocked the door to the bel­fry, and one of the men rang the tre­ble bell alone, so I could hear it, and feel the sway­ing of the wooden struc­ture hold­ing it up, and that’s just with ONE BELL ring­ing! Imag­ine dur­ing an entire peal, how pow­er­ful the sound is.

Well, that was the magic of Alas­tair Lack, whose guid­ance through the Cathe­dral you must ask for should you get there. Thank you, Alas­tair, for mak­ing one of my dreams come true.

And Stour­head House! This bridge forms part of its gor­geous land­scape, used in the 2005 “Pride and Prej­u­dice,” so we made our pil­grim­age to it, hav­ing a lovely pic­nic in the grounds, and then mak­ing our way along what we came to think of as the Stour­head Death March, an unbe­liev­ably LONG walk round hill and dale till we finally came to the house, pant­ing and puff­ing. And it was a yawn, except for the Music Room, where as you see, “Pianists are wel­come to play.” It was a moment of a child’s life­time, at least for the ador­ing adults sur­round­ing her. She sat right up at the Stein­way (our piano will never sound the same, now) and played one of the themes from the score of “Pride and Prej­u­dice,” the ele­gant, sim­ple sounds ring­ing against the carved ceil­ings and ancient paint­ings. When she fin­ished, the notes drifted away and all the tourists and tour guides in the room applauded. How I missed John’s dad at that moment. He would have beamed with pride at his grand­daugh­ter, in a moment of supreme dig­nity and elegance.

More on Wilt­shire next… think New For­est. Think… PONIES.