I have a new phi­los­o­phy… it’s not any one thing, or state of being, that makes me happy.  It’s con­trast!  And finally, after seem­ingly end­less sum­mer days of sun­shine, the skies heard the wishes of my farmer friends and sent us two straight days of cool, sus­tain­ing rain.  Not the pound­ing, soak­ing kind that sends John up a lad­der to check on his beloved gut­ters.  No, this was the gen­tle, pat­ter­ing sort that comes with an unex­pected autum­nal breeze, makes you reach for that cardi­gan you bought last month and NEVER really thought you’d want to wear.

The rain came the week­end after our momen­tous visit to the sunny farmer’s mar­ket, and remem­ber my Gor­geous Peach Guy?  Well, he turned out to want… a kit­ten!  We came home in a fever of antic­i­pa­tion, and sure enough, the very next after­noon, up turned Jemima, Gor­geous Peach Guy’s Gor­geous Girl­friend, all long tanned legs and shiny hair, ter­ri­bly young and beau­ti­ful, accom­pa­nied by her twin Jenny, who I think was meant to make the choice between the two kit­tens eas­ier.  Not so much.

“Oh, Jemima, how can you ever decide… [small moan escapes Jenny’s lovely lips]… I don’t think I could…”

“Jenny, help me here!  Do I want the fuzzy one, or the sleek one?”

“Oh, the sleek one’s purring right here next to me, OH, lean­ing up against my leg…”

“JENNY!  Stop it [sim­i­lar moan of ecstasy}… the fuzzy one just climbed on my shoul­der, and now, it’s purring too.”

John just sat by them and offered moral sup­port for tak­ing both!  Here was his strat­egy for con­vinc­ing them that two kit­tens are bet­ter than one.

“Why don’t you take both, and then call us tomor­row and let us know which one you want to discard?”

“DIS­CARD!”

In the end, we couldn’t reach the shel­ter lady, who has to approve all paper­work for new adopt­ing fam­i­lies, so there could be no tak­ing of a kit­ten any­way.  But Jemima actu­ally eeny-meeny-miny-mo’ed and said deter­minedly, “Right!  I’m tak­ing the hairy one.”  And in just such an anti­cli­matic fash­ion, Jamie found her home.

And the very next day, I was sit­ting out here on my ter­race read­ing a detec­tive story in a desul­tory man­ner, when I heard Anne’s voice com­ing round the cor­ner of the house.  “Kris­ten, this is my car­pen­ter friend Matthew, and he wants… a kit­ten!”  We brought him inside and handed him Jes­sica, and as you see, a fam­ily was born.

I never saw any­one fall so instantly in love as Matthew and Jes­sica.  She fell asleep, totally relaxed and con­tent.  I asked, “What do you think?” and Matthew gazed at me in patent dis­be­lief.  “Of course I’m tak­ing her…”  I emailed him the paper­work from the shel­ter and later that after­noon got a reply.  “I haven’t even known her that long, but it was so hard to drive away and leave Jes­sica behind.”

How unut­ter­ably lucky we have been!  Gen­tle, needy Jes­samy will go to two sweet and gen­tle ladies, for whom she will very soon achieve the sta­tus of Kit­ten Princess, I am quite sure.  Rugged, dar­ing Jamie will go to two Gor­geous Young Farm­ers, and vie with them for the title of Pret­ti­est Per­son in the House.  And wily, insta-purr Jes­sica will go to a bril­liant crafts­man and his wife who are count­ing the days till they can take her home.

Kudos to Avery who took three kit­tens, hid­ing in our laun­dry room, and spent about five days of her life doing noth­ing but sit­ting qui­etly and let­ting them emerge, then be pet­ted, then learn to accept being picked up inces­santly and kissed all day long.  These kit­tens purr if you make eye con­tact with them.  I woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing to feel Jes­samy lick­ing my eye­lids!  Now, nat­u­rally this is not to everyone’s lik­ing, but it was to mine.

It will be hard to see them go.

Anne called me to check how the visit from the Peach Girl had gone.  “They were in your dri­ve­way for a long time, so I assumed it went well?”  Avery, pass­ing me on the steps to go upstairs, kit­ten slung over her shoul­der, said, “I can’t believe you guys are talk­ing on the phone when she’s right across the street.”  “Oh yeah?” I coun­tered.  “How about your email­ing me when you’re in bed and I’m in the kitchen?”

With the kit­tens taken care of, and wak­ing to a rainy day, we went off to Water­bury for a movie, wav­ing good­bye to Kate in Anne’s arms, wet trees blow­ing her hair around.  What a beau­ti­ful sight, our lit­tle neigh­bor child tou­sled in the weather, leaves falling all around her.  Just lovely.  One of those images of some­one that seems iconic.  That was Katie, right then, held tight by her dot­ing mother.  Lovely.

And the worst movie EVER!  Salt, with Angelina Jolie (which should have been my first clue).  I’m not a fan, and it’s not her bee-stung lips I object to, since my daugh­ter has very gor­geous lips as well.  No, it’s every­thing else about her.  True, she has sev­eral facial expres­sions: seduc­tive (even when there is no rea­son­able seduc­ing going on), deter­mined (unbe­liev­ably chis­elled jaw­line set), and evil (lots of eye move­ments from right to left, as if she were watch­ing an invis­i­ble ten­nis match).  But it was the “script” that really got us, and I apol­o­gize now to who­ever was sit­ting behind us as we snick­ered help­lessly behind our hands.  “Con­verge on the crypt, peo­ple, repeat: con­verge on the crypt.”

Per­haps the most won­der­ful moment of the movie hap­pened when I was tak­ing a long, dragged-out bath­room break (won­der­ing how rea­son­ably long I could loi­ter out­side the the­ater with­out alarm­ing the man­age­ment).  I returned stealth­ily to my seat only to have Avery pull on my hand as I sat down.

“You missed it: she pulled off her face.”

“What?”

“She pulled off her face, and guess what?  She had fresh lip gloss on underneath.”

Leave it to Avery, my makeup-blogging daugh­ter, to notice this, pos­si­bly the LEAST unbe­liev­able thing in this film.  Argh.  Two hours of my life I will never get back.  And they have left the nar­ra­tive door open for a SEQUEL.  John says it will be called “MSG.”

There could be only one anti­dote to this fiasco.  An evening in the kitchen.

Corned Beef Hash

(serves six, probably)

four good-sized Yukon Gold or red pota­toes, peeled

about 1 1/2 lbs left­over cooked brisket (mine was slow-grilled)

2 tbsps butter

1 Vidalia onion, minced

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

sea salt and fresh black pep­per, to taste

Put pota­toes on to boil, about 20 min­utes until eas­ily pierced by a fork.  Mean­while, cut left­over brisket into large chunks, then feed them into your food proces­sor and pulse gen­tly, till it is all hashed-up, but not so long that it becomes pasty. Chop boiled pota­toes to nice lit­tle dice.

Melt but­ter in a heavy skil­let, then add brisket and stir until any fat has become nice and hot. Throw in the pota­toes, onion and gar­lic and sea­son well.  Siz­zle over high heat for about 15–20 min­utes, stir­ring at first, but then in the last few min­utes, leav­ing the hash still, to achieve a crisp crust.

GOR­GEOUS.

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

I so impressed myself with this dish!  Let me tell you why I was so pleased.  I adore brisket, and have had many inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions with cook­ing friends (Alyssa and Yaz espe­cially come to mind) about the proper prepa­ra­tion of it.  My favorite has always been slow-cooked on the stove in a mix­ture of tomatos, molasses and beer, but on the day I wanted to eat this brisket, it was HOT and my inter­est in turn­ing on the stove min­i­mal, espe­cially for a slow-cooked any­thing.  Save that for a snowy New Year’s day any time.

So I looked up some recipes for slow-cooking brisket on the grill.  That seemed like an idea whose time had come, and John loves to grill.  So into a Ziplock bag went the brisket with a LOT of molasses, some soy sauce, lime zest and minced gar­lic.  And John grilled that puppy.

But guess what.  Never add soy sauce or salt to brisket!  Not that I was able to taste it raw, but it must have been might­ily salted in its prepa­ra­tion, because the fin­ished grilled prod­uct, while tasty, was almost ined­i­bly salty.  Of course, we man­aged to put away a fair bit of it, but only at the price of swill­ing down gal­lons of water afterward!

So there was the left­over half a brisket.  What was a girl to do.

The sec­ond rea­son I love this dish now will not sur­prise you.  You know how, all sum­mer, I’ve been find­ing that favorite dishes you eat out are even BET­TER made at home.  And this just adds to the list (burg­ers, pizza, fried shrimp all hav­ing suc­cumbed already).

And left­over corned beef hash, oh MY!  I say this recipe serves six, but I’m only guess­ing because one serv­ing made its way to Avery, tucked up in her cozy hide­away bed­room before din­ner, with my anx­ious ques­tion, “Is this all right?”  And after din­ner we were left with some quan­tity which at BREAK­FAST next day, puts our local diner out of busi­ness.  Sim­ply reheat it, shoved over to one half of that same skil­let, whilst fry­ing eggs in the other half and toast­ing Eng­lish muffins off to one side.  HEAVEN.

The last item on my “I’ll never eat out again if I can make this” list… hashed-brown pota­toes.  But I think that unlike the hash, the only thing that makes diner pota­toes so spe­cial is BUT­TER.  CUPS of it.  And you know me, I love but­ter.  But I can’t in good con­science haul out a cup of the stuff to feed my fam­ily.  Not all at ONCE.

Oh, the deli­cious feel­ing of lux­ury that evening, pot of chicken soup bub­bling away fra­grantly on the stove, know­ing that all the ingre­di­ents of my hash were chopped and ready to fry up.  I lay back on the liv­ing room sofa with a book, lis­ten­ing to rain, watch­ing trees blow, a rare moment of sit­ting still and just watch­ing the world around me, feel­ing lucky.

The sec­ond day of rain I spent run­ning errands with Avery (Amer­i­can school sup­plies! it doesn’t get any bet­ter than Ticon­deroga pen­cils, pink erasers and good old Elmer’s glue).  Liv­ing away makes you appre­ci­ate the strangest things, like strolling through the super­mar­ket park­ing lot under a threat­en­ing gray sum­mer sky, com­ing upon tanned, fit-looking Amer­i­can chil­dren in mini­vans with other fam­i­lies stopped out­side them, elbows lean­ing out win­dows, exchang­ing com­ments on the first day of school.  “I got Mrs Schrage, who’d you get?  Oh, she’s nice!” while moth­ers gos­sip.  There is some­thing so cozy about moth­ers and chil­dren, pick­ing up the threads of autumn acquain­tance after a sum­mer of fun, dressed in good Amer­i­can clothes, espe­cially Yan­kees t-shirts.  I just love it, and I don’t think I’d have even noticed the lit­tle scene, if I hadn’t moved away.  “Are you in that new build­ing they built?  It has really good lock­ers, I heard… Pom­per­aug High’s hav­ing a car wash, if you want to come by… Try­outs for girls’ soft­ball are Sat­ur­day, are you gonna be there?”  Amer­i­can sum­mer, and kids safe and sound with their pretty, healthy moth­ers, headed into the gro­cery store to stock up on high fruc­tose corn syrup and con­densed cream of mush­room soup.

On the tail end of the storm came a din­ner of meat­balls in a rich tomato sauce, with Jill and Joel, Jane and Molly.

All of us sat around the din­ing room table for the first time this sum­mer, the wind and spit­ting rain just com­ing through the maple trees too much to make eat­ing out­side pos­si­ble.  That is, except for John who always has to be dragged kick­ing and scream­ing to eat indoors.  Plus, eat­ing inside has an unex­pect­edly unciv­i­liz­ing effect on him, and his behav­ior with his nieces, and he revs them up to a crazy level of energy and silli­ness.  Molly in par­tic­u­lar.  Here is a typ­i­cal exchange, Molly in her high chair, John sit­ting alongside.

[my sis­ter] “Molly, show Uncle John how you open you mouth for a big bite of yogurt!”

[John] “Molly, show your mommy how you can say NO!”

It turns out she LOVES to say no!

Oh dear.  Come to think of it, he’s just as bad when we eat out at the pic­nic table, but at least there isn’t a low Fed­eral ceil­ing to hold in Molly’s shrieks of delight.

She is a per­fect angel.

And here’s an easy dessert: in your gro­cery store, can you buy ready-made crepes?  I can, and they con­tain almost noth­ing in the way of calo­ries, carbs, sugar, any­thing.  Which is more than I can say for the sub­stance mas­querad­ing as “whipped cream” in the yogurt sec­tion.  DO NOT buy this!  Just look at the label.  All you need is a con­tainer of whip­ping cream, a hand beater or a Cuisi­nart, and a cou­ple of fla­vor­ings.  We really like a bit of Demer­ara sugar (per­haps a table­spoon for enough cream for six peo­ple), and a bit of lemon zest, a bit of vanilla extract.  But none of the scary stuff you can’t pro­nounce, in the can.  To be ban­ished firmly, along­side ready-made bread­crumbs and diced toma­toes.  Whizz up your left­over bread your­self, and dice those nice whole toma­toes.  What sort of bread and toma­toes do food com­pa­nies save for the stuff they’re plan­ning to pul­ver­ize for you?  It doesn’t bear think­ing about.

Serve those lit­tle crepes rolled up with cream and straw­ber­ries inside, and every­one is happy.  Except Jane, who prefers ice cream.  We can do that.

Once the sun reap­peared, albeit behind some clouds, John and I headed off across the road to pick up some of the old fire­wood that Anne has had piled up here and there in her meadow, for our Christ­mas hol­i­day to come.

I won­der how many calo­ries you burn load­ing and unload­ing logs?  The wood­shed is stocked now, which means the end of sum­mer is near…

Lastly, did you all see that my bril­liant Blogi­dol Julian has given me a sub­scrip­tion fea­ture!  Right at the top of the post, right hand side.  So you never have to miss a post.  You know it’s what you’ve all been wish­ing for!  And that’s all from Red Gate Farm for now, the only house I know whose beloved con­tours have been immor­tal­ized in… a hand-knitted dish­towel. Now THAT’S friend­ship.  Thank you, Karen.

Shh.… can you hear it?

Wasn’t there a poet that said “unheard melodies are sweet­est”?  That’s what I’m hear­ing today, out on my ter­race, dap­pled in mid-afternoon sun­shine, a goldfinch on the dis­tant bird­feeder, the hydrangea finally in bloom.  Unheard melodies.  It’s per­fectly quiet.  For once, this entire sum­mer, there is noth­ing happening.

Quiet.

To be sure, this morn­ing the air rang with the sound of Avery, Kate and neigh­bor Taylor’s laugh­ing as they jumped on the tram­po­line (some­one has taught Kate to say “boing” but no one is own­ing up to it).  And even ear­lier in the day you could have heard John and me apol­o­giz­ing for bad ten­nis shots, at the court next to the pool.  But right now… silence.

Actu­ally, mostly what you hear at the ten­nis court are the unceas­ing accu­sa­tions of “Leo, that was so LONG,” and “You idiot, it’s not 30/30, it’s 40/40, what are you, blind?” from the four­some we have come to call The Grumpy Old Men.  Four men in their 80s, in vary­ing stages of decrepi­tude, but all shar­ing an unerr­ing instinct for the unpleas­ant com­ment, hurled at one another as the game pro­gresses.  One day we actu­ally booked the shady court, because I had had my fill of play­ing in the blaz­ing sun, and would you believe these guys refused to move over!  “We’ll give you a cou­ple of bucks to go away,” one of them jeered.  In between games they trade slightly off-color sto­ries about their exploits off-court, many of them punc­tu­ated with ref­er­ences to Via­gra.  Hon­estly, you have to hand it to them, infirm as they are, still in their ten­nis whites bat­ting the ball back and forth.  But get off the shady court, gentlemen!

The quiet of my after­noon has been inter­rupted by my intre­pid hus­band, haul­ing fire­wood from across the road to our wood­shed in the back of his trusty Land Rover, circa 1967.

He is puff­ing and sweat­ing in the sun, but I can assure you that he’ll be full of pride in his achieve­ment later, and full of plans for our Christ­mas hol­i­day here, with plenty of firewood.

It’s the Twelve Days of Sum­mer, that’s all we have left.  Who would have guessed on that day in early July that the sum­mer would speed by so quickly?  Well, I would have, because I know from sum­mers back that that’s how it goes.  You pack up in Lon­don, lit­tle believ­ing that the hol­i­day has really arrived, and you float across the wide Atlantic, slowly leav­ing behind the school year cares of home­work, wretched piano teach­ers, steamy days in Lost Prop­erty, the bur­glar alarm that WILL NOT stop turn­ing itself on every time a cat goes by… and you arrive at Red Gate Farm.

For about a week  you revel in the peace, and then the crazi­ness begins.  End­less friends and fam­ily troop in and out, bring­ing dishes of food, num­ber­less can­dles are lit and burn down as con­ver­sa­tions spin out around the table.  Troop­ing into the hot city for plays, shop­ping trips, lunches, din­ners, fam­ily get-togethers… and days at the sta­ble, watch­ing the teenager go round and round, me try­ing not to sneeze…

And life picks up pace.  Every sum­mer.  Trips to the ice cream shop up the road, for that one fried-food lunch at Denmo’s that leaves us remem­ber­ing why I learned to fry shrimp, after­noons see-sawing with Kate, explo­rations of the barn to dis­cover once and for all WHERE is the hard­ware for our shut­ters?  And vis­its to Tricia’s farm, where I come away with a new friend and an apron­ful of treasures…

Until we’re left at the end think­ing, “Where did the time go?”  So I’m glad to have one after­noon, just one Thurs­day after­noon, with noth­ing to do but sit here and appre­ci­ate the horses whin­ny­ing in the back meadow…

Actu­ally, our quiet day today will be enlivened by a visit to the local farmer’s mar­ket, one of my favorite places to be on any given sum­mer Thurs­day.  Will the peach farmer be as drop-dead gor­geous as usual, or will he have sent his dad along instead?  We can hope.

So life this past week has been fran­tic, even for me.  The last time to breathe was Sat­ur­day, when after a whole day of cook­ing for the fol­low­ing day’s party, we piled in the car and headed over to New Mil­ford to The Archive, a unique col­lec­tion of pho­tographs of New York City, adver­tise­ments for long-gone health prod­ucts, Campbell’s cream of mush­room soup, Real Silk hosiery and Lana Turner.  All the images were col­lected by Hugh A. Dunne, and the enter­prise is now run by his delight­ful daugh­ter Susie and her hus­band Jeff, in a Vic­to­rian house on a sunny street.  So far they’ve been able to orga­nize only a bit of his half-million-object col­lec­tion, so we couldn’t find any­thing about Tribeca.  Next time.

And Sun­day brought the party of the cen­tury.  Of two cen­turies, actu­ally, since it was a gath­er­ing to cel­e­brate the 200th birth­day of the house!  I know, in Eng­land that’s noth­ing to write home about, but here in NEW Eng­land, we get excited about two hun­dred years.  To think of the births and deaths, ill­ness and tragedy, wed­dings and wars this house has seen.  And my mother’s birth­day, sub­stan­tially less than 200 of them, fell on the same week­end, so the party we nor­mally have for her kind of… exploded!  Added to the gen­eral fam­ily may­hem were dig­ni­taries from the South­bury Land trust, of which con­stel­la­tion of acres our prop­erty is a shin­ing star.  And our friends Olimpia and Tony, all the way from the Catskills!

And from the far­thest away, my dar­ling friend Becky and her two girls, Avery’s best friend Anna and her sis­ter Ellie, all the way from Char­lotte!  They made a really good dec­o­rat­ing committee.

And of course Jill and her girls… Jane got the award for hav­ing the most fun with her feet.  The socks… didn’t survive.

The day was one of those that even as it’s hap­pen­ing, stands out as one of the best.  Right now I close my eyes and see the day unfold, watch­ing every­one fall into place in the hap­pi­est spot pos­si­ble.  Rol­lie rolled up early in his pickup to unload the long tables that would later hold untold amounts of deli­cious food… he and I man­han­dled stuff out quick as light­ning, unfold­ing chairs, shak­ing out cush­ions.  What would we do with­out Rol­lie and Judy?  Because along with the tables and chairs came Judy’s col­lec­tion of plates in every size you can imag­ine, and table­cloths, and broc­coli salad with bacon!

And then up came Becky’s rental car and out spilled the girls, miles taller than when I saw them last a year and a half ago, sud­denly young ladies, as is my own, so why am I sur­prised?  And Becky her­self, she of the warmest, lin­ger­ing hugs, her serene face, her bub­bling laugh, her South­ernisms.  “What do y’all want me to do to help?”  And instantly we were back in our old Lon­don mode of pitch­ing in together, hold­ing down table­cloths in the breeze, tap­ing them down, pour­ing ice into buck­ets, arrang­ing Squirt and Diet Pepsi and pink lemon­ade and beers.

And Shel­ley, all the way from New York state, behind the scenes tak­ing the most deli­cious pho­tos… how did she become so tal­ented!  It was Shel­ley who cap­tured Jane’s feet… priceless.

Olimpia and Tony brought her usual ambrosial array of Ital­ian del­i­ca­cies to unpack, ooh and ahh over, taste “just to make sure they’re OK…”  Meat­balls in a tomato sauce redo­lent of fresh basil, beef ribs with the meat falling off the bone, plump sausages and fresh, warm rolls and a gar­licky caponata with capers and black olives.  Olimpia!  Will you marry me?

And the party unfolded.  There were, in addi­tion to Olimpia’s offer­ings, my own sticky chicken wings in a sauce of dark molasses, beer and gar­lic, red cab­bage slaw with a sesame oil and gin­ger dress­ing, plus blue poppy seeds… an orzo salad with my home­made pesto and chopped Moroc­can olives, and Tri­cia brought a lovely col­or­ful salad of her own beans and edi­ble cal­en­dula flowers!

There were prac­ti­cally hun­dreds of dev­illed eggs because they are the favorite of the birth­day girl, my mother.  Why don’t I make them more often?

Dev­illed Eggs

(allow a whole egg per per­son, so this serves 24)

2 dozen very fresh eggs (makes eas­ier peel­ing when they’re fresh)

about 1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tbsps dijon mustard

1 tsp mild curry pow­der, or kefta seasoning

fresh ground pep­per and sea salt to taste

Place eggs in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cover with water, plus an inch over that.  Bring to a boil, then turn off heat, cover pan and leave for 15 min­utes.  Drain and place in a cool bowl, add a hand­ful or two of ice cubes and cover with cold water.  Leave until cool, then peel and cut eggs in half lengthwise.

Remove yolks to a large bowl and add enough may­on­naise for your taste.  My daugh­ter likes very lit­tle; I can never get enough may­on­naise on any­thing!  Sea­son with curry pow­der and salt and pep­per, then spoon the mix­ture into each egg half.  Arrange on a plat­ter and dust with paprika, just, as the great food/mystery writer Vir­ginia Rich says, “for pretty.”  Done.

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

I wish I had stopped to take pho­tographs of all the food, like a good blog­ger should, but to be hon­est, for once I was actu­ally AT my party, actu­ally IN my life!  And there­fore, some moments went unpho­tographed.  But here’s a sense of the beauty of the table.

It was a won­der­ful, lively, friendly party, with a whole other party going on in the kitchen as cleanup started… Olimpia, Becky and Jill ended up in a sort of soror­ity of suds, trad­ing life sto­ries, orga­niz­ing and bring­ing order to chaos as only three super­women could do.

Anne made a speech!  As elo­quently as only Anne could do, chron­i­cling the “lucky days” of our house and its pro­tected prop­erty, end­ing with the day we decided to buy it.  How lucky WE have been in our neigh­bors, who started out as lovely peo­ple to wave to over a white picket fence, and have grown into the best of friends.

And then there was the cake.  Choco­late mousse, with some sort of Frangelico or other alcohol-y essence, and “Red Gate Farm 1810–2010″ and “Happy Birth­day, Mona” on it.  Mona?  My mother explained to the party at large.  “My name is really Nonna, Ital­ian for grand­mother, but some­how in the first year of this tra­di­tional August party, the baker lis­tened to “Happy Birth­day, Nonna,” and heard ‘Happy Birth­day, Mona.’  Now every­one, espe­cially Jane, insists on ‘Mona.’”

What a won­der­ful day… and just as every­one began to drift away, large rain­drops fell onto the enor­mous maple leaves over­head, shield­ing us as that tree has shielded this ter­race since the last owner’s hus­band built it him­self of rocks from the prop­erty.  Finally, the party was over, for another year.

But Becky’s fam­ily visit had just begun!  She is the most won­der­ful house­guest: casu­ally pick­ing up dishes to dry, laun­dry to fold, much as Rose­mary does, so hav­ing the two of them together meant I hardly had to lift a fin­ger!  And the chats… oh, the lux­ury of hav­ing her HERE, where I could give her a hug if I wanted to, where we could sit for hours and just “visit,” as she says in her South­ern way.  Not the sort of fran­tic vis­it­ing you do on a phone from Char­lotte to Lon­don, where you know you have to hang up in fif­teen min­utes, and you’re left with a whole list of things you for­got to say.

No, this is the sort of over-the-kitchen-table vis­it­ing that took me straight back to her Lon­don kitchen, where there were always at least four and usu­ally more lit­tle girls in school uni­forms run­ning around, shriek­ing, look­ing for snacks, sit­ting on our laps.  Becky and her fam­ily rep­re­sent for me a whole part of my life, a sim­pler one when our chil­dren were always with us, and lit­tle, full of Sports Days and school con­certs and play­dates.  When did play­dates dis­ap­pear?  Some­where after Becky moved away, tak­ing a cer­tain part of life with her.

But for four days, we got it back.  Magic.

Not the least of which were…

Becky’s Cheesy Thanks­giv­ing Potatoes

(serves at least 8, but more with other side dishes on offer)

3 lbs/1 ½ kilos pota­toes (Maris Piper in Eng­land is a good choice, or a Yukon Gold in the US)
3 round shal­lots or 1 banana shal­lot, minced
2 cups/ 474 ml grated or shred­ded Ched­dar or Dou­ble Glouces­ter cheese
1 tsp gar­lic pow­der
sea salt and pep­per
3 cups/1 pint/474 ml sin­gle cream or Half and Half

Boil pota­toes until eas­ily pierced with a fork, then peel when cool. Grate them on a coarse grater and set aside.

Lighly oil or non­stick spray a deep glass or pot­tery casse­role dish, per­haps 9 inches in diam­e­ter and 5 inches or so high (mine is round, which is an appeal­ing shape). Scat­ter a layer of grated pota­toes on the bot­tom, then cover with a layer of cheese, a sprin­kling of shal­lot, a sprin­kle of gar­lic pow­der, and sea­son well. Repeat lay­er­ing until you have run out of ingre­di­ents, end­ing with cheese. Then pour the cream over the casserole.

Bake at 180C, 350F until bub­bly and the cheese begins to brown, about 45 min­utes, depend­ing on the depth of the casserole.

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Of all the dishes that have come out of my kitchen all sum­mer, this one was a first in many ways: all the chil­dren ate it, every­one had sec­ond help­ings, and it was ALL gone, no left­overs!  Becky always says cru­elly, “This is even bet­ter sec­ond day,” know­ing in her heart of hearts that there is NEVER a sec­ond day.

And big news: while the girls were all here, our friend Alice decided to adopt Jes­samy!  She is the fluffi­est of all three kit­tens, with quite a beau­ti­ful per­son­al­ity.  And to think she’ll now be in our lives for­ever, just a visit to Man­hat­tan away.  And there are inklings that there may be some babysit­ting duties at Christ­mas to look for­ward to…

Then we were off to one last fam­ily lunch at my sister’s house (lovely flank steak, Joel, and I cooked my telly con­test soup!), and then good­bye to my mother, father and brother until Christ­mas.  It was a wrench to pack them up into my sister’s car and wave them off to the air­port.  But glass half full: it was unfor­get­table to have them here.

And to make us feel bet­ter, we packed up the girls and headed to Quassy!  Quassy holds a spe­cial place in my heart, because I can’t decide if I love it, or hate it.  A lit­tle of each, I think.  It’s old fash­ioned, it’s hot, the air smells nau­se­at­ingly of cot­ton candy and fried dough (I know, don’t ask), the rides are almost all too scary for me, but it’s a bit of our sum­mer tra­di­tion.  So I go.

This sum­mer Avery and John actu­ally went on the Mad Mouse, a hideously rick­ety roller coaster, and guess what?  They’re demol­ish­ing it later in the sum­mer (like, tomor­row prob­a­bly) and build­ing a new one!  Who would ride a roller coaster on its LAST LEGS, adver­tised as such?  My daugh­ter and hus­band.  Yikes.

Then home for pizza and a hair­color spa led by Becky, with much hilar­ity and cha­grin from our girls as they set­tled into bed only to find that the air mat­tress had sprung a leak!  A mad dash to bring up all the cush­ions from sofas… a crazy end to a crazy visit.

And so they departed.  We were left with a quiet house, my head and heart burst­ing full of mem­o­ries that I will only really believe in on some cold, gray, rainy day in Lon­don. Then, I’ll sit back and watch the droplets stream down my Eng­lish win­dows, and con­jure up a house full of birth­day guests and the smell of L’Oreal, the taste of birth­day cake and the feel­ing of my mother’s arms around me in a hug, and the heft of Molly on my hip, and it will be sum­mer again.

We couldn’t be more thrilled… Jes­samy, the fluffi­est of the three kit­tens, all gray with stripes, has found a new home!  And to one of our favorite fam­i­lies in the world, so we can keep track of her as she goes to her first prom, decides what to major in at col­lege, you know the sort of thing.

Alice, we love you.  Jes­samy will be so happy with you, and our two fam­i­lies are united at last!

My mother’s birth­day is leg­endary, these last few years, as we return home for the sum­mers to Con­necti­cut from our schoolyear months in Lon­don.  She makes the long trek from Indi­ana, with my dad and brother, every August, to take up res­i­dence with my sis­ter and her fam­ily, who live prov­i­den­tially close, a short car jour­ney away.  Such a far cry from the many hours’ time dif­fer­ence, not to men­tion the enor­mous pond that sep­a­rate us, for so many months of the year.  For a few short days, we are all together!  My dad’s twin­kling eye, my brother’s end­less appetite, and my mother’s gen­tle humor and pride in us all seem to bub­ble inside me like a shaken-up seltzer bot­tle, so much to absorb and enjoy, such a short time.

And that means John’s mom, too, who brings her own magic to the occa­sions… cam­era at the ready, always pre­pared to pull up and enjoy what­ever some­one else is pas­sion­ate about at that moment.  John’s iPad?  Now she has one, a gift from him, and they share the joy.  Avery’s love of Cold­play?  She will watch end­less music videos.  My piles of gar­lic and pep­pers and bot­tles of olive oil?  She takes up a knife and makes short work of what­ever needs to be done.  Kit­tens to be admired?  That’s easy.

She is the ulti­mate recorder of all that hap­pens to us, and thank­fully gives me end­less stacks of photo albums so I can keep us all between the pages, to be remembered…

Last night was crab cakes, OMG, at my sister’s house (see the recipe in my beloved index!) to wel­come the weary trav­el­ers from Indi­ana… and lemon bars, made amaz­ingly by me, with Rosemary’s help, as the birth­day cake.  And would you believe, I can screw up even a per­fect Ina Garten recipe?  And yet… read­ers, they were deli­cious.  I actu­ally acci­den­tally dou­bled the amount of flour in the crust, but I can say, hand on heart, it didn’t mat­ter.  They were per­fect.  So think seri­ously about screw­ing it up yourself!

Ina Garten’s Lemon Bars

(makes 24 bars)

• 1/2 pound unsalted but­ter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup gran­u­lated sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1/8 tea­spoon kosher salt
• 6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
• 3 cups gran­u­lated sugar
• 2 table­spoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup flour
• Con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar, for dusting

I know, Avery has already pointed out to me that “they” have done away with the Four Basic Food Groups.  Now there is a pyra­mid, or some such.  It’s very com­plex, with dif­fer­ent sorts of Fats To Remem­ber.  I liked the old sys­tem, but I’ve made some adjust­ments.  How about 1) But­ter, 2) Salt, 3) Foie Gras, and 4) Garlic.

I LOVE garlic.

And it’s good for you!  Not just in a “Twi­light” kind of way, but truly good for your health, which is won­der­ful to hear because my fam­ily must reek of it.  I like it minced to a tiny pulp with lemon juice and salt, sprin­kled on a tomato.  Sim­mer­ing in a tomato sauce, wait­ing for meat­balls.  Stuffed under the skin of a roast­ing chicken, or mixed with goat cheese to spoon into a red pep­per and baked till bubbling…

And then there’s pesto.  My Ital­ian mother-in-law first intro­duced me to pesto, which she made in vast quan­ti­ties in her Iowa kitchen with basil from her gar­den.  When would that have been?  As early as 1984, when I sat down at her kitchen table and watched her work her magic as we chat­ted about my boyfriend, who we both agreed was prac­ti­cally per­fect in every way… that’s a happy mem­ory.  Her freezer was always full of lit­tle jam jars of the green elixir, ready to be brought out on cold win­ter days to be mixed with hot spaghetti for a sim­ple sup­per.  She inspired John and me to go to the Union Square Farmer’s Mar­ket in New York and come home with arm­fuls of pun­gent basil to fill our own freezers…

Lemon in pesto?  I think so.  But it’s up to you.  It couldn’t be simpler…

Just whizz up in your food proces­sor the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents, in the quan­ti­ties that appeal to you (but I’ve given some basics):

Pesto

(serves four as sauce for starter with pasta)

4 cups loosely packed whole fresh basil leaves
¾ cup extra vir­gin olive oil
juice ½ lemon
3 tbsps pine nuts
3 tbsps grated pecorino or Parme­san cheese
2 cloves gar­lic, roughly chopped
pinch sea salt to taste

Place all ingre­di­ents in food proces­sor and blend till smooth, tak­ing care to scrape the pesto away from the sides of the proces­sor to incor­po­rate all bits.

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And then, for some­thing lighter, to driz­zle on your “every­thing in a let­tuce leaf” sup­per, or just sprin­kle on a piece of mozzarella-topped toast, there’s

Salsa verde

(makes plenty, save it)

1 large bunch each of flat-leaf pars­ley, arugula and cilantro, leaves only                                                                                                                                               2 cloves gar­lic
juice of half a lemon
sea salt to taste
extra vir­gin olive oil till liq­uid (per­haps 1/2 cup?)

Blend every­thing in the cuisi­nart and bask in the green glory. It’s lovely.

And then there’s baked gar­lic… just cut the tops off really firm bulbs of gar­lic, driz­zle them with olive oil, sprin­kle them with lemon zest and sea salt and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes…

I can’t explain what hap­pens to gar­lic when you bake it.  All the sharp­ness dis­ap­pears into a vel­vety, dreamy spread­able but­tery stuff to put on toast, and top with a cou­ple of scram­bled eggs, a slice of sausage and a sprin­kle of chives.

Are you hun­gry yet?

I’ve been hav­ing so much fun read­ing other people’s blogs lately.  This is unusual for me, I must admit, because nor­mally I find that liv­ing, and think­ing and writ­ing about liv­ing, take up all my time!  It’s hard to find time to read about other people’s lives, but I have just hap­pened upon sev­eral lately that are well worth a visit.  And gor­geous pho­tographs, which make it even more sat­is­fy­ing.  Try dol­lop, which is writ­ten by my col­lege friend Ann in Texas.  Talk about mak­ing you hun­gry!  Gor­geous pho­tographs, you’ll be inspired.  And 365 Kitchen, the brain­child of my new friend Sarah in Brook­lyn… and Din­ner: A Love Story, by a lady I don’t even know but am severely envi­ous of, because her blog has become… a cook­book.  I like these ladies and their work because they all share my phi­los­o­phy: life is nicer when you cook good food for your fam­ily, every­one sits down together and enjoys it, and now and then you get extra peo­ple in your kitchen and around your table to enjoy it too.

Speak­ing of which, my kitchen and a pork ten­der­loin beckon because our friend Kath­leen is com­ing and bring­ing her daugh­ter Cici to have lunch.  Cici and Avery met when Avery was three days old, and they have never looked back.  They were insep­a­ra­ble for nine years until we cru­elly sep­a­rated them to move to Lon­don, but dis­tance has not dimmed the silli­ness when they see each other.  So I will head into the kitchen, grate some gin­ger, zest some limes and make a splen­did mari­nade for my pork.  Oh, and I’ll have to mince a lit­tle… gar­lic, while I’m at it.

I admit it: I get on food binges.  Obses­sions.  Well, sort of fads, where I’ve made some­thing once, and enjoyed it so much that I want to make it again and again RIGHT AWAY, and then try to fool my fam­ily into think­ing I’ve done some­thing dif­fer­ent, by mak­ing lit­tle adjust­ments.  They are rarely taken in by this sophistry, and pretty soon John says, “Here we go again.”

The lat­est?  Every­thing on a let­tuce leaf.  It’s a common-enough way to eat in Thai­land (or at least that’s what I hear, never hav­ing been closer to Thai­land than a take­out menu from that place in Tribeca).  Larb is eaten this way, that I do know, hav­ing made it myself (check out that recipe index, folks!), a lovely con­coc­tion of ground chicken sauteed and tossed in a lovely spicy, minty vinai­grette.  Then you pile the chicken on a let­tuce leaf, along with cilantro leaves, cucum­ber, spicy sauces, crushed peanuts.

Well, here’s what hap­pened to me to put me on my present let­tuce kick.  The super­mar­ket had an enor­mous spe­cial on oven-stuffer roaster chick­ens.  So I bought one.  And promptly under­stood why they were on spe­cial.  Because it was 100 degrees out­side and just about that inside, too, once my oven had been at 350 degrees for the req­ui­site three hours to cook this enor­mous, Dolly-Parton-breasted bird.  Yack!  SO HOT.

The thought of eat­ing that HOT roasted chicken was about as appeal­ing as sug­gest­ing to a woman fresh from her first labor that big fam­i­lies are nice.  The chicken was sad.  No one wanted him.

Until I had my brain­wave.  Let him cool off!

Roast Chicken in Let­tuce Leaves

(serves at least 6)

1 oven-stuffer roast­ing chicken

var­i­ous fresh herbs: rose­mary, sage, sum­mer savory, thyme, what­ever you have

splash white wine

2 tbsps soft butter

1 lemon, cut in half

sea salt and pepper

2 red bell peppers

1 large cucum­ber, deseeded

2 bunches spring onions (scallions)

2 large hand­fuls chives

2 large hand­fuls cilantro (coriander)

1 cup pine nuts or sliced almonds or crushed peanuts

var­i­ous sauces, just from jars: Hoisin, satay, hot chilli, horseradish

Place chicken in a large roast­ing pan on top of the fresh herbs.  Pour wine over,  smear with but­ter, stick the cut lemon inside, sprin­kle on sea salt and fresh black pep­per.  Roast at 350 degrees for three hours, or until the wretched lit­tle timer pops up.

Tear chicken into strips, pile all the lus­cious, juicy bites (com­plete with crispy, salty skin, of course) on two plat­ters, along­side a huge pile of Boston let­tuce leaves.  Boston is per­fect, I find, because it’s more pli­able than Romaine or ice­berg, so you can really wrap things up in it.  Wash it well and put through a spin­ner so the leaves are nice and dry.

On two more plat­ters, offer strips of cucum­ber, red pep­per, spring onions, chives.

Put the pine nuts or other nuts in small bowls, and ditto with the sauces.  Make them reacheable by every­one at the table.  Now dig in!

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I can­not con­vey ade­quately how 1) deli­cious, 2) fes­tive, 3) cool, 4) indi­vid­ual this din­ner is!  It’s per­fect for a party, espe­cially if you’re not sure exactly what your guests like, because every­one builds her own let­tuce sandwich.

And here’s a thought: when you’ve pulled all the lovely meat from the chicken, throw him in a large stock­pot with all the detri­tus from the roast­ing pan, plus an onion or two and some cel­ery, cover with water and sim­mer for three hours or so.  Salt to taste, then strain.  It’s the per­fect chicken stock.

Which is good, because say you’re com­pelled to make this dish the very next night too, since Shel­ley and her fam­ily are com­ing for din­ner.  One of her fam­ily can­not eat wheat or dairy, but rice is a def­i­nite yes.  Steam your bas­mati rice in your home­made chicken stock!  It is DELI­CIOUS, so com­fort­ing and homey.  Rice makes a very nice addi­tion to some­thing in a let­tuce leaf.

Keep in mind that you are aim­ing for max­i­mum mess.  Every­one needs a LARGE nap­kin.  The first bite is quite civ­i­lized.  Every­one looks pre­sentable.  Then the sec­ond bite… pine nuts tin­kle to the plate.  Sauces drip down fin­gers, pep­pers start to ooze out the end as you try des­per­ately to keep the let­tuce wrapped around every­thing inside.  DIVINE.

We had SUCH fun that night.  A night to remember.

Let’s see, when I’ve been able to tear myself away from pil­ing things on let­tuce, I’ve been keep­ing my eyes peeled for baby Gary!  As you all know, our back­yard here is graced by the almost daily pres­ence of a big, fat brown ground­hog named Gary.  But we’re rethink­ing the nomen­cla­ture, as a tiny baby ver­sion has sud­denly appeared this sum­mer!  Boy ground­hogs are not appar­ently known for their domes­tic­ity or fatherly instincts, so we’re hav­ing to re-assess Gary as pos­si­bly Garina.  John sighs in frus­tra­tion as fruits that have man­aged to “go off” emerge from my kitchen to be placed within Gary’s reach.

And she emerges, squat and sus­pi­cious, to crawl to the bowl and inves­ti­gate.  Melon is par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar.  Once I put out some peach pits and skin, in a dar­ling lit­tle ceramic bowl I brought back from Isles­ford, Maine, and she lifted the bowl up in her hands and made as if to take the bowl back to her home in the wood­shed!  I had to stomp my foot slightly to get her to drop it, and just eat from it decently so we could watch.  If I ever get a photo, rest assured I shall post it.

Mean­while, Avery’s been rid­ing up a storm, with her lat­est trainer, Lynn, a no-nonsense, get-it-done-NOW sort of lady who runs an amaz­ing horsey place in South Car­olina, in case you’re look­ing to buy, sell, train, do just about any­thing with a mane.  Avery’s usual trainer Amie had the temer­ity to give birth a cou­ple of weeks ago, and she intel­li­gently asked Lynn to come up and cover her classes.  It’s been a hoot.  Sadly we did not bring with us from Lon­don a cam­era that is any good at motion shots, so I’ll have to leave you with this image of the sta­ble… it pretty much says it all.

And we’ve of course been for ice cream, more times than I can count.  But Sun­day was spe­cial, because it was Kate-Across-the-Road’s first ice cream cone!  She is such an old-fashioned-looking lit­tle girl, all big blue eyes and ringlets, but her per­son­al­ity is 100% in the Now.  She has a wickedly life-affirming smile, with all her teeth lined up and dim­ples ready, and an accom­pa­ny­ing sil­very laugh that makes it absolutely impos­si­ble not to tickle her.  She liked her ice cream, but she liked being with her Idol, Avery, even more.

I even broke down and had pos­si­bly the best ice cream sand­wich EVER, made on the premises, minty and fresh, with that sort of cookie tex­ture that sticks to your teeth and reminds you of all the sum­mers of your mid­west­ern childhood…

How do you sup­pose it would taste wrapped in let­tuce?  I’ll get back to you.

Thank good­ness, the humid­ity has loos­ened its grip on the North­east!  I thought we were all going to be reduced to a pud­dle of sweat, frankly.  The last day of the ter­ri­ble heat was Thurs­day, when nat­u­rally I had made plans to be in New York City.  Let me just say out­right that there is no place as humid as New York when it’s humid.  The air looked like it was rain­ing, but it was just the damp­ness sus­pended between the build­ings, ris­ing up from the swel­ter­ing side­walks.  Ugh.

But this nasty sit­u­a­tion did not stop me from hav­ing a com­pletely won­der­ful time with my dear­est friend Alyssa and her dear friend Ivy, my edi­tor and pub­lisher of Vin­tage Mag­a­zine, the coolest new kid on the block of print media.  I am ter­ri­bly proud to have had pieces pub­lished in both the first and sec­ond issues of Vin­tage, and if you get a chance, sub­scribe.  Whether you alight on an arti­cle extolling the nos­tal­gic virtues of the type­writer, or an essay on “Mad Men,” or my own piece on bell-ringing and Dorothy L. Say­ers, you will find some­thing to whet your cre­ative appetite, and my dears, the paper qual­ity!  No two arti­cles on the same paper, it seems, and pop-ups and cut-outs and all the excite­ment you never get from a mag­a­zine any­more.  I’m really tick­led to be part of it.

Alyssa intro­duced Ivy to my blog some time ago, and although we’ve suc­cess­fully nego­ti­ated two edit­ing expe­ri­ences together, Ivy and I had not met in per­son until Thurs­day.  We con­vened at The Clin­ton Street Bak­ing Com­pany on New York’s LES (Lower East Side, I didn’t know either when I saw it on the waitress’s t-shirt) where granted, as the name implies, most of the empha­sis is on bak­ing.  Alyssa and Ivy both chose the enor­mous waf­fle topped with peaches AND nec­tarines and whipped cream.  Not hav­ing a sweet tooth, of course, I grav­i­tated to the savory bits on the menu and had a really fresh, crunchy Cobb-ish salad where instead of chicken, there were giant shrimps poached in a fen­nel broth, and avo­cado, crisp bacon, blue cheese, romaine let­tuce and toma­toes: luscious.

Ivy is a delight.  A real icon­o­clast with her own way of doing things, as you’ll see from the mag­a­zine.  What it must be like to live inside a brain teem­ing as hers is with such wide-ranging cre­ative notions!  True to her jour­nal­is­tic obses­sion with how the past can be brought into the present, she wore a vin­tage Her­mes blue suit, over a sweater with mar­tini glasses knit­ted into it.  Vin­tage pumps, and hand­bag.  And she car­ries her credit cards in an enam­elled case!  Not for her the worn-out wal­let that graces my cot­ton tote bag, stuffed with hand wipes and a library book just in case.  Total style is what Ivy has.  I could never pull it off.

We had such fun, talk­ing about the mag­a­zine (which has won acco­lades left, right and cen­ter), our chil­dren, food, New York ver­sus Con­necti­cut.  The kind of far-reaching dis­cus­sion I count on my girl­friends for, and now I have a new one, in Ivy.

We parted from Ivy and slogged through the heat up the street to Katz’s Deli, my answer to that Food Network’s pro­gram, “The Best Thing I Ever Ate,” the episode called “Between Bread.”  What’s the best sand­wich you ever ate?  For me, it’s hands-down the pas­trami on rye from Katz’s, with a slather­ing of hot mus­tard and a pile of half-sour pick­les on the side.  Not to men­tion the mat­zoh ball soup (not as good as Alyssa’s but damn good), and the potato latkes with sour cream (or apple­sauce, if you’re Avery).  Alyssa smiled indul­gently at me as the bags piled up around my feet, watched me fight­ing for my spot at the pastrami-slicing counter, hand­ing over cash (that’s all they take) for my golden haul.  “Your car’s going to smell REAL good on that two-hour drive,” she laughed.  It did.

And my good­ness, on the drive into Man­hat­tan, the nos­tal­gia! NoHo, where we brought home our tiny baby Avery, and baby Avery’s first doc­tor visit just off Wash­ing­ton Square, Shake­speare and Co book­sellers where I first took her book shop­ping, the Gap where I went in just home from the hos­pi­tal to say, “I’m sure I’ll be a size 6 again some­day,” with clerks solemnly advis­ing, “Why not wait a bit… buy an 8…”

But so much changed!  The iconic DKNY mural at Broad­way and Hous­ton, which fea­tured the World Trade Cen­ter, is now a Hol­lis­ter ad, a sign of the times…  I will never for­get that I once sat in traf­fic in the dead of night, home from teach­ing, at that very inter­sec­tion.  A traf­fic drama ensued and, in the car next to me, the dri­ver reached behind his visor, pulled out a pis­tol, got out of the car and walked to the car who had pulled into his lane.  Tapped with the pis­tol on the duct-taped plas­tic that served as a driver’s-side win­dow, pushed aside the plas­tic, said, “What the ****?” and then the light changed.   He got back in his car, put the gun back behind the visor, and we all resumed our jour­neys.  New York City, never boring!

Alyssa dragged me through the half-humid-mist, half-rain, under her leopard-print umbrella, to Econ­omy Candy, a mecca from which I would never be able to extri­cate Avery, should I take her there.  Where else could you buy gum in a pack­age that says, “Don’t Have Ugly Kids”?  Only on the Lower East Side of Man­hat­tan, for $1.  Visit their web­site, do: it tells you every­thing you need to know.  Just awful, and yet some­how won­der­ful too.  I am a fool about New York.

We all spent that night in a funk over the kitty shelter’s demand that we bring them in for an Adop­tion Event on Sat­ur­day.  NOOO!  We had not had them long enough.  The drama even cast a pall over the mar­vel of pas­trami… and indeed all Fri­day I felt under a cloud at the idea of let­ting Jes­sica, Jamie and Jes­samy go…

But time, and an impend­ing din­ner party, wait for no man, so there was noth­ing for it but to get to work.  Bleach­ing the pic­nic table, site of innu­mer­able lunches and din­ners, and soon to be laden with din­ner for my dar­ling friend Shel­ley and her fam­ily!  And in between this chore and scrub­bing the barn win­dows (why I was com­pelled to do this when so many of them are bro­ken or out­right miss­ing, I do not know), I man­aged to catch most of “Days of Our Lives” and “Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal,” a mas­sive plea­sure of mine when I’m in Amer­ica.  I am liv­ing in shock at the can­cel­la­tion of “As The World Turns,” so close on the heels of los­ing “Guid­ing Light” last fall.  Times do change.

And Shel­ley and her fam­ily arrived, to our excite­ment, and bear­ing masses of gifts: wine, toma­toes, cucum­bers, choco­late mint (the herb, not the candy!), basil, oregano, sage and rose­mary from their herb patch.  Heav­enly!  Now, I shall wait until tomorrow’s post to tell you what we ate… because it is a post all on its own.  For the moment, be con­tent with the Condi­ment of the Night:

Salsa Verde

(serves a lot as a driz­zle, then an addi­tion to salad dress­ing, a dol­lop on a burger, etc.)

2 cups each: basil, curly or Ital­ian pars­ley, arugula

4 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lemon

sea salt and pep­per to taste

enough olive oil to make a paste (per­haps 3/4 cup?)

Sim­ply put every­thing in the Cuisi­nart and run it until it’s a per­fect saucey con­sis­tency.  It’s like pesto, only with­out cheese, or pine nuts.  VERY light and adds a zesty JNSQ (you know, “je ne sais quoi”) to every­thing.  LOVE IT.

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As we ate, rev­el­ling in famil­iar com­pany and the sort of con­ver­sa­tion that occurs when three teenage girls get together, and when friends like Shel­ley and I can hold at least three top­ics in the air at once, our friend Rol­lie, Jr., and his gor­geous wife Tri­cia stopped by, bear­ing… ZUC­CHINI and CUCUM­BERS!  Our bounty was com­plete.  Tri­cia laughed over var­i­ous goat recipes I had given her: we have become firm friends on Face­book, and that means nothing’s off lim­its as far as top­ics go!  And before we knew it, Anne had stopped by, and we pored over mate­ri­als from the Gladys Taber reunion, orga­nized by Shel­ley and Erik, here and across the street, in June before we arrived.  I am flab­ber­gasted by the fans Gladys had, still has, and the love they have for our two hum­ble white clap­board houses, sit­ting in friend­ship across a dirt road, for 200 years.

I sat back, lis­ten­ing to the girls’ laugh­ter, Shelley’s soft com­ments at my piece in Vin­tage, Rol­lie and Tricia’s tales of the gar­den, Anne’s rue­ful reports of bath­time and the dreaded Washing-Of-Hair across the road.  “Did you hear the screams?”  And I sim­ply felt grate­ful.  Grate­ful for the gra­cious, ancient maple tree spread­ing its branches out to cover our table, grate­ful for the gift of friend­ship, vis­its to my ter­race both planned and impromptu, for my dar­ling daugh­ter and hus­band, for the kit­tens scrab­bling inside.  Even grate­ful for the moun­tain of dirty dishes I knew was mount­ing up ahead of me, and for the knowl­edge that I had to choose between the dish­washer and the wash­ing machine: our elec­tric­ity can­not han­dle both at the same time!

Sum­mer, in fact, whether in town or coun­try, is suit­ing me just fine.

And to top it all off, the shel­ter called just as we were going to bed, to say they had enough kit­tens for their Adop­tion Event and we could keep ours to find homes for them our­selves.  HUGE sigh of relief, tum­bled into bed with the three of them milling about, chew­ing on each other, bounc­ing off the walls.  And then… to sleep.