And so Day Three of our Flo­ren­tine adven­tures dawned, pour­ing with rain.  We decided to cross the street and visit the Pitti Palace, and dear read­ers, given the choice, I would def­i­nitely wait for a sunny day, skip the seem­ingly end­less room after room of paint­ing after paint­ing and go instead to the Boboli Gar­dens, adja­cent to the Palace.  The only truly mem­o­rable thing about the Pitti Col­lec­tion, for us that day, was the dis­cov­ery of what I now think of as “The Num­ber One Way I Don’t Want To Be Mar­tyred.”  Poor Saint Agatha.

But at least we did get the view, above, of the clear­ing sky around lunchtime, and we left our cul­tural advance­ment behind in order to feast on our mar­ket tak­ings, back at home.

I have been try­ing to find, in my lit­tle Ital­ian dic­tio­nary, what the word was that the baker was using when I bought this bread.  It sounded like “sketchy,” but I can­not find it, really.  It was like a very crusty, salty focac­cio.  Since we had lost the bat­tle of No White Food already with the flour in the spinach dumplings TWO nights in a row, it seemed the bet­ter part of valor to eat this lovely bread, with our cheese and salami.

And then the skies cleared, and since the apart­ment was to open as the Barret-Browning Museum that after­noon, we decided to get our­selves to Santa Croce, a la “A Room With A View,” one of my favorite all-time books and films.  And it was just lovely.

Dear Michelangelo’s tomb!  Designed by Vasari, which I had for­got­ten.  I really must encour­age Avery to read his Lives of the Artists, one of the best, most gos­sipy takes on Flo­rence in the Renais­sance that you could wish for.  He knew every­one, and believe me, what hap­pened in Flo­rence did NOT stay in Flo­rence.  He told all.

We wan­dered around in the patchy sun­light, look­ing at all the plaques and tombs to var­i­ous peo­ple of note: Mar­coni, who invented the radio, and Machi­avelli, there are a cou­ple of strange bed­fel­lows!  And Lorenzo Ghib­erti, he of the golden doors on the Bap­tis­tery, and Dante!  Sadly the Giotto fres­coes were in restauro, which is one of the haz­ards of vis­it­ing Flo­rence.  When I lived there for a sum­mer, 25 years ago, it seemed we were con­stantly walk­ing all the way across the city to see some chapel or other, only to find it chiuso when we got there.  Avery pointed out that, “Fair enough, it’s been 25 years, they prob­a­bly NEED restor­ing.”  I could use a lit­tle touch­ing up myself.

From Santa Croce, we escaped into bright sun­shine and mutu­ally decided that for the moment, we were both art-ed out and church-ed out.  Avery was aim­ing for some gelato, and I had some seri­ous food shop­ping to do.

This shop, in a tiny, wind­ing side street, the Via Dei Neri off the piazza Santa Croce, had every­thing!  Balls of home­made moz­zarella di bufala, creamy and almost falling apart, olives of every descrip­tion, the most expen­sive tuna in olive oil I have ever come across — 12 euros for a jar! — and an enor­mous, tow­er­ing rack of spices in glass tubes corked like wine bot­tles.  And a gor­geous pro­sciutto, not too salty.  And jars of fagi­oli, the white beans so much more deli­cious, sim­ply sauteed with olive oil and gar­lic, than any bean liv­ing in Eng­land.  Why?  Because every­thing in Italy tastes bet­ter than any­thing any­where else.  It’s in the air.

We came home laden with parcels — fresh arti­chokes and firm heads of finoc­chio, fen­nel, with which I pro­posed to make a salad.  And when I cut into the first arti­choke, look what I found… or rather, “who.”

What a lucky fel­low, that I didn’t cut him in half!  I shrieked!  Every­one came run­ning.  “You must put him out­side some­where, Mummy!” Avery wailed, so I went to show him to Elena, the lovely house­keeper who was act­ing as docent in the museum that after­noon.  “Where shall I put him?”  “There is a pot­ted lemon tree out­side your bath­room.  He can go there.  And don’t worry: you can still eat the arti­choke!” she assured me, 100% Ital­ian.  Well trimmed and washed, it made a lovely salad, and the cater­pil­lar earned his siesta in the lemon tree.

Mean­while, the wild boar stew bub­bled away.  Fol­low­ing the restaurateur’s instruc­tions of the night before, the chunks of gor­geously mar­bled meat had reposed, overnight, in a bath of red wine.  Now, it filled the apart­ment with its gar­licky aroma.

Stufato di Cinghiale

(serve 4)

1 kilo/2 lbs wild boar meat, cut into man­age­able chunks

1 bot­tle ade­quate red wine

left­over tops and leaves of 2 bulbs fennel

1 white onion, quartered

6 cloves gar­lic, crushed slightly

olive oil to cover bot­tom of cook­ing dish

1 lb chest­nut or white mush­rooms, quartered

2 cups beef or chicken stock

1/2 cup panna al tartufo, truf­fled cream, if you’re in Flo­rence: ordi­nary cream if not

dash truf­fle oil

Wash the meat and dry it with paper tow­els.  Place in a heavy-bottomed dish large enough to con­tain all the ingre­di­ents.  Pour over the wine, then throw in the fen­nel tops, onions and gar­lic.  Leave in fridge overnight, covered.

Six hours before you are ready to eat, drain away all but about 1/2 cup of the wine, leav­ing the veg­eta­bles in the dish with the meat, then add the mush­rooms and the stock, to cover the meat.

Cook at a very low tem­per­a­ture, per­haps 200F/100C, so that the meat bub­bles slightly, either on the stove­top or in the oven, for six hours.  Check to make sure the stew is bub­bling con­stantly, and stir occasionally.

When the meat is thor­oughly cooked and ten­der, add the truf­fle or reg­u­lar cream and the driz­zle of truf­fle oil.  Serve with noo­dles or bread.

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

While this stew was very good, I do not think it bub­bled quite con­sis­tently enough in the oven while we were away, because I was so intent on hav­ing the oven low.  As a result, the meat was a bit tougher than I would like, not the melt­ing qual­ity of my shoul­der of beef cooked much the same way.  It’s also pos­si­ble that wild boar is sim­ply tougher.  I have one rather famous cook­ing friend who says he’s never cooked it to his com­plete sat­is­fac­tion.  But he keeps try­ing, because the fla­vor is so lovely.  Not a big gamey, but a big, meaty fla­vor that went per­fectly with the mush­rooms and cream

And to start, we had a truly Ital­ian appe­tizer: moz­zarella di bufala with shaved truf­fles, and a driz­zle of truf­fle oil.  So sim­ple, so perfect.

Sighs of delight all around, in the tall-ceilinged din­ing room, where we felt like vis­it­ing roy­alty.  Out for gelato in the Piazza de la Sig­nora, with all the other tourists, which can be fun if you just for­get how much you’d like to fit in, and live there… and home to fall exhausted to sleep, with the motor­bikes screech­ing out­side the win­dows, the sounds of far-off music, voices shout­ing in Ital­ian too fast to be under­stood.  Heaven, in short.

Travel, like so many other pleas­ant things (mar­riage, for exam­ple) is all about com­pro­mise.  Unless you go abroad with peo­ple who share your inter­ests, unlike fam­ily who just share your life, you end up doing a lot of things because other peo­ple want to do them.  So because John and his mom were very hot to do it, Avery and I climbed up with them to the top of the Duomo even though once we got up there, we were too ter­ri­fied to move, much less take a pho­to­graph or pose for one!  Avery bolted straight back down the 523 steps, I lin­gered for just long enough to real­ize I really felt ill, and fol­lowed her down. Here we are, very tiny and low.

Our hearts were pound­ing, from a com­bi­na­tion of exer­tion and sheer fear, for about the next hour!  Dur­ing which, because Avery wanted to, we all trooped into Sephora, where if there is a limit to her atten­tion span, we’ve never reached it.  She can spend a mind-bendingly long time in there, perus­ing — no, actu­ally touch­ing — every sin­gle tube of lip­stick, shade of blush, shim­mery things and glossy things and by the end of an hour the entire back of her hand is cov­ered with tiny sam­ples of all the products.

Have I ever men­tioned that Avery writes a makeup blog, in fact?  She’d love for you to visit.  She’ll tell you every­thing you need to know about any item you might want to apply to your face… and yet she her­self always looks com­pletely nat­ural.  How does she man­age it?

And then, because my fam­ily are really very nice peo­ple, we went to… the Mer­cato Cen­trale, the Cen­tral Mar­ket, where I could eas­ily have pitched a tent and lived for WEEKS, just going from stall to stall.  It is HUGE!  If you’ve ever been to Bor­ough Mar­ket, here in Lon­don, it’s a sim­i­lar atmos­phere, only for some rea­son much bet­ter lit!  Heav­enly.  Every­one so friendly and allow­ing me to speak my ragged Ital­ian, only slip­ping into Eng­lish when I was proved totally incom­pe­tent to dis­tin­guish between types of salami I wanted to buy!  Of course I had a com­pletely won­der­ful time buy­ing dried porcini, truf­fle puree, Parmi­giano in huge chunks, spe­cial sea­son­ing mixes for all sorts of pasta dishes, and fresh produce…

The most excit­ing, and also chal­leng­ing, thing to buy was the Holy Grail of my visit to the mar­ket… the wild boar that I’d been so eager to get a recipe for at the restau­rant the night before.  And buy it I did.

From there it was nec­es­sary to pla­cate my troops, not linger at every stall, and finally just choose the mush­rooms and fen­nel that would com­plete my shop.  Why isn’t it this much fun to buy mush­rooms in Lon­don?  And melon!  Don’t get me started.  The pro­pri­etress gave me a sam­ple and it was the juici­est, the most fra­grant I had ever tasted.  I bought more of every­thing than I really needed.

By this time I had com­pletely spent my family’s patience with the mar­ket, and had to be con­tent with the unwieldy and heavy bags con­tain­ing all my plun­der, includ­ing the wild boar which had come with instruc­tions for “slow cook­ing,” as I already knew.

Off we were to a self-improving day at the Uffizi, although truth be told, Avery and I were slack­ers.  We looked duti­fully at paint­ings, not­ing that the thing we most wanted to see, Botticelli’s “Venus on the Half-Shell” as it’s known in the art his­tory trade, had some­how dis­ap­peared.  We con­sulted our guide­book, our guide to the museum itself, a lit­tle map I had secreted in my bag.  “It’s got to be along that cor­ri­dor we first vis­ited,” John said opti­misti­cally, and there­upon another round­about of the gal­leries in search of that one lit­tle jewel.  And find it we did, but to me, the real jewel was the view from the gallery window.

We emerged, finally, hav­ing sat­is­fied everyone’s wishes for the day: archi­tec­ture, scary upwardly mobile views, the per­fect eye­lash, the per­fect wild boar, Bot­ti­celli, and, our glo­ri­ous restau­rant of the night before, for dinner!

“We can cook the wild boar tomor­row night,” I assured every­one, “and remem­ber, he’s closed tomor­row night, so we’d bet­ter go now.”

THIS night, how­ever, we were treated even more roy­ally than we had been the night before.  The pro­pri­etor greeted me by name, we were seated in what we thought of as “the natives’ room” as every­one was speak­ing Ital­ian around us, instead of Eng­lish as they had the night before, not that we had minded.  And the stroz­za­preti al spinaci, even more mag­nif­i­cent than the night before… a beau­ti­ful night.

This trip to Flo­rence was a mile­stone for me: in a moment of epiphany, I real­ized that the word “Bronzino” con­jures up fishy recipes, these days, rather than an Ital­ian Renais­sance painter.  I think the art his­to­rian in me has finally, fully given way to the cook.

In a way I felt a bit sad to real­ize this!  To know that it has been a long time since my dusty old PhD in art his­tory meant much to me.  The years when Michelan­gelo — his poetry, his sculp­ture, his birth and death dates — were as famil­iar to me as a nurs­ery rhyme, are now a long time ago.  I had to look things up in the guide­books just as often as did my fam­ily, who used to rely on me for all the infor­ma­tion they could want, wan­der­ing through a museum.  Now, Avery and I raced as quickly as we could through the Pitti Palace and the Uffizi, me intent only on get­ting to the Cen­tral Mar­ket and she long­ing for a go at the crowded shelves in the soap and cos­met­ics shops!  Times do change, and you can’t waste too much time pre­tend­ing they don’t.

And so I approached Flo­rence and the art world there as just another tourist, much as I did the Peggy Guggen­heim Museum in Venice... a lit­tle nos­tal­gic for the old intel­lec­tual me, but awfully happy all the same to pack my suit­case with salamis, porcini mush­rooms and truf­fle oil, leav­ing the post­cards of art to other peo­ple.  And being a tourist, with my lovely teenager see­ing every­thing for the first time, was very nice indeed.

We arrived on Mon­day after­noon to the Casa Guidi, an elab­o­rate apart­ment above Piazza di Felice, one of the Land­mark Trust’s truly unfor­get­table places to stay.  It was lived in by Eliz­a­beth Bar­rett and Robert Browning.

The house remains a museum to them even now, open two after­noons a week to what­ever poetry-obsessed tourists there might be, want­ing to see their pho­tographs and sil­ver pieces under glass.  High ceil­ings, ornately painted with putti and harps and carved with plas­ter roses, gor­geous 19th cen­tury fur­ni­ture, row upon row of leather-bound books.

Com­pletely lux­u­ri­ous and styl­ish, such a treat to set­tle our belong­ings, and then go out to explore.  We walked around the neigh­bor­hood, which is on the “other side” of the Arno (the one with­out the Duomo!), and dis­cov­ered, in a street called “Borgo San Jacopo”  a gor­geous trat­to­ria called La Dis­pensa, pur­vey­ors of the most gor­geous salamis, cheeses and breads you can imagine.

I sam­pled some­thing called “finoc­chiona,” a soft, gar­licky, fennel-seed-flavored meaty con­coc­tion.  HEAVEN.  And because my spo­ken Ital­ian is decep­tively good — a good accent, but unre­li­able lis­ten­ing skills! — the pro­pri­etress imme­di­ately went into very detailed ecstasies with me, only some of which I caught.

“What you are eat­ing there, is the tra­di­tional finoc­chiona which is pro­duced only in Chi­anti, Flo­rence and Siena.  It is the finoc­ciona sbri­ci­o­lata, which means…”

“Not the hard sort,” I ven­ture, “but…”

She made a ges­ture with her hands, a sort of “falling apart” gesture.

“Sbri­ci­o­lata… to crum­ble,” she fin­ishes triumphantly.

And it did.  A softly crum­bling slice of HEAVEN.  Sheer heaven.

The finoc­chiona, along with some salame Toscano (a dense, soft, lean salame that Avery adores), moz­zarella di bufala, fresh rocket and tiny red pep­pers stuffed with anchovies and capers: quite the per­fect lunch!

Well, that could have been the whole hol­i­day for me!  Just trip after trip to the deli, every time sam­pling more and more things.  For exam­ple, there was a limon­cello SPRAY!  In a spray can!  I really wanted to try that, but wasn’t sure what cus­toms would think.  And my dears, the CHEESES!  Have you ever heard of, much less eaten, FRESH pecorino?  Nei­ther had I!  Not strictly speak­ing fresh, because it had been aged 21 days, but per­fectly white, soft, melt-in-the-mouth divinity.

So happy.

But because I was not in Flo­rence alone, I had to go along with my fam­ily and do — sigh– other things.  But first, we had to have din­ner, and we had decided to go out the first night in case we hadn’t come upon any­thing to eat (as if!) on that first evening.  And fate, plus our lovely house­keeper Elena, sent us to quite the most charm­ing restau­rant I’ve ever been to.  Across the street from the dar­ling del­i­catessen, at 43 Borgo San Jacopo, it’s called Il Cinghiale Bianco, or “The White Wild Boar,” that par­tic­u­lar meat being a tra­di­tional Flo­ren­tine del­i­cacy.  From the moment we walked in every­thing was per­fect.  Warm, invit­ing, high-ceilinged, smelling of a com­bi­na­tion of all good things on earth: gar­lic, but­ter, roasted meats, fresh breads.

The maitre d’, or what­ever the equiv­a­lent is in Italy, could not have been sweeter.  Because I really wanted to under­stand the answers to my ques­tions, I asked per­mis­sion to speak Eng­lish, and of course he was fluent.

“I’d really like to cook some wild boar while I am in Flo­rence,” I explained.  “Can you tell me about a tra­di­tional way to cook it?”

“My dear, you could make it as we make it here at the restau­rant.  Let me tell you… Soak it in red wine overnight, with the nec­es­sary veg­eta­bles.  Then cook very slowly the next day, with some tomato puree added at the end.  Allora!”

With these scant instruc­tions I had to be con­tent.  And con­tent I was, with a plate­ful of eggs fried and topped with shaved truf­fle, fol­lowed by roasted baby pig, the suc­cu­lent, salty meat falling off the bones, slathered with crispy fat.  John’s mom went for moz­zarella di bufala with shaved truf­fle, and a pump­kin ravi­oli, and since we all relent­lessly demanded to share bites, I can report that every­thing was sub­lime, beyond deli­cious.  How­ever, the unques­tioned tri­umph of the night was Avery’s stroz­za­preti con spinaci, a sort of rar­efied, lighter-than-air bright green dumpling, swim­ming in a del­i­cate but­tery sauce, sprin­kled with Pecorino.  In short, the sort of unearthly essence of spinach, a quite, quite per­fect food.

The more I cook, and the harder I try, the fewer things there are that I can­not make myself if I really want to (although some­times it’s nice to be cooked for).  The foie gras creme brulee at Angelus, the deep-fried soft­shell crabs at Man­darin Kitchen.  And now, the stroz­za­preti at Cinghiale Bianco joins the list.  I won’t even bother to try.  They were just that ridicu­lously good.

I told the lovely host that we might well be back again the fol­low­ing night!  “Just remem­ber we are closed on Wednes­days,” he cau­tioned, tak­ing me quite seri­ously, as well he should.  Because we did go back!

Our first evening in the apart­ment was an expe­ri­ence of stag­ger­ing grace, sur­rounded by all the Brown­ings’ pos­ses­sions, lis­ten­ing to the street noise from below, over­laid with the beauty of Avery’s play­ing the grand piano!  I’m afraid she’s spoilt for­ever now, that our hum­ble upright in the kitchen here in Lon­don will never quite suf­fice again.  The sound soared into the painted ceil­ing and came back at us, ele­gant and touch­ing.  She was won­der­ful.  And that was Day One in Florence…

How quiet the house sud­denly seems.  John’s mom went home yes­ter­day, depart­ing in a dull, sprin­kling rain com­pletely dif­fer­ent from the bril­liant blue skies of Flo­rence.  Quite sym­bolic of our time together.  She hugged, waved good­bye, we said, “Until Christ­mas!” and she was gone, tak­ing so much of the cel­e­bra­tion and fun with ther.  She radi­ates such an inter­est in every­thing we do that dur­ing her visit, we seem ter­ri­bly inter­est­ing!  And then she goes, and we are back to our every­day selves.

Since we returned from Flo­rence it’s been a rush: a hasty “every­thing on a pan­cake” sup­per Fri­day evening, try­ing valiantly to adhere to our no-carbs vow, John and I replac­ing pan­cakes with let­tuce leaves.  But Sat­ur­day John had to suc­cumb to the lit­tle bug that has been tick­ling around, and so I res­ur­rected some chicken broth from the freezer, set­tled him with a mug and a hot water bot­tle, and we girls retreated to the mall for a lovely lunch at Kitchen Italia: giant king prawns in a salad of romaine and rocket, and then MAD­NESS as every­one in the world seemed to decide to go shop­ping.  Surely if there were any san­ity in the world, even West­field could not allow so many peo­ple in its doors, and my dears, the RACKET.

Finally we three turned hunted eyes on one another: get us out of here!  And home to bril­liant fried had­dock and roasted cau­li­flower, and Avery’s favorite hari­cots verts with loads of gar­lic and lemon zest.

Sun­day of course meant Avery spent the day in Hyde Park on Archie, hav­ing lovely can­ters amid the tourists and the falling autumn leaves.

And so we adults repaired to the Star of India, pos­si­bly the best Indian restau­rant in Lon­don, and now the proud pur­veyor of a cook­book to help us all pro­duce chicken with cashews and mush­rooms, and spinach with paneer cheese.  I haven’t yet dared to try the lentil dumplings in a sauce of yoghurt and aso­faetida, but I will!

From there we drove to Shored­itch on one of John’s many, many quests to find an empty lot on which to build his dream house.  So far the chase has been a cruel dis­ap­point­ment.  He finds such a lot, or a seem­ingly aban­doned build­ing, and writes to the owner, where­upon the owner reveals he’s just sold the lot the pre­vi­ous after­noon, or that John’s enquiry has moved him to build his own dream house, start­ing tomor­row.  So far no luck.  But the lovely neigh­bor­hood of Arnold Cir­cus with the per­fect cafe Albion for cheeses, organic let­tuces, sea­sonal pears and a crois­sant for Avery, made the after­noon a nice adven­ture anyway.

Mon­day we braved the Tate to see the Turner Prize can­di­dates, and I will say no more, except that I have never seen such silly art in all my years as an art his­to­rian.  Go, and tell me why I should change my mind.  But the visit was made worth­while by one sim­ple piece: Michael Craig-Martin’s An Oak Tree.  How have I missed this artist and this piece all my life?  A glass of water, high upon a shelf, and a tex­tual “con­ver­sa­tion” with the artist on a sheet of paper beside it, explain­ing that the artist has changed this glass of water into an oak tree.  Absurd, call­ing up Mar­cel Duchamp, the whole his­tory of con­cep­tual art…

The inter­viewer asks, “Isn’t this a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes?” but Craig-Martin replies, “No, in that case the audi­ence actu­ally claimed to see the clothes.  I would be very sur­prised indeed if any­one claimed to see an oak tree here.  But it is one, nonetheless.”

Avery and I found it com­pletely hys­ter­i­cal, and then were some­what chas­tened upon doing some research, to find that the artist intended the piece to be a reflec­tion on Catholic transsub­stan­ti­a­tion!  Well, it was still funny, and the more we are allowed to think so, since the artist’s entire point is that art trans­fig­ures the object sim­ply by mak­ing it “art.”

It’s the kind of thing you like, if you like that kind of thing.  And I do.

Off to a nos­tal­gic lunch at Bibendum’s Oys­ter Bar, in our old neigh­bor­hood from 20 years ago, and a happy walk in the sun­shine around far too much expen­sive real estate and cloth­ing!  All we could do that evening was to con­sume an enor­mous pile of lamb chops from my beloved butcher at Green Val­ley, and rem­i­nisce about all we had done dur­ing our hol­i­day, over the past two packed-full weeks..

No!  Flo­rence must wait!  As tempt­ing as it is to tell you all our adven­tures there, I must remem­ber the joys of our time in Lon­don.  The din­ner party with Annie’s fam­ily and my new friend Nell and her baby… Oh!  The cala­mari.  I have it down to a sci­ence: half home­made bread­crumbs, half Japan­ese Panko bread­crumbs, then a quan­tity of corn­starch (corn­flour to my British friends), and a good sprin­kle of Fox Point Sea­son­ing… the squid per­fectly cleaned, but into rings, dipped into eggy creamy milk, then the bread­crumb mix­ture.  Then quickly fried in very hot rape­seed oil.

Per­fec­tion.  A slight devi­a­tion from no carbs, I admit!  But it was a won­der­ful party.  The choco­late mousse?  Annie says I can no longer claim not to cook pud­dings, because it was a tri­umph.  I have to agree.  Thank you, Delia Smith.

Delia’s Choco­late Mousse

(quan­ti­ties for 1 per­son, sim­ply mul­ti­ply for your party)

1 egg, 2 ounces high-quality chocolate

Sep­a­rate eggs.  Melt choco­late in a double-boiler and beat egg yolks into it.  Whip egg whites until they hold peaks, then fold into choco­late mix­ture.  Chill for at least two hours.  Serve with whipped cream and fruit.

And the Sebas­t­ian Faulks lec­ture at Avery’s school.  Have you read “Bird­song”?  A young friend of mine years ago told me that it was his favorite book, and it had some­how slipped past me.  I picked it up and was entranced: for­bid­den pas­sion, tragic war, the essence of love, aban­don­ment, friend­ship.  A beau­ti­ful novel, and how on earth was it going to be made into a play this autumn?  Faulks’ lec­ture at school was fas­ci­nat­ing.  “The stu­pid­est piece of advice any­one can give a per­son try­ing to write a novel is, ‘Write what you know.’  NO!  Write pre­cisely what you DON’T know.  Put your­self in the shoes of a young girl, in France dur­ing World War One, in love with a young Eng­lish­man.  What would she say, do, feel?  Write about that.”

John’s mom and I lis­tened, look­ing around at all the rapt 17-year-old faces, sit­ting in that mag­nif­i­cent Hall, plan­ning what they would do with the rest of their lives, being inspired by this man who described his daily life as “quite mad, really.  I go all day with­out talk­ing to any­one, unless I am pro­mot­ing a book and then I talk all day long.”

And the play itself: some cast­ing prob­lems, we all agreed.  When the cen­tral focus of a drama is a pas­sion­ate love affair, the two actors sim­ply MUST have mas­sive chem­istry, and these two did not, we felt.  We spent a great deal of time after­ward try­ing to recast the two main char­ac­ters… Ben Barnes played the war scenes with the other men beau­ti­fully, express­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment, cold cal­cu­la­tion, a sort of sense­less brav­ery.  But in the scenes with Genevieve O’Reilly, his obses­sive love inter­est, we didn’t believe it.  Who could have played those parts more con­vinc­ingly?  But the play is worth see­ing.  The scenes with Jack Fair­brace, the con­science and soul of the war nar­ra­tive, are very mov­ing, and Lee Ross does a fine job as Jack.  See it, do.  But read it, even more so.

And “Social Net­work”!  What a film.  I know Face­book is one of those black-white things: you either love it or  you don’t.  I love it.  How else could I find out what all friends around the world are cook­ing for din­ner?  And see pic­tures of their kids’ Hal­loween cos­tumes, and see their vaca­tion pic­tures?  Sure, it can be sin­is­ter, and gos­sipy and cruel, but not in my world.  The film is clever, clever, and I believe Andrew Garfield is the next huge star.  Charis­matic, dark, brood­ing, vul­ner­a­ble.  More Andrew, please.

And those were our Lon­don adven­tures, an absolute whirl­wind.  On Mon­day, we were off to Flo­rence.  And I’ll tell you all about it soon… but to whet your appetite, two words: Wild Boar.

It’s been too long!  Life has been mag­i­cal lately, with a whirl­wind visit to Flo­rence at the cen­ter of all the excite­ment.  I’ll be back in a jiffy with lots of lus­cious pho­tos and a fab­u­lous recipe or two, but in the mean­time, I wanted to show you a lit­tle friend we made in Italy… this lit­tle fel­low fol­lowed Avery into one of the many cos­met­ics shops she dis­cov­ered, and after we suc­cess­fully shooed him out into the street, he ended up on my hand.  That’s what our whole adven­ture was like: felic­ity, luck, and gen­tle beauty.  I’ll be back!

It turns out to be sim­pler than you think, not to eat white food.  But why?

I don’t ever want to become a per­son who counts calo­ries or carbs or any­thing else, when decid­ing what to eat.  But on the other hand, there can be no deny­ing that one’s metab­o­lism (all right, MINE) slows down after a cer­tain age.  At that point, even play­ing ten­nis four times a week can­not can­cel out all the effect of the lovely food that comes from my kitchen.  A deci­sion must be made.  Do I want to get ever stouter, like a car­toon French chef, my white apron stretched across my enor­mous girth?  Once I phrased it like that to myself, I real­ized the time for com­pro­mise had come.

Coin­ci­den­tal with this thought came the visit, over the week­end, of our beloved friend the bril­liant archi­tect Joel, who designed our New York apart­ment, quite the most per­fect place we had ever lived, and prob­a­bly ever will live.  And while it was won­der­ful to see him, it was also clear that there was a lot less of him to see than the last time we were together!  He looks sim­ply gor­geous, all slim and bearded and sexy.  A dev­as­tat­ing man.

Under gen­tle ques­tion­ing, the mys­tery was solved.  “I stopped eat­ing bread and pota­toes and pasta,” he said sim­ply, scoop­ing up scram­bled eggs and roasted toma­toes at my table, leav­ing the toasted cia­batta quite untouched.  And there our plan was born.

Num­ber one, John stopped shav­ing!  Avery points out that right now he looks like he for­got to shave, but I’m sure that another week or two will take care of that.  Num­ber two, I made a lit­tle trip to my friend Annie’s house with a bag of unopened flour, boxes of crack­ers and bis­cuits, bags of rice.  And we haven’t looked back.

Now I know this is a very unsci­en­tific way to Not-Diet.  Look­ing into the notion of car­bo­hy­drates online, I found all sorts of inter­est­ing things, like that peo­ple who are seri­ous about this stuff won’t eat things like beets, or car­rots, and won’t drink alco­hol.  Now, to me, a life with­out beets or Abso­lut Cit­ron is not worth liv­ing, or at least not enough for me to con­sider it.  I also feel that a world phi­los­o­phy that tells you ANY veg­etable is bad for you is rub­bish.  Beets are good for you, PERIOD.

So we have decided we can eat all foods that are not white.  My excep­tions to this rule are two of the basic food groups in our house­hold: gar­lic, and haddock.

The scary thing about the way we’ve been eat­ing is that we were ALREADY eat­ing all the foods every­one has sug­gested to replace white food.  Plus we’ve been eat­ing white food!  No won­der we were expand­ing hor­i­zon­tally.  If you were raised in the Mid­west of Amer­ica, as both my beloved and I were, you will rec­og­nize the Triad of the Din­ner Plate: meat, veg­etable and… starch.  Of course in my child­hood, this method was put in place in part to save money, because pota­toes filled us up and we required fewer pork chops, minute steaks and baked chicken, the sta­ples of my mother’s unen­thu­si­as­tic kitchen.  Minute Rice?  Check.  Bread and mar­garine?  Check.  Pota­toes out of a Betty Crocker box?  Def­i­nitely.  And once a month or so, spaghetti, with cheese from a green can.

So it’s a bit of a strain to teach myself to approach the din­ner plate with a dif­fer­ent atti­tude.  Two veg­eta­bles, how about that?  Lentils, chick­peas for that pota­toey feel­ing in the mouth.  Pap­padum, made from lentils, when you want the feel­ing of a bread thing.  It’s working.

Dal (lentil stew)

(serves 4)

1 1/2 cups dried lentils

enough chicken stock to cover the lentils, plus 1/2 cup extra

2 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp pow­dered cumin

2 tsps turmeric

1 tsp crushed chillis, or one small chilli minced

1 tsp sea salt

large hand­ful corian­der (cilantro), chopped roughly

1 tsp garam masala

Soak the lentils in cold water for 30 min­utes.  Rinse thor­oughly and place in a saucepan, and cover with chicken stock.  Sim­mer for 30–40 min­utes until lentils are fully soft.  With a stick blender or food proces­sor, puree the lentils and chicken stock.

Heat the olive oil in a large fry­ing pan.  When oil is hot, add cumin seeds and turmeric and siz­zle for 30 sec­onds, then add gar­lic and cook until soft, but not browned.  Add the pureed lentils, chillis, and salt to taste.  Cook gen­tly for a few min­utes, then stir in the corian­der and garam masala.  Taste again for salt, and serve warm, in a lit­tle bowl, with pap­padum to scoop it up and per­haps a dol­lop of yogurt on the side.

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I’ve roasted a lot of veg­eta­bles, and made a lot of soups: creamy red pep­per, mush­room with Marsala, cele­riac with Cham­pagne.  At some point I will have to break down and make pasta for Avery, but we’ll think of something.

Lunch one day was this glo­ri­ous salad: so sim­ple, such a won­der­ful com­bi­na­tion of flavors.

Avo­cado and Beet­root Salad with Lemongrass

(serves 4)

2 ripe avocados

6 small beets

1 stalk lemon­grass, outer leaves dis­carded, minced

driz­zle olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

fresh black pepper

Roast the beets in alu­minum foil for 1 hour at 400F/200C.  Peel and slice thinly.  Arrange on a plate with the avo­ca­dos, sliced as you like.  Sprin­kle over the lemon­grass, olive oil, lemon juice and pep­per.  Voila.

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The day we had roast chicken in Chi­nese pan­cakes, John and I wrapped ours in let­tuce instead.  It’s working!

I am not, how­ever, notice­ably slen­derer.  It’s Day Six.

While we’ve been adjust­ing to our new life, we’ve had lots to dis­tract us.  The won­der­ful 501st Birth­day Party for Avery’s peer­less school in a cathe­dral which shall remain name­less because it gives away the name of her school.  The soar­ing nave, the mag­nif­i­cent dome, the sound of many lit­tle boys singing, a very intel­li­gent, inspi­ra­tional ser­mon.  “Use these days of safety in your won­der­ful school,” the bishop said, “to ask your­self what you want to do in this life, per­haps some­thing no one else can do.  What would you like to contribute?”

The girls, instead of lis­ten­ing, gig­gled behind their hands at the real focus of their day: the Boys, from the boys’ school attached to their girls’ school.  These for­eign crea­tures felt the power of the fem­i­nine gazes and tossed their hair accord­ingly.  Every­one sim­pered, then sang the final hymn and filed out under the watch­ful gaze of the High Mis­tress and Head Mas­ter.  We all felt chastened.

And my friend JoAnn came to din­ner, which event always makes Avery shake her head in dis­be­lief.  “The way you guys LAUGH when you are together!  It’s incred­i­ble.”  And it’s true.  Jo has a true, unquench­able love of life that just makes you want to be with her.  But even Jo, even with her adven­tur­ous spirit, could not be moved to try the very odd food that we added to our tra­di­tional pier­rade of grilled meats.  Ostrich!  And ante­lope!  We’ve been to the South African super­mar­ket, of course.

This amaz­ing place, St Mar­cus in Put­ney, is dif­fi­cult to find, so per­se­vere.  We were moved to go because my gor­geous friend Sue and her South African hus­band had given us din­ner the night before, and the lit­tle starter with drinks was a bowl of extremely supe­rior beef jerky, called “bil­tong.”  Slightly spicy, com­plexly fla­vored, salty and deli­cious, it pro­pelled us to the shop for more.  And while there, of course, we could not resist the strange exotic meats on dis­play.  “It’s a kind of ante­lope, with HUGE antlers,” the butcher said of the “kudu” fil­let we bought.  He pro­duced his iPhone and brought up a photo of the crea­ture.  Goodness.

As well, we bought deli­cious chicken kebabs, already strung on skew­ers, mar­i­nated in peri-peri sauce and a creamy gar­lic mix­ture.  John grilled these last night and they were gor­geous.  No photo: we were too hun­gry to wait!

And I’ve been cook­ing for four these days, because my beloved mother in law has arrived for her autum­nal visit.  What joy to have her under my roof where I can do things for her, have her invalu­able help while I cook, wear the new lovely short skirt she brought for me (some­one tell me when I’m too old, please).  Her vis­its always are bit­ter­sweet because we get a chance to see what life would be like if we were always together, and it’s a bit awful know­ing this will prob­a­bly never hap­pen.  We must enjoy the vis­its.  She is a per­son who is defined to an enor­mous degree by her gen­tle curios­ity about the world around her.  She asks ques­tions!  She lis­tens.  She wants to know what you’re read­ing and why, what you’re cook­ing and why, who’s com­ing over tonight and what they’re like.  It’s inter­est­ing to see one­self through her eyes: so much more fas­ci­nat­ing than I know I really am!

And, drum roll please… Avery has had her the­atri­cal tri­umph of the year: as Cecily in “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest” at school.  She was noth­ing short of mag­nif­i­cent!  Dressed as to the manor born in a floor length dress of pink roses, twin­klingly clever and saucy and bright-eyed, all her lines down pat.  Sim­ply won­der­ful, we were burst­ing with pride.

She and two of her cast­mates’ fam­i­lies came back home for a cel­e­bra­tion din­ner, and much post-theatre manic laugh­ter, quo­ta­tions from Doc­tor Who, imi­ta­tions of teach­ers, devour­ing meat­balls and green beans and fruit salad between hic­cups of hys­te­ria.  How won­der­ful they all are: so self-possessed, so funny, so hard­work­ing to put on their play.  A won­der­ful evening.

Right.  I must dash to fin­ish the last-minute jobs that occur when eight peo­ple are expected at your house for sup­per.  Cala­mari to start — oh, another white food! — fol­lowed by slow-braised shoul­der of beef, more green beans with lemon zest and gar­lic, and a choco­late mousse.  If it’s good, I’ll post the recipe.  Oh, another white food — whipped dou­ble cream!  Never mind, I never was a stick­ler for details…

Life is greatly enhanced when you have a decent fishmonger.

Of course, you can just trot into your local super­mar­ket and look along the shelves con­tain­ing fish prod­ucts, and pick out a salmon fil­let or two.  But when you have a beau­ti­ful, clean blue-painted store­front to walk by sev­eral times a day, with smartly-aproned, smil­ing fishy guys wav­ing to you over their gleam­ing steel coun­ter­tops filled with manna from the sea… well.  You get motivated.

Our “Fishmonger’s Kitchen” in Shep­herds Bush Road is just such a mecca for me.  Tony, a hard-working career fish man from Aus­tralia, greets me with enthu­si­asm.  “Kris­ten!  I’ve got a lovely fresh had­dock for you,” and out comes a bright-eyed spec­i­men caught that morn­ing in Corn­wall, to be fil­leted, skinned and wrapped up for me.  Where­upon I dip it in cream and eggs, dredge it in my spe­cial blend of home­made bread­crumbs, panko bread­crumbs and Fox Point Sea­son­ing.  And fry it up deliciously.

Or if you fancy some­thing new for your lunch, get a lit­tle sushi spirit going on.  Take your courage in your hands and pick up a nice piece of yel­low­tail tuna, to make the best salad in the world.

Fresh Yel­low­tail Tuna Salad

(serves 4)

2 tuna steaks, about 1 inch thick

2 tsps olive oil

1 stalk lemon grass, minced

1 soup-size can chick­peas, drained

2 stalks cel­ery, chopped

zest and juice of 1 lemon

hand­ful rocket leaves

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

3 tbsps mayonnaise

Heat the oil in a non­stick fry­ing pan until very hot.  Care­fully place the tuna steaks in the oil and cook for 30 sec­onds on one side, then turn and cook for another 30 sec­onds on the other side.  Remove to a cut­ting board.  Cool slightly so that you can han­dle the fish, then cut into bite-size pieces.  The tuna should be opaque and rather gray­ish on the out­side, but still red and cool to the touch on the inside.

Place tuna in a large bowl and add all the other ingre­di­ents, then mix gen­tly.  Serve immediately.

Sim­ply divine.  I love any tuna, even the sort of cat­food tuna I was raised eat­ing, the one with the danc­ing fish in sun­glasses on the label.  I have grad­u­ated to pre­ten­tious jars of yel­low­tail in olive oil, which is won­der­fully robust and fla­vor­ful.  But this tuna is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence: soft, del­i­cate, com­pletely unfishy.  I could even skip all the other ingre­di­ents and just eat it straight from the fry­ing pan, dusted with some mixed pep­per, per­haps with a tiny bit of wasabi-laced mayo on the side.

But my adven­tures at the fish­mon­ger do not end with a sim­ple slab of tuna.  Oh, no.  Take what hap­pened on Sat­ur­day, for example.

I walked, inno­cently enough, into Tony’s lovely shop with John, our bag of vir­tu­ous ten­nis rack­ets slung over his shoul­der, feel­ing like we deserved a treat.  “I have some lovely tiger prawns for you today,” Tony assured me, and we suc­cumbed.  I wish I had a lovely photo of what became of them, but I’ll have to make it again because the photo turned out wretched.  But here is the recipe, a splen­didly com­plex and spicy array of Thai flavors.

Thai Prawns with Coconut Milk

(serves 4)

2 tbsps sun­flower or other mild oil
5 cloves gar­lic
1 small hot red chili
1 large (1–2 inch?) knob gin­ger, peeled
2 tsps turmeric
1 tsp cumin
juices of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lime
large hand­ful corian­der leaves
large hand­ful pars­ley leaves
1 red onion, quar­tered
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper

1 kg king tiger prawns, heads removed, shells slit up the back for easy peeling

1 soup-size can coconut milk
red pep­per flakes to taste

bas­mati rice for four (put to steam)
ten­der­stem broc­col­ini to saute in olive oil

4 kaf­fir lime leaves
12 basil leaves, chiffonade

Prob­a­bly your prawns will arrive to you frozen. Mine did. If so, place them in a bowl and let them thaw. Save the thaw­ing liq­uid. If they come with heads, remove them and rinse.

So. Put all the ingre­di­ents up to and includ­ing the black pep­per in a Cuisi­nart and whizz till a nice paste. You will have to take the lid off and scrape down the sides sev­eral times. Next, heat the oil in a heavy skil­let or wok and throw all the paste in. Stir round till siz­zling, then throw in the prawns. Stir and toss and turn until the prawns are pink all over instead of their orig­i­nal grey, then smack each prawn against the side of the wok and remove to the even­tual serving bowl.

Now pour into the wok the prawn thaw­ing liq­uid, and the coconut milk. Stir over medium heat until bub­bling and taste. Add the lime leaves and as many pep­per flakes as you need. Leave off the heat while you steam some bas­mati rice and saute some ten­der­stem broccolini.

When the rice and broc­col­ini are ready, remove the lime leaves from the sauce and add the prawns. Chif­fon­ade the basil and add to the sauce. Heat over high heat until bub­bling, then pour every­thing over the rice.  Serve with an empty bowl for the prawn shells, and lots of napkins.

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This dish will make you sit up and beg like a dog.  So creamy, so beau­ti­fully golden with turmeric (your fin­gers will be golden too, from peel­ing the shells!), so exotic and com­pellingly velvety.

I must digress and tell you that before I had even inves­ti­gated the bags I brought home from the fishmonger’s, the phone rang and it was Tony.  “Um, Kris­ten, you know those prawns you bought?  Don’t open them.  I acci­den­tally gave you some­one else’s her­rings.  I’m bring­ing more prawns to you now.”

I tried, dear read­ers, to give back the her­rings.  He was hav­ing none of it, just smil­ingly shoved a pack­age at me, pointed to the wait­ing ille­gally parked van, and left, wav­ing over his shoulder.

I opened the her­rings.  Ugh.  Very fishy smelling, bones every­where (“You’re meant just to eat the bones,” well-meaning Eng­lish friends have said since.  Indeed.)  I went next door.  “Sara, do you and Selva want six but­ter­flied her­rings?”  I explained my sit­u­a­tion.  Sara repu­di­ated them in no uncer­tain terms.  “Give them to the cats!”  I rang up Annie.  “Annie, do you and Keith want six but­ter­flied her­rings?”  “Ugh, no!  Bin them!”

So, an hour and sev­eral attempts to bone them later, I gave up.  In the dark of night, feel­ing hideously waste­ful but sin­gu­larly unin­spired, I binned them.  Heaven save me.

But I didn’t stop there.  Some demon took hold of me, some com­pletely not-Indiana part of my cook­ing self, and I brought home… a squid.  Have you ever cleaned a squid?  It is not for the faint of heart, although I know to some peo­ple it’s child’s play, the same peo­ple who always clean their own scal­lops.  I cleaned scal­lops once, and while I com­pletely agree that the fresh­ness sim­ply can’t com­pare to ready-prepared scal­lops, I found it off-puttingly grubby.  It’s very hard to rec­on­cile the pris­tine white babies you buy at the super­mar­ket with the con­tents of a real scal­lop shell brought home from Tony’s.  They’re bottom-dweller bivalves, after all, their homes reflect their diet.

But a squid!  My good­ness, I couldn’t believe all that was con­tained within that one crea­ture.  Some brave twists of the head-ish-seeming bit, with long trail­ing ten­ta­cles, to sep­a­rate it from the thick body com­plete with fins… and voila.  It comes apart.  A long piece of car­ti­lage so per­fect as to seem like a piece of syn­thetic plas­tic.  And two lit­tle silverfish-like sacs of ink.  Ink that was pro­fuse, blacker than mid­night, and most impres­sively stain­ing of the bowl, my fin­gers, the sink.  Amaz­ing!  Lots of time spent peel­ing the skin away, clean­ing the inside  OCD heaven.

But once that lit­tle guy was prop­erly clean, and sliced into per­fect rings, dipped into my peer­less bread­crumb mix­ture and fried… JOY.

And friends, that brings me to the end of my cur­rent Fishy Tales.  And since, begin­ning tomor­row, John and I are going to try a spell of eschew­ing carbs, there will be a spell of no fried fish for us.  You may look for­ward to a new spate of side dishes con­tain­ing no pota­toes, rice, cous­cous, pasta or bread… we’ll see how long that lasts.  I’m not big on self-deprivation.  Unless it involves… herrings.

I’ve devel­oped the begin­nings of a life phi­los­o­phy: con­trast brings happiness.

After a week of solid rain, there is noth­ing so wel­come as a dose of sun­shine.  But by the same token, after an unbro­ken period of blue skies, wak­ing to the pat­ter of rain on the win­dowsill is inex­press­ibly cozy.

Or take soli­tude.  Today I am on my own all day because John’s gone off on one of his archi­tec­tural jaunts, Avery has a long school day with play rehearsal at the end.  And it’s strangely pleas­ant here with no one to talk to, no dis­trac­tions from what­ever my agenda is.  But come tomor­row and I’ll be glad enough to drive down to Southamp­ton with John and spend the day with my dear friends Lilith and Janice.

And what could be bet­ter after a long day’s blog­ging, cook­ing and laun­dry than a lit­tle cat­nap with Hello! mag­a­zine open beside you?  If you hadn’t worked so hard, the nap wouldn’t be any fun.

Con­trast.

So nat­u­rally, being me, I’ve extended this phi­los­o­phy to my pri­mary job: think­ing about food, shop­ping for food, cook­ing, eat­ing and then talk­ing about food.  And what more stir­ring con­trast can there be than…

VEG­ETA­BLES ver­sus MEAT.

Don’t you some­times just crave a meal entirely of veg­eta­bles?  Crunchy and soft, brightly col­ored and stim­u­lat­ing, that plate full of vit­a­miny good­ness is not to be under­es­ti­mated.  In that spirit, I can only point to the pho­to­graph above.

Roasted Autumn Veg­eta­bles (these hap­pen to be beets and cau­li­flower)

(think a big hand­ful for each person)

Go wild: car­rot chunks, but­ter­nut squash with a sprin­kle of sage, parsnip rounds, swede batons, what­ever your heart desires.  Driz­zle with chilli oil, salt and pep­per, maybe even a touch of brown sugar, and roast for 30–40 min­utes at 220C/425F.  You can’t go wrong.

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If you’re like me, your veg­etable drawer in the fridge is filled with all sorts of scraps, a bit unas­sum­ing on their own, but con­tain­ing a rich­ness of poten­tial.  I can’t bear to throw food away, so I find myself stash­ing away a red pep­per and half a yel­low one, five broc­coli flo­rets, a smidgen of red onion, a bit of a leek…

Clean-Out-The-Crisper-Drawer Cous­cous

(serve 4 as a hearty main dish)

2 cups dry couscous

3 cups hot chicken stock

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

all the veg­eta­bles you can find!

In a large, pretty bowl, pour the hot stock over the cous­cous and cover with a big plate or pan lid.  Let sit for five min­utes, then fluff with a fork.  Sprin­kle with a lit­tle more olive oil if it’s a bit dry.

Heat the oil and but­ter in a large fry­ing pan and saute the gar­lic and all the veg­eta­bles till slightly soft, then mix with the cous­cous.  Done.

This dish has every­thing to rec­om­mend it.  Cous­cous is prac­ti­cally free, and you can plan ahead and have a pot of home­made chicken stock ready to hand.  Or veg­etable stock if you pre­fer!  Home­made stock makes me happy because it’s tak­ing advan­tage of what oth­er­wise might just be thrown away: chicken bones, the ends of onions.  And you’ve res­cued all those veg­eta­bles who thought their use­ful days were over.

Now, after a few meals like this, a young lady’s thoughts nat­u­rally turn to mat­ters of a car­niv­o­rous nature.

Slow-Braised Shoul­der of Beef with Sausages and Mush­rooms in Stout

(serves 4)

2 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves gar­lic, roughly chopped

1 large white onion, quartered

4 large sausages (believe it or not, mine were fla­vored with black olives and figs)

4 size­able chunks beef shoulder

1 bot­tle Stout

1 cup beef stock

8 large mush­rooms, quartered

1 cup sour cream

hand­ful chives, chopped fine

Heat the olive oil and throw in the gar­lic, onions and sausages.  Fry till the sausages are cooked through and browned.  Remove them to a plate and throw in the beef shoul­der.  Brown on all sides, never mind­ing that the gar­lic and onions are carameliz­ing.  That’s a good thing.  When the beef is browned, put the sausages back in, pour on the Stout and stock and throw in the mush­rooms.  Turn the heat as low, low, low as you can get it, using a heat dif­fuser or pad of folded-up alu­minum foil on the gas if you must.  Cover as tightly as you can.  Walk away for 5–7 hours.  Give it a stir once or twice dur­ing this time, turn­ing the beef over to sub­merge each side in turn.

When you’re ready to eat, pour in 1/2 cup sour cream and turn up the heat to get a good sim­mer.  If you find the sauce too thin, pour a bit in a small bowl and mix in 2 tbsps flour, then pour it all back in and mix well.

Serve with egg noo­dles, an extra dol­lop of sour cream for each por­tion, and a sprin­kling of chives.

Again, the virtues of this dish are many!  Butch­ers prac­ti­cally give away shoul­der of beef because it’s unfash­ion­able.  It requires long cook­ing, peas­anty cook­ing.  And dear read­ers, the AROMA that will fill your entire house as they day goes by.  I wish I could offer smell-a-blog.

You must stand well away from the peo­ple you feed this to if you are at all shy of bear hugs, tears of grat­i­tude, open dis­plays of awe.  This dish is sim­ply the epit­ome of rich car­niv­o­rous delight: it’s a dark, com­plex gravy, the meat falls apart, the mush­rooms have soaked up every bit of beery, beefy good­ness they can, and the sour cream adds an East­ern Euro­pean sophistication.

And of course, on the side you could serve a pile of roasted veg­eta­bles, just for… contrast.

Yes, bless­ings, even lit­er­ally, because last Sun­day saw us at that most touch­ing of all Sep­tem­ber hap­pen­ings in Lon­don, Horseman’s Sun­day, or “The Bless­ing of the Horses” at St John’s Church in Bayswa­ter.  Dozens of horses from the two sta­bles in Bathurst Mews gather around in con­trolled chaos, lit­tle girls in bright blue jumpers and jodh­purs, big­ger girls con­trol­ling their ponies with deter­mined tugs on bri­dles, girls step­ping behind with giant buck­ets and shov­els and brooms, clean­ing up the inevitable mess.  All the sidling, whin­ny­ing and clap­ping of hooves that means Sep­tem­ber is here, the school year has begun, and it’s time for the horses to be blessed.

The vicar, who is known to be ter­ri­fied of horses, waits until the last pos­si­ble minute to be hoisted, in his green cer­e­mo­nial cas­sock, onto the back of some pony deemed to be the calmest on the day.  Once in place, the poor cler­gy­man fixes a deter­mined smile on his face and rides around the block to the church, where all the girls, plus dig­ni­taries (not the Pope, we were dis­ap­pointed to see) and vis­it­ing horses from all over the UK, gather.

And they are blessed!  They are thanked for their ser­vice through­out the year, and for their com­pan­ion­ship, and funny sto­ries are told.  The vicar tells about a horsey col­league of his who named his favorite pony “Parish Busi­ness,” so that when parish­ioners came to claim him for some annoy­ing task, his wife could in all hon­esty report that he was “out on parish business.”

Avery is one of the big girls now, and as such is not on horse­back but is given a lit­tle girl to lead around the fes­tiv­i­ties.  The sun shone on them, because it would not dare to do any less on Horseman’s Sun­day.  Mr Nye, the beloved 85-year-old owner of the sta­ble, held tight to his micro­phone as befit­ted the organ­iser of the event for the past 43 years and held sway, telling many ques­tion­able anec­dotes and caus­ing all the other adults to hold their breath at what might be com­ing next.  Every year, exactly the same.

After the bless­ing, but before the gymkhana in the park, John and went for a com­pletely spec­tac­u­lar meal at the nearby French bistro Angelus, quite sim­ply one of the taste sen­sa­tions of Lon­don.  Foie gras creme brulee, if you please!  I have tried to make it, to no avail.  Creamy, del­i­cate mousse of foie gras under a crack­ling, slightly sweet layer of poppy seeds and Demer­ara sugar.

The lux­ury!  My favorite dish in all the world, I think.  And com­pletely sat­is­fy­ing to eat it in the only restau­rant in the city that makes it, all the more because I’ve been defeated in mak­ing it myself.

But I can come home, after a long after­noon watch­ing Avery on Wick­ham, buck­ing and rear­ing in the foxy sun­light, and make:

Roasted Root Veg­eta­bles with Chilli Oil and Sage

Sim­ply peel and cut in bite-size pieces the root veg­eta­bles of your choice: beet­root, but­ter­nut squash, car­rots, parsnips.  Driz­zle them with chilli-infused olive oil, sprin­kle with chopped sage and dust with salt and pep­per, and roast in the oven at 200C/400 F for 30 min­utes, then toss in the oil and serve.  Autumn on a plate.

And for com­plete per­fec­tion in a soup bowl, there is:

Creamy Red Pep­per Soup

(serves 6)

2 tbsps butter

6 red pep­per, chopped roughly

1 shal­lot, chopped roughly

4 cloves gar­lic, chopped roughly

3 tbsps Marsala wine

sprin­kling of fresh thyme leaves

chicken stock to cover, per­haps 3 cups?

1/2 cup dou­ble cream

For­get the fid­dly busi­ness of roast­ing the pep­pers: it doesn’t mat­ter.  Sim­ply saute the pep­pers, shal­lots and gar­lic in the but­ter, then add the Marsala wine and sim­mer high for a bit.  Sprin­kle on the thyme leaves and cover the whole lot with chicken stock.  Sim­mer for 20 min­utes until pep­pers are soft, then pul­ver­ize with your hand blender and run through a sieve into a clean pot.  Swirl in the cream, and get out your straw: this is the best soup ever.

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Then it was onto the real busi­ness of life: the arrival of our dear New York friends Olimpia and Tony.  Olimpia once worked with John, and for that rea­son she has his num­ber.  All of them.  She has seen him at his best — a gen­er­ous and kind-hearted coworker — and at his worst — prob­a­bly blam­ing every­one in sight for a plane ticket gone wrong, or in the depths of despair over a deal he’d worked his heart out for that was not going to pan out.  In short, she knows him. And still loves him, which is real friendship.

They arrived late at night, with John and me wait­ing for them in the spitty, Lon­dony rain (Avery annoyed that we had vetoed her stay­ing up as well!).  Wildly wav­ing through the car win­dows, smil­ing with excite­ment, they arrived.  We hus­tled their suit­cases up to the serene guest room, all white bed linens and soft blue walls, the green beauty of the back gar­den hid­den in the dark, a can­dle lit on the fire­place man­tle, pic­tures of Avery every­where, a stack of books — the lat­est Ian McE­wan, an old Lau­rie Col­win, a Gladys Taber, an Agatha Christie — on the bed­side table.

Thurs­day morn­ing dawned wet and gray.  “This is what we should expect of Lon­don weather,” Tony said bravely, but it seemed TOO bad when the weather had been gor­geous all month.  Noth­ing, how­ever, could stop us from our adven­tures, so we piled hilar­i­ously into the Fiat (“next time you do that, Tony, I need my video cam­era!” Olimpia crowed as he squeezed him­self in, shov­ing the seat back and nearly break­ing her knees), and drove off to Bor­ough Mar­ket, where the tar­pau­lins and ancient roofs pro­tected us from the downpour.

We bought every­thing in sight.  Eggs, creme fraiche, Nor­mandy but­ter with huge flakes of sea salt in it, and the cured Ital­ian meats!  Don’t even get me started.

And the pro­duce!  I bought cele­riac, basil, Ital­ian pars­ley, and a bright orange pump­kin from the most per­fect pro­duce stand, exchang­ing wis­dom with the pro­pri­etor on why my pump­kin soup of last week turned out so un-pumpkiny.  “Love, you need a bright orange squash for that, and roast­ing it ahead of the soup wouldn’t hurt none either,” he allowed, so I am in his debt.  If the soup turns out to be some­thing other than creamy chicken stock, as it was last week, you’ll be the first to know.

To Sill­field Farm, finally, after scop­ing out all the other butch­ers for Olimpia’s gift to us, that after­noon.  For WILD BOAR.  The shop­ping high­light of the after­noon.  What fun we had.

You will never eat any­thing like it, until you have cooked with Olimpia.  I am offer­ing you the elixir of the gods, here, by shar­ing her inim­itable, peer­less recipe.  Enjoy.

Olimpia’s  Meat­balls

(makes 24 palm-sized meatballs)

800 grams/ 1 3/4 pounds Sill­field Farms wild boar mince

3–4 slices whole wheat bread, soaked in bread and squeezed dry

½ cup grated Parme­san cheese

3 eggs

salt, pep­per

4 cloves gar­lic, finely chopped

8 leaves basil, finely chopped

hand­ful Ital­ian pars­ley, finely chopped

olive oil for frying

In a large bowl, mix the mince with the squeezed bread, shred­ding the bread as you go.  Sprin­kle in the Parme­san cheese and mix very well.

In a smaller bowl, whisk eggs fully and mix in all other ingre­di­ents except olive oil.

Pour egg mix­ture into meat mix­ture and knead well with your hands until com­pletely mixed, at least 5 min­utes.  Shape into 1 ½ inch balls and set on a platter.

Heat a very large fry­ing pan with enough olive oil to cover the bot­tom and come up the sides ¼ inch.  Fry the meat­balls in a sin­gle layer, in batches until browned and fully cooked inside, turn­ing twice and if nec­es­sary brown­ing on the edges as well.  Serve with…

Olimpia’s Magic Tomato Sauce

(makes 6 cups)

olive oil to coat bot­tom of pan (approx­i­mately 2 tbsps)

6 sausages of your choosing

4 cloves gar­lic, finely chopped

1 large shallot

6 leaves basil, cut in half

½ cup good red wine, like Chianti

4 soup-size cans or 2 large cans crushed tomatoes

hand­ful Ital­ian parsley

salt and pep­per to taste

Heat olive oil in large saucepan and fry sausages until brown on all sides.  Add gar­lic, shal­lot and 1 leaf of basil and fry till gar­lic and shal­lot are translucent.

Pour in the red wine and cook down till reduced by half.  Add toma­toes.  If you can­not find crushed toma­toes, sim­ply put whole or chopped toma­toes through the Cuisi­nart until smooth.  Add pars­ley and the remain­ing basil leaves, then sea­son to taste.

Cook sauce, cov­ered, for at least 1 hour, prefer­ably up to 4 hours.  Place meat­balls gen­tly in sauce and sim­mer uncov­ered for at least 1 fur­ther hour.

Serve with pasta and Parme­san cheese.

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

We had the time of our lives cook­ing, that after­noon.  The rain fell, Tony took pic­tures, we dis­cussed the nature of life and love.  I was Olimpia’s devoted slave and chopped, minced, pul­ver­ized ingre­di­ents to her sat­is­fac­tion.  We talked about wild boar.  So much more deli­cious than beef, or pork!  “And just think, Olimpia,” I said, “some­body will prob­a­bly make head cheese out of all the scraps at that butcher,” and she laughed uproar­i­ously and said, “John’s the head cheese,” which made us laugh so hard we could hardly break eggs or grate cheese.

John came in and poured Chi­anti all round, and Olimpia fried her meat­balls, and sauteed sausages, made sauce.  The most per­fect afternoon.

We headed out, then, we to pick up Avery from a late play rehearsal at school, and Tony and Olimpia to go to see “Death­trap,” then we all recon­vened late that night to hear the reac­tion (they loved it) and share sand­wiches of fresh baguettes, shav­ings of culatello with finoc­chio (lit­tle pro­sciutto slices with fen­nel), slices of good Eng­lish Dou­ble Glouces­ter cheese, rocket and my fresh pesto.

In the morn­ing it was rain­ing, if any­thing, even heav­ier.  But Tony was adamant.  “I pre­dict it will stop in the after­noon,” and Olimpia chimed in, “He’s never wrong about the weather,” so we donned rain gear, packed umbrel­las, and headed off to some­thing I never in my life thought I would see my hus­band do: climb onto a Lon­don tour bus.

On the way, we stopped off at our old May­fair house, where we moved when we first arrived lo these six years or so ago, and rang the bell of the porter, Lau­rie, an old friend.  He promptly arrived and let us in so we could show Olimpia and Tony the secret gar­den, the walled splen­dor behind the houses lin­ing that square, undreamed of from the street.  We climbed to the roof and sur­veyed all of the Mary Pop­pinsy roofs of May­fair, the Amer­i­can flag float­ing serenely above them all, strangely incon­gru­ous, but point­ing to the Amer­i­can embassy below.  The spitty rain fell, and we enjoyed the nos­tal­gic trip.  How happy we were there.

On to the bus, and to our tour of all scenic points of the city, stop­ping at St Paul’s Cathe­dral, where we got out and had a tour with an idio­syn­cratic and lovely lady tour guide, lead­ing us from mon­u­ment to paint­ing to cof­fin.  We decided not to climb to the top in such awful weather, and then left Olimpia and Tony to con­tinue their tour while we raced off to meet Avery at the skat­ing rink.  Fri­days are Fri­days, after all, and skat­ing lessons stop for no man.

Out in a whirl to The Pope­s­eye for a meat-fest — rump, sir­loin and fil­let steaks all round, plus mas­sive piles of chips (we ate them all), and four dif­fer­ent kinds of mus­tard, plus ketchup, horse­rad­ish and a divine Bear­naise sauce.  Heaven, dis­cussing travel plans — Olimpia and Tony to Por­tu­gal in the morn­ing, we to Flo­rence in Octo­ber — laugh­ing, feel­ing grate­ful to have each other, in the white-paper-tableclothed inti­macy of the restau­rant, can­dles every­where, a gor­geous din­ner.  Happiness.

And in the morn­ing, after one of John’s famous scrambled-egg brunches (roasted toma­toes an unex­pected hugely pop­u­lar addi­tion!), they were off, to points south and warm.  The visit was over.

John and had a lit­tle adven­ture that after­noon, while Avery and her friend Lille samba-ed away in May­fair: we rented bikes from the new Bar­clays hire scheme and went all round Hyde Park!  What I want to know is why my legs were killing me, when we play ten­nis four times a week!  Avery informed me solemnly that it’s like com­par­ing horse back rid­ing to ice skat­ing.  You use com­pletely dif­fer­ent mus­cles, appar­ently.  A really lovely, civ­i­lized way to spend an hour, even if I am totally con­vinced that the park is uphill all the way.  All the time.  How that can be, I do not know.  But I was puffing.

So nor­mal life has returned.  It’s Mon­day, and rainy again.  A quiet day of home chores.  Lunch of a new chick­pea salad.  Just Sep­tem­ber, wind­ing her­self down and gear­ing up for autumn.  The darker days are coming.