At King’s Cross Sta­tion on Mon­day, cold and damp from the per­sis­tent driz­zle, we said good­bye to Avery and off she went for a week in York­shire at the Arvon Foun­da­tion writ­ing course.  Today we picked up a poet.

Left Hand

It was used well before, like a mould-mottle book

hastily writ­ten notes tast­ing of ink

bluish-green dye of a near for­got­ten Easter

recall­ing the stark white and red nurses’ uniforms

the coarse wool of a soldier’s coat

the flimsy paper of cig­a­rettes and yel­lowed tobacco stains

a tum­bler of whiskey, the weight of the glass

cres­cents of nails press­ing into its palm

not quite an entity in itself,

not quite enough on its own,

con­tent in its inferiority –

an under­study, unprepared.

********

I can­not extol enough the bril­liance of the Arvon way of life.  Sev­eral years ago I spent a week in the wilds of Devon on a course designed to teach us “food writ­ing.”  Morn­ings of work­shops with fel­low writ­ers and tutors — pub­lished food writ­ers — lunches spent dis­cussing whose work had been the star that morn­ing, then after­noons in pri­vate tuto­ri­als and mas­sive edit­ing after hear­ing what they had to say!  Then din­ners cooked in teams and evenings spent read­ing aloud.  An inten­sity I can’t really describe, but now Avery understands.

Almost bet­ter than the writ­ing are the friend­ships forged.  I don’t want to think about life with­out the dear, dear friends I made dur­ing that week.  We will have our annual reunion in May, bring­ing masses of ingre­di­ents together to spend end­less hours in the kitchen cook­ing our favorite dishes, laugh­ing and catch­ing up.  Oh, the pork crack­ling, the 15-ingredient leg of lamb, the celes­tial choco­late pud­ding…  In the after­noons we will read aloud what­ever we’ve been writ­ing lately.  A life-changing expe­ri­ence.  I am thrilled for Avery that she has had the same joy­ous week, never to be forgotten.

How we missed her!  But we were out in the coun­try­side hav­ing our own adven­tures.  Over 20 years ago John and I, together with his fab­u­lous par­ents, dis­cov­ered the clever­est of Eng­lish orga­ni­za­tions: The Land­mark Trust.  It calls itself a “build­ing preser­va­tion char­ity,” but in real­ity it’s a com­pletely quirky and quixotic group of peo­ple obsessed with sav­ing the past and bring­ing it into the present.

They find aban­doned barns, churches, mills, and that most eccen­tric of British build­ings, the “folly.” (pic­ture a giant stone pineap­ple with beds and bath­rooms inside!)  They chase away birds in res­i­dence, tear away plas­ter walls to reveal 18th cen­tury paint­ings, fres­coed ceil­ings, ancient floors and doors.

Every­thing that can be pre­served is pre­served, and fur­nished with blue wil­low china, pris­tine white bed­li­nens, price­less ori­en­tal rugs and antique fur­ni­ture, puz­zles, books and oh… the views.

Since our early days liv­ing in Eng­land in the 1990s right through to this week, we’ve stayed in per­haps 20 Land­mark Trust build­ings — in Eng­land, Scot­land, Flo­rence, Ver­mont, Ire­land… sim­ply heav­enly.  And I can cook!  This time it was the West Ban­quet­ing House in Chip­ping Cam­p­den, the Cotswolds.  There is no more gor­geous place on earth, to my mind.

Nat­u­rally, when it’s April in Eng­land, a great deal of time must be spent pur­su­ing the local live­stock, namely… lambs.

We took end­less long walks across the fields of stun­ning rape­seed, soon to be har­vested and made into the pre­cious elixir, rape­seed oil.

We vis­ited another of our old favorite places from many years ago, Buck­land Manor.  Images of a long-ago visit with my par­ents filled my mind, my young and healthy dad emerg­ing drip­ping from the swim­ming pool, look­ing for­ward to the hotel’s lux­ury cream tea and a walk in the beau­ti­ful gardens.

We vis­ited church after church, admir­ing the ancient floors with their inset gravestones.

Of course, you can’t always have deadly seri­ous grave­yards.  This par­tic­u­lar spec­i­men from our local church­yard had us shak­ing our heads.  Either Alice Mabel was an awfully under­stand­ing wife, or there’s some strife in the afterlife.

We vis­ited the lovely mar­ket town of Stow-on-the-Wold for a lit­tle cheese — Stowe Soft, a very nicely smelly goat cheese — and organic salmon, and the incom­pa­ra­bly posh and styl­ish Dayles­ford Organic, where I picked up a head of cele­riac and a bun­dle of wild gar­lic for the stun­ningly delicious:

Cele­riac Puree with Wild Gar­lic and Sour Cream

(serves 4)

small head cele­riac, peeled and cut into cubes

skim milk nearly (but not quite) to cover

2 tbsps sour cream

2 tbsps butter

hand­ful wild gar­lic leaves, chiffonade-chopped

salt and pep­per to taste

In a medium saucepan, place the cele­riac and pour on skim milk, per­haps 1 1/2 cups depend­ing on the size of the cele­riac head.  Do not cover cele­riac com­pletely or you will end up with cele­riac soup (still gor­geous but not this recipe!).  Cook over medium heat, tak­ing care not to burn on the bot­tom, until the cele­riac is soft, per­haps 25 min­utes.  Puree with hand blender, then beat in sour cream and but­ter, then add wild gar­lic.  Sea­son to taste.

As always when we are with­out Avery, I cook madly a whole host of dishes she doesn’t like.  Among them this week was roasted pork belly from Check­etts butch­ers in Bourton-on-the-Water.

Is there any more savory, rich dish?

And the sim­plest of all pos­si­ble side dishes, an onion with its cen­ter spooned out and filled with Robi­ola cheese, then sprin­kled with Fox Point Sea­son­ing and baked for 30 minutes.

With a visit to his­toric Chastle­ton House…

And our tra­di­tional walk across the fields between Lower Slaugh­ter and Upper Slaugh­ter to gaze upon Lords of the Manor Hotel, another favorite from over the years…

Home again, and reunited with our newly minted poet, life is very peace­ful indeed.

I can’t believe it.  It’s hap­pened again.  A whole month between posts.

I keep think­ing life will slow down and that “tomor­row” will be quiet enough for me to sit down and rel­ish all the activ­ity.  But every day brings more, more, more.  So I have ran­domly cho­sen “today” so I can finally tell you what’s been going on in our busy lives.

Lots of writ­ing!  I am ter­ri­bly excited to be the Lon­don cor­re­spon­dent for an up-and-coming foodie web­site, “Hand­picked Nation.”  This arti­cle is the result of what my fam­ily will report are many, many eggs being eaten in taste tests, much can­vass­ing of my friends.  Do you refrig­er­ate your eggs?  Why or why not?  Do you buy free range, organic?  Eggs every­where, in a nutshell.

Next up is a piece on pork belly, a won­der­ful ingre­di­ent very pop­u­lar here in Eng­land, and in Asia, and just mak­ing its way around Amer­i­can kitchens and restaurants.

And the­atre!  We’ve been to a mar­vel­lous pro­duc­tion of “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream”, at the Lyric the­atre in Ham­mer­smith. I hate to tell you that it’s closed now, but if you ever get a chance to see the Fil­ter The­atre Group do any­thing, RUN don’t walk.  Avery’s been strug­gling to write what is ulti­mately a bril­liant essay, ana­lyz­ing the pro­duc­tion.  A play within a play within a play, etc.  Fourth wall?  For­get it.

And then it was “Being Shake­speare” with Avery and a school friend, and whilst it was impres­sive, I must warn you that you’ll have to go pre­pared to care a LOT about the Bard.   I might not be quite enough of a devoted fan to have appre­ci­ated it as much as oth­ers might.  A one-man show, almost no props!  All about Will.

The most impres­sive thing about the play was — as is any­thing to do with Shake­speare here in Eng­land — is the alive-ness of the man him­self.  We feel he is quite here, with us, judg­ing the pro­duc­tion.  “Wouldn’t he love that ‘Mid­sum­mer’?” we ask, and we all feel he has an opinion.

And Simon Cal­low is a national trea­sure, in the role or in any other role.  Love that man.  Once, 20 years ago, John and I were com­ing out of a Lon­don restau­rant and John hid around the cor­ner of the entrance, to jump out at me com­ing along behind him and shout BOO!  Only some­how Simon Cal­low had got between him and me, so poor Simon got the shock!

And then we had Amer­i­can vis­i­tors, as we so often do, and I took them to see “Out of Sync,” a vastly impres­sive art instal­la­tion at Som­er­set House.

And the cook­ing that has been going on!  Even more exit­ing to me than the actual cook­ing is the new col­lab­o­ra­tion that has grown up between me and Avery.

As you all know, I strug­gle with the evo­lu­tion from little-girl Avery to growing-up Avery.  There are so many lit­tle mile­stones that some­how knock me side­ways: the first trip home from school alone (no more fun hang­ing out­side the school to walk home with her), of course no more read­ing aloud (she reads ten books now to my one, and my dears, the dystopia!).  The first time she got her­self home from see­ing a play.  Tomor­row in fact, she goes off with a school group to spend five days in York­shire, writ­ing poetry.  I have never in my life writ­ten a poem!  She is grow­ing up.

And so it has been an absolute joy for us to find some­thing we like to do together, some­thing that points out the utter won­der­ful­ness of hav­ing a nearly grown per­son to share our lives.  She can ele­vate the hum­blest dish to emerge from my kitchen, into a work of art.  I give you: cele­riac remoulade, inspired by my lunch with my friend Caz at La Fro­magerie in Marylebone.

Cele­riac Remoulade

(serves lots of peo­ple at a picnic)

1  head cele­riac (cel­ery root), peeled

dress­ing: olive oil, may­on­naise, whole­grain mus­tard, lemon juice (in pro­por­tions to suit your taste)

Here is where any obsessive-compulsive ten­den­cies will come in handy.  Juli­enne the cele­riac by cut­ting VERY thin slices and then cut­ting those slices into VERY thin slices.  Toss with the dress­ing and serve straightaway.

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

You can see what I mean about her tal­ent.  She takes any dish and finds the most excit­ing pre­sen­ta­tion, the most unex­pected and inspir­ing angle.  Look at our Easter ham, our feast with Daisy and her family.

And my lat­est exper­i­ments with aubergine/eggplant.  Lus­cious with olive oil, gar­lic, toma­toes and onions, chick­peas and Parmesan.

We have had such a good time together.  We envi­sion a cook­book in fact!  A col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two of us.  In July she will go off to Brook­lyn for a two-week pho­tog­ra­phy camp and after that I can only IMAG­INE the bril­liance.  What can they pos­si­bly teach her?  It has all been a tremen­dous com­fort and com­pen­sa­tion for the dis­ap­pear­ance of a sticky lit­tle hand to hold, a tod­dler on my lap.

And the evening she popped her head round the bed­room door, around 11:30.  “So, what’s your opin­ion on Niet­zsche?”  You don’t get that sort of dis­cus­sion with a kinder­gart­ner.  At least not one I’d want to live with.  So we discuss.

More vis­i­tors arrived!  John’s sis­ter and her adorable fam­ily, fresh from Min­nesota and on their way to Paris, spent four bliss­ful days with us.  The de rigeuer open-top bus tour!

And the ensu­ing boat ride back up the Thames.  Home for a rich dish of mac­a­roni and cheese and a huge casse­role of spinach, and the first of many book talks between Avery and Cathy, the only per­son I know who reads even more than Avery does!  The books piled up on the din­ing room table and they com­pared, “You HAVE to read this!  WHAT?  you haven’t read THIS?”

Up the next day for a trip to the Globe The­atre, where believe it or not, we encoun­tered the Fil­ter Group’s head actor, Ed Gaughan from “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream”!

We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for what project he might be bring­ing to the Globe.  We dis­cussed this and many other issues of Eng­lish life over a superb fish and chips lunch at the Swan Cafe, linked to the Globe.  Twice-cooked chips, gar­lic may­on­naise… heaven.  What fun to have fam­ily to eat with, laugh with, and be tourists with.

From the Globe we saun­tered over to the Tate Mod­ern where we all fell in love with Do Ho Suh’s superb instal­la­tion, a meta­phys­i­cal poly­ester stair­way to heaven.

And the Ger­man artist we had encoun­tered in the Bun­destag in Berlin!  The nail man, Gun­ther Uecker, whose work reminds me so much of Eva Hesse.  Here is Uecker:

And here is Hesse:

There is some­thing to dis­cover on every trip to the Tate, and thank good­ness for our vis­i­tors who get us out of the house, away from our com­put­ers, and dash­ing about the city remem­ber­ing how much fun it is to live here.

Then it was to see “Matilda: The Musi­cal,” I think the best musi­cal I have ever seen.  Clever, accom­plished, and anchored by a per­for­mance by Cleo Demetriou, one of the four lit­tle girls play­ing the title role.  How does she man­age to carry an entire cast and audi­ence with her so mas­ter­fully?  Go, if you get the chance.

Sun­day found me nurs­ing a mis­er­able cold I had been try­ing to ignore, so after early bell­ring­ing I begged off going to the British Museum and curled up on the sofa, pop­ping up only to pre­pare din­ner for the return­ing tourists.  Here is our lovely chicken dish, shred­ded the next day for “every­thing on a pancake.”

Vine­gar Chicken

(serves about 6)

1 whole chicken, cut into legs and breasts

2 cups malt vinegar

2 sprigs each fresh rose­mary and thyme

salt and pepper

1/2 cup flour

2 tsps each: dried basil, dried oregano, onion pow­der, gar­lic pow­der, smoked paprika

3 tbsps sun­flower or other veg­etable oil

Soak the chicken pieces in the vine­gar and herbs, salt and pep­per for at least four hours, refrig­er­ated.  Com­bine flour with spices in a seal­able plas­tic bag and shake chicken pieces in the mix­ture.  Lay chicken pieces skin-side down in an oven­proof dish in which you’ve poured the oil.  Bake at 425F/220C for half an hour, then turn over skin-side up and bake another half hour.  Tangy, crunchy and deli­cious!  Many thanks to my old friend Jerry for this recipe.

And our vis­i­tors heart­lessly aban­doned us for their adven­tures in the City of Light.  Our March mad­ness was over, and what a won­der­ful adven­ture it was.

April has only been more insane, so far, with din­ner dates (sushi!), a lunch date at the Cor­ner Room in Beth­nal Green (sea trout, squid, chorizo crumbs and veni­son in ash, any­one?), a con­cert and… did you all hear about the drama yes­ter­day in the 158th Oxford and Cam­bridge Boat Race, pass­ing down the Thames just across the road from our house?

 “There’s a swim­mer in the water!” we sud­denly noticed.  “He’ll be cut to rib­bons by the motor­boats, if he isn’t decap­i­tated by an oar first!”  And the race was stopped, right before our eyes, whilst the crazy guy — protest­ing the elite nature of the race! —  was fished out and arrested.

How amaz­ing that the first time we paid atten­tion to this his­toric race, cross­ing the street to walk along the path and gaze out at the river, such drama happens!

Happy Easter to you all, and a huge thank you to my friend Lucy for this mag­nif­i­cent Easter dessert of a choco­late bas­ket, filled with straw­ber­ries (photo cour­tesy of Avery, nat­u­rally).  May your April be as sweet as ours has been, so far.

I promise not to leave it so long next time to keep you posted on our fun.