a blow-away play, a lazy Sunday

What HAVE I been doing with myself since Fri­day? Well, the first report is that War Horse, at the Olivier The­atre at the National through March (and thence to the New Lon­don the­atre in the West End) is superb. Incom­pa­ra­ble, and I don’t use that word lightly.

Of course going to this play with a daugh­ter who is not only horse-crazy but extremely horse-savvy could have back­fired badly. One wrong step with the enor­mous and intim­i­dat­ing horse “pup­pets” might have been tol­er­ated, but not more than one. And Avery assured us from the very first move­ments of the gawky, awk­ward but touch­ing foal at the begin­ning, right through to the tear­ful end with the war-ravaged ani­mal sur­rounded by his human co-stars, we were all quite con­vinced that there were liv­ing horses inside those crea­tures. A sweet plot, designed to teach chil­dren (and well, me too) the lessons of World War I and in fact about the futil­ity of any war, well-presented and just fright­en­ing enough to be effec­tive. Adult lan­guage and atti­tudes were han­dled with sub­tlety and humor, and the slightly off, stub­bornly loyal teenage lead… sim­ply a mas­sive tal­ent. It is his first pro­fes­sional engage­ment! What a phenomenon.

Avery was solidly inspired to work even harder at her act­ing classes. In fact, she has an audi­tion tomor­row for some­thing relat­ing to an emu (“a story with a man and his really big bird,” the agent said blithely on the tele­phone to me today).

Sat­ur­day was the last lazy day of Avery’s half-term (which seemed to fall about a day and a sneeze after Christ­mas, to be hon­est). John shot his wad at brunch, wolf­ing eggs Bene­dict at the local cafe, when our gor­geous neigh­bor Selva stopped by our table to say he was on his way to the butcher. “Wild boar tonight, for guests: I’ll let you know if it’s all right.” “Want to stop by the butcher our­selves?” I asked John when he’d strolled away. “Wild boar? I’m game,” he said. Badaboom.

By mid-afternoon Avery and I were frus­trated by John’s enforced immo­bil­ity with his ankle (he finally went to the doc­tor yes­ter­day, incon­clu­sive) and so we ended up at West­field, shop­ping for his birth­day which will be Fri­day. She is such fun to hang around with: puns and silly jokes, sto­ries about her friends and school, mus­ings about what I ought to write my next chap­ter about. Her use of lan­guage is a joy: I nearly for­got to write down the lat­est hilar­i­ous exam­ple, when we were at the Gothic Tem­ple in Octo­ber. We all jumped down from a stone wall to cross the sort of ditch so com­mon in the grounds of Eng­lish coun­try houses, called a “ha-ha.” Avery looked up and down the length of it and said, dead­pan, “Let’s ditch this ha-ha.”

Sun­day she spent at the sta­ble and we adults repaired to Annie and Keith’s house up the street, bear­ing my “Every­thing Bean Salad,” and my new sweet­corn and rocket soup, to be eaten right along with their son Fred’s array of home­made piz­zas. Fred took a much-needed break from his French essays to take orders for top­pings. “Chorizo? Moz­zarella? Olives?” We were all very dull and said “Yes, please” to every­thing. Keith demon­strated his recipe for the delight­ful crisp salty cayenne-y pas­try sliv­ers he’d brought to our house a cou­ple of weeks ago: I watched and learned, and envied him his pas­try thingy on the mixer machine. My pas­try thingy is my hands, sadly.

Annie ran around call­ing doc­tors for John’s ankle, stop­ping then to dis­cuss films we all have to see… I rec­om­mended “La Dou­ble Vie de Veronique,” and Annie waxed lyri­cal about “The Tal­ented Mr Rip­ley.” Then we moved on to “Desert Island Discs.” I can never think of ANY music I would pre­fer over any other, on a desert island or any­where else: my brain sim­ply freezes up. When it came to the “what’s your lux­ury item”?” ques­tion, John dodged all the rest of it neatly by say­ing, “My iPod.” Next time I want to play their other favorite game: “Desert Island Dishes.” Mashed pota­toes, anyone?

We ate and ate and ate. And talked, about par­ent­hood, our child­hoods, the girls’ future edu­ca­tions, swap­ping sto­ries of the funny things they do and say as they tread this space between lit­tle girl­hood and teenage­dom. If they go on as they have begun, we’ll be all right.

Finally Keith took the pas­try for his crispy thingys out of the fridge, and as you can see, went right through the assem­bly of them for my edu­ca­tion. I would always rather learn pastry-making for the first time by watch­ing some­one who knows how. That way I can ask all my gorm­less ques­tions and see it done by the mas­ter. He is the least bossy but most com­pe­tent of teach­ers and, most impor­tant, not mean to me when I don’t under­stand. There­fore I came away with a supremely read­able, fol­low­able recipe, which I offer to you. I have retained his mea­sure­ments, and his style, because… I like him, and I LOVE his ref­er­ence to my sexy new ceramic rolling pin, a birth­day gift from my beloved.

Keith’s Crispy Salty Pas­try Treats
(Makes about 25)

250g plain flour + extra for dust­ing
1 tsp bak­ing pow­der
115 ml cold water
25 ml olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pep­per
1/4 tsp black pep­per
coarse sea salt for sprinkling.

1) In a large bowl (or in the mixer using the dough hook) mix together all the ingre­di­ents except the sea salt to form a soft dough. You might need to add a lit­tle more water. work it until it becomes firmer, wrap in cling film and put to rest in the fridge for an hour.
2) Heat the oven to 220c/gas mk 7.
3) Turn dough out onto clean sur­face & have bowl of flour ready for dust­ing ( You’ll use quite a bit!) Cut off wal­nut size pieces of the dough. Roll out each piece with your NEW rolling pin until they are paper thin and like long wide cat’s tongues, bout 20 cm long
4) place crack­ers on a bak­ing tray lined with bak­ing parch­ment or one of those super non stick lin­ers. Brush with plenty of olive oil and sprin­kle with sea salt. Bake for about 6 mins until crisp and golden.

I did them [Keith says] in batches: ie, I would roll out 3 and bake them, and whilst they were bak­ing roll out the next 3, and when the first batch were ready I would remove them from the oven onto a wire rack and place the next 3 on the bak­ing sheet, brush with oil & salt etc etc.

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I must warn you that these lit­tle crea­tures are ADDIC­TIVE. If you are lucky enough to have any left when your guests leave, they are the most sub­lime car­ri­ers for hum­mous, a creamy goats cheese, a thin slice of pate. I imag­ined that one could sprin­kle on gar­lic gran­ules, or grated pecorino cheese, or more cayenne to make them really spicy. But Keith sprin­kled on black mus­tard seeds and they were lovely, as were the plain salty ones. Gor­geous. Thank you, my friend.

There is, I must digress, some­thing heroic and divine about a man who spends his work­ing week in the city, in this envi­ron­ment a quite back­break­ing and wor­ri­some task, and then comes home to spend his Sun­day teach­ing a friend to make pas­try treats. Equally his wife, reach­ing into her imag­i­na­tion for films for me, her Rolodex for a doc­tor for my hus­band, her love for her kids in her advice to Fred (between pizza bites) on his essay on Richard III… how lucky we are to have them up the street, to be fed by their gor­geous son, have Avery spend the after­noon with their delight­ful horsey first daugh­ter, and thence to school with sweet Emily, all week long. That fam­ily is a mir­a­cle. And yet quite down to earth! I’ll tell you, Annie’s plan­ning to give up “fight­ing with Emily” for Lent.

Let’s see, some­how this Sun­day lunch feast was not too much for us to be quite, quite hun­gry by din­ner time, and then it was but the work of a moment to con­coct, in that spon­ta­neous and inspired way that ALMOST NEVER vis­its me, the best potato salad ever.

Potato Salad with Fried Pancetta, Lemon Grass and Goat’s Cheese Dress­ing
(serves four as a side dish)

1 lb small waxy pota­toes, skin on (I like Baby Char­lotte)
3 stalks cel­ery, diced
1 large red onion, diced
4 oz pancetta, cut in cubes
1 stalk lemon grass, outer leaves removed, minced

dress­ing:
1/4 cup goat’s cheese
2 tbsps sin­gle cream
dash red chili flakes
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp mayonnaise

Steam the pota­toes till just ten­der, per­haps 15 min­utes. Mean­while, fry the pancetta cubes in a lit­tle skil­let until crisp and brown. Drain on paper towel. Remove pota­toes from steamer, drain and quar­ter, place in a large bowl. Add the other salad ingre­di­ents and toss. Shake up dress­ing ingre­di­ents in a jar with a lid, then pour over and serve immediately.

I needed to pre­pare this ahead of time and come home to it, so I kept the pancetta in a lit­tle uncov­ered bowl (on a high shelf away from cats!) so it would stay crisp. Do not refrig­er­ate the pancetta if you need to do this, as it will become quite soggy and with a tex­ture like the clammy paper towel you drained it on.

When ready to serve, mix every­thing well. Lovely, fresh, unusual.

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Mon­day I was taken to a blowout lunch at a two-Michelin-starred restau­rant (a first for me!) by a an MI5 agent mas­querad­ing as a food writer… but more on that later. Just for now, make your­self a bowl of potato salad and order your tick­ets for “War Horse.” You’ll thank me.