a visit from the Mid­west (and the best meat­balls ever)

How many of your col­lege room­mates do you keep up with? I have to con­fess hon­estly to only about… four. It isn’t that I didn’t appre­ci­ate them while I was in school, and in fact I remem­ber quite pan­ick­ing on the last day of col­lege in 1987 when I realised that, for the first time in four years, I was going to have to make new friends. All that his­tory, in the hot­house envi­ron­ment that is (or was, in the much more inno­cent days 20 years ago) a soror­ity at a very small uni­ver­sity in the remote-ish wilds of cen­tral Indi­ana. We all made very fast friends.

But then I moved away, and it was as if a cur­tain came down between 1987 and the rest of my life. All new peo­ple, all new places, shortly to cross the pond to live in Lon­don the first time around in 1990 and REALLY start over. And through the years the num­ber of girls I kept in touch with dwin­dled, down to just a few whose name on an email or Christ­mas card glad­dens my heart and takes me back to such a dif­fer­ent time and place. And one of them is Cyn­thia. Would you believe she mar­ried my husband’s col­lege room­mate? What are the odds. And a cou­ple of months ago she got in touch to say she would be in Lon­don with her fam­ily and could we get together? I realised that the last time I saw her was at our tenth col­lege reunion and my last pho­to­graph of her was with six-month-old Avery on her shoulder.

It was won­der­ful to get together. There is some­thing about a Mid­west­ern girl, and her fam­ily, that is unchang­ing: a sense of forth­right­ness, total hon­esty, patient affec­tion, good-humoured gen­eros­ity and cheer­ful opti­mism. I almost for­get about those qual­i­ties, or at least for­get that I miss them, until I’m back with one of my own and I realise what a lovely pro­file that is. A very steady­ing feel­ing in a life that still at times feels for­eign, where nearly all my friends were strangers a year and a half ago. Some­one who remem­bers me at age 18! She brought pic­tures of John and me 24 years ago: scary indeed. Why did I ever think a red poly­ester dress with enor­mous shoul­der pads was a good look for me? Impos­si­bly young and inno­cent look­ing, we were.

Our chil­dren got on famously. We had a nice din­ner, and one thing took me back to my child­hood: Cyn­thia helped me in the kitchen! In both New York and Lon­don, I have found (but never thought of it until Cyn­thia was here), din­ner guests are just guests. Every once in awhile there’s a token offer of help, quickly dis­missed, but most of the time no one offers. It just isn’t done, and you wouldn’t offer at some­one else’s house either. You’re com­pany. You know that you’re there to be given some­thing deli­cious for which you aren’t allowed to make any effort, and when your hosts come to you, they’ll be able to lean back and do noth­ing as well. And it’s a per­fectly nice custom.

But some­thing about Cynthia’s car­ry­ing dishes from the kitchen to the din­ing room, and help­ing clear up after­ward, was a total throw­back to my early life when it was always all hands on deck in everyone’s house. More of a fam­ily feel­ing, less of a per­for­mance. Any trans­planted Mid­west­erner will know what I mean. We had a lovely time. I hope it isn’t another ten years before I see them all again.

The day before their visit was… meat­ball heaven. While you’ll have to make a bit of an effort to find the spices, it’s so worth it. Fol­low the links in this post, and you’ll be all set. It was our Morocco trip reunion of sorts, with Vin­cent, Peter, Mike, his boyfriend Jean-Jacques, and Boyd sit­ting around the table tuck­ing in. If you’re lucky enough to have a Moroc­can or Lebanese gro­cery near you, as I have in Green Val­ley in Upper Berke­ley Street, ask for “mince for kefta” and you will be given a ready-mixed blend of lamb, pars­ley, tiny grains of rice and some mys­te­ri­ous herbs. If not, plain lamb mince is just fine too. And all the spice quan­ti­ties can be adjusted to suit your palate. Ours is a fairly spicy blend, down to the cayenne, which we liked and even went over a treat with three lit­tle girls.

Lamb Kefta with Poached Eggs
(served ten but just barely)

1 1/2 kilos lamb kefta mince, rolled into lit­tle 1-inch meatballs

1/2 cup veg­etable oil
1 white onion, finely minced
10 soup-size cans peeled plum toma­toes
4 cloves gar­lic, minced, if using plain lamb mince
1 tbsp ras el hanout
1 1/2 tbsps ground cumin
1 tbsp lemon-ginger pow­der
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cayenne pep­per
1 tbsp salt
fresh ground pep­per to taste
5 tbsps fresh chopped flat-leaf parsley

In a very large, heavy-bottomed deep saucepan, saute the onion in the oil and add toma­toes and all the fla­vor­ings except 3 tbsps of the pars­ley, which should be set aside. Stir occa­sion­ally over a medium heat, break­ing up the toma­toes with a wooden spoon. In my hum­ble opin­ion, there is no place in this life for tinned chopped toma­toes. Don’t you won­der what sort of toma­toes they use when they know they can get away with them not look­ing like a tomato? Just buy whole and break them up dur­ing the cook­ing process, I say.

This sauce must sim­mer for at least two hours, but it can sit almost indef­i­nitely. I bet it is even bet­ter the sec­ond day, but… there was no sec­ond day. We ate it all.

About an hour before you want to serve the dish, drop the meat­balls into the sauce, in one even layer, as many as you can fit (we ended up with 50 meat­balls and about half fit the first time around). Then cover the pan and leave to sim­mer for 20 min­utes. Lift the lid and the meat­balls will be cooked enough to be quite hardy, so you can stir them about to make room for the other half of the meat­balls. Cover again and cook until done, about 30 min­utes. Again, these can sit almost indef­i­nitely with no risk of becom­ing tough.

When the meat­balls are thor­oughly cooked and you are about 10 min­utes away from serv­ing, break eggs, one at a time, into a soup ladle and lower into the sauce, as many as you can fit (we man­aged about 8). Cover and cook until the eggs are poached, about 8 min­utes. Throw the remain­ing pars­ley on top. Resist the temp­ta­tion to play with the eggs until they are cooked through! I didn’t man­age to make the eggs look per­fect, but hey, it was the first time and they tasted lovely any­way. A bite of egg yolk and a bite of meat­ball smoth­ered in the sauce was… divine.

This dish smells like noth­ing in this world. Your guests will feel they have died and gone to heaven, and you will be a star. I served this with steamed pota­toes driz­zled with olive oil and sprin­kled with pars­ley, and a salad made of cucum­bers and dill in sour cream. Oooh, I wish I had some now.

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We’re headed out to Richmond-on-Thames to see a play, so I will have to wait until later to tell you about our… house? Maybe! Fin­gers crossed.