back to normal

Yes, I think we can declare our­selves open for busi­ness now, with all the var­i­ous hur­dles of the past months safely behind us and suc­cess­fully brought to a close. It’s no longer 1) exam-prep time, 2) exam-take time, 3) wor­ry­ing period between exams and results time, or 4) recov­ery from results time. It’s just been an ordi­nary week, with all the ordi­nary activ­i­ties, which for some rea­son have left me com­pletely drained! But I know in my heart that next week will begin to get bet­ter. Even WITH the ongo­ing, not to say newly-ever-present, spec­tre of real estate hang­ing over us.

Now that we know the neigh­bor­hood encom­pass­ing Avery’s school for next year, there’s noth­ing to stop us from choos­ing a house. Well, wait. There are two things to stop us: the com­pletely unaf­ford­able nature of any of the houses in this or any other Lon­don neigh­bor­hood, and the com­plete inabil­ity and dis­in­cli­na­tion of my beloved to make a deci­sion. He just LOVES the search. I can­not concur.

What I can tell you is that a restora­tive visit to the Wal­lace Col­lec­tion and a lit­tle snack in their enor­mous con­ser­va­tory on a given after­noon after school is a lovely thing to do. I can’t pre­tend that 18th cen­tury art or porce­lain or ancient armour is really my thing, but it was very pleas­ant to wan­der through the rooms, try­ing to imag­ine that this all belonged to one fam­ily. Dozens of chain-mail suits! Clocks every­where you turn, the occa­sional famous Wat­teau paint­ing, but many more I had never heard of. Avery was par­tic­u­larly halted by the genre called “dead game I have known,” lots of bleed­ing pheas­ants and deer with arrows shot through them, presided over by smug gun dogs and trail­ing ivy. Very odd! My favourite, I think: many lit­tle carved wax minia­tures pro­tected by heavy leather shades that you had to lift up to gaze, then lower again to pro­tect them from the harsh gleam of your eye.

I have no real news to impart! It has been a week of all the usual things, cul­mi­nat­ing in Jamie com­ing to din­ner and to spend the night last night. She has decided to go to St Barn­abas as well, so the two girls were in heaven imag­in­ing what it will all be like next year. Avery is busy prac­tic­ing songs for the “Form Six Enter­tain­ment” which will take place next Wednes­day: it’s a hilarious-sounding send-up of famous Shake­spearean scenes (Romeo and Juliet read­ing Hello! mag­a­zine, the three witches from Mac­beth singing Christina Aguil­era songs, that sort of thing. We’ve heard the songs per­haps a few hun­dred times too many, but that’s noth­ing to com­plain about.

Mostly I need to impart to you a fan­tas­tic new lamb recipe, and a side dish that will NOT lower your cho­les­terol but hey: every­one needs a lit­tle dou­ble cream now and then. This is so typ­i­cal me: one of the VERY few ready-made foods that I ever buy is Waitrose’s pota­toes dauphi­noise, because I can pro­nounce every­thing on the ingre­di­ent list, and they are much bet­ter than any dauphi­noise I have ever pro­duced. So nat­u­rally it was but the work of a moment to decide that I needed to up my game and make MINE just as good, instead of just being grate­ful that Wait­rose were there to make them for me. And guess what: to enable me in this neu­ro­sis… mine were bet­ter. The secret? Don’t just pour cream on the pota­toes, make a proper cream sauce, with the judi­cious addi­tion of a tiny shake of gar­lic gran­ules and a pinch of nut­meg. Crazy good.

This lamb recipe is taken from the Wait­rose Food Illus­trated, a truly enjoy­able foodie mag­a­zine sold at their tills. I always find some­thing good in it, and the com­men­tary is clever. Since I can never leave a recipe alone, we end up with an idea thrice removed, because the food writer Annie Bell has her­self tweaked it from an orig­i­nal by Peter Gra­ham, who writes so won­der­fully about French vil­lage cook­ing. So feel free to play round with it your­self, why not.

Seven-Hour Leg of Lamb
(serves four for din­ner and enough left­overs for another dinner)

1 white onion
15 whole cloves
hand­ful flat leaf pars­ley
hand­ful thyme
2 bay leaves
1 whole leg of lamb, prefer­ably British but New Zealand is nice too
2 sprigs fresh rose­mary
driz­zle of olive oil
5 heads of whole gar­lic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper

Begin your prepa­ra­tions about 8 hours before din­ner time!

Stud the peeled onion with cloves. Put it with the herbs into a deep casse­role with a tight-fitting lid (I had to use alu­minium foil as I don’t have such a casserole…yet). The casse­role must be big enough to accom­mo­date the leg of lamb. Fill half full with water and bring to boil, then cover and sim­mer for 20 min­utes. Scoop the onion, herbs and bay leaves out with a slot­ted spoon and put the leg of lamb in the stock-filled casserole.

Bring the liq­uid back to the boil and cover and sim­mer for another 20 min­utes. Then pour the stock down the drain and lay a whole sprig of rose­mary under the lamb and another on top. Make sure the lamb is skin-side up. Driz­zle olive oil over the lamb, then scat­ter the gar­lic cloves around it and pour over the wine. Sea­son with salt and pepper.

Cover the casse­role with alu­minium foil and seal tightly, then clamp down the lid if you have one. Place in a 140 degree oven (280 fahren­heit) and pre­pare to leave it there for 7 hours, but you need to be avail­able two hours into it to turn it, and another three after that to turn it again. At this last turn­ing (the leg will be fat side up), remove the foil so the lamb can crisp up. You will notice that the lamb gives off a great deal of juice, and this will be the basis for your sauce. Dur­ing the last 30 min­utes of cook­ing, turn the oven up to 200 degrees (400 fahrenheit).

When the lamb has cooked for 7 hours, take it out and remove it to a plat­ter and cover it with foil for 20 min­utes. Dur­ing this time, de-fat the juices with the gar­lic in them, and boil down to about half its orig­i­nal vol­ume. Then whizz in a blender and add salt and pep­per to taste. Serve in a gravy boat. The meat will sim­ply fall off the bone, I promise you. Heav­enly! Serve with:

Pota­toes Dauphi­noise
(serves 8, enough for at least two din­ners for us)

1 dozen Char­lotte pota­toes, peeled and sliced very thin
2 tbsps but­ter
1 tbsp flour
2 cups dou­ble cream
1 cup fresh-grated Gruyere cheese
dash of gar­lic gran­ules or pow­der
dash of nut­meg
salt and pep­per to taste

Spray a 9x9 glass dish with non­stick spray. Trust me, do it!

Melt the but­ter and stir in the flour and let it cook lightly till it’s bub­bled awhile. Whisk in the cream and a hand­ful of the Gruyere cheese and whisk con­tin­u­ously till thick. Add the sea­son­ings and taste to make sure the bal­ance is to your liking.

Put a layer of potato slices in the dish and pour over cream sauce to cover. Repeat this till all pota­toes are used up, and fin­ish with cream sauce. Scat­ter the rest of the Gruyere over top and bake for 1 hour at 200 degrees (400 fahren­heit). Half this time can be dur­ing the last 30 min­utes of the lamb cook­ing time, then by the time the lamb has rested and been carved, your pota­toes will be per­fect. If they are get­ting too browned, sim­ply turn down the heat towards the end.

Serve all this rich food with a good strong col­or­ful veg: we had steamed broc­coli, but tonight is roasted beet­root with bal­samic vine­gar. Enjoy!

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

Well, my lit­tle eques­trian has returned tired and filthy (but happy) from her day’s labours and fun at the sta­ble, so I will read to her dur­ing her bath. We’re start­ing “A Room With a View,” and I can relax com­pletely because din­ner is… leftovers!