being tourists

I can’t believe it’s two weeks since I last had a chance to write.  It turns out: it’s exhaust­ing being a tourist, even in my own home town.  Lon­don has changed for us!

SE1 is so dif­fer­ent from SW13 that it’s not real­ly liv­ing in the same city, at all.  We have left a house on four floors, with a garden.

We’ve left a qui­et, vil­lage life where I passed friends and neigh­bors in the leafy streets every day, and the sight of an emp­ty black cab was note­wor­thy for its rar­i­ty.  The riv­er was peo­pled by row­ers from St Paul’s boys’ and girls’ schools, being urged on by coach­es with mega­phones.  Even more fre­quent­ly, the riv­er was emp­ty and com­plete­ly peace­ful.  And it was a day­time view, for us, because noth­ing much hap­pened at night.

What we’ve got in exchange is a glassy, glossy, dra­mat­ic flat high above the street, with door­men who wel­come us with smiles and parcels when we come in, tourists walk by with necks craned at the vision of the Tate Mod­ern, lines of taxis are curled around the block.  This sec­tion of the Thames is filled with the HMS Belfast, police boats, tour boats.  Our night­ly post-sup­per walk brings us with­in min­utes to anoth­er St Paul’s, this time the Cathe­dral, loom­ing out of the dark river.

Even our part­ner desk, so much a part of our lives in all our homes, has tak­en on a new cool­ness, as has John, sit­ting behind it.

Our new home sways gen­tly in the wind, emit­ting slight­ly alarm­ing creak­ing sounds as it does so.  John assures me this is per­fect­ly nor­mal, and that our even­tu­al dream home will do the same.  It takes some get­ting used to!

The days have been filled with adven­tures each day, real­ly: things we could eas­i­ly have done all the time we’ve lived in Lon­don, but nev­er both­ered to do because our lives in SW some­thing-or-oth­er were so absorb­ing, cen­tered on Avery’s school life, all these past ten years.  Now the whole city seems to have opened up to us, with treats around every cor­ner.  Isn’t it fun­ny to have replaced one St Paul’s with another?

The Cathe­dral dom­i­nates the view across the riv­er as the icon it is, but the tru­ly cool thing is to approach it from the ground, and see how the city has grown up around it.  Last Sun­day, we hap­pened upon the bells ring­ing before ser­vices (as always, don’t click on this link if you have a sleep­ing baby beside you!).

It’s such a liv­ing, breath­ing church, wel­com­ing tourists light­ing votive can­dles while hymns are sung dur­ing an ordi­nary Sun­day ser­vice.  How I wish they allowed pho­tographs inside!

We’ve ven­tured to a fan­tas­tic neigh­bor­hood called Smith­field, home to the world-famous Meat Mar­ket.  It is open for tours from 7–8:30 a.m.  Do you think I could ever get myself out of bed ear­ly enough to make my way there and see the place in busi­ness?  Even with all the stalls closed, it is a beauty.

We popped into near­by St John Restau­rant for lunch.

When Fer­gus Hen­der­son opened this place in 1994, he was a pio­neer in the “nose to tail” eat­ing phi­los­o­phy.  Then a nov­el con­cept, the notion that if we’re going to kill an ani­mal to eat it, we should eat ALL of it, has proved pop­u­lar.  But St John does it best: pigeon liv­er and kid­ney ter­rine (sim­ply the best pate of any kind I’ve ever eat­en), crispy pig’s ears with dan­de­lion leaves, and John’s favorite — sauteed calf’s heart.  You must go.

The Smith­field neigh­bor­hood itself is won­der­ful­ly diverse and full of ener­gy, and gor­geous, quirky architecture.

I’d move there in a heart­beat, if I weren’t still trau­ma­tised by mov­ing at all.  There are lots of lit­tle clever touch­es, like this fan­tas­tic bar­ber’s win­dow.   Read it aloud, for it to make sense.

Since I was obvi­ous­ly too late to take advan­tage of any spe­cial meats, we popped into Bor­ough Mar­ket (as one does, if one is incred­i­bly lucky) to pick up some absolute­ly lus­cious scal­lops, still in the shell, although thank­ful­ly cleaned (not my favorite job).

What a plea­sure to con­coct one of the old­est and most trea­sured recipes in my cook­book, scal­lops with spaghet­ti and pars­ley.

But it has­n’t all been about SE1.  Fol­low­ing a promise he’d made to me over the sum­mer, when the prospect of the house move was loom­ing so awful­ly, my dear, dear bell­ring­ing friend Michael met me at Brown’s Hotel for tea last week, on a misty, beau­ti­ful late afternoon.

This is some­thing every Lon­don­er should do at least once, and I haven’t been for many years, so it was an incred­i­ble treat.  I arrived ear­ly, so I wan­dered around Pic­cadil­ly, Christ­mas shop­ping at Hatchard’s (sim­ply the best book­shop in the world), get­ting into the hol­i­day spir­it in the near­by arcades.

Michael and I lin­gered long over our tea and the accom­pa­ny­ing gor­geous sand­wich­es: salt beef and gherkin, cheese and pick­le, smoked salmon.  We caught up with all the ring­ing gos­sip I’ve been miss­ing, and I told him about Avery’s depar­ture and the new flat.  Alto­geth­er a real after­noon out of time, a per­fect treat.  As I approached our build­ing in the chilly dark that evening, a new tra­di­tion was born.  Hel­lo, John!

Can you see him, on the light­ed floor, wav­ing?  I think that’s where we’ll put the Christ­mas tree, right in the pointy bit of glassed-in “win­ter garden.”

We’ve vis­it­ed a tiny local cafe, tucked away in a bricked alley.  The Union The­atre cafe promis­es authen­tic “beigels,” brought in from Brick Lane, and they were deli­cious.  We sat in the cold morn­ing air, sam­pling egg and bacon bagels and salt-beef bagels, along with per­fect cappucinos.

 The two fel­lows who own the place are refresh­ing­ly down to earth and non-chainy, cheer­ful­ly wash­ing up dish­es as they go in a bat­tered sink, lis­ten­ing to Radio Four, greet­ing well-known cus­tomers.  These fel­lows intrigued me with their berets, waist­coats, for­eign cig­a­rettes and ful­ly-dressed dog.

I ven­tured back to the old coun­try twice this month, once to say good-bye final­ly to Home-Start.

Such a grot­ty old build­ing with such ter­ri­ble fur­nish­ings and light­ing, because all the mon­ey is spent on pro­vid­ing ser­vices to the lit­tle kids and mums I have loved so much.  It was very sad to climb the stairs for the last time, to have my last “super­vi­sion,” to say good­bye to the won­der­ful staffers who have taught me so much.  I will seek out Home-Start South­wark, cer­tain­ly, even­tu­al­ly, but this was the end of an era.

My next out­ing to South-West Lon­don was much more cheer­ful: my beloved twins’ birth­day!  Fred­die and Angus have added so much to my life.  Thank good­ness we can stay friends — just a short train jour­ney away.  How can they pos­si­bly be two years old already?  Fred­die was his usu­al cheeky self.

Angus was impos­si­bly hand­some, as ever.

Just look at these dar­ling lit­tle treats: a con­coc­tion of choco­late, marsh­mal­low and Eng­lish Smar­ties (total­ly dif­fer­ent from Amer­i­can Smar­ties to be sure).  They are a North­ern Irish tra­di­tion­al birth­day treat called Tophats.  Their mum Claire is so clever.  How on earth did she have time to do this when she was rac­ing around after twin toddlers?

I am so lucky that Claire will share the boys with me, every once in awhile.  Next we must get them to SE1, to see what they make of my new home.

One morn­ing I braved my essen­tial fear of heights and fol­lowed John to a build­ing known as the “Walkie-Talkie Build­ing,” offi­cial­ly called 20 Fenchurch.

It is the Mar­mite of archi­tec­ture — peo­ple either love it or they hate it.  Now, gaz­ing upon it from across the riv­er all these weeks, I’ve not had a strong opin­ion, but I felt vague­ly sor­ry for it when it won the so-called Car­bun­cle Cup this year, an award for Britain’s worst build­ing of 2015.  So I was pre­dis­posed to feel kind­ly toward it when I arrived, and my sad asso­ci­a­tion with sky­scrap­ers, post Sep­tem­ber 11th, made me all the more sym­pa­thet­ic.  These feel­ings were all that got me into the ele­va­tor and up to the Sky Gar­den.  And then, this.

The day had seemed clear on the ground, but once we were gaz­ing at the incred­i­ble views, it was just hazy enough to make the city seem like a dreamscape.

Now, just to ori­en­tate you, our lit­tle plot of land, our even­tu­al home, is hid­ing just beyond the oval build­ing to the right, which is City Hall.  Seriously.

If you look close­ly at the tall build­ing in the left­ish cen­tre of this pho­to­graph, you’ll see our cur­rent home.  The tow­er in the cen­tre is the Tate Mod­ern, and we’re just behind it. Truly.

John’s not both­ered by heights.  Clearly.

I on the oth­er hand was ter­ri­fied, and after duti­ful­ly tak­ing these pho­tographs for pos­ter­i­ty, retreat­ed inside.

I came home invig­o­rat­ed, hap­py to have sur­vived my adven­ture in the sky, and deter­mined to cook some­thing new.  The result was one of the best dish­es we have had in ages.  And so good for you!  The ele­ments that ele­vate this dish beyond just “fish and rice” are three­fold: the “rice” is actu­al­ly half cau­li­flower, the egg is an omelette in ele­gant slices instead of scram­ble, and the gin­ger is pre­pared using a veg­etable peel­er, for long shards rather than grat­ed or chopped.  Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients.

Sauteed Salmon with Cau­li­flower “Fried Rice”

(serves 4)

4 salmon fillets

olive oil to drizzle

Fox Point sea­son­ing to sprin­kle over fish

1 head cauliflower

1 cup bas­mati rice

1 tbsp peanut oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 eggs, beat­en lightly

1 2‑inch knob gin­ger, peeled

1 fur­ther tbsp sesame oil

4 cloves gar­lic, fine­ly chopped

1 red pep­per, diced

1 orange pep­per, diced

1 hand­ful chest­nut mush­rooms, diced

1 fur­ther tbsp peanut oil

8 small radish­es, thin­ly sliced

4 tbsps light soy sauce or Tamari

Driz­zle the oil over the salmon and sprin­kle with Fox Point, or oth­er savoury herb blend.  Roast at 220C/425F for about 12 min­utes or until JUST cooked.

Mean­while, break the cau­li­flower into large flo­rets and pulse in your food proces­sor until the con­sis­ten­cy of rice.  Set aside.

Steam the bas­mati rice and set aside.

Place the oils in a large, heavy fry­ing pan and heat until ready to fry the eggs.  Pour eggs into oil and cook gen­tly until firm, then fold in half and slide eggs onto a cut­ting board.  Slice thin­ly and set aside.

With a veg­etable peel­er, shave off about a dozen shav­ings of gin­ger from the knob.  You won’t need the whole knob, but any­thing small­er than about a 2‑inch piece is too dif­fi­cult to shave.

Pour the addi­tion­al sesame oil into the same pan and fry the gin­ger, gar­lic, pep­pers and mush­rooms until just soft­ened.   Add the chopped cau­li­flower and steamed rice to the fry­ing pan and sprin­kle the addi­tion­al peanut oil over every­thing and fry for 2 min­utes, stir­ring thor­ough­ly.  Add the egg slices gen­tly.  Sprin­kle with the soy sauce and stir again.  Top with the radish slices.

Serve by plac­ing a salmon fil­let on a mound of the veg­eta­bles and rice.

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It is hard to con­vey the joy of this dish!  It has every­thing — the plump and sat­is­fy­ing fish, loads of light veg­eta­bles and rice, the uma­mi of sesame and soy, the crunch of radish.  You will love it.

Thanks­giv­ing came and went, a very unusu­al one this year as Avery came to Lon­don, but had plans of her own, and so did we.  We cooked all day and then packed up all the food — tra­di­tion­al stuff­ing, caramelised car­rots, and “Becky” pota­toes, all help­ful­ly in the cook­book! — and trav­elled by train to Earls­field to vis­it our beau­ti­ful friend Nora, her hus­band Tom, her aunt Cather­ine (one of my very favorite peo­ple), and Nora’s three lit­tle boys, the newest just shy of a month old.  For all that there were three chil­dren under five in the house, every­thing was serene, warm, and beau­ti­ful.  Cather­ine and I took turns with the chil­dren, now read­ing a sto­ry to the old­er boys, now cud­dling a new­born.  Heaven.

And then yes­ter­day Cather­ine made her brave way to SE1, to vis­it Bor­ough Mar­ket with me, and to join John for a tour of our plot of land.  She expe­ri­enced the usu­al, “Oh, my God, are you seri­ous?” moment, from on high.

It’s impor­tant to keep going there, to show it to all our friends and fam­i­ly, to keep believ­ing that it will hap­pen, someday.

She acquired a tiny cake for her tiny new­born nephew’s 1‑month birth­day and she was off.  Such a buoy­ant friend to bub­ble me along.

Novem­ber has cer­tain­ly been a month to remem­ber, set­tling into our new lives with gus­to.  Let’s hope Decem­ber con­tin­ues the trend, as beau­ti­ful Christ­mas approaches.