cat in chim­neys Part Two

Well, for heaven’s sake. After a com­pletely crazy after­noon and evening yes­ter­day (let me see, what was involved? four girls at the sta­ble, four girls for din­ner, a cham­pagne bot­tle falling out of the fridge door and explod­ing, Avery’s bed col­laps­ing in what all four girls insisted was a com­pletely inno­cent game of Sar­dines), I fig­ured today would be a yawn. Quite lit­er­ally, as we’re hav­ing to get up a half hour ear­lier than in our old place because we’ve moved so far west. I got Avery fed (blue­berry pan­cakes are the new break­fast of cham­pi­ons, so I’ll give you the recipe), off to school on the very crowded Ham­mer­smith and City line, and I came back home to find John back from his trav­els and host­ing the British Gas guy, inves­ti­gat­ing all our chim­neys and the boiler.

Yes, you’ve twigged to the story, I know. The gas man actu­ally LIT the coals in my study, actu­ally LIT them, and out of the chim­ney leapt Hermione. Through the flames, mind you! It’s a mir­a­cle she didn’t catch on fire. “Well, I’ve seen some things in my career, I have,” mused the gas guy, “naked ladies answer­ing the door, walk­ing in on old grannies as they was in the loo, but a cat in a chim­ney, that’s a new one.” I bet.

He ral­lied, how­ever, to com­plete his task AND to point out to me that one of the bricks in my lime­stone instal­la­tion, so painfully assem­bled on Mon­day, was turned around. Fair enough. My whole body went into dread­ful total recall as I bent down to rec­tify the prob­lem. Actu­ally I’m pretty much recov­ered. And John’s back! So we can put Avery’s bed back together (I was the mother from h**l last night with absolutely no sym­pa­thy for a small girl who did not want to sleep in the guest room: “then think about that, per­haps, before you jump on your bed the next time!” I snarled, but she denies it absolutely). John’s dashed off to school col­lect Avery and assorted friends for a cel­e­bra­tory “half-term” lunch at our house. It’s one of my favorite Eng­lish girls’ school tra­di­tions: on half-term half-days, the girls can wear their Own Clothes, for which priv­i­lege (actu­ally to pay for which infrac­tion) they must each donate a pound to char­ity. Much mus­ing went on last night over what to wear. Also, they were to bring in a favorite teddy bear dressed in some spe­cial way, for a com­pet­i­tive (nat­u­rally) Assem­bly. Avery dressed her bear up in the Amer­i­can Girl-sized school uni­form her grand­mother made for her, and if that doesn’t win a prize… I’ll set my cat on fire.

The cats have actu­ally been remark­ably nor­mal in their set­tling in. Oh my, get­ting them home from the vet was a scream. John was unavail­able for assis­tance, so I bravely set out on my own in a taxi whose dri­ver lis­tened with com­mend­able inter­est to my story and offered to wait out­side the vet while I went in, set­tled up, and brought them back out. “They will be… restrained, won’t they?” I briefly toyed with the idea of telling him I had planned merely to throw them in the back and let them fight it out. But I felt sorry for him, and my good­ness, with good rea­son. The entire 20-minute jour­ney from the vet to the house, they… meowed. All four, con­stantly, in slightly dif­fer­ent tones and voices. Keechie in par­tic­u­lar uttered one word over and over, plain­tively, “AIR!” That is her ver­sion of meow­ing. Wim­sey on the other hand cried quite con­vinc­ingly like a cat in a novel about ani­mal cru­elty, Tacy screeched in a high repet­i­tive yowl, and Hermione uttered lit­tle yelps while blink­ing very rapidly, as if hold­ing back tears. Never again! But I got them out of the taxi, onto the pave­ment, paid off the dri­ver who looked mas­sively relieved he wasn’t me, and then trun­dled them, one by one, into the foyer.

They slunk around on their bel­lies for awhile, and since then have seemed per­fectly at home. They sniff with fas­ci­na­tion at all the Ham­mer­smith smells com­ing in the win­dows, they gaze in fas­ci­na­tion at the dove and robin life in the gar­den. In fact, one morn­ing while Avery was hav­ing break­fast, Hermione saw the robin land on the paving stones and ran full tilt toward it… into the plate glass win­dow. Poor dear. She really has judg­ment issues.

Let’s see, today we made a very wise and pru­dent pur­chase (and look at the new partner’s desk and chairs to go with! I love them), the only down­side to which was that we had to bring it home at the same time that Avery had intended to take up that space in the car her­self. There’s a won­der­ful lit­tle place around the cor­ner from her act­ing school called Church Street, lined with antique and junk shops, some very high end, some com­plete rub­bish, and many in between. At one of the in between shops we found our old leather sofa and chairs, so we always go back while wait­ing for her to achieve the­atri­cal splen­dor on Sat­ur­day after­noons. And today we found a gor­geous, dusty Vic­to­rian wicker log bas­ket, per­fect for Avery’s stuffed ani­mal col­lec­tion which is now resid­ing in her laun­dry bas­ket. Inex­pen­sive and deep and very charm­ing. So I said to Avery at pickup, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” “The bad news.” “Well, you’re going to be com­pletely squished in the back seat to make room for a piece of fur­ni­ture.” “What’s the good news?” “It’s for you.”

I am get­ting excited at the prospect of our next din­ner party: a get-together of all our old friends, three cou­ples, from the old flat. Let’s see, there’s one who can­not eat sig­nif­i­cant fat, and one veg­e­tar­ian. These two con­straints point to, I think, a sort of pan-Asian feast. I think I’ll make lots of pap­pad­ums with var­i­ous chut­neys and yogurt dips to start, then my Thai prawns in a spicy coconut milk curry sauce, my many-versions creamed spinach with, this time, garam masala in addi­tion to the cel­ery salt, a really nice veg­e­tar­ian ver­sion of my biryani, and John’s all-time favorite potato dish:

Stir-Fried Pota­toes with Turmeric and Mus­tard Seed
(serves 8)

3 lbs new or Char­lotte pota­toes
3 gen­er­ous splashes veg­etable oil (rape­seed is the new rage)
3 tbsps mus­tard seed
3 tbsps turmeric
juice of 1 lemon
salt and fresh-ground pep­per to taste

Steam the pota­toes in batches and set aside. When they have cooled, cut either in half or in quar­ters depend­ing on the size. You want bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

Plan to work in three batches. Heat a gen­er­ous splash of oil in your wok until very hot, and throw in 1 tbsp mus­tard seed. STAND BACK! Be sure to wear an apron as the oil can fly a bit as the seeds heat up. Grad­u­ally they will POP! It’s so much fun to watch and lis­ten. When you reckon the pop­ping is fin­ished, throw in 1 tbsp turmeric and a third of the steamed pota­toes. Stir reli­giously and pour in a third of the lemon juice. Salt and pep­per to taste and remove from wok. Do this all two more times and stir it all together in a large serv­ing bowl. Delicious!

And did you know turmeric is an anti-carcinogen? It has been known for years to have med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties in fight­ing can­cer, so be gen­er­ous! It does not have a tremen­dous fla­vor, but it’s bright yel­low and just looks… healthy. And it adds a smoky, exotic fla­vor to the pota­toes. You’ll love it.

Well, Avery has returned from Pony Club Day filthy, exhausted and frus­trated, in equal mea­sure, so I think a nice long bath with a bowl of straw­ber­ries on the side is in order for her. Why frus­trated? “The 10–11 year-olds had a GREAT time,” she fumed at pickup. “That should be good news,” I said, “since you’re 11.” “Not at the sta­ble, I’m not. Kirsty says I’m too skill­ful to be with the 10-11s, so I had to be with the 12-16s, and all we did was lead the other chil­dren around the park with ropes!” Ah well, noth­ing a nice soak­ing won’t cure. And tomor­row for breakfast:

Per­fect Blue­berry Pan­cakes
(makes about 4 large, and the bat­ter eas­ily stays good for four days)

1 egg
3 tbsps but­ter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsps all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsps bak­ing pow­der
dash salt
1 cup blue­ber­ries (Avery likes a lot)

Beat the egg in a small-ish bowl and set aside. Melt the but­ter with the milk in a small saucepan and let cool a bit, then mix in with the egg (if it’s too hot it will scram­ble the egg). Put the flour, sugar, bak­ing pow­der and salt in a medium bowl and mix well, then add the milk mix­ture to it and stir JUST until blended.

Heat a skil­let with a lit­tle bit of but­ter in it until quite hot. Turn down the heat to medium and pour about a quar­ter of the bat­ter in the mid­dle and scat­ter with as many blue­ber­ries as you want. Now, resist the temp­ta­tion to play with the pan­cake. Leave it be until lit­tle bub­bles appear, then turn it over and cook till firm. Now you can but­ter it, or sprin­kle pow­dered sugar over it, or driz­zle warm Ver­mont maple syrup over it. Or if you are a mother who is a fool about her daugh­ter, you can do all three.

This with a piece of the Gig­gly Pig’s unsmoked bacon (vir­tu­ally fat-free) and a sliced banana is the per­fect break­fast for a lit­tle girl, whether she’s really 11 or not. Enjoy!