con­quer­ing January

What a whirl­wind of a two weeks we’ve had!  In my usu­al post-hol­i­day sense of con­fu­sion, it seems might­i­ly unbe­liev­able to me that two weeks ago today, we were in tran­sit back to our Lon­don lives, after the joys and chaos of Christmas.

But here we are.  With iris­es bloom­ing in the back gar­den, as you see, and lit­tle shoots of things com­ing up in the front gar­den, if you can imag­ine it.  The weath­er is incred­i­bly mild, a bit dis­turbing­ly so after the more appro­pri­ate frozen tun­dra we left behind in Amer­i­ca.  Actu­al­ly, the deep freeze hap­pened as our plane was tak­ing off from Newark.  What we actu­al­ly left behind at Red Gate Farm was tor­ren­tial rain­fall and this result­ing dra­ma from Anne’s pond.

I think we all felt con­tem­pla­tive, leav­ing one emo­tion­al home filled with warmth and fun and cel­e­bra­tion.  Avery does con­tem­pla­tive very well.

And twelve hours lat­er, we arrived at our oth­er home, one that’s much more about respon­si­bil­i­ties, pres­sure, sched­ules, chal­lenges.  It’s hard to explain why, giv­en this stark con­trast, we are always hap­py to be back in Lon­don.  Of course, some of that is about our feline fam­i­ly, left alone for the hol­i­days.  They were very hap­py to see us.

Jan­u­ary food is, to me, all about con­trast from the warm, com­fort­able, com­fort­ing food of the hol­i­day sea­son.  It’s about sim­ple fla­vors, bright col­ors, chal­leng­ing tex­tures.  And not a sage leaf or turkey leg in sight.

Scal­lop, Egg, Beet­root, Goat Cheese, Avo­ca­do, Aspara­gus, Bacon, Spinach Salad

(serves 4 as a main course)

4 medi­um beetroots

8 eggs, hard-boiled

1 tbsp butter

12 large scallops

340g/12 ounces crumbly goat cheese

1 ripe avocado

juice of 1/2 lemon

24 spears asparagus

8 slices smoked pancetta bacon

4 hand­fuls baby spinach

2 tbsps bal­sam­ic vinegar

First, wrap the beet­roots in foil and roast for 1 hour at 220C/425C.  Let rest in the closed foil for a few min­utes to allow the skin to steam loose, then rub the skin from the beet­roots and cut them into bite-size pieces.  Set aside.

While the beet­roots cook, bring the eggs to boil and boil for 5 min­utes, then run under cold water, peel and cut into quarters.

In a very hot fry­ing pan, melt the but­ter.  Then fry the scal­lops for about 90 sec­onds on one side or until light­ly coloured, then turn over and cook on the oth­er side for about the same time, until the scal­lops feel slight­ly stiff to the touch.  Err on the side of under­cooked, and set aside on a cov­ered plate, leav­ing the but­tery fry­ing pan to use later.

Crum­ble the goat cheese and set aside.

De-seed, peel and slice the avo­ca­do, then sprin­kle lemon juice over and toss till all slices are cov­ered in juice.

In the scal­lop fry­ing pan, fry the aspara­gus in the but­ter left behind, as well as any scal­lop juices that have accu­mu­lat­ed on the scal­lop plate, until light­ly col­ored and leave in the fry­ing pan to stay warm.

Bake the bacon in a very hot oven just until crisp, about four minutes.

Now it’s just an assem­bly job.  Arrange the ingre­di­ents on 4 indi­vid­ual plates, in what­ev­er way pleas­es you — the aspara­gus like the spokes of a wheel in the cen­tre is pret­ty — and driz­zle with the bal­sam­ic vine­gar.  Heav­en on a plate.

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This sal­ad com­bines every­thing I love in taste and tex­ture, as well as in visu­al delights.  Soft but­tery scal­lops, rich egg yolk, crisp aspara­gus, earthy beet­root, all the green good­ness of the avo­ca­do and spinach, and well, bacon: there is no need to jus­ti­fy bacon!  It’s nat­ur­al human instinct.

We had this sal­ad for din­ner, and after­ward we both agreed that it felt more like a very sub­stan­tial lunch.  For an equal­ly super­foody jolt to din­ner, try this soup for your first course.

Water­cress Soup with Nutmeg

(serves four)

1 tbsp butter

2 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 shal­lot, minced

4 bunch­es or bags (about 340g/12 ounces fresh water­cress, washed and spun dry

chick­en stock or veg­etable stock to cov­er the leaves near­ly halfway — about 2 cups

pinch fresh nutmeg

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

1/2 cup creme fraiche (if desired)

Saute the gar­lic and shal­lot in the but­ter until soft.  Add the water­cress and pour in chick­en stock until the lev­el of liq­uid is about halfway up the lev­el of leaves.  Sim­mer for two min­utes, then sea­son with nut­meg and fresh pep­per to taste.  Adjust salt if the stock needs it.  Blend with hand blender until com­plete­ly smooth (flecks of water­cress will remain).  Add cream if desired.  Serve either hot or cold.  This soup is also deli­cious with a few hand­fuls of fresh spinach added to the watercress.

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Every Jan­u­ary, I throw myself imme­di­ate­ly into all my usu­al activ­i­ties, try­ing to pre­tend jet­lag isn’t a real thing.  But I am a crea­ture who depends on sleep, and wak­ing up grit­ty-eyed and cranky every hour or so does not suit me.  This is my night­time expe­ri­ence for days after trav­el­ling east (trav­el­ling west does not seem to both­er me).  A peri­patet­ic friend has actu­al­ly sug­gest­ed to me that once you’ve been liv­ing in five hours’ time change for five days, you have to count on one day for each of those five hours to recov­er when you go back.  The best way to per­se­vere through those five painful days is to face up to… Jan­u­ary Lost Prop­er­ty at Avery’s school.

Every hol­i­day, the clean­ing staff go nuts scoop­ing up every item in school that isn’t sta­pled to a flat sur­face.  Which means this on Day One after Christmas.

Eight bin lin­ers sim­ply bloat­ed with STUFF, not to men­tion the two giant bins that hold the nor­mal dose of Lost Prop­er­ty on a dai­ly basis.  Some vague com­bi­na­tion of OCD and a mar­tyr­ish devo­tion to duty meant that I worked all by myself to clear all this away.  Filthy lacrosse boots, count­less PE kit hood­ies, ran­dom text books, about 16 copies of “The French Rev­o­lu­tion,” library books, sev­er­al San­ta hats from pre-hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions, and undoubt­ed­ly the gross­est thing to find: bags full of crunchy, mouldy tow­els and rolled-up, dried out swim­suits.  Ick!  But after two days, this was the vista:

A place for every­thing, every­thing in its place.  Through­out those two dusty, chilly, chaot­ic days, it was great fun to see the girls troop­ing in dur­ing their lunchtimes, scream­ing with glee at find­ing a miss­ing pen­cil case, chem­istry note­book, a moth­er’s cash­mere jumper nicked from her clos­et, HOUSE KEYS.  Avery popped in with her clan to say hel­lo and advise that I just turn off the lights, lock the door, and aban­don the whole project.  “You’re head of Lost Prop­er­ty!  Just walk away.”

Of course my beloved bells at St Mary’s wel­comed me back, maybe even more than my fel­low ringers.  We got start­ed right away with ring­ing for a funer­al.  Real­ly, it was more the cel­e­bra­tion of a life than an occa­sion for mourn­ing: the 96-year-old great-grand­moth­er of our teenage ringer Flo­ra.  The singing sun­shine of the Jan­u­ary day lit the grave­yard with a glow that seemed to reflect the fam­i­ly’s pride and sorrow.

The sheer age of some of the graves, crypts and plaques is a line drawn under all our com­mon human­i­ty.  Part reas­sur­ance, part a reminder of how fleet­ing all this is.

Final­ly then the rains came, and we were ready, at last, for a com­fort dinner.

Pork Chops with Mush­rooms, Fresh Sage and Creme Fraiche

(serves 4)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

pinch sea salt and fresh black pepper

4 bone­less pork chops

8 leaves sage, chopped

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 banana shal­lot, minced

12 chest­nut or baby por­to­bel­lo mush­rooms, sliced

1 tbsp flour

1 1/2 c/350 ml beef stock

2 tbsps Madeira or Marsala

1/2 c /118ml half-fat creme fraiche or sour cream

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil, but­ter and salt and pep­per until bub­bling fast.  Place the pork chops in the saucepan over high heat and fry for 2 min­utes, then turn over and fry on sec­ond side for two min­utes.  Remove to a plate and place the sage, gar­lic, shal­lot and mush­rooms in the saucepan in the pork chop juices, pour­ing over any that may accu­mu­late on the pork chop plate.  Fry until mush­rooms are soft and ful­ly cooked.  Remove mush­rooms to a plate.

Sprin­kle the flour on the juices remain­ing in the saucepan and fry until bub­bling, adding a bit more olive oil if need­ed.  Pour in the beef stock and Madeira or Marsala and bring to a high sim­mer, whisk­ing until thick­ened.  Add creme fraiche or sour cream and whisk until smooth.

At this point you may turn off the heat and wait until your side dish­es are ready to serve.  When about five min­utes away from serv­ing, turn up the heat high under the sauce until bub­bling and place the pork chops and the mush­rooms in the sauce.  Cook, mov­ing the pork chops around, for about 2 fur­ther min­utes or until pork chops are just pink and firm to the touch.  You may choose to serve each per­son with a whole chop, or slice them all on a cut­ting board and arrange on a plat­ter with the sauce.  If you choose to slice them, remove them to the cut­ting board and allow to rest for 2 min­utes before slic­ing.  Keep sauce hot in either case until ready to serve.

This dish is per­fect with mashed or Dauphi­noise pota­toes and some­thing bright green, like sauteed broc­coli, spinach or aspara­gus.  You may also sub­sti­tute chick­en breasts, veal chops or fil­let steak.

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We have been tak­ing our cus­tom­ary long walks along the riv­er — one of the ben­e­fits, along with see­ing the love­ly Thames from my bed­room win­dow, of liv­ing right on its banks.  We start here in Barnes, walk­ing along to Chiswick Bridge, cross­ing over to con­tin­ue along the north side of the riv­er, past boat­ing hous­es and play­ing fields, and final­ly cross­ing over Barnes Bridge, stop­ping to look back at the incom­pa­ra­ble riv­er sun­set, so peace­ful and timeless.

There has been time for a bit of cul­ture, as well.  My dear friend Susan treat­ed me to an evening of Fas­ci­nat­ing Aida, a three-woman cabaret act of incom­pa­ra­ble wit, bril­liance and shock­ing lan­guage!  The show isn’t called “Charm Offen­sive” for noth­ing.  They are like a three-per­son com­bi­na­tion of the great musi­cian and come­di­an Chris­tine Lavin, and the amaz­ing Tom Lehrer.  Go, if you ever get a chance.  They are tour­ing now, so give it a whirl.  Incred­i­bly clever; you’ll have to sit up and pay attention.

As always, on leav­ing the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, one has to stop and just mar­vel at the view.

It would­n’t be home in Lon­don with­out hav­ing friends over, and real­ly my favorite way these days is a leisure­ly Sun­day brunch.  We’re just not Eng­lish enough for the mid-after­noon, tra­di­tion­al roast din­ner with all the trim­mings.  We’re much more like­ly to do a vast plat­ter of bagels with cream cheese, smoked salmon and avo­ca­dos, or a huge skil­let of rich scram­bled eggs wit sauteed mush­rooms.  Or in this case, for our friends Nora and Tom and their two adorable lit­tle boys, a make-ahead, cooks-itself indul­gence, a sort of “faux souf­fle,” recipe cour­tesy of Saveur Mag­a­zine.

Warm, cheesy, soft and lus­cious, this dish, along with a fruit sal­ad brought by gen­er­ous guests, will set you up for the whole of the day.  It cer­tain­ly gave dear, dear Artie enough ener­gy to lounge in the one place in the kitchen just the right size for him.

And final­ly, this week­end, some­thing we’d all been look­ing for­ward to immense­ly: Simon Rus­sell Beale in “King Lear.”  It was worth the wait.

It’s a dif­fi­cult play to watch, and it was my first time.  There is a great deal of vio­lence, of hatred, of trag­ic fam­i­ly loss and trau­ma.  But Beale brought a spec­trum of emo­tion and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to Lear that made it bear­able to wit­ness.  The play’s just in pre­views, Press Night Thurs­day.  Go if you pos­si­bly can.

Onward we press, on this third week of the (to me) longest month of the year.  Eleven months until Christ­mas, short wet days, grey skies and all, Jan­u­ary has­n’t beat­en me yet.