ear­ly sum­mer pond-hopping

What a Dol­ly-Mix­tures kind of few weeks it’s been, of ups and downs, pres­sures and joys.  In short, life in May.

Much of the tenor of life late­ly has had to do with Avery and her AS lev­el exams.  The scores of these will deter­mine uni­ver­si­ties’ inter­est in her in the autumn, and so the whole fam­i­ly has been involved in the intri­ca­cies of the French Rev­o­lu­tion, sup­ply-side eco­nom­ics, Eliz­a­beth I’s refusal to have a baby or name an heir, and “first pass to the post” elec­toral systems.

I will not soon for­get the hours we’ve all spent togeth­er help­ing Avery think out loud.  As always hap­pens dur­ing exam sea­son in our house­hold, there has been a menu of things to take her mind off: a lot of laugh­ter, many repeat­ed view­ings of this ham­ster video (“wher­ev­er you look, it is thin.  It is easy.”), and marathon ses­sions of “It’s Always Sun­ny in Philadel­phia” and “Brook­lyn Nine-Nine.”  Our house will be very qui­et when she goes back to her real life, and schooldays.

For me, there has been the usu­al round of Sat­ur­day ring­ing lessons.  In these I have grad­u­al­ly man­aged to mas­ter “ring­ing a touch of Grand­sire Dou­bles from an inside, unaf­fect­ed bell.”  I know this sounds like so much gib­ber­ish, but in my lit­tle world, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant accom­plish­ment and one I don’t take light­ly.  The joy­ful thing is that I will nev­er have to learn any­thing I have learned so far ever again.  And it’s all for the ben­e­fit of Sun­day ser­vices.  “May we sum­mon the faith­ful to worship…”

On one par­tic­u­lar­ly glo­ri­ous Sun­day, I noticed a grave­stone that had elud­ed me until now.  How many of us would deserve this epitaph?

The ros­es are bloom­ing at Chiswick, across the river.

The deliv­ery bicy­cle of my pre­cious local fruit and veg bears the glo­ries of the season.

The only thing that could make such ear­ly sum­mer glo­ries even more deli­cious has been the dis­cov­ery of a com­plete­ly new food­stuff.  The mighty guinea fowl!  Have you ever tast­ed it?  The bird was described by my butch­er to me as “chick­en with fla­vor,” and noth­ing could be more true.  Unbe­liev­ably juicy and ten­der, tol­er­ant of being cooked hot and fast or low and slow, per­fect sim­ply sea­soned with salt and pep­per, or most sub­lime­ly, roast­ed with a hair-rais­ing quan­ti­ty of garlic.

Guinea Fowl Roast­ed With 30 Cloves of Gar­lic a la Delia Smith

(serves 4)

1 tbsp butter

glug olive oil

1 guinea fowl, 4 lb/1.8k, dried with paper towels

30 cloves garlic

3 stems rosemary

1 cup/236g white wine

3 stems rose­mary leaves, chopped fine

sea salt and fresh black pepper

Now, Deli­a’s recipe calls for a pas­try rim to your pot, but I found that her sug­ges­tion of foil to replace it worked just fine at keep­ing the bird juicy.

In a heavy, deep pot with a close-fit­ting lid, sim­ply melt the but­ter and oil togeth­er and brown the bird on all sides, turn­ing over with tongs.  Remove the fowl to a plate and place the gar­lic cloves (unpeeled) and rose­mary stems in the pot.  Place the fowl on top of them, pour over the white wine and sprin­kle over the chopped rose­mary.  Sea­son, then place a dou­ble sheet of foil over the pot and clamp the lid down tight­ly.  Roast at 400F/200C for an hour, then remove the lid and roast for a fur­ther 10 min­utes.  Let rest for a fur­ther 10 min­utes before carving.

While the bird is rest­ing, pour the gar­licky juices (leav­ing the gar­lic itself behind in the pot) into a fry­ing pan and sprin­kle with about a table­spoon of flour and a tea­spoon or so of Madeira or Marsala wine, and a table­spoon of cream.  Whisk over a low heat, for the gravy of a life­time.  Carve the bird.

Serve with the gar­lic cloves, which can be squished with a fork to release their warm, creamy, soft insides.

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You will nev­er look back after roast­ing a guinea fowl.  I still use chick­en breast fil­lets for oth­er dish­es, but for depth of fla­vor and a spe­cial, fes­tive touch, guinea fowl is the way to go.  If by crazy chance you have any left over, or you were wise enough to roast two at once, shred the flesh of your fowl and mix with pinenuts, cel­ery, cilantro, a touch of mayo and lemon zest for the ulti­mate “poul­try salad.”

For­ti­fied by fowl, we felt strong enough to ven­ture out to Pot­ters Fields to vis­it the net­tles.  As we are wont to do to any vis­i­tors to Lon­don who dare to get in touch with us these days, we dragged my cousin Dewaine and his wife Clare to the plot of dirt on a bright Sun­day.  (This will hap­pen to you, too, if you come see us.)

“Now, you real­ize that you are part of a very select club,” I said seri­ous­ly.  “Many peo­ple can vis­it Pot­ters Fields and admire the wild­flow­ers, but only a very few can climb behind this hoard­ing and stand among our net­tles.”  We cel­e­brat­ed this dis­tinc­tion with an absolute­ly superb lunch at Zuc­ca of Bermond­sey Street.  Tem­pu­ra but­ter­nut squash, rich bur­ra­ta with capers and rock­et, yel­low­tail tartare, and my per­son­al favorite, creamy bac­cala, that ulti­mate mousse of salt cod that I have tried — and failed — to make at home.  I think you have to be Ital­ian.  We had a love­ly time, talk­ing over each oth­er, try­ing to con­dense the 10 years or so since we last met, into just one afternoon.

All cyn­i­cism about Pot­ters Fields aside, how­ev­er, there is news: we have an archi­tect!  At least we near­ly have an archi­tect.  We have cho­sen and he has accept­ed, but no cold hard cash has as yet changed hands.  The secret iden­ti­ty of this cre­ative genius will be revealed in good time, along with pho­tographs from one of his most famous hous­es, which I vis­it­ed on my light­ning-fast trip to New York last week.

My trip was actu­al­ly to New Jer­sey, to spend some time with my adored “Oth­er Moth­er” Jan­ice, and her daugh­ter, my “Oth­er Sis­ter” Livia.  For too many vis­its we have been rushed — a few hours togeth­er before we hopped on a plane at Newark, a fran­ti­cal­ly short time to exchange all the impor­tant sto­ries.  This time, I was on my own, and for four bliss­ful days, spent appre­ci­at­ing every­thing there is to love about those two mar­vel­lous ladies.  How Jan­ice has warmed my life, for the past 25 years.

Of all the won­der­ful times I have slept in their beau­ti­ful, per­fect house — on week­ends with Baby Avery when John was away, after an icon­ic Mil­len­ni­al Din­ner Par­ty in 2000 — of course none can rival the com­fort and peace of our vis­it after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.  Then, the ordi­nary hos­pi­tal­i­ty and gen­eros­i­ty of being with them was raised to a life-sav­ing lev­el.  This time, there was no dra­ma at home.  Just peace.

Livia and I stayed up late into the night, every night, talk­ing end­less­ly, putting the world to rights.  We dis­cussed the end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing top­ic of what cheeses make the best mac­a­roni and cheese; we planned a fan­ta­sy adven­ture on the Maharaj Express; we imag­ined what Avery would do with her life; we mourned the fact that not one sin­gle of their many beau­ti­ful res­cue cats will let me near.

And one wet, fog­gy morn­ing I made my way to Hobo­ken and hopped on the all-too-short fer­ry jour­ney to spend a day in Man­hat­tan.  In my opin­ion, there is no more beau­ti­ful sky­line in the world, even under the dark­est of grey skies.

Oh, the many emo­tions and mem­o­ries that came flood­ing back as I dis­em­barked at the World Finan­cial Cen­ter, to be faced with the fin­ished new build­ing, soar­ing into the clouds.

My nos­tal­gic mind was filled with thoughts about Avery’s child­hood in the city, the seem­ing­ly end­less Sat­ur­day after­noons on the slides and swings of Bat­tery Park City, the hot sum­mer bike rides around the tip of Man­hat­tan, the hours spent wait­ing for her to emerge from school…

I man­aged to get myself all the way to Leonard Street, in our beloved Tribeca, to find Alyssa, my best New York chum, who prompt­ly intro­duced me to her new child, Tina.

“Are you sure she isn’t a cat?” I asked.  “And for that mat­ter, why isn’t she snap­ping and bark­ing at me, or try­ing to bite my face off, or hid­ing under a chair?”  (All these behav­iors have been the hall­marks of Alyssa’s pre­vi­ous canine fam­i­ly members.)

“I real­ly could­n’t say,” she averred.  “She’s just total­ly nor­mal.  I’ve nev­er seen any­thing like it.”

But we heart­less­ly aban­doned her to go on a mad­cap archi­tec­ture tour, vis­it­ing two sites designed by our top-secret archi­tect, and then repaired, absolute­ly starv­ing, to the peer­less “appe­tiz­er,” Russ & Daugh­ters on Orchard Street.

 Do you know about “appe­tiz­ers”?  I did­n’t.  Alyssa ful­filled her tra­di­tion­al role in our friend­ship (well, one of them) by intro­duc­ing me to yet anoth­er deli­cious rea­son to want to be Jew­ish.  “Appe­tiz­ers” are shops or restau­rants that serve all the peer­less Jew­ish del­i­ca­cies that are eat­en on bagels — many dif­fer­ent kinds of smoked fish, cured fish, cream cheeses, sal­ad.  “Appe­tiz­ing” in this con­text is a noun, a type of eat­ing, deriv­ing from the Latin “appete,” which means “to long for or covet.”

And cov­et I did.  I did not have a cam­era or an Avery, and so had to make do with my phone, and I felt a bit shy about indoor pho­tos.  But my dear read­ers, how can I pos­si­bly con­vey to you the VARI­ETY and scope of the cured fish­es?  I want­ed one of absolute­ly every­thing, but not hav­ing any­one to share the boun­ty (my New Jer­sey friends not being devot­ed to Jew­ish cui­sine as I am), I con­tent­ed myself with feast­ing my eyes on every detail behind the glass, and then tuck­ing into the best brunch of my life.

Smoked salmon, the soft­est steamed spinach and per­fect poached eggs on toast­ed chal­lah, with hol­landaise.  Light, del­i­cate, airy bread, and quite sim­ply the high­est qual­i­ty of every oth­er ingre­di­ent you can imag­ine.  Paper-thin smoked salmon, oh my dears.

I will be back, because I read the menu as though it were a best-sell­ing nov­el and I had to give the book back before the end­ing.  Pas­tra­mi salmon?  Yes please.  Mat­zoh ball soup, hand it over.

We could not resist shar­ing the chopped liv­er, and as much as I would like to say oth­er­wise, my own attempts sev­er­al weeks ago were noth­ing like it, as proud as I was at the time.  Oh, the schmaltz that must have gone into that lit­tle glass dish of heaven.

And then it was time for me to get back on the fer­ry and ride, through a day that had mirac­u­lous­ly become the per­fect after­noon, to New Jer­sey once again.

All too soon my vis­it was over.  I left behind the many Hel­lo! mag­a­zines I had brought, and notes of love from Avery and John, and an air­plane trip’s worth of mem­o­ries of our time togeth­er.  It was time to return to my real life.

On my Home-Start after­noon yes­ter­day, wheel­ing sleep­ing babies in a misty fog along my Eng­lish vil­lage high street, I could not help feel­ing that I’d had the best of both worlds, in the space of just a few weeks.