end of the idyll

So hard to believe we’re back in Lon­don… but it requires noth­ing more for ver­i­fi­ca­tion than to look out the win­dow and find GREY GREY GREY. Yep, we’re back.

To think that a week ago we were hang­ing out with Rol­lie in the yard, pulling old green shut­ters out of the big barn, hold­ing them up to the house, exam­in­ing the hard­ware. “Could be you could use some of these with­out much repairs at all,” Rol­lie opined, but we all agreed the paint needed to be darker, so it was off to the hard­ware store to choose. Actu­ally I let John, his mom and Avery choose (Ben­jamin Moore’s very first invented color, “Litch­field Green”!)while I acquired ingre­di­ents at the gro­cery next door (The Southbu Food Cent, Avery always points out, lov­ing to see each sum­mer which neon let­ters don’t work). Ingre­di­ents for what, you ask? Merely for the Best Lunch of the Summer.

Of course in order to have the best lunch of the sum­mer you need already to have had the best din­ner of the sum­mer, which involves order­ing four lob­sters from David Thomas Lob­ster in Isles­ford, Maine, and then sit­ting on your heels wait­ing for them to arrive. And arrive they do! Rol­lie was sit­ting on my new L.L. Bean white­washed cedar Adiron­dack chair, keep­ing us up to date with the progress of hay­ing on Platt’s Farm, the price of a gravel-mover pur­chased from the Depart­ment of San­i­ta­tion ver­sus the price from a defunct farm, when up pulled FedEx. Every sum­mer the guy is bemused by the square box from Maine marked “PER­ISH­ABLE,” and makes a big play of it bounc­ing around in his hands. “Hand it over!” I say, and he says, “Give me one of what’s inside, then,” and then tells me the lat­est about the guy up the road who gets ONE bot­tle of wine deliv­ered, OVERNIGHT. “Don’t want to think about what THAT bot­tle costs him, before he even gets to drink it, “the FedEx guy says, finally relin­quish­ing my lob­sters and chuck­ling, till it all hap­pens again next summer.

John’s mom smiled to see the box. “What’s this, then, per­ish­able?” and I had to grin to say, “Of course it’s lob­sters from Dave Thomas, you wouldn’t think we’d for­get a sum­mer tra­di­tion?” It was hard to tear our­selves away for our ten­nis les­son, and I think Avery and I were worse than ever. “You need two-hour lessons, two times a week so you don’t for­get every­thing between one les­son and the next,” Val instructed, and Avery looked quite faint. We sat down in the sun at the edge of the road to wait for our ride, and she said, “I think we should wait until we see how school goes, before I sign up for any more lessons…” John came to get us in Quincy, our intre­pid green Land Rover, a year younger than I am and MUCH more reli­able. How is it that our ten-year old VW can’t keep its bat­tery intact over the win­ter but the Land Rover starts right up every time?

Home for steamed lob­sters with the best aioli (just enough gar­lic and plenty of lemon zest, my condi­ment of the sum­mer), sauteed red pep­pers, baguette slices, bean salad. Avery hap­pily eats riga­toni alla vodka sauce as this car­niv­o­rous feast takes place under her nose.

And the next day for lunch, because John’s mom and I are appre­cia­tive if wimpy lob­ster eaters and leave plenty of leftovers:

Lob­ster Rolls with Aioli
(serves four)

1 lob­ster tail for each per­son, or what we had: three tails and one extra claw), steamed and chilled
1/2 cup good may­on­naise
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove gar­lic, minced with salt
four hot-dog rolls, top-split as they do in New England

Cut each lob­ster tail and/or claw into small­ish bite-size pieces and place in a large bowl, then mix in all the other ingre­di­ents and let sit for a minute or two while you toast the hot-dog rolls. Note that these are not called “buns” as they were in my Mid­west­ern child­hood, nor are they side-split. They are top-split, which allows for much nicer presentation.

Open the toasted rolls as much as you dare, then pile on the lob­ster salad and enjoy!

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Tomato-Mozzarella Tow­ers with Pinenuts
(serves four)

1 per­fectly ripe tomato per per­son
3 balls moz­zarella, sliced thick to make 12 slices
1/2 cup pinenuts, toasted lightly in a skil­let or oven till light brown
good driz­zle olive oil, per­haps 1/3 cup
sprin­kle bal­samic vine­gar
juice of 1/2 lemon
hand­ful of fresh basil, sliced thin (chif­fon­ade)
zest of whole lemon
salt and pepper

On a nice plat­ter, start with a slice of tomato for each per­son, then build upwards: a slice of moz­zarella, another slice of tomato, until you run out. Sprin­kle with pinenuts, let­ting them tum­ble down onto the plat­ter. Then you may either mix the dress­ing ingre­di­ents (olive oil, bal­samic and lemon juice) or you can sprin­kle them sep­a­rately over the tow­ers. Zest the lemon right over the tow­ers, sprin­kle with basil and sea­son with salt and pep­per. Divine.

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This recipe was taken (OK, I adapted it a lit­tle: left out the red onion) from Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s new cook­book, “How To Eat Sup­per,” a present from John’s mom which I now CHER­ISH. I can­not explain what makes this salad so much nicer than just tomato-mozzarella, which you all know I can eat sev­eral times a week. It’s to do with the vel­vety crunch of the pinenuts, the refresh­ing tang of the lemon zest, and the fun of the tow­ers. Try them! Two more great recipes from that cook­book to come, below…

We ended the Per­fect Lunch with a quar­ter of a seed­less water­melon, sim­ply slic­ing it on the rind at the table and div­ing in. And plenty on the rind for Gary later on!

All too soon it was Thurs­day morn­ing and time for Nonna to fly away: first we took a walk up to John’s dad’s bench, with Rollie’s son Chris hay­ing, sit­ting high in his John Deere trac­tor mak­ing enor­mous cir­cles in the meadow. Guess where the expres­sion “hay” fever comes from, duh! I had never before iden­ti­fied it quite so closely with the real thing! I com­pounded this expe­ri­ence with a visit to the horses, Molly and Cisco in the back meadow, where every­one but me fed them treats and pet­ted them (I’m dumb, but not that dumb), and then we saw John’s mom off, John chauf­feur­ing her to the air­port. Avery and I stood at the lit­tle red gate and waved at them, feel­ing bereft.

It was hard to sep­a­rate the symp­toms of miss­ing John’s mom from the symp­toms of extreme aller­gic reac­tion, so I decided med­ica­tion was the bet­ter part of valor and took a Benadryl and some other anti­his­t­a­mine and felt awful. Luck­ily, Kon­nie and Tay­lor came over to visit, and after play­ing with Hast­ings for a bit, they all took Avery to wash Pokey the Pony with them and do some­thing com­pli­cated in the sta­bles, so with lit­tle regret I watched them all walk up the dusty road, away. John turned in at the dri­ve­way and I fed us lus­cious crab rolls (just the same as lob­ster rolls only you need copi­ous amounts of fresh-picked Maine crab sent to you along with the lob­sters), and then Avery turned back up and she and John went to Quassy! I, on the other hand, col­lapsed for an allergy-induced nap… two hours of absolute bliss!

Avery and John returned in time to get cleaned up for Rol­lie and Judy’s din­ner visit, and would you believe when I looked back at my blog of last sum­mer, I fed them EXACTLY the same things?? What are the odds? That’s why real host­esses keep logs of these things, no? But the chicken recipe deserves to be men­tioned one more time:

Lil­lian Hell­man Chicken
(serves 8)

8 bone­less chicken breasts
1 cup Hellman’s may­on­naise (get it?)
1 cup grated pecorino or parme­san cheese
juice of 1 lemon
sprin­kle gar­lic salt
fresh-ground pep­per
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

First, make sure your assem­bly line works: you need a flat sur­face to trim the chicken, then to the right of that a bowl in which you’ve mixed the mayo, cheese, lemon juice, gar­lic salt and pep­per. Then to the right of that bowl you need a shall bowl of the bread­crumbs, then you need a cookie sheet past that. Whew.

So smear the chicken breasts one at a time lib­er­ally with the mayo mix­ture (just dip­ping will not work, smear it with a spoon), then push them each firmly onto the bread­crumbs on both sides, then place on the cookie sheet with space between each. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 min­utes, until nicely browned. But not much longer (I did once and they were drier than I’d like).

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With this we had scal­loped corn (just cut raw off the cob, sprin­kled with gar­lic and with some cream poured over and baked) and the inevitable tomato moz­zarella salad, not even tow­ers! But we enjoyed our­selves. Hast­ings dis­cov­ered how much more fun it is to go out onto the ter­race when it’s nearly dark than when it’s after­noon, and how ALL his peo­ple will fol­low him madly if he runs away! Both Rol­lie and Judy proved a dab hand at res­cu­ing an escaped mad kitten.

We sat long into the evening over the cook­ies John’s mom had left behind, and the two fla­vors of Rich’s ice cream Judy brought. Anne and Katie popped in to carry away the remains of the scal­loped corn to have with their own salmon, and got a hand­ful of cook­ies too! We heard Dave’s car pull into their dri­ve­way and it was so cozy to think of them all together across the road.

Well, sadly Fri­day morn­ing was spent try­ing to clear up our messy house to show to our beloved friends Olimpia and Tony who were com­ing to lunch: we have been to their coun­try hide­away in the Catskills sev­eral times for Olimpia’s incom­pa­ra­ble Ital­ian feasts, but I had never cooked for her, nor had they seen Red Gate Farm, so… it was time to make nice neat piles of all the detri­tus of our busy sum­mer: Avery’s lan­yards (both the raw mate­ri­als and the dozens of key rings, bracelets, zip­per pulls and such that resulted), beads and the result­ing bead rings, piles of books opened to the pages where they were left, library books care­fully sep­a­rated, clean folded laun­dry with no drawer space to hold it! The swim bag filled with tow­els and suits, water bot­tles on the win­dow sill, ten­nis rack­ets, bad­minton rack­ets, bird seed! Recipes cut from Real Sim­ple, Hello! mag­a­zine, the local news­pa­per… Hast­ings’ toys with strings, bells, feathers!

And then Olimpia and Tony arrived for lunch on pos­si­bly the most beau­ti­ful after­noon of the whole sum­mer. I tried two new recipes (both from Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s new cook­book, so you can see how much I love it), and they were very much appre­ci­ated. How happy it makes me to see peo­ple eat! John began at one point to take away a plat­ter that looked empty and Olimpia slapped his hand, “What are you doing? No, no, that’s not ready to be taken away!” and sopped up a lit­tle more bal­samic dress­ing with a piece of baguette! Per­fect. The two new and notable dishes of the day were:

Slow-Simmered Warm Canellini Salad with Rose­mary
(serves four hun­gry peo­ple with other bits on offer as well)

1 tbsp but­ter
3 tbps olive oil
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
hand­ful fresh rose­mary, then chopped roughly
2 soup-cans canellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup fresh bread­crumbs
4 tbsps grated parme­san cheese
salt and pep­per
1/2 bag baby greens (radic­chio, arugula, baby spinach, etc)

The key to this dish is be GEN­TLE, and don’t rush it. You can cook the gar­lic, rose­mary and beans ahead of time (as in an hour or so), but the assem­bly must wait till right before serv­ing so noth­ing gets mushy or disintegrates.

Heat the but­ter and oil and add the gar­lic and rose­mary. On a VERY low heat just barely bub­ble them till the gar­lic is soft. Do NOT brown. Then add the beans and stir around, and let sim­mer super low as long as you want, within rea­son, as in about an hour TOPS.

Put the bread­crumbs in a skil­let on LOW heat and toast them till they’re dry. Again, be patient. Don’t quit toast­ing them till they’re dry. You want them to float on top of the salad, not absorb any oil. When they’re toasted, take them off the heat and when they’re room-temperature, scat­ter the cheese on top.

When you’re ready to serve, turn the heat UP and add the greens and bread­crumbs and cheese, and salt and pep­per. Toss with tongs until mixed well and serve immediately.

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Scan­di­na­vian Flower-Egg Salad with Mus­tard and Dill
(serves four hun­gry peo­ple with other bits on offer as well)

2 tbsps may­on­naise
1 lb small red pota­toes, steamed
8 eggs, hard-boiled
1 head Bibb (Boston, but­ter, depend­ing on where you are) lettuce

Mustard-dill dress­ing:
1 part white wine vine­gar
3 parts olive oil
3 parts heavy-grain mus­tard
2 tsps sugar
1 clove gar­lic, minced
salt and pepper

Shake up all ingre­di­ents in a tightly cov­ered jar.

hand­ful dill, chopped
1/2 red onion, diced small

On a large plate, smooth the may­on­naise in a thin layer. Slice the red pota­toes thickly and arrange them in a layer on the may­on­naise. Cut the eggs in quar­ter wedges and arrange on the pota­toes as flower petals. Chop the let­tuce into sliv­ers and scat­ter over eggs.

At serv­ing time, driz­zle pret­tily with dress­ing and then scat­ter with dill and red onion. Deli­cious, and so light!

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Oh, these were so lovely! I also roasted a nice plump chicken breast and sliced it thick on a bed of but­ter let­tuce, more (as John rightly pointed out later) as a sop to the feel­ing that one had to have some MEAT than for any menu-planning rea­son, and there were plenty of baguette chunks for sauce-sopping, believe me. Lastly, there was the beau­ti­ful tomato-mozzarella tower I’m so fond of. We were so happy! My favorite way to eat: lots of dif­fer­ent things but they all go together.

We took them on a tour of the strangely-neat house, as well as the lovely horse meadow. Such fun to show off what I truly think is one of the most peace­ful spots there is: Red Gate Farm. Becky arrived to pick up Avery for one last Green­wich adven­ture of the sum­mer, and I loved intro­duc­ing two of my favorite peo­ple to each other! It occurs to me how much fun I had all sum­mer, intro­duc­ing my beloved Becky to peo­ple. It turns out that who­ever I’m with, they’re some of my favorite people.

Of course Olimpia left behind a tub of her pre­cious meat­balls and beef ribs, sim­mered FOR­EVER in her inim­itable tomato sauce, so John and I self­ishly ate them ALL for sup­per, spar­ing not a thought for Avery who would return the next day. We went for a ride on what Avery calls “scary road,” off Hull’s Hill, in Quincy, nearly split­ting him into pieces with the state of the pothills! Avery hates the road for its sheer drop on the left side, over a ravine and a creek, but what I always object to is John’s turn up an aban­doned road that becomes nearly impass­able and ends in a pile of charred logs with lord knows what dis­gust­ing things left behind by maraud­ing teenagers. We turned back down, and were met at the bot­tom of the road by… one of Southbury’s finest. What are the odds? “That road pass­able?” he asked John to which John replied, “It was to me, not so sure about you.” We decided some neigh­bor had called the police on us!

We packed up some more, watch­ing the Olympics. My friend Alyssa and I have come up with any num­ber of drink­ing games based on the ridicu­lous hyper­bole indulged in by the com­men­ta­tors (“unbe­liev­able!” “iconic!” “superla­tive!”) but my favorite phrase of all was uttered dur­ing the men’s pom­mel horse. “He lit­er­ally fell apart dur­ing the semi-finals!” I’d love to see that. LITERALLY.

Sat­ur­day after­noon saw us on the Mer­ritt one last time to pick up Avery from Anna’s house and to pry both Anna from Avery AND me from Becky. Not nice. But we have high hopes of Christ­mas together, so we refrained from too much weep­ing and wail­ing. Mostly Avery was totally silent in the back­seat, until we could con­vince her to tell us the plot from “Legally Blonde,” which they had watched the night before. It’s funny what will com­fort any given per­son at any given time. We didn’t have much time to be melan­choly any­way, with Joel, Jane, Anne, David and Katie com­ing for The Last Sup­per, so I was grate­ful for that. Sit­ting one last time on the ter­race stones shuck­ing corn and watch­ing Hast­ings bound around… and a crazy mixed-up din­ner of “Grilled This and That,” clean­ing out the fridge of veg­gies and condi­ments to go with. Chicken mar­i­nated in sesame oil, lime juice and soy sauce, burg­ers on hard rolls, hot sausages: and plenty of sliced onions, toma­toes, avo­ca­does and cheese to go with every­thing. Joel brought the tra­di­tional Fred­er­ick­son toma­toes: con­trary to most people’s morays, we peel them after a quick boil, then chill them all after­noon in a stain­less steel dish that looks like it just held a kid­ney dur­ing a trans­plant. Cold peeled toma­toes are a lux­ury, as far as I’m con­cerned: thanks, Joel.

John appointed Jane “Chef’s Assis­tant” which she tried valiantly to pro­nounce. She appeared at one point dur­ing the cook­ing and put her hands on her hips (as she so often does). “John says the chef’s assis­tant needs to tell you… [momen­tary hes­i­ta­tion for pro­nouns’ sake] that he has dropped a sausage on the ground and what should he do with it?” Avery played games of allit­er­a­tion, “Kinetic Katie,” “Crafty Katie,” although that brought on the debate: is allit­er­a­tion sound or let­ter? Tough ques­tions. Katie her­self remains above all these petty con­cerns, merely open­ing her china-blue eyes wide and smil­ing at us, if we’re lucky.

Sun­day we exe­cuted such sad chores as rolling the tram­po­line into the big barn, lock­ing the Every­thing Shed, putting the swim bag away in the laun­dry room, and get­ting ready to… leave Hast­ings. The car ser­vice arrived and Avery car­ried him up to her bed, where he sleeps with a crazy fluffy cat Olimpia gave her many Christ­mases ago… and she had to leave him there, all wet from her tears, to be picked up by my dear friend Shel­ley on Tues­day. A hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble moment. And off we went. “Was it not worth it, Avery, to have him this sum­mer, if it makes you so sad?” I asked, and she looked at me and said, “But being so sad is what MAKES you know it was worth it.” If only I could always approach sep­a­ra­tion and bereave­ment so wisely.

And guess what? “Home” is still here! We’re back in Lon­don to set­tle in, to remem­ber the new house I spent less time in before we left than I spent at Red Gate Farm! And the kit­ties are HUGE! All of them. Keechie is limp­ing today, so she’s des­tined for the first visit to the new vet this after­noon; I can’t think what she’s done to her ankle, but it’s since we arrived back home, because she was rac­ing around greet­ing us when we came in.

Hon­estly, it’s nice to be back. John goes off for work in the morn­ings just like a nor­mal hus­band and father! He came in last night just at din­ner time, to Avery prac­tic­ing the piano and me stir­ring the bolog­nese. “So this is what it feels like to have a job!” he laughed.

I spent all after­noon yes­ter­day sewing the new-school name tapes on Avery’s PE kit: it turns out that no mat­ter how excited we all are for her to start her new school, name tapes are a big, honk­ing BORE any­way. But they’re done, and she has cleaned out her pen­cil case, put name tags on all her back­pack belong­ings, and all we need is lacrosse boots (Avery is mas­sively under­whelmed by THAT prospect, I can tell you).

We’re back.