fam­i­ly summer

It’s our last Tues­day morn­ing at Red Gate Farm and all our guests have depart­ed.  Even our child has depart­ed.  The air is still and warm and I should prob­a­bly pop up to find some­thing for lunch, but it’s just too peace­ful to move.

A far cry from the crazy round of activ­i­ty and cel­e­bra­tion that’s been the scene for the last two weeks!

 It nev­er seems quite like sum­mer until John’s mom arrives, and she did, to kick off the August mania.  Her first evening was the last qui­et moment for days on end, it seemed.

Odd­ly, for Con­necti­cut in August, it’s been cool in the morn­ings and evenings, requir­ing every­one to snug­gle into cardi­gans and throws.  But the days have been intense­ly love­ly, with unbe­liev­able blue skies and puffy clouds.  The farmer’s mar­ket soaks it all up.

We have eat­en an incred­i­ble num­ber of ears of corn on the cob, of juicy toma­toes driz­zled with the spe­cial Tus­can Herb olive oil from the mar­ket.  And for an after­noon treat, why not sam­ple one of dear Kate’s home­made straw­ber­ry muffins?  Only 50 cents, right here in San­ford Road.

“They are still warm from the oven,” Kate assures me in her qui­et way.  Irre­sistible, even to this mil­i­tary gen­tle­man cruis­ing along the road.  “I’m off to South Korea tomor­row.  Hap­py to sup­port small local busi­ness­es,” he says with a grin.

And yes, before you tell me, I know the fence looks just awful.  It’s a fact of Red Gate Farm that every­thing is falling down; it’s just a ques­tion of what’s falling down fastest, and there­fore gets the quick­est atten­tion.  The fence has been col­laps­ing by degrees for the last decade, and I sup­pose it can go awhile longer.  John applied some elbow grease and bub­ble gum to the gate, at least.

Avery has had what can be called only “The Com­mut­ing Sum­mer,” mak­ing her way from New Jer­sey every morn­ing to spend the day in New York, either at her AIDS char­i­ty or at her intern­ship with our his­to­ri­an friend Anne Nel­son.  And then of course she needs to get up here to Con­necti­cut for the occa­sion­al moment of leisure, like dear Cici’s grad­u­a­tion par­ty in Mys­tic.  We motored there one love­ly Fri­day evening.  These two girls nev­er change.

From their first days togeth­er as babies, they’ve made each oth­er laugh.  This glo­ri­ous sum­mer evening was no different.

We rem­i­nisced with Cici’s par­ents and her friend Emi­ly’s fam­i­ly — they were cel­e­brat­ing togeth­er — and mar­velled that we are talk­ing about Cici’s depar­ture to col­lege, and Avery’s appli­ca­tions next year.  Is the world ready for these two to be unleashed upon it?  Cici’s dad said in his elo­quent toast, “We’re count­ing on you.”  How heart­warm­ing to be includ­ed in the party.

With Avery home, it was time to make some of the last dish­es to pho­to­graph for the cook­book.  Avery is frankly liv­ing for the day that she no longer con­stant­ly hears, “Can you get a pic­ture of…”  Some­times, though, these last jobs remind us how deli­cious for­got­ten dish­es are.

Warm Can­nelli­ni Beans with Rose­mary and Rocket

(serves 4)

2 tbsps olive oil

2 tbsps butter

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

2 large stems fresh rose­mary, leaves only, minced

2 15oz/400g cans can­nelli­ni beans, drained

1/3 c/30g fresh breadcrumbs

4 oz/113g grat­ed Parme­san or Pecorino

2 hand­fuls arugula/rocket

olive oil to drizzle

fresh black pep­per and sea salt to taste

Heat the olive oil and but­ter in a large fry­ing pan and add the gar­lic, rose­mary and can­nelli­ni beans. Saute until gar­lic is soft. In a clean fry­ing pan, toast the bread­crumbs until crisp and add to the beans. When ready to serve, add the cheese and arugu­la and toss well. Add more olive oil if need­ed and sea­son to taste. Serve warm.

*******

The warm, idyl­lic, peace­ful week­end after­noons were spent with Avery and her grand­moth­er dis­cussing her Russ­ian trip, her work expe­ri­ence, her intern­ship.  I slaved away try­ing dili­gent­ly to make sure that every one of the 100+ recipes in the cook­book has prop­er mea­sure­ments in both Amer­i­can and Euro­pean methods. 

What IS this Amer­i­can obses­sion with putting things into cups to see how much space they take up?  I want to give every Amer­i­can cook a scale and be done with it.  “Loose­ly packed, ” “a scant cup”?  The mind bog­gles.  But it must be done.  Every per­son who has come through the door in the last month has been sub­ject­ed to dis­cus­sions of mea­sure­ment and phras­ing, and no per­son will be glad­der than I when this is all finished.

John recov­ered with some good, hard phys­i­cal labor with a chain­saw, hack­ing away at felled trees in our for­est.  Our wood­shed is full, for Christmas.

I found time to cross the road in search of one of Gladys Taber’s cook­books, there to find a clas­sic recipe or two.  It’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine writ­ing my own cook­book with­out her exam­ple: remark­ing on the unre­mark­able, the dai­ly, the deli­cious.  We have been so lucky to have her fam­i­ly across the road all these years.

Week­ends last for no one, though, and all too soon it was back to the city for Avery, and this time John’s mom and I joined her, just a cou­ple of com­muters we.

 What a delight­ful train jour­ney (if you don’t have to do it every day!).

Some­how, the Amer­i­can ver­sion of “Mind the Gap” seems less stern.  More just an observation.

Avery’s dis­cov­ery of the Upper West Side, through her his­to­ri­an boss Anne, has been a joy.  I think she’s found her niche.  The apart­ment itself where she has been work­ing — on mys­ter­ies of the French resis­tance — is as if you dis­tilled Avery her­self into a piece of real estate.

Every­where you turn, the print­ed word.

She is in heav­en.  Watch this space for an announce­ment of the book she’s been help­ing with.  It seems almost unfair for her to put this expe­ri­ence on her resume; every hour has been some­thing to remember.

The four of us repaired to Cen­tral Park, nev­er a fea­ture of my New York (down­town­er that I was), to dis­cov­er its delights.  Almost lily ponds!  Water­falls.  Just a back­drop to the four of us, appre­ci­at­ing each oth­er’s com­pa­ny and the incom­pa­ra­ble feel­ing of being in New York, with its unique energy.

Final­ly we had to let the two schol­ars get back to work, so it was but the taxi ride of a moment for Rose­mary and me to get our­selves to Zabar’s.  Oh, the bagels.  Oh, the nova, smooth as silk, oily and fra­grant.  Break­fast for din­ner was in order.

What hap­py mem­o­ries that place brings, not to men­tion 300 dif­fer­ent types of cream cheese.  It’s almost painful to enjoy a true New York bagel, know­ing it will be months before we encounter one again.

Final­ly sum­mer ratch­eted up into high gear with the arrival of my moth­er for her birth­day cel­e­bra­tions.  It was time to head to Jil­l’s house for the reunion, and the birth­day girl was in fine form.

Th evening involved involved toma­to-basil risot­to and a cer­tain amount of silliness.

The next after­noon brought a long-await­ed vis­it from my cousin Dewaine and his wife Clare, mak­ing Red Gate Farm part of an East Coast jaunt.  Some­thing made John’s mom and me seek out an old leather suit­case full of pho­tographs.  “I won­der if there are any of Dewaine in here?”  There were.  An orgy of rem­i­nis­cences ensued.  My Philadel­phia PhD grad­u­a­tion in 1992!

It was superb fun to go back through the years, all in a pile of photographs.

Avery turned up from train sta­tion in time to laugh over our for­mer selves.  Ah, her turn will come.

Avery and Dewaine had met before, but many years ago.  it was love­ly to see them togeth­er again; at her baby nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny he made quite a prophet­ic speech about the young lady she would turn out to be.

With all the fam­i­ly in place, we feast­ed on bar­be­cued chick­en, two-cab­bage and car­rot slaw and crab-stuffed mush­rooms.  As we ate, a thou­sand old fam­i­ly sto­ries were aired and enjoyed.

But it was the choco­late mousse that made the meal.  Is there such a thing as “too much choco­late mousse”? Jane asked, with her ubiq­ui­tous “air quotes.”

It was a love­ly reunion.

The dish­wash­er had bare­ly fin­ished its cycle before the next par­ty!  It would­n’t be Mom’s birth­day with­out yel­low balloons.

We set the table with John’s mom’s sum­mer find, these love­ly nap­kins com­plete with Iowa corn on the cob.

Anne, David and Kate arrived.  All Kate needs is the tram­po­line, to be happy.

Mol­ly is much the same.  They made fast friends that after­noon, real­ly for the first time.  Two first-graders.

Rol­lie and Judy came bear­ing fruit.

The birth­day lun­cheon pro­ceed­ed as it always does, with a nice warm after­noon filled with food: Jil­l’s dev­illed eggs, my clam chow­der, corn on the cob, toma­to sal­ad.  There were hot dogs for the girls (and my broth­er), and final­ly, lemon blue­ber­ry birth­day cake.  Jane had to make sure it smelled all right.

Lemon Polen­ta Cake with Blueberries

(serves 10)

1 c/225g but­ter, softened
1 c/225g sugar
2 ¼ c/225g ground almonds
2 tsps vanil­la extract
3 eggs
zest of 4 lemons
juice of 1 lemon

1 c/125g cornmeal/polenta
1 ½ tsps bak­ing powder
pinch sea salt

1 c/100g blueberries

But­ter and flour a 12-inch/30cm spring­form or plain round cake pan.  It does not need to be par­tic­u­lar­ly deep.

Beat the but­ter and sug­ar togeth­er until pale and light. Stir in the ground almonds and vanil­la. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Fold in the lemon zest and lemon juice, the polen­ta, bak­ing pow­der and salt.

Scrape the bat­ter into the pan and scat­ter the blue­ber­ries on top. Bake at 350F/180C for 45–55 min­utes.  Test with a tooth­pick or skew­er in the cen­ter; if it comes out clean, the cake is done.  The cen­ter may seem jig­gly, but the sides of the cake should have come away a bit from the tin.  Check fre­quent­ly to make sure the top does not burn; it should have a deep gold­en brown col­or, but not blackened.

*********

This cake is inspired by my friend Eliz­a­beth who has made it for me many times with­out blue­ber­ries.  It is a love­ly cake both ways, and very nice to have for peo­ple who don’t eat wheat.

What a nice way to mark the years, with this par­ty, and all my favorite cast of char­ac­ters on the stage.

We nev­er seem to run out of things to say, this group!  Land Trust news, news of “Lit­tle Rol­lie” and his adven­tures, antic­i­pa­tion of the school year to come for every­one, even a dis­cus­sion of “Days of Our Lives” for Mom, Judy and me.  A new top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion: “Is this pic­nic bench sag­ging?  How old is this table any­way?”  Peace­ful times.

Final­ly it was ear­ly evening.  A lit­tle friend arrived to tell us that the par­ty had come to an end.

The sun dis­ap­peared to be replaced with low clouds and maybe even a hint of rain to come. We had had fun, our moth­er and we.

Avery has gone back to the city for her last week of work, and we have had our last blow-out din­ner of the sum­mer.  Lob­ster, naturally.

We must pack up the house, say good­bye to the dad­dy-long-legs, pre­pare our­selves for the school and work year to come.  But we will go with a thou­sand sum­mer memories.