how long is a week?

Here’s where I’m just not a very mod­ern per­son, at heart. Because it doesn’t make the slight­est sense in the world to me that a week ago tonight I was in Orange, New Jer­sey with my most extrav­a­gant hostessly friends, drink­ing Scotch and watch­ing them pre­pare pot roast, noo­dles and summer-grown lima beans in but­ter sauce.

But I was.

I was fed mag­nif­i­cently, tucked into a bed of white flan­nel sheets, kissed good­night, and then min­utes later the alarm went off at 5 a.m. for us to get to Newark. Nightmare.

Twelve hours later, we arrived to four cats sim­ply starved for affec­tion, moun­tains of mail includ­ing beloved Christ­mas cards from farflung friends, a COM­PLETELY empty refrig­er­a­tor. I mean, two onions and some condi­ments. That was ALL. And a host of emails remind­ing me that I was in charge of Avery’s class ice skat­ing trip to Som­er­set House the NEXT DAY. And two moth­ers beg­ging, “Can you take Lit­tle So-and-So because it turns out I can’t make it?” And of course I could. Maybe respon­si­bil­ity for three teenagers with skate blades in the Tube would keep me awake.

And so the week went. I skated, I chap­er­oned the chil­dren in the chill, gray City world. Feel­ing we might be nearly lost on the way, the chil­dren and I stopped a likely-looking City Chap and asked, “Where is Som­er­set House?” To our total delight, he pointed us in the right direc­tion and then said, and I am not mak­ing this up, “Toodle-loo!” The girls all col­lapsed in laugh­ter. Sev­eral of them came home with us for movies on the sofa, pop­corn, try­ing on makeup, and finally baked chicken and paprika pota­toes. We were offi­cially HOME.

Wednes­day I took charge of a friend’s daugh­ter while my friend was, sadly, con­sol­ing her sis­ter on the death of her child. THAT sit­u­a­tion puts life right in per­spec­tive. “Could you have my daugh­ter for the day?” Could I? I’d keep her for life if I could have stopped that sit­u­a­tion from hap­pen­ing. There can be no whing­ing of jet lag in a world where chil­dren sim­ply cease to exist from one moment to the next. I was THRILLED to have a house­hold full of girls, drop­ping in to say hello, bring­ing “We missed you” brown­ies, moth­ers stop­ping for a cup of tea and to catch up.

And Thurs­day Avery went back to school, and I went for a sushi lunch with my friend from Cal­i­for­nia, Janet, who had the temer­ity to live next door to me for two years and we were noth­ing but “hi, how are you” friends, but up she moves to Los Ange­les, and now we can’t get enough of each other! So when­ever she comes to town, we’re off on a foodie adven­ture and to chat, chat, chat.

Here’s an intrigu­ing ques­tion. Janet’s been spend­ing some time in a nurs­ing home with an aging rel­a­tive, ask­ing that elderly lady and all her friends, who are also 90-year-old ladies, what age they would go back to if they could. And do you know what these ladies answer? Their mid-80s. Why do I find that so sur­pris­ing? Per­haps because I waste a fair amount of time wish­ing I had my 30-year-old fig­ure back, or my 2-year-old child back, or I’m nos­tal­gic for my gallery six years ago. So I sup­pose I imag­ine I would return to my 30s.

But appar­ently my friend Janet’s anec­do­tal evi­dence isn’t an anom­aly. Appar­ently, some sci­en­tific stud­ies of “hap­pi­ness” have been done (this is what comes from hav­ing a friend visit from Cal­i­for­nia, you know) and some sur­pris­ing things have been dis­cov­ered. One is that while peo­ple with chil­dren stay mar­ried more often than peo­ple with­out, peo­ple with­out chil­dren report them­selves as being “hap­pier.” And, sure enough, if you live past 80, to your 90s, you remem­ber your 80s as the best age. Why?

Because those peren­nial ques­tions that dog us in our 30s and 40s (and beyond, I guess) like, “Am I doing what I should be doing? Am I liv­ing a worth­while life? Am I per­form­ing well at the things I see as my job? Is my child devel­op­ing well? Do we have enough money?” have all been resolved and set aside. Can that be true? That by age 80 we get wise enough to stop fret­ting? These ladies reported to Janet that they truly suc­ceeded, in their 80s, in liv­ing in the moment. Enjoy­ing what was there to be enjoyed, with­out look­ing ahead and fret­ting. Or maybe… ladies with that atti­tude were the only ones to live past 80.

I don’t know. But it made for very good lunch con­ver­sa­tion over teriyaki salmon, tuna sashimi, chilled steamed spinach with sesame sauce, and a soft­shell crabs in a fresh-made roll just for us. I’ll tell you one of the many things that make me happy, that have lasted from child­hood till now: the fun and joy of girl­friends. A lunch like that, swoon­ing equally over big­eye tuna and John Malkovich, makes life worth liv­ing and sud­denly sun­nier than it was an hour or so before. Girl­friends are wonderful.

Here’s another thing that makes one day in the life of being almost 45 in Lon­don a great thing. I still am allowed to leave the house at 3:50 every week­day, walk about 8 min­utes to Avery’s school, wait a moment with a paper­back to amuse me, and out comes my deli­cious daugh­ter, in some out­landish out­fit (white shorts with grey tights and a grey cash­mere sweater, belted and the whole thing fin­ished with hot pink Con­verse high tops). She’s still happy for me to appear at school and walk her home, car­ry­ing half her load of books, stop­ping for a snack, lis­ten­ing to the day’s accu­mu­la­tion of hilar­i­ous sto­ries, gos­sip, com­plaints about lunch (“I had one bite of sausage and that was ALL, and WHAT is suet pud­ding?”), descrip­tions of people’s outfits.

The main topic walk­ing home with Avery and Emily on Thurs­day was, can Avery rea­son­ably be expected to answer the door while John and I are at the Par­ents’ meet­ing, receive the pizza and tip the pizza guy?

“How,” Avery wails, “will I know that the guy at the door isn’t some homi­ci­dal maniac?”

“Well,” I say with labo­ri­ous rea­son­able­ness, “He’ll be stand­ing beside a motor­bike, wear­ing a hel­met and car­ry­ing a giant insu­lated bag that will con­tain our pizzas.”

“But there could be any­thing in that insu­lated bag!” Avery shrieks.

“It could even be a sev­ered head,” I say hopefully.

“My mother wants every­thing to be a sev­ered head,” Avery says indulgently.

“And it never is.”

Off to the Par­ents’ meet­ing, gaz­ing at the head (not sev­ered) of the school wear­ing a gor­geous woollen suit with a long, flow­ing skirt and per­fectly, softly match­ing silk scarf, totally in con­trol of every moment of her life, seem­ingly. How is that pos­si­ble? I’d love to see the cracks, the real life some­where. But it never hap­pens. A glo­ri­ously con­trolled, kind, appre­cia­tive, ele­gant lady who never puts a foot or a word wrong. How, how.

Ah well, life can­not pos­si­bly be that per­fect. But I offer you two veg­etable side dishes that will make you think it can be, for just one din­ner. With a roast chicken, or even just a bowl of steamed rice, these two dishes will enhance your week, dare I say it, your life. Your hus­band and child will thank you. And one more week will have gone by, how­ever impos­si­bly filled with changes and events and loved ones and crazi­ness, and you’ll be com­forted by each bite.

Roasted Beets with Bal­samic
(serves four enthu­si­as­tic eaters)

6 medium-sized beets, leaves and stems removed
gen­er­ous splash bal­samic vine­gar
tiny splash chilli olive oil
hand­ful chopped flat-leaf parsley

Lay out a sheet of heavy-duty alu­minum foil (there is really no rea­son in life to buy any other kind, trust me) and pile the beets on it. Wrap com­pletely in foil, and set in an oven heated to 450F, 220C. Roast for at least 1 1/2 hours and test by insert­ing a sharp knife into a beet from the out­side. If it pen­e­trated very eas­ily, the beets are done. If not, err on the side of cook­ing longer.

Now, cru­cially, do NOT unwrap for at least 10 min­utes. The steam gen­er­ated by leav­ing the beets wrapped tightly will aid enor­mously in peel­ing the beets.

After at least 10 min­utes, open the packet and grab each beet in turn, under flow­ing cold water, and sim­ply slip the skins off. Trim the ends and cut each beet into bite-sized pieces, plac­ing them in a medium bowl. Sprin­kle with vine­gar and oil and pars­ley and serve either hot, room temp, or cold. Lovely.

********************

But­ton Mush­rooms with Marsala, Thyme and Creme Fraiche
(serves four)

6 tbsps but­ter
2 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 shal­lot, minced
1 lb (1/2 kilo) but­ton mush­rooms
hand­ful fresh thyme leaves
good splash Marsala
1 cup half-fat creme fraiche, 2 tbsps reserved
hand­ful chopped flat-leaf pars­ley
sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper

Melt but­ter in a heavy skil­let and add the gar­lic, shal­lot and mush­rooms on medium heat. Toss and turn until mush­rooms are slightly browned and the whole mix­ture siz­zles nicely. Add thyme leaves and Marsala and cook until a thick, but mea­gre sauce devel­ops. Add all but 2 tbsps of creme fraiche and stir well until mixed and saucy.

Just before serv­ing, stir in the final 2 tbsps of creme fraiche, turn­ing heat up, and then toss with pars­ley and sea­son. Perfect.