I’m back

I’m sorry I’ve been so silent! A long-awaited visit from John’s par­ents, com­bined with a nasty bout of a stom­ach bug called ulcer­a­tive col­i­tis, have cur­tailed my com­mu­ni­ca­tions for a cou­ple of weeks. But the visit is, sadly, over, and the bug, not so sadly, on its last legs, so here I am.

Sec­ond men­tal note to self (after the one not to ruin very expen­sive dress shirts and school uni­forms with one flick of a pash­mina): don’t try to melt but­ter in a Pyrex dish directly on top of a scary ceramic stove. Why not? Because it freakin’ EXPLODED! There I was, inno­cently cook­ing din­ner last night, and the main dish was to be Mama Nel’s chicken, named after my dar­ling mother who invented it. It’s easy peasy, as Jamie Oliver would say: sim­ply pour some flour into a gro­cery bag, or some other bag, and add lots of herbs: rose­mary, thyme, paprika, gar­lic pow­der, basil, mar­jo­ram, what­ever you like. Then pour some veg­etable oil in a nice Pyrex dish and dip chicken pieces skin side down in the oil. Then shake them up in the herbed flour and lay again skin side down in the oiled pan. Bake for about 20 min­utes at 425, then turn over and bake skin side up for another 20 min­utes. You can do the last few min­utes on broil if you like crispy skin.

Any­way, I decided to com­bine the oil with a lit­tle but­ter, so I was herb­ing my flour and watch­ing the but­ter melt on top of the stove when KABOOM the whole thing sim­ply exploded into hun­dreds of tiny shrap­nel pieces. I’m lucky I didn’t put my eye out, or some kitty’s eye. My bleats of dis­may brought Avery and John, who looked on in hor­ror, and then John cut him­self try­ing to help. Finally it was all cleared up and din­ner on its way, only to find, as we ate the steamed bas­mati rice to go with the chicken, that glass frag­ments had found their way into the but­ter I put on top. A very effec­tive way to con­trol por­tions, it turns out. No one wanted to eat any­thing after that! What a night.

John’s par­ents’ visit was com­pletely won­der­ful. As you can see above, they went every­where with us! They accom­pa­nied us to the barn and met Cookie, and to school and met Mrs Davies, and to play­date dropoff where they met Becky and her fam­ily. It was school half term, so things like show­ing them Avery’s ice skat­ing had to hap­pen with just us, not the fun of the whole class, but still, I think they got a good feel for the way we live now. Let’s see, they treated us to a ruinously expen­sive after­noon tea at Brown’s Hotel (I’ve always wanted to go back since my own par­ents took us way back in 1990 or so). Since then of course we have acquired Avery who is a great fan of Agatha Christie, and in par­tic­u­lar the thinly-disguised ver­sion of Brown’s that appears in “At Bertram’s Hotel.” So I inno­cently booked us for one after­noon, not know­ing that by now it has climbed in price to the astro­nom­i­cal fee of 29 pounds per per­son! Hon­estly, even for Lon­don­ers that’s going some. Still, it was lovely.

We trekked out to the coun­try­side to see Lulling­stone Cas­tle, whose fam­ily for­tunes (or lack thereof) and ren­o­va­tion have been the sub­ject of a won­der­ful BBC doc­u­men­tary that we’re addicted to. We actu­ally got to meet Tom Dyke Hart, the son and heir, and inven­tor of the mar­velous gar­den that’s the cen­ter­piece of the new pub­lic areas of the house and grounds. John went around mum­bling, “I REALLY want that house…” Then we went to see the “Mouse­trap,” and John’s par­ents took my tick­ets to see “Cori­olanus” at the Globe (my act­ing class was study­ing it, I thought, but it turns out I was wrong and THEY were all at “Titus Andron­i­cus”!), we went to an incred­i­ble polo match at the Guards Polo Club in Wind­sor (Prince Philip’s own polo club, if you please). Did you know that at half­time, after the first three “chukkas”, the crowd are all asked to go out on to the field and stomp on the “divets”? So there we all were, find­ing all the places where the hooves and mal­lets had chewed up the polo lawn, and stomp­ing the sod back in place! Of course, only John Cur­ran could make this a com­pet­i­tive sport, so he was prac­ti­cally mow­ing Avery down try­ing to stomp on all the divets SHE found.

On the last day of the visit, after Avery’s rid­ing les­son in Wim­ble­don, we moseyed out to the McBs’ for Sun­day lunch in Stroud. Incred­i­bly all four chil­dren were there, so John’s par­ents got to see the tow­er­ing thing that is Nick (who I first met when he was four, sob), shortly to leave his row­ing days at Eton behind and con­quer Yale Uni­ver­sity, and Emma who’s off to Exeter, and Rose whose birth announce­ment I dis­cov­ered in a box of mem­o­ra­bilia last week, and Una who was not even born when we last lived in Lon­don. How have they all grown so old, and so accom­plished? Every time we see that fam­ily I feel that it’s best just to skip the fiery crash and give Avery to them now. They’re such professionals!

John’s dad per­formed his usual neigh­bor­hood mir­a­cle and found us a local restau­rant to patron­ize, the Lucky Spot, right on South Aud­ley Street, so we went twice in a row and were much made over. Their strac­ciatelli soup, lemony and eggy, was just what the doc­tor ordered for my frag­ile health. We dis­cov­ered many hereto­fore unknown bus routes and went to the Tower of Lon­don, the Por­to­bello farmer’s mar­ket, shop­ping in Oxford Street, and every­where else you can imag­ine. Through it all we ate: even with my sad stom­ach, we ATE. Susan’s orange and gin­ger chicken curry, roasted pork spareribs (their left­overs made a superb pic­nic for the polo match), avo­cado salad galore, cream of red pep­per soup with fresh thyme, you name it. And pink gaz­pa­cho, for which I must give you the recipe because it’s sin­fully sim­ple and inex­pen­sive, and aside from a cucum­ber and an avo­cado you can eas­ily have every­thing on hand in your pantry:

Jeanne Grieger’s Pink Sum­mer Gazpacho

1 cup sliv­ered almonds or pine nuts
2 pieces white or wheat bread or 1 cup bread­crumbs
2 cans plum toma­toes
1/2 long hydro­ponic cucum­ber, or two small kir­bys, sliced
1/2 cup veg­etable oil
1/2 cup cider vine­gar (you can use bal­samic but it will change the color of the soup)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp chili pep­per or cayenne
salt and pep­per to taste
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup half and half
1 avo­cado, cut in small bite-size pieces

Pul­ver­ize the almonds or pine nuts in a Cuisi­nart, then whiz in the bread. Add the toma­toes, cucum­ber, oil and vine­gar and spices and pul­ver­ize until smooth. Pour into a very large bowl and add the chicken broth and half and half and blend well. Taste it and add more of what­ever spices or salt you think is needed. Chill thor­oughly and serve with a lit­tle group of avo­cado pieces mounded in the cen­ter. Deli­cious, and so good for you! If you like a more ele­gant soup, you can peel the cucum­ber first, or you can strain the soup. But I find the green bits and the nutty bits are very nice.

Sadly the inlaws have gone cal­lously home, leav­ing me with noth­ing more excit­ing to do than laun­dry. I caved to the pres­sure of my tiny wash­ing machine and yes­ter­day dropped off two huge bags of sheets, tow­els and John’s busi­ness shirts at a nice laun­dry in the Maryle­bone High Street. Sim­ply aban­doned it all.

So today I don’t get Avery back in my clutches until 5:30, due to the fever-pitch excite­ment of rehearsals for the school-wide pro­duc­tion of “Joseph and His Amaz­ing Tech­ni­color Dream­coat.” What I don’t know about Joseph’s 10 hap­less sib­lings, the many hues of the coat, and the end­less num­ber of rep­e­ti­tions of “AHA” isn’t worth know­ing. Andrew Lloyd Web­ber has a lot to answer for, in my hum­ble opin­ion, but I’m sure when it’s not just bur­bled at me in a taxi on the way to school or chor­tled at me as cook­ing imple­ments explode, it will be very charm­ing. The pro­duc­tion is on June 17 so we have a ways to go as far as expo­sure. Avery was astounded that her grand­par­ents did not imme­di­ately change their tick­ets and stay an extra twelve days in order to see the per­for­mance. They are such saints, I think they actu­ally con­sid­ered it. How we miss them. Now it’s time for MY par­ents to come! But I am afraid I have to wait until the fall for that delight.