last Lon­don joys before I go

John spent yes­ter­day on a tour of Bru­tal­ist archi­tec­ture at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty — and you thought BELL­RING­ING was an eso­teric pas­sion! — and came upon this build­ing, future aca­d­e­m­ic home of our daugh­ter, she hopes.  How else can she com­bine her sick imag­i­na­tion with her keen judge of char­ac­ter AND knowl­edge of Russ­ian?  All she has to do is get into Cambridge.

While he was absorb­ing the breeze­block and tiny pinched hor­i­zon­tal win­dows which are his delight, Avery was sleep­ing until 11, as befits a hard­work­ing future spy, and I, I was ring­ing my first rounds!  This means, for the unini­ti­at­ed, that I took my place for the first time among my fel­low five ringers, and upon a sig­nal from the first bell to ring, we all rang in down­ward-tune suc­ces­sion, each bell in its place, with prop­er tim­ing between the blows.  SCARY!  To hear the result of my ring­ing spread­ing out over the vil­lage, keep­ing my place as fourth in suc­ces­sion, over and over.  I wish I could tell you how it sounds.

And it went PER­FECT­LY.  I stayed in my place, my teacher hav­ing told me before we began, “Just you fol­low what­ev­er Giles does.  When you see him begin to pull, YOU pull, because that’s just the space of time need­ed between bells.  Don’t obsess, don’t pan­ic, just fol­low what­ev­er Giles does.”  “That sounds like a ter­ri­ble idea,” joked Giles in his turn!

It was beyond exhil­a­rat­ing to take my place, final­ly to serve the pur­pose that all these lessons have led to.  Ulti­mate­ly, when I get a bit more prac­tice, I can ring the “call to ser­vice” with my fellows.

HEAV­EN!  The only thing I could­n’t do was to stop on time!  In order to stop, you must get your bell right to the top of the bal­ance so it STAYS.  It’s hard­er than it sounds to do, and I’m afraid the vil­lage was treat­ed to the sound of my bell ring­ing at least four times alone, after every­one else had com­pe­tent­ly “stood down.”  It will come!  Details.  I can’t describe the sense of accom­plish­ment, and of cama­raderie, that I felt when my bell was final­ly set and every­one applaud­ed!  How lucky I am to have found these peo­ple to guide me along the way.

“We could­n’t have you going off to Amer­i­ca with­out know­ing how to ring rounds,”  my tutor Edmund said stout­ly.  “But they’re not expect­ing me to!“I said, laugh­ing.  “Well, now you’ll sur­prise them.”

This was the scene, last week, at the final social event for the love­ly group of par­ents at Avery’s school who work togeth­er to keep lit­tle extras around the place going.  I rep­re­sent Lost Prop­er­ty, of course (in all I do, in fact, my heavy respon­si­bil­i­ties are nev­er far from my mind), John has been in charge of all offi­cial mail­ings to par­ents about our activ­i­ties, and then there are the Ladies Who Arrange Flow­ers, the Ladies Who Arrange The­atre Out­ings To Raise Mon­ey, and so on.  We gath­er every sum­mer term to gos­sip, say good­bye to the out­go­ing head of our group, and to eat deli­cious food in some­one’s beau­ti­ful con­ser­va­to­ry, as you see.

I took a sal­ad of her­itage toma­toes, fresh arti­choke hearts and bur­ra­ta, that creami­est of all pos­si­ble moz­zarel­las, with a sim­ple dress­ing of lemon juice and super-intense olive oil.  But that was the least of the offer­ings.  Elspeth, the host­ess, had made a sal­ad of cold bas­mati rice and poached chick­en, a tart of spinach and feta cheese with pinenuts, and espe­cial­ly for me, cele­ri­ac enthu­si­ast, a sal­ad of the shred­ded cel­ery root with toma­toes, whole grain mus­tard and white wine vine­gar.  When I make it, I will share the recipe.

But a sug­ges­tion I can give you, for these hot sum­mer days, is a plat­ter of crunchy baguette slices, topped with any­thing and every­thing that takes your fancy.

These lit­tle delights were topped with moz­zarel­la and goats cheese for Avery, and that plus avo­ca­do slices, halved tiny toma­toes, fresh home­made pesto, and our savoury favorite: anchovies mashed with but­ter and sim­mered until liq­uid.  That mix­ture is sim­ply the ulti­mate in uma­mi, that mys­te­ri­ous, savoury “fifth fla­vor” that is so much the rage these days.

This is the per­fect meal for a hot, HOT day when your Aga is still heat­ing up the kitchen because you can’t bear to turn it off.  All you have to do is toast the baguette slices, melt the but­ter and anchovies, and then BACK AWAY from the stove and assem­ble your lit­tle bites in cool com­fort, some­where far from the heat.

Thank good­ness the heat broke for my day with Bee, a vir­tu­al friend who, until Wednes­day, I had known only by her bril­liant­ly thought­ful and inspir­ing blog, “From the Desk of Bee Drunk­en.”  As you will see when you begin to read her insight­ful and mov­ing posts, I was very, very excit­ed to meet her final­ly, in per­son.  We made a plan to find each oth­er at La Fro­magerie, sim­ply the best of all pos­si­ble cheese­mon­gers, in Maryle­bone.  And from the moment we met, it was love at first sight!  Our “hel­lo” quick­ly turned into a warm hug, which the mor­phed into a five-hour con­ver­sa­tion that did not begin to make a dent in what we had to say to each other.

We closed down the cof­fee ser­vice at La Fro­magerie, and mean­dered down the High Street to Le Relais de Venise, the best spot for steak frites in the world out­side Paris — Bee is a Tex­an, and she knows her steak — and pro­ceed­ed to close THEM down as well, talk­ing with fever­ish glee.  I had tak­en along my cam­era to get an image of her, but we were far too busy for me to remem­ber to do it!  We dis­cussed the joys of writ­ing, the joys of daugh­ters, our many moves around the world, our favorite books.  Would you believe we share two favorite authors, nei­ther of them well-known!  We both believe the nov­els of Lau­rie Col­win to be the apogee of fic­tion, and the mem­oirs of Anne  Mor­row Lind­bergh to be the high­est lev­el of the genre to be found.  “When I find out some­one loves Lau­rie Col­win,” Bee said, “it’s not that I know I will LIKE the per­son, but I know we will meet on a very impor­tant level.”

But we DID like each oth­er!  There is an irre­place­able joy in dis­cov­er­ing a new soulmate.

As impor­tant as shar­ing a hap­py after­noon filled with laugh­ter, though, is the knowl­edge that I have anoth­er ally in this per­plex­ing busi­ness of liv­ing.  When life throws me the occa­sion­al day of despair, of inex­plic­a­ble lone­li­ness, or unname­able dread, when even the com­pa­ny of my beloved fam­i­ly can­not quite lift my gloom, I am so often saved by reach­ing to one of the girl­friends I cher­ish.  So often, their blend of humor, empa­thy, ener­gy and love lifts me up.  I am so lucky that in Bee, I have one more friend in my arsenal.

This knowl­edge makes life a lit­tle more deli­cious, and mixed with a lit­tle fresh pesto, I am all set.

Fresh Pesto

(serves four as sauce for starter with pasta)

4 cups loose­ly packed whole fresh basil leaves
¾ cup extra vir­gin olive oil
juice ½ lemon
3 tbsps pine nuts
3 tbsps grat­ed pecori­no or Parme­san cheese
2 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped
pinch sea salt to taste

Place all ingre­di­ents in food proces­sor and blend till smooth, tak­ing care to scrape the pesto away from the sides of the proces­sor to incor­po­rate all bits.

This pesto is equal­ly good as a dress­ing for toma­to sal­ad with moz­zarella, or driz­zled over a white fish like cod, sea bream, sea bass or lemon sole. Try adding a spoon­ful to any vinai­grette. It is love­ly treat­ed like a sal­sa verde and served along­side grilled pork, beef or lamb. Stir some into mashed pota­toes for the side dish of your life.

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To think that a week from today I’ll be at my moth­er’s house in Indi­anapo­lis, far away from the exot­ic cheeses and bells and school events of Lon­don.  A few days after that, I will be hap­pi­ly ensconced in my lit­tle dormered house in Con­necti­cut, look­ing out at the big red barn, mak­ing Amer­i­can plans, see­ing Amer­i­can friends and fam­i­ly, in a dif­fer­ent world, real­ly.  I am ready for the break, actu­al­ly.  I will spend the sum­mer reflect­ing on all the joys of Lon­don life.  See you there.