Lon­don in July

It’s a first for us, spend­ing July away from Red Gate Farm.  And while I’ve grad­u­al­ly got used to ear­ly bits of July, even the Fourth of July here, the idea of spend­ing the whole of the month here is a bit of an adjustment.

Needs must.

At the end of this week, Avery goes off to spend ten days vol­un­teer­ing in Rus­sia, and while I recog­nise that it’s sil­ly of me to be ner­vous about it, I thought it was not too insane to want to stay just one con­ti­nent away while she’s there.  So we’ve dug in the sum­mer trench­es here in Lon­don, ready to enjoy what the month will bring.  So far it’s brought beau­ti­ful weather.

Barnes Pond is always a love­ly sight, whether I’m cycling past on my way to the Sat­ur­day farmer’s mar­ket or wheel­ing my Home-Start babes around it to find the duck­lings and cygnets to admire.  My beloved vil­lage High Street above, com­plete with cosy bak­ery, fruit and veg shop, phar­ma­cy and newa­gent, basks in the love­ly after­noon blink­ing sun.

We’ve been to a sim­ply sub­lime the­atre expe­ri­ence, “The Cru­cible.”  I ful­ly admit that much of my ambi­tion to sit through the 2 3/4 hours of this play stemmed from my ado­ra­tion of its star, Richard Armitage, a long-stand­ing crush of mine from “North and South” and “The Vic­ar of Dib­ley” days.

He has lost none of his mag­net­ic appeal (watch for the com­plete­ly gra­tu­itous shirt-off face-wash­ing scene), but the play con­tains more than heart­throb moments.  Hon­est­ly, I nev­er knew near­ly three hours in a the­atre to pass so quick­ly.  Every­one in the cast is note­wor­thy and the puri­tan­i­cal reli­gious fever quite time­less.  You can see it until Sep­tem­ber (although how all the shout­ing actors will main­tain their voic­es I can­not imag­ine), so do.

July has brought a vis­i­tor, too, in the shape of dear Sam, who in his teach­ing hol­i­days land­ed here for a spot of domes­tic bliss (he does­n’t have time to cook for him­self as he should), and fam­i­ly life.  He’s the per­fect stand-in for Avery’s brother.

Sam’s vis­its are a chance for me to have com­pa­ny in the kitchen, test­ing recipes, find­ing impre­cise instruc­tions, faulty mea­sure­ments, bad prose.  We exper­i­ment­ed with a divine dessert.

Rosie’s Celes­tial Amaret­to Choco­late Mousse

(serves 6)

60g/2 oz amaret­to bis­cuits (approx­i­mate­ly 12), crushed

150g/6 oz high-con­tent choco­late (70% or more)

1 tbsp salt­ed but­ter, or unsalt­ed plus pinch salt

1 tbsp strong espres­so coffee

1 tbsp Amaret­to liqueuer

4 eggs, separated

1 tbsp white sugar

300 ml/1 1/4 c double/heavy cream

Line  a loaf tin with plas­tic wrap, then scat­ter half the crushed bis­cuits on the bot­tom. Melt the choco­late in a bowl placed over sim­mer­ing water, then stir in the but­ter, cof­fee and Amaret­to.  Set aside to cool.

Whisk the egg whites with an elec­tric mix­er or by hand until stiff.  Set aside.  Whisk the egg yolks and sug­ar togeth­er until thick­ened, creamy and about dou­bled in vol­ume, and set aside.  Whip the cream until just whipped.

Fold the egg whites into the choco­late mix­ture, then the yolk mix­ture, then the whipped cream.  Pour into loaf pan and scat­ter remain­ing bis­cuits on top.  Refrig­er­ate for at least 8 hours or overnight.  Ser­vice in slices with fresh berries, if liked, or whipped cream.  A glass of Amaret­to on the side would be love­ly as well.  Alter­nate­ly, the mousse can be spooned into glass­es and left to set there, as a par­fait rather than a slice.

We food shopped as only cook­ing nuts can, enjoy­ing read­ing every label, com­par­ing brands, get­ting dis­tract­ed and buy­ing more than we want­ed.  Bor­ough Mar­ket in par­tic­u­lar led to this sort of diversion.

Oh, the heir­loom toma­toes, the wal­nut basil pesto, the pork and sea­weed (seri­ous­ly!) sausages, the creamy burrata…

Lest you won­der, the pork and sea­weed sausage made an excep­tion­al addi­tion to home­made piz­za, which is so much bet­ter than store-bought, or deliv­ery, that you will won­der why you don’t make it every week.  It’s very sim­ple and the dough — which has the ben­e­fit of very easy but CRU­CIAL sea­son­ing — does not have to rise.

Home­made Piz­za With Moz­zarel­la, Mush­rooms, Red Onions, Hot Pep­pers, Black Olives and Sausage (arugu­la optional)

(dough makes 4 piz­zas, top­pings make 1 which will serve 2 people)

DOUGH:

300 grams/10 ounces/2 cups plain flour

1 packet/2tsps dried yeast granules

1 tbsp Ital­ian seasoning

1 tsp each: onion pow­der, gar­lic powder

250 grams/8 ounces/1 cup warm water

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp milk

SAUCE:

1 soup-size tin of plum tomatoes

hand­ful basil

1 tsp each: gar­lic salt, gar­lic pow­der, onion powder

TOP­PINGS:

250 grams/1/2 pound-ish grat­ed moz­zarel­la cheese

8 brown mush­rooms, sliced

1/2 red onion, sliced thin

2 small hot green pep­pers, sliced

hand­ful black oil-cured olives, pitted

4 pork sausages, cooked and sliced

hand­ful grat­ed Parmesan

driz­zle truf­fled olive oil

arugu­la leaves, if wanted

In a very large bowl, mix togeth­er with a fork all the dry ingre­di­ents, then mix the water, oil and milk and pour it onto the dry stuff.  Mix with a fork and then your hands, bring­ing togeth­er all the bits of flour.  If you need a bit more water, just add it in sprin­kles.  When the dough hangs togeth­er and has incor­po­rat­ed all the flour, knead it gen­tly with the ball of your hand, this way and that, turn­ing and squish­ing, until it is a fine smooth blob.  Use the dough imme­di­ate­ly, or if you have time, let it rise in a warm place, cov­ered, for an hour, then punch it down.  This dough works either way.

Put the toma­toes, basil and sea­son­ings in the food proces­sor and pulse till smooth.

Place your piz­za stone in your very hot (220C/425F) oven for at least half an hour before the dough is ready.  Now pinch off about 1/4 of the dough and cov­er your clean coun­ter­top with flour, as well as your hands, and the ball of dough, and your rolling pin.  Roll the dough out, flour­ing lib­er­al­ly on top and under­neath, until it is the size of your piz­za stone.  Take the stone from the oven, place the dough on it and bake for about 10 min­utes or until thor­ough­ly dry and a bit crisp.

Spoon on toma­to sauce.  Pile on your top­pings as even­ly as pos­si­ble.  Driz­zle the olive oil over all and bake again until cheese is a bit melty, per­haps anoth­er 8–10 minutes.

Does your piz­za crust go through this schiz­o­phrenic pit­ta phase?  I know not why mine does, but it’s a lot of fun.  It just has to be pricked with a fork and smacked a bit.

And of course the moment the skies threat­ened rain, we jumped onto the train to vis­it Pot­ters Fields, now not only paved, but num­bered as the true park­ing lot (until March) it is.

To remind our­selves why we want to live here, we walked around the wall to the gar­dens.  It will be so peace­ful, look­ing out of our win­dows onto this sum­mer vista, someday.

Sad­ly, Sam had to leave us for his real life, and we set­tled down into the Barnes rou­tine, which includ­ed for the first time the Barnes Fair!  A much-vaunt­ed tra­di­tion, the Fair has grown from a hum­ble affair of a few stalls boast­ing local hand­i­crafts and a glass of Pim­m’s or two, to this great­ly antic­i­pat­ed extravaganza.

All of Barnes, Mort­lake, Kew and Rich­mond seemed to have descend­ed on our lit­tle vil­lage.  I bought presents for my moth­er’s upcom­ing birth­day (I shall say no more because she may read this), a cute t‑shirt for myself, elder­flower cor­dial for Avery and me. It was a hot and beau­ti­ful Sat­ur­day afternoon.

Intrigu­ing as this offer was, we did not inves­ti­gate fur­ther (it was the res­cue cade­t’s tent).  £2.50 seemed incred­i­bly rea­son­able, though.

Since one of my absolute favorite things to do is to hang around the church help­ing out for some event or oth­er, I had hap­pi­ly spent the pre­vi­ous after­noon feed­ing lunch to the love­ly vol­un­teers who organ­ised the bike sale.  The church was filled with bicycles.

The vol­un­teer tent was full of per­son­al­i­ties.  How I would love to write a nov­el about them all some­day.  I think, after long hours spent in close prox­im­i­ty with church vol­un­teers, that there is no com­mu­ni­ty in the world so full of char­ac­ters: the cheer­ful vic­ar in what Avery described as “cler­i­cal casu­al,” the mild, patient church sec­re­tary with a dar­ling King Charles spaniel on the lead, the effer­ves­cent bell-ring­ing teacher who has noth­ing but appre­cia­tive praise for her helpers, the teenag­er whose found his call­ing repair­ing bikes.  I was able to pair up sev­er­al of my fel­low yoga stu­dents with their wives, dressed in per­fect Eng­lish week­end garb and all say­ing their lines per­fect­ly.  “I am per­ish­ing for a cup of tea…”  Minus the Body in the Bellcham­ber, it was, as always, an after­noon straight out of Agatha Christie.

So at the Fair, I was hap­py to see that the Bike Sale in the church­yard was going gang­busters in the hot sun.

I took my place at the fold­ing table ready to take mon­ey for vis­i­tors to climb the 70+ steps to the top of the bell­tow­er, to see the views.  It soon became appar­ent, how­ev­er, that the views were only a small rea­son to turn up at the tow­er.  The real attrac­tion: Ted­dy Para­chut­ing.  My ring­ing friend Flo­ra was in charge, patient­ly attach­ing the silken para­chutes to the chil­dren’s beloved ted­dies and fling­ing them off the tow­er to float slow­ly downward.

At the bot­tom, in the court­yard by the cof­fee shop, par­ents and well-wish­ers gath­ered to wit­ness the excitement.

It will be seen, then, that the first half of July has not been dull.  What the sec­ond has in store, besides deli­cious sum­mery things to eat, remains to be seen.

One thing is cer­tain, though.  Avery will be missed.  What fun it will be to hear all the Russ­ian tales upon her return.