March mad­ness

I can’t believe it.  It’s hap­pened again.  A whole month between posts.

I keep think­ing life will slow down and that “tomor­row” will be qui­et enough for me to sit down and rel­ish all the activ­i­ty.  But every day brings more, more, more.  So I have ran­dom­ly cho­sen “today” so I can final­ly tell you what’s been going on in our busy lives.

Lots of writ­ing!  I am ter­ri­bly excit­ed to be the Lon­don cor­re­spon­dent for an up-and-com­ing food­ie web­site, “Hand­picked Nation.”  This arti­cle is the result of what my fam­i­ly will report are many, many eggs being eat­en in taste tests, much can­vass­ing of my friends.  Do you refrig­er­ate your eggs?  Why or why not?  Do you buy free range, organ­ic?  Eggs every­where, in a nutshell.

Next up is a piece on pork bel­ly, a won­der­ful ingre­di­ent very pop­u­lar here in Eng­land, and in Asia, and just mak­ing its way around Amer­i­can kitchens and restaurants.

And the­atre!  We’ve been to a mar­vel­lous pro­duc­tion of “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream”, at the Lyric the­atre in Ham­mer­smith. I hate to tell you that it’s closed now, but if you ever get a chance to see the Fil­ter The­atre Group do any­thing, RUN don’t walk.  Avery’s been strug­gling to write what is ulti­mate­ly a bril­liant essay, ana­lyz­ing the pro­duc­tion.  A play with­in a play with­in a play, etc.  Fourth wall?  For­get it.

And then it was “Being Shake­speare” with Avery and a school friend, and whilst it was impres­sive, I must warn you that you’ll have to go pre­pared to care a LOT about the Bard.   I might not be quite enough of a devot­ed fan to have appre­ci­at­ed it as much as oth­ers might.  A one-man show, almost no props!  All about Will.

The most impres­sive thing about the play was — as is any­thing to do with Shake­speare here in Eng­land — is the alive-ness of the man him­self.  We feel he is quite here, with us, judg­ing the pro­duc­tion.  “Would­n’t he love that ‘Mid­sum­mer’?” we ask, and we all feel he has an opinion.

And Simon Cal­low is a nation­al trea­sure, in the role or in any oth­er role.  Love that man.  Once, 20 years ago, John and I were com­ing out of a Lon­don restau­rant and John hid around the cor­ner of the entrance, to jump out at me com­ing along behind him and shout BOO!  Only some­how Simon Cal­low had got between him and me, so poor Simon got the shock!

And then we had Amer­i­can vis­i­tors, as we so often do, and I took them to see “Out of Sync,” a vast­ly impres­sive art instal­la­tion at Som­er­set House.

And the cook­ing that has been going on!  Even more exit­ing to me than the actu­al cook­ing is the new col­lab­o­ra­tion that has grown up between me and Avery.

As you all know, I strug­gle with the evo­lu­tion from lit­tle-girl Avery to grow­ing-up Avery.  There are so many lit­tle mile­stones that some­how knock me side­ways: the first trip home from school alone (no more fun hang­ing out­side the school to walk home with her), of course no more read­ing aloud (she reads ten books now to my one, and my dears, the dystopia!).  The first time she got her­self home from see­ing a play.  Tomor­row in fact, she goes off with a school group to spend five days in York­shire, writ­ing poet­ry.  I have nev­er in my life writ­ten a poem!  She is grow­ing up.

And so it has been an absolute joy for us to find some­thing we like to do togeth­er, some­thing that points out the utter won­der­ful­ness of hav­ing a near­ly grown per­son to share our lives.  She can ele­vate the hum­blest dish to emerge from my kitchen, into a work of art.  I give you: cele­ri­ac remoulade, inspired by my lunch with my friend Caz at La Fro­magerie in Marylebone.

Cele­ri­ac Remoulade

(serves lots of peo­ple at a picnic)

1  head cele­ri­ac (cel­ery root), peeled

dress­ing: olive oil, may­on­naise, whole­grain mus­tard, lemon juice (in pro­por­tions to suit your taste)

Here is where any obses­sive-com­pul­sive ten­den­cies will come in handy.  Juli­enne the cele­ri­ac by cut­ting VERY thin slices and then cut­ting those slices into VERY thin slices.  Toss with the dress­ing and serve straightaway.

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You can see what I mean about her tal­ent.  She takes any dish and finds the most excit­ing pre­sen­ta­tion, the most unex­pect­ed and inspir­ing angle.  Look at our East­er ham, our feast with Daisy and her family.

And my lat­est exper­i­ments with aubergine/eggplant.  Lus­cious with olive oil, gar­lic, toma­toes and onions, chick­peas and Parmesan.

We have had such a good time togeth­er.  We envi­sion a cook­book in fact!  A col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two of us.  In July she will go off to Brook­lyn for a two-week pho­tog­ra­phy camp and after that I can only IMAG­INE the bril­liance.  What can they pos­si­bly teach her?  It has all been a tremen­dous com­fort and com­pen­sa­tion for the dis­ap­pear­ance of a sticky lit­tle hand to hold, a tod­dler on my lap.

And the evening she popped her head round the bed­room door, around 11:30.  “So, what’s your opin­ion on Niet­zsche?”  You don’t get that sort of dis­cus­sion with a kinder­gart­ner.  At least not one I’d want to live with.  So we discuss.

More vis­i­tors arrived!  John’s sis­ter and her adorable fam­i­ly, fresh from Min­neso­ta and on their way to Paris, spent four bliss­ful days with us.  The de rigeuer open-top bus tour!

And the ensu­ing boat ride back up the Thames.  Home for a rich dish of mac­a­roni and cheese and a huge casse­role of spinach, and the first of many book talks between Avery and Cathy, the only per­son I know who reads even more than Avery does!  The books piled up on the din­ing room table and they com­pared, “You HAVE to read this!  WHAT?  you haven’t read THIS?”

Up the next day for a trip to the Globe The­atre, where believe it or not, we encoun­tered the Fil­ter Group’s head actor, Ed Gaugh­an from “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream”!

We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for what project he might be bring­ing to the Globe.  We dis­cussed this and many oth­er issues of Eng­lish life over a superb fish and chips lunch at the Swan Cafe, linked to the Globe.  Twice-cooked chips, gar­lic may­on­naise… heav­en.  What fun to have fam­i­ly to eat with, laugh with, and be tourists with.

From the Globe we saun­tered over to the Tate Mod­ern where we all fell in love with Do Ho Suh’s superb instal­la­tion, a meta­phys­i­cal poly­ester stair­way to heaven.

And the Ger­man artist we had encoun­tered in the Bun­destag in Berlin!  The nail man, Gun­ther Ueck­er, whose work reminds me so much of Eva Hesse.  Here is Uecker:

And here is Hesse:

There is some­thing to dis­cov­er on every trip to the Tate, and thank good­ness for our vis­i­tors who get us out of the house, away from our com­put­ers, and dash­ing about the city remem­ber­ing how much fun it is to live here.

Then it was to see “Matil­da: The Musi­cal,” I think the best musi­cal I have ever seen.  Clever, accom­plished, and anchored by a per­for­mance by Cleo Demetri­ou, one of the four lit­tle girls play­ing the title role.  How does she man­age to car­ry an entire cast and audi­ence with her so mas­ter­ful­ly?  Go, if you get the chance.

Sun­day found me nurs­ing a mis­er­able cold I had been try­ing to ignore, so after ear­ly bell­ring­ing I begged off going to the British Muse­um and curled up on the sofa, pop­ping up only to pre­pare din­ner for the return­ing tourists.  Here is our love­ly chick­en dish, shred­ded the next day for “every­thing on a pancake.”

Vine­gar Chicken

(serves about 6)

1 whole chick­en, cut into legs and breasts

2 cups malt vinegar

2 sprigs each fresh rose­mary and thyme

salt and pepper

1/2 cup flour

2 tsps each: dried basil, dried oregano, onion pow­der, gar­lic pow­der, smoked paprika

3 tbsps sun­flower or oth­er veg­etable oil

Soak the chick­en pieces in the vine­gar and herbs, salt and pep­per for at least four hours, refrig­er­at­ed.  Com­bine flour with spices in a seal­able plas­tic bag and shake chick­en pieces in the mix­ture.  Lay chick­en pieces skin-side down in an oven­proof dish in which you’ve poured the oil.  Bake at 425F/220C for half an hour, then turn over skin-side up and bake anoth­er half hour.  Tangy, crunchy and deli­cious!  Many thanks to my old friend Jer­ry for this recipe.

And our vis­i­tors heart­less­ly aban­doned us for their adven­tures in the City of Light.  Our March mad­ness was over, and what a won­der­ful adven­ture it was.

April has only been more insane, so far, with din­ner dates (sushi!), a lunch date at the Cor­ner Room in Beth­nal Green (sea trout, squid, chori­zo crumbs and veni­son in ash, any­one?), a con­cert and… did you all hear about the dra­ma yes­ter­day in the 158th Oxford and Cam­bridge Boat Race, pass­ing down the Thames just across the road from our house?

 “There’s a swim­mer in the water!” we sud­den­ly noticed.  “He’ll be cut to rib­bons by the motor­boats, if he isn’t decap­i­tat­ed by an oar first!”  And the race was stopped, right before our eyes, whilst the crazy guy — protest­ing the elite nature of the race! —  was fished out and arrested.

How amaz­ing that the first time we paid atten­tion to this his­toric race, cross­ing the street to walk along the path and gaze out at the riv­er, such dra­ma happens!

Hap­py East­er to you all, and a huge thank you to my friend Lucy for this mag­nif­i­cent East­er dessert of a choco­late bas­ket, filled with straw­ber­ries (pho­to cour­tesy of Avery, nat­u­ral­ly).  May your April be as sweet as ours has been, so far.

I promise not to leave it so long next time to keep you post­ed on our fun.