nest­ing, and Camp Curran

It’s high summer.

We’re deeply set­tled into our Red Gate Farm rou­tine of hot, hot July days when you can hard­ly breathe on the ten­nis court (why on earth are we ON the ten­nis court in 95+ degree heat?).  We play until we run out of water to drink.

Today the quar­tet known as “The Grumpy Old Men” were brav­ing the heat, although they snagged the shady court, as usu­al.  It’s nev­er quite sum­mer until we’ve over­heard their rau­cous com­men­tary across the courts.  “Godd***it, Ira, that ball was so in, I could­n’t even see straight.”  “Bob, that shot would’ve been a great one — if it had been GOOD.  But it was­n’t, you fool!”  I am sore­ly tempt­ed to pre­tend to be a local reporter and inter­view them, try­ing to get to the bot­tom of the mys­tery of why they put them­selves through the mis­ery.  Plus I want a pho­to that tru­ly rep­re­sents them in all their elder­ly, cur­mud­geon­ly glo­ry.  Watch this space.

We’ve done our annu­al tour of the prop­er­ty, check­ing on the pond, the brook, the per­ilous state of the woodshed.

This year there has been a sug­ges­tion from my farmer friend that we might “bor­row” some chick­ens, to live in our very own chick­en house.  This sug­ges­tion required a vis­it to said house, with leaf-blow­er and broom in hand, and now, should chick­ens become avail­able, they have a very nice place to live.

The neigh­bors have been by with offer­ings of just-picked zuc­chi­ni which gets mar­ried up with gar­lic, olive oil and Parme­san with­in minutes…

And invi­ta­tions to fireworks…

The chip­munks are back for the annu­al gath­er­ing-up of the sun­flower seeds and peanuts we shame­less­ly put out for them.  I actu­al­ly got to pet one.

Avery’s in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on her sum­mer con­fer­ence, two weeks of “Intel­li­gence and Nation­al Secu­ri­ty” and “Polit­i­cal Action and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy,” and her absence has left me with hands that are a bit emp­ti­er and ends that are a bit loos­er, so I found myself last week in a mood I can only call “nest­ing.”  It began with clean­ing all the sil­ver.  I had for­got­ten how much I love John’s col­lec­tion of inkwells.

Do you ever wake up one day and real­ize that your sur­round­ings have become a bit invis­i­ble to you?  The art on the walls, the objects on the tables, the arrange­ment of fur­ni­ture, every­thing has become a blur of famil­iar­i­ty, and as such, unsee­able.  The thing to do when this hap­pens is to roll up your sleeves, open your eyes, and mix it all up a bit.  Fill in emp­ty spots in book­shelves, switch things out of pic­ture frames, take stuff off the walls and tables that you’re tired of.  With­out spend­ing a sin­gle dime, every­thing looks dif­fer­ent, and fresh.

You find that a gift of milk­glass from across the road, for­got­ten because it sat in the same place for years, takes on new beau­ty in a new place.

Even a pile of old mag­a­zines, beloved because they con­tain writ­ing by the famous lady who used to live across the road (the milk­glass was hers), can be over­looked in a book­case.  Bring them out, dust them off, give them some space.

John got into the spir­it of things and hung art in new places.  Don’t be afraid to take down things you’ve out­grown, have got tired of (that’s what the space under beds is for, after all).  You don’t have to love every­thing you’ve ever owned, I decid­ed.  I just kept out the things I real­ly want­ed to look at, right now.

As a reward for all our hard work, we retired to the ter­race to breathe in the steamy air, scent­ed with a nice pot of fresh thyme.

Of course I’ve been cook­ing!  But hot food (unless it’s corn on the cob) is ver­boten.  After all, there are enough cold delights to last a very long time, at least for this heat wave.

Lob­ster Bisque

(serves at least six)

4 lob­sters, about a pound and a quar­ter each, steamed and chilled

6 ears corn, boiled for 4 minutes

1 white onion, rough­ly chopped

3 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped

4 stalks cel­ery, rough­ly chopped

1/2 cup heavy cream

hand­ful chopped chives

This is a fun­ny recipe because as it hap­pened, it cut across two dinners.

For your first din­ner, enjoy a lob­ster each and three ears of corn.  Quite pos­si­ble the best din­ner on the plan­et.  Reserve the third and fourth lobsters.

When you can’t eat anoth­er bite, put all the shells and legs from your lob­sters, plus your corn cobs, in a very large stock­pot, and add the onion, gar­lic and cel­ery.  Cov­er with cold water and bring to a sim­mer.  Sim­mer for sev­er­al hours, then strain into anoth­er pot and refrig­er­ate overnight.

For your sec­ond din­ner, pour 6 cups of the lob­ster stock into a medi­um saucepan and add the meat from the left­over lob­sters.  Puree with a hand blender until the soup reach­es the desired con­sis­ten­cy — very chunky, or very smooth, or some­where in between.  Add cream, blend again, top with chives, and serve.  This soup would also be very nice hot, in the winter.

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Of course you could eas­i­ly do this with­out the first din­ner.  Just buy two lob­sters, remove the meat and make stock from the shells, corn and oth­er veg­eta­bles.  But it’s so nice to enjoy the ingre­di­ents first once, and then again in anoth­er incarnation.

While we’re on the sub­ject of cold soup, one of the best things you can make and eat in hot weath­er is my friend Jean­ne’s “Pink Sum­mer Gaz­pa­cho.”  Unlike tra­di­tion­al gaz­pa­chos which are chunky and bright­ly col­ored with toma­to, pep­pers and the like, this one is pureed and as such, sim­ply wants a straw to be slurped up as quick­ly as possible.

No sum­mer would be com­plete with­out creamy, cold vichys­soise, nat­u­ral­ly, and I’ve already made (and we’ve eat­en) two huge batch­es.  The go-to soup for all the mas­sive par­ties we used to give in New York for art open­ings and Avery’s birth­day, it’s always a winner.

Avery’s been in touch to let us know she’s hav­ing fun in Wash­ing­ton, despite the sear­ing heat.  Thank good­ness for an air-con­di­tioned dor­mi­to­ry room and class­rooms!  She reports being named Vice-Pres­i­dent for their first sim­u­la­tion (a pow­er black­out on the West Coast), and now she’s a Repub­li­can from North Car­oli­na for some sort of pol­i­cy debates.  “RINO,” she assures us with a grin in her typ­ing voice.  “Repub­li­can In Name Only.”  It will be so much fun to get her back next week­end and hear all about what’s happened.

To con­sole us in our kid-less house­hold, we bor­rowed our nieces Jane and Mol­ly and Kate from across the road, for a bit of week­end Camp Cur­ran.  So many peo­ple have found Red Gate Farm to be a nice place to go, over the years.  It’s the tram­po­line, for one thing.

Pos­si­bly the best invest­ment in fun that has ever been made here, the tram­po­line is the cen­ter of most of the games that go on here dur­ing the sum­mers, and even in the fall and spring when we’re not here.  There’s just some­thing about the free­dom to go up and down that makes kids happy.

Oh, and the horsey jumps, relics from Avery’s child­hood and just as pop­u­lar with the next “gen­er­a­tion.”

My good­ness, those three girls have ener­gy!  It was time to rope in some local live­stock.  We car­ried the min­now trap from the Big Red Barn over to Kate’s pond, dropped it in, and wait­ed patient­ly for it to fill up.

 Kate’s sum­mer­house by the pond is the per­fect place to escape the sun, wait­ing for those fish.

Pay dirt!  A trap full of jump­ing, writhing fish.  We brought them, in a bowl of cold water, over to our pond, where the girls first played with them in the bowl, then dropped them into the pond one by one.  Kate’s par­ents came over to join in the fun.

Me: “I’m not sure what the ASP­CA would have to say about this activity.”

Dave: “The ASP­CA wants you to know that most fish were harmed in this game.”

All in good fun, how­ev­er, and the min­nows resur­faced, unharmed after all, lat­er in the pond to be fed bits of hot dog bun and cat food.

We humans retreat­ed to the pic­nic table for hot dogs, piz­za, and peanut but­ter sandwiches.

Kate: “Oof, I’m full.  I’m sor­ry I can’t fin­ish my hot dog.”

Mol­ly: “Me too.  I can’t eat anoth­er bite.”

Jane: “Me too!”

John: “Oh, too bad, because there’s vanil­la ice cream and choco­late sauce.”

All girls: “Oh, we can always fit in ice cream!”

With rasp­ber­ries for Jane.  Every­one was happy.

Final­ly, Kate went home across the road and our two set­tled down to sleep (a bit reluc­tant­ly, it has to be said, but about four hun­dred pic­ture books lat­er, all was quiet).

In fact, it was far too qui­et when they went home the next day!  We met up with Jill and Joel at the Lau­rel Din­er (more on THAT bril­liant place in anoth­er post!) for a fab­u­lous bacon-filled brunch, and then they were off, leav­ing John and me to a sun-filled after­noon full of lots of bird­song, recov­er­ing from our week­end of shriek­ing, adorable girls.

It’s still too hot to cook!  In fact, tomor­row promis­es to be the hottest of them all, and nat­u­ral­ly I’m sched­uled to go into the city for a girly lunch with friends.  The pave­ment will be melt­ing, no doubt.  I’ll be very pleased if I get any­thing bet­ter than the BLT we had last night, messy with fresh pesto.

The nicest thing of all is to look back on the last week or so and rec­og­nize it as the sum­mer­time we look for­ward to all year in Lon­don: the red of the barns, the blue of the sky, the green of the grass (well, sort of, where it isn’t sun-burned to a crisp) and the white of the fence (well, sort of, where it isn’t peel­ing and needs new paint).  With all the right peo­ple, and all the right food, sum­mer is just what the doc­tor ordered.