of mat­zoh balls, liver, and dentistry

Let’s see, this evening we’re in a moment of calm between an adven­ture in Gold­ers Green, a mag­nif­i­cent week­end in the coun­try, and Avery’s den­tal surgery tomor­row. We’ll start with the mat­zoh balls.

Because that is why I went to Gold­ers Green, deep in North Lon­don. Hav­ing spent a fair amount of my adult life in New York City, I feel a deep and abid­ing love for most things Jew­ish, and all things Jew­ish food. Chicken soup with mat­zoh balls. Potato Latkes, pas­trami, bagels. I miss it all. And so when my foodie friend Janet arrived for one of her all-too-infreqent trips to Lon­don from LA, off we went to Gold­ers Green, on a pil­grim­age to find the per­fect spot for lunch. And we did, in Blooms.

“What are knei­d­lach?” I asked my adorable young waitress.

“Those are the, how do you say, the… noo­dles. Homemade.”

“Thank you. What are kreplach?”

“Those are the dumplings, they are filled with minced meat.”

“Excel­lent. What are lokschen?”

“Those are the mat­zoh balls.”

“Fine, I’ll have chicken soup with ALL of them.”

This was lovely. Golden, rich, sim­ple, with that fla­vor that can be imparted, I truly believe, only by a Jew­ish hand, and with love of the dish. I have made it myself, to no real suc­cess (and I’m a mean soup-maker, I’d say). But get my friend Alyssa in front of a stove, in my very own kitchen, and her chicken soup with mat­zoh balls is a rev­e­la­tion in health-giving, life-giving elixir. It’s about the love.

There is no one like my friend Janet to have a food adven­ture with. We wan­dered into a Pol­ish del­i­catessen where she encour­aged me to buy kiel­basa, sauer­kraut from an old wooden bar­rel, lit­tle choco­late cook­ies and lit­tle sugar cook­ies in the shape of leaves (“leaf nov­el­ties” as I later trans­lated the label).

And then the next day, our lit­tle Cinque­cento stuffed like a tick with our overnight gear AND one of the chil­dren of our hosts, we were off to the country.

One gor­geous house, five won­der­ful chil­dren, a ten­nis court, an all-singing, all-dancing kitchen with an Aga, AND the fam­ily was happy for me to cook din­ner! Meat­balls stuffed with moz­zarella, with one of the mid­dle daugh­ters as my helper, gar­lic bread and sauteed sugar snap peas. The dad made bread in a machine, overnight! I am research­ing buy­ing just such a machine… the aroma was irre­sistible. Dur­ing the week­end I was taken to Beechcroft Farm where I hugged no fewer than two baby lambs, one born the day before, and met sev­eral new­born calves and pigs, and bought pork sausages, bacon, sir­loin steaks and lambs’ liver. Let me elaborate.

Lambs’ Liver with Marsala Wine, Bacon and Onions
(serves 4)

4 slices bacon, cut in small pieces
3 tbsps but­ter
2 white onions, sliced thick
3 tbsps Marsala wine
squeeze lemon juice
sea salt and pep­per to taste
8 slices lambs’ liver
scat­ter­ing of fresh chives

Fry the bacon in a medium skil­let and push to the edges of it, then add but­ter and fry onions until soft. Pour in the Marsala and scrape up all the lit­tle bits from the bot­tom, then add lemon juice and salt and pep­per. Push every­thing to the sides and place the slices of liver in the cen­ter. Fry gen­tly per­haps 3 min­utes on the first side and 2 on the other. This tim­ing will depend on sev­eral things: how thick the slices are, how high your heat, and how rare you like your liver. I mean, THE liver.

Pile every­thing on a nice plat­ter and scat­ter chives over. Serve with some sharp salad, like lentils with a chilli dress­ing, beet­root with bal­samic vine­gar, toma­toes with lemon juice. Also toasted baguette if you like. Rich with iron, only a small serv­ing needed: elemental.

********************

Long walks in the coun­try­side as you see, with girls all around to make us laugh.

Tonight was the first night for pier­rade! Huge plat­ters of thinly-sliced duck and the sir­loin from Beechcroft: peer­less and deli­cious. Served with Sate sauce, Hoisin sauce, Dijon mus­tard. Plus dauphi­noise pota­toes (not beau­ti­ful, as you see, but gor­geously rich and creamy) and roasted car­rots and parsnips. Spring HEAVEN, although it sounds win­try. But to eat out­side, to saute each bite for one­self in the spring evening, EVEN though we were being rained on ever so slightly… heaven.

Roasted Car­rots and Parsnips
(serves 4)

8 car­rots
3 parsnips
driz­zle chilli oil
scat­ter­ing brown sugar
pinch sea salt
8 sage leaves
1 tbsp butter

Halve the car­rots length­wise (unpeeled, but washed), and quar­ter the parsnips length­wise (peeled). Lay in a bak­ing dish and driz­zle with chilli oil, then scat­ter brown sugar over, and salt, then scat­ter sage over all. Roast in a hot oven (200C, 400F) for 30 min­utes, then take dish out and add but­ter and toss the veg­eta­bles in the accu­mu­lated oil and but­ter. Place in oven for another 10 min­utes. Perfect.

********************

All this has been lovely. Ten­nis, even though I keep strain­ing some muscle/joint in my elbow. Lost Prop­erty: the Sale of goods made a record amount of money yes­ter­day! Twelve moth­ers, 6 hours, and we raised… £400. Well, it’s some­thing, and most impor­tant, it’s tra­di­tion and we were there, and the ways of Avery’s school go on.

Today saw me writ­ing up the Sales Pro­ceeds, mak­ing up the rota for next term, a sched­ule of requests for next term’s fab­u­lous Lun­cheon, gen­er­ally accom­plish­ing things. And wor­ry­ing. About Avery and tomorrow.

One wouldn’t think that a child’s per­fectly rou­tine surgery could throw a fam­ily into a tail­spin, but we are, a bit, sim­ply because of our lack of expe­ri­ence with… Avery being in pain.

I just don’t like it. I know with­out a doubt that she will be absolutely fine, by tomor­row evening she will be safely ensconced back in the cir­cle of my arm (with a secret present in her hands), and a Chilly Billy to suck on, if she wants to.

But it seems to me, as I sweat and fret and worry, that there is some­thing ele­men­tal in a parent’s makeup that says, “No pain, please, for my child.” We would always rather go through it our­selves, what­ever it is, even though we know that the expe­ri­ence of pain is nor­mal, part of life, and some­thing that every­one learns to sub­mit to, to over­come. In fact, I sup­pose, the job of a par­ent is not to smooth the path for the child, to take away all poten­tial sources of pain, but to teach her to shoul­der up to pain, to make friends with it, to set it on the side of the road and move on.

But I don’t like it.

Onward and upward to tomor­row after­noon, Avery and her brav­ery and what­ever chew-less foods I can invent, as long as she needs them.