of Sur­rey, scal­lops and Scotch

We’ve been in rather a whirl­wind lately, I must say. Thurs­day evening found us sans Avery as she cel­e­brated Anna’s birth­day with a sleep­over, so we imme­di­ately made plans with Twiggy and Ed to go out for din­ner. They were keen for us to try their local (ha! one should be so lucky) Ital­ian place, so we bun­dled into the car and headed to Bermond­sey to try out Ten­tazione Restau­rant. And oh, my it was deli­cious. First of all, I have to admit to a weak­ness for Twiggy in any case, with her doll-like pro­por­tions and bright black eyes, her total devo­tion to Ed, and her unex­pected lit­tle tem­per spurts. Not that I’ve ever seen any, but she always has impres­sive sto­ries of her encoun­ters with repair­men, bus dri­vers, mean sales­peo­ple and any­one else who does not behave with the grace that Twiggy expects of life. The idea of such a small, ele­gant and del­i­cate per­son have a tem­per explo­sion under any cir­cum­stances is out­landish, but she insists. It’s nice to be with new­ly­weds who are still liv­ing in the blush of nov­elty. They really are a lot of fun. And the melt­ingly per­fect lit­tle cheese puff pas­try tart, the sauteed duck’s foie gras with cele­riac and porcini mush­rooms, the fritto misto (I don’t even nor­mally love cala­mari, but it was ter­rif­i­cally light, and I dis­cov­ered I love fried scal­lops), all very good. A lovely evening.

Then the momen­tous day of Avery’s Pony Camp arrived on Fri­day, and we made our way (argu­ing all the way to the Put­ney Bridge about the best way to get there; noth­ing like a bad map or two to cause mar­i­tal strife in my house­hold), finally tool­ing suc­cess­fully down the Portsmouth Road, arriv­ing in the lit­tle vil­lage of Rip­ley where we found some gor­geous sil­ver plate forks at a dar­ling antique shop, and bought a big trug of yel­low daf­fodils for Mrs Nye as a thank-you. Onward in the rather dis­mal spit­ting rain to Longfrey Farm where, as we approached the house, I was embar­rassed to see THOU­SANDS of yel­low daf­fodils actu­ally grow­ing in the lawn. Ah well, coals to New­cas­tle, and Mrs Nye couldn’t have been more gra­cious. “Oh, lovely. I never seem will­ing to pick daf­fodils until they’ve been blown over in a storm, so these are per­fect.” Now that’s good man­ners. How To Accept A Com­pletely Unnec­es­sary Gift With Grace 101.

The place is beau­ti­ful, a series of red­brick attached houses with peaked gabled roofs, all cob­bled together to make one house, climb­ing rather errat­i­cally up and down a slop­ing hill, sur­rounded by twit­ter­ing birds and, in the dis­tance, swans! And all the horses from the sta­ble, dot­ting the land­scape and look­ing strange with­out sad­dles. Dogs spilled out every­where, cats climbed on the backs of fur­ni­ture, Mr and Mrs Nye made cups of tea and offered short­bread. He is the most charis­matic 80-year-old man I have ever met (and I have a real weak­ness for approaching-elderly gen­tle­men, as you know), com­pletely at ease with him­self, wear­ing lay­ers of faded and tat­tered tat­ter­sall shirts, thread­bare cardi­gans, worn denim jacket and topped with an ancient Bar­bour waxed cot­ton coat. Blue, blue eyes twin­kling under a pure white ver­sion of the Hugh Grant-style Eng­lish school­boy fore­lock, a rough hand reach­ing out to Avery: “Now, my dear, I hope you know the barn hand­shake,” and she did! The kitchen sink, where Mrs Nye was peel­ing car­rots, looks through a pic­ture win­dow onto a walled gar­den with a series of bird­feed­ers, and much bird­song. “Shoo, spar­rowhawk!” Mrs Nye called severely. “Find baby birds to eat in some­one else’s gar­den. Where are those cats?”

Avery and I took her clob­ber up to the bed­room she was going to share with Alexa, since the weather made it too damp to sleep in the Mon­go­lian yurts we saw loom­ing behind the house. But prob­a­bly by now, since it’s cleared beau­ti­fully, they’ve had their out­door sleep­ing adven­ture. She unpacked, while Alexa opened her birth­day presents and dis­cussed who else would be arriv­ing, and when. Avery had expressed some ner­vous­ness in the morn­ing, but here in the actual place, she seemed per­fectly at ease. Finally we took our leave, and while she did walk us to the door with Mr Nye, she didn’t seem at all wor­ried about her stay, so I kissed her quickly and left, feel­ing like I’d lost my handbag.

It didn’t take long to feel not only com­pletely reas­sured that she would have a mar­velous time, but also rather glee­ful to be on our own! While we’ve had the occa­sional day and night to our­selves since she was born, I’ve only ever spent one night with­out her, and we’ve never had three days in a row just as a cou­ple. I must say, there is a lot to rec­om­mend a lit­tle break on one’s own. Loyal read­ers of this blog will know how ridicu­lously devoted I am to that child, but it has been heav­enly to be just the two of us. I think three days is just about right.

We repaired to the rather larger than I expected town of Guild­ford, where I had booked us a night at the Angel Post­ing House and Liv­ery, parts of which date to the 15th cen­tury, and there is a 13th cen­tury crypt under­neath. Amaz­ing. It is a very ele­gant, clas­sic but quirky hotel right in the cen­ter of the High Street; we’re fear­ing a bit for the hotel’s future because it was very, very quiet there. We set­tled in, had a lovely cock­tail while we each caught up on duelling mobile phones with our respec­tive fathers. It’s shame­ful how often I catch up with my mother, because she tends to answer the phone, but don’t get a chance to chat with my father, who was full of excel­lently enter­tain­ing sto­ries about his life as a foren­sic psy­chol­o­gist, but the details of those sto­ries I can­not divulge here for rea­sons of pri­vacy. I guess. Some­thing tells me the 400-pound ser­ial killer he’s been inter­view­ing prob­a­bly doesn’t read this blog, but one never knows.

A per­fectly accept­able French-ish din­ner of craw­fish and rack of lamb at a rather chainy place called Cafe de Paris, at the end of which we had quite an adven­ture get­ting the bill. John kept try­ing to make eye con­tact with any of the four or five peo­ple who had brought us var­i­ous things to eat and drink, but no one seemed will­ing to notice. Finally he grabbed the atten­tion of a young man about to go through the swing­ing doors behind our table. “Could we have the check, please?” “Pos­si­bly,” the man said, laugh­ing, “But I don’t work here. I was just on my way to the loo.” “Oh, my god,” John said, blush­ing, “it’s not like you LOOK like you work here, I was just…” “Flirt­ing?” the young man sug­gested. “I met your eye only because I felt sorry for you, hav­ing a table by the loo.” Too funny. When he went back to his table, he mur­mured some­thing to the girl across from him and they both com­pletely exploded laugh­ing. Finally we paid, and on the way out, John leaned over to the guy and said, “Excel­lent ser­vice. We’ll be back.”

A quick visit to the Cas­tle on our way out of town left us annoyed that such a gor­geous ruin has been, well, un-ruined. We have had so many won­der­ful vis­its to really ruined cas­tles in the hills of Scot­land, armed only with our copy of “Cas­tles and Strong­holds of Scot­land” and a pic­nic, that we could hardly bear to see the new plas­ter walls, grilles over the win­dows, con­stant health-and-safety signs warn­ing you about all the ways you could die dur­ing your visit and other annoy­ing indi­ca­tions of mod­ern life. The gar­dens are painfully for­mal, but still quite lovely in the early spring day. Home with the top down!

I spent the after­noon food shop­ping (oh, the glo­ri­ous Gin­ger Pig butcher! be still my heart) for what I planned to be a “Mas­terchef” qual­ity no-child meal. It was my sin­cere ambi­tion to cook some­thing really restaurant-quality, really beau­ti­fully pre­sented, and using only ingre­di­ents that Avery doesn’t like. And I think I suc­ceeded! For the first time in liv­ing mem­ory, I was actu­ally ner­vous as I pre­pared din­ner. But here were the results. Thank you, Vin­cent, for the scal­lops recipe. I hope you don’t mind I added lime juice…

Scal­lops with Single-Malt Scotch and Creme Fraiche with Celeriac-Potato Mash
(serves 4)

16 King Scal­lops (the biggest you can get, roe on or off as you like)
4 tbsps unsalted but­ter
1 cup creme fraiche (or a mix of sin­gle and soured creams)
two shots good sin­gle malt scotch
juice of a quar­ter lime
salt, pep­per
crusty toasted bread

In a heavy skil­let, melt the but­ter and sim­mer until it begins to brown, then lay the scal­lops in, clock­wise so you remem­ber which went in first. Cook until the edges begin to brown on the under­side, and then turn the scal­lops over in the order in which you laid them in the skil­let. Expect major splat­ter­ing of but­ter. When the sec­ond side browns nicely, remove the scal­lops (again, in the proper order) to a wait­ing plate. This whole process should take about 4 min­utes. Do not overcook.

Put your baguette or what­ever bread in the oven to toast, and turn back to the skil­let. Lower the heat to medium and add the creme fraiche or creams. Sim­mer until the mix­ture is thick and coats the back of a spoon. Add the scotch and cook down until no more smell of alco­hol rises from the skil­let. Taste and add lime juice, then salt and pep­per until per­fect. Remove the toasted bread from the oven and but­ter one side. Return the scal­lops to the skil­let and toss in the sauce for a minute. Plate up with sauce on the bot­tom, a nice help­ing of celeriac-potato mash, top with scal­lops and serve with sauteed asparagus.

Cele­riac and Char­lotte Potato Mash
(serves 4 with scallops)

1/2 large head of cele­riac, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 medium Char­lotte pota­toes, peeled
6 tbsps unsalted but­ter
1/2 cup sin­gle cream
salt and pepper

Place cele­riac and pota­toes in salted water and bring to the boil. Boil for at least 30 min­utes of until all are soft to the touch of a fork. Push through a ricer and mash with but­ter and cream, then salt and pep­per to taste.

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Do you know why you should buy unsalted but­ter? Because the salted vari­eties are able to get away with lesser qual­ity cream, since the salt masks the flavour. Always buy unsalted, and then salt the fin­ished dish your­self. But I digress.

It was deli­cious! And very pretty, although sim­ply pil­ing up the aspara­gus wasn’t very spe­cial. I sup­pose I could have tried mak­ing them into a lit­tle teepee? Tor­tured, no, you’re right. Then to fol­low we had some­thing that in real­ity should have come first, but I could not think how I could eat the first course and then jump up from the table and pro­duce the scal­lops, which really have to be cooked right then. So we reversed the courses. But both were sublime.

Carpac­cio with Shaved Pecorino, Rocket and Chilli Oil Dress­ing
(serves 4 as a light starter)

1/2 lb fil­let of beef, trimmed of all fat and sinews
3 hand­fuls fresh rocket, soaked in ice water and spun dry
16 shav­ings of strong aged pecorino or parmesan

About an hour and a half before you want to eat, place the beef in the freezer. This will solid­ify it suf­fi­ciently to make it shave-able, but you’ll have to work fast. The warmer your hands make the beef, the more dif­fi­cult it becomes to slice extremely thin.

Wash and spin the rocket and mound on each plate, in the cen­ter. Slice the beef paper thin with a very sharp knife, and arrange the slices around the rocket. Pile the shaved cheese on top of the rocket, and driz­zle gen­er­ously with:

All-purpose Spicy Chilli Dressing

3 parts chilli-infused olive oil
1 part aged bal­samic vine­gar
1 part lemon or lime juice
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 clove gar­lic, finely minced
gen­er­ous pinches of salt and freshly-ground pepper

The chilli oil you want is by Danilo Manco, and you can get it, as I did, at the lit­tle Sat­ur­day mar­ket at the top of the Maryle­bone High Street, or you can order it like this. Try the truf­fle oil, too. I’m going to make a risotto this week and driz­zle some on top.

Place all ingre­di­ents in a seal­able jar and shake until emul­si­fied. Shake again just before serv­ing. This dress­ing is extremely ver­sa­tile and is per­fect with carpac­cio, pan-seared duck salad, sim­ple water­cress and lamb’s let­tuce, a lit­tle avocado-tomato salad, any­thing. Try it on a really good tinned tuna, tossed with chick­peas and minced red onion, topped with lemon zest. Yum yum.

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So there you have it. It was very sat­is­fy­ing to make some­thing new, some­thing a lit­tle dar­ing, some­thing I’d loved in restau­rants and had fun recre­at­ing at home. And served with can­dle­light and a lit­tle white wine to just one other per­son. A very nice evening.

But some­thing tells me we’ll be ready to get Avery back tomorrow…