Thanks be (to var­i­ous things)

Well, as much fun as we had on Thanks­giv­ing (more on that later), my diges­tion is object­ing. So it’s back to the alkaline/acid aware­ness diet for me. Con­se­quently, I had an amaz­ingly var­ied lot of foods in the bag on my shoul­der walk­ing back from the farmer’s mar­ket this morn­ing. I suc­cumbed hap­pily to the prod­ucts of a new farm in the place, Fac­ing Heaven, who make inno­v­a­tive and deli­cious sal­sas and pestos. Jeremy Green, the pro­pri­etor, has a run­ning pat­ter of knowl­edge­able and seduc­tive infor­ma­tion that makes it impos­si­ble not to take advan­tage of the 4-for-a-tenner offer. I came away with a beet­root and black bean salsa, rich with olive oil and lime juice, and a spicy harissa that Jeremy advised cut­ting with yogurt (which I hap­pily did, with buf­falo yogurt from Alham Wood Cheeses, sim­ply deli­cious), as well as a red pep­per pesto and a proper basil pesto made, he assured me, from really spe­cial basil and an Eng­lish parme­san (!) from Sus­sex. Who knew? These choices spread in a nice organic Ital­ian bread, along with a goats cheese with herbs and chill­ies from Rowan Tree Goat Farm, and a lovely cucum­ber from Sun­ny­fields, made a very nice lunch indeed.

Any­way. The run-up to Thanks­giv­ing this year included a bizarre celebrity sight­ing (a dou­ble bill!) at Apos­tro­phe in Grosvenor Street with my pal Dalia and her adorable sis­ter Layla. First sighted: one of the blonde twins who so dis­ap­point­ingly didn’t win “The Restau­rant” with Ray­mond Blanc, and then, dis­tress­ingly, David Gest! Strangely he looked more inter­ested in us than we were in him, and cer­tainly his cologne was off-putting and enough to make me even more nau­se­ated than I already was by my not-decaf latte. I just can’t do caffeine.

Well, Thanks­giv­ing itself was lovely. I had every­thing com­pletely under con­trol until… I didn’t. Partly my chaotic sit­u­a­tion was due to the fact that the school Book Fair took place the very after­noon. Thanks­giv­ing gets no respect here, so I wasn’t sur­prised at the dou­ble book­ing, and noth­ing could make me miss the Book Fair. I love help­ing the lit­tle sprouts choose books and dol­ing out secret pounds and pence to sup­ple­ment the parental limit (strictly for­bid­den, that, but too bad). I had lunch in the cafe­te­ria at school with the librar­ian, Mrs Palmer, and Adam (who I made fast friends with last year) and Nicola, the two book elves from Daunt Books who pro­vide the mer­chan­dise. They are just about my favorite com­mer­cial (ish) estab­lish­ment in Lon­don, com­pletely quirky, unpre­dictable and jus­ti­fi­ably proud of their shop.

Per­fect slice of Thanks­giv­ing con­ver­sa­tion with Eng­lish peo­ple: “So Kris­ten, is there any par­tic­u­lar story that is asso­ci­ated with the first Thanks­giv­ing?” “Well, of course, there’s the story of Miles Stan­dish, who loved Priscilla Mullins only he was too uncer­tain of him­self to tell her so. So he enlisted the help of his friend John Alden, who unfor­tu­nately for Miles also loved Priscilla. Halfway through his proxy pro­posal, John came to his senses and spoke for him­self, and of course it turned out Priscilla loved him too, so John won the day,” I explained. Mrs Palmer laughed slightly and said, “What a typ­i­cal Amer­i­can story.” “Why? What would an Eng­lish­man have done?” I asked in amuse­ment. Adam said promptly, “He would have hemmed and hawed and walked away leav­ing the woman he loved for some­one else. The sort of com­mit­ment and energy that made this coun­try great.” We all laughed, but I did think it a funny com­men­tary on the Eng­lish per­cep­tion of Amer­i­cans: just barge in, cheat and come away with the prize. Unfor­tu­nate, but prob­a­bly not so far off the mark as we’d like to think. Then there are those of us who are per­fectly proud of that sort of reputation!

I also learned some­thing, that after­noon, about the British spirit of friend­ship. Last year, my first with the Book Fair, Mrs Palmer and Adam were very nice to me. Very appre­cia­tive that I was there to take money, give advice, field mul­ti­pli­ca­tion queries from girls, etc. They were very polite, and said thank you, and I had a lovely time and came away very happy that I’d been there and that they were so pleas­ant and made me feel at home. How­ever. After­noon Num­ber Two together had a very dif­fer­ent feel. Adam actu­ally said, “Can I be com­pletely indis­creet and say how much nicer it is this year with­out that witchy Eng­lish teacher?” I love it! That teacher was a beast to Avery, so I told him so. And Mrs Palmer was lovely and let me hide behind the desk when the one mother I can­not abide came in and clearly wanted to chat.

By the end of the after­noon, after we had dealt with all 200 girls and their needs, and I was ready to go, both Mrs Palmer and Adam said the very same thank you they’d said last year, but then they each added, “Really. Thank you.” And I recog­nised that there is a First Encounter British level of polite­ness and cour­tesy, and it can look to an out­sider who wants to fit in as a ges­ture of friend­ship. But the Sec­ond Encounter is a dif­fer­ent thing alto­gether. It’s as if by being there a sec­ond time, you’ve estab­lished your­self as a real per­son, like order­ing chicken feet in a Chi­nese restau­rant. It’s the begin­ning of a real friend­ship, not just per­fect polite­ness. Like the French mov­ing from “vous” to “tu,” only that takes even longer. It’s only Amer­i­cans, I think, who have no such bound­ary, no line to cross before you are treated dif­fer­ently. I still have to process how I feel about it all. But mostly, at the Book Fair, I was flat­tered beyond belief.

Book Fair chaos over, I took up the four girls in my charge: Avery, Anna, Ellie and Sophia, and grabbed a taxi for home. They made a stab at set­ting up the pony jumps in the gar­den and play­ing for a bit, but this served only to make the sun set even faster than it nor­mally does, and mostly what they accom­plished was to track an enor­mous trail of muddy leaves through my bed­room and up the stairs. Then they did their home­work while I sup­plied them with pop­corn. “And apples!” Anna chor­tled. “That’s what we had on our very first play­date, and now it’s a tra­di­tion!” A fine one. Still, things seemed under con­trol. I strained the turkey cook­ing juices and made a gor­geous gravy. I boiled the pota­toes, set the table, counted out lovely linen nap­kins, moved the kitchen table to the liv­ing room for the chil­dren, began sautee­ing the brus­sels sprouts in sesame oil with pine nuts and soy sauce. No prob­lem. At 5 o’clock I pan­icked that there wasn’t enough food and sent John out for a nice gam­mon joint which was actu­ally lovely and a nice addi­tion to the turkey. But not enough food? Ha!

I even had poured a glass of wine and brushed my hair! Set the car­rots to sim­mer­ing in but­ter and brown sugar. Well done! Then, the door­bell rang and life was never the same. Becky had brought, bless her, at least as many dishes as I had going myself! And all everyone’s favorite things! Sweet pota­toes with marsh­mal­lows, sweet pota­toes with a crunchy pecan crust. Cheesey grated pota­toes. A choco­late pie, a chess pie. And the most glo­ri­ous cheese straws, just for me because I have no sweet tooth. The door­bell con­tin­ued to ring as we searched fran­ti­cally for hor­i­zon­tal real estate. Find­ing none, we started shov­ing things under tables and between bot­tles, just to get some space! Then we needed room for both our fam­i­lies’ cher­ished dress­ing recipes. And it was time to mash the pota­toes! Drinks, any­one? The door­bell rang again. Our friend Lau­rie and his wife Linda, with gor­geous flow­ers and Arma­gnac. Our friend Andrew and his wife Laura who is a high-up at Burberry, bear­ing Burberry gifts! My friend Susan, Sophia’s mum, with wine, and gor­geous pump­kin pies requir­ing yet more flat sur­faces. sob. John’s friend Stephanie who pro­vided a refresh­ing single-person air of relax­ation: no cook­ing, no chil­dren, no wor­ries about “school nights,” etc.

But finally I just threw cau­tion to the winds and insisted we all eat, if only to empty out the kitchen of all its lovely peo­ple. To sit hap­pily for a cou­ple of hours at the long din­ing room table with can­dles and the dar­ling paper autumn leaves my mother in law sent me (all right, she sent them to Avery, but I appro­pri­ated them for my table). And just to eat and enjoy con­ver­sa­tion! Andrew is an amaz­ing racon­teur, clever, witty, and Laura clearly grooves to her role as straight man, as well as source of a lot of appre­cia­tive laugh­ter. Lau­rie and Linda, as the only Eng­lish guests, seemed to get into the spirit of Com­pet­i­tive Eat­ing,” and we all had to be rolled away from the table. The evening was late, but Avery tum­bled into bed in time to get a decent-ish sleep for Fri­day prac­tice exams at school. I made a res­o­lu­tion: the next big party I need some­one to help me in the kitchen just to stay a step ahead of, or at least in step with, the con­stant flow of dirty dishes and cut­lery. I just don’t have enough sup­plies to give every­one a fresh plate and fork, etc., for 15 peo­ple. Just don’t. So next year I’m pic­tur­ing some happy kitchen elf. I’m tak­ing all offers under advise­ment! Unlim­ited turkey of course.

As it was, it took me until this morn­ing, Sun­day, to have the kitchen fully back to nor­mal and the din­ing room table all cleared again. Sigh! It’s the one hol­i­day, too, that makes me home­sick, because what you’re accus­tomed to on Thanks­giv­ing is fam­ily, LOTS of fam­ily. What the day is here is basi­cally a really nice din­ner party, albeit with tra­di­tional foods, and also with a lit­tle thread of resent­ment that your child’s been in school all day and will have to go the next day too. But it was great to intro­duce new peo­ple to each other, and nobody got hurt. And to have had a sec­ond year with true friends, as well, is com­pletely lovely.

Time to col­lect Avery at the barn this grey Sun­day late after­noon. I’ll leave you with the sim­plest hors d’oeuvre idea in the world, and you will be pop­u­lar beyond your wildest dreams with your guests. And when you drop the extra two pounds of them off with your school sec­re­tary the next morn­ing, com­plete with a note that says, “For the staff,” you’ll make a whole other group of peo­ple very happy. Happy Thanksgiving!

Mixed Nuts with Rose­mary and Brown Sugar
(serves a LOT)

1 kilo mixed roasted salted nuts (cashews a MUST)
a stick (or half a cup) but­ter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp fresh rose­mary, chopped very fine, or 1 1/2 tsp dried rose­mary
dash cayenne pep­per, to taste

Melt the but­ter in a heavy large saucepan and add brown sugar. Stir until the brown sugar melts, but don’t expect it to emul­sify with the but­ter, because it won’t. You’ll have a nice sludge of melted sugar in the cen­ter sur­rounded by a but­ter slick, like a sunken oil tanker of the finest variety.

Add the nuts and stir thor­oughly, then sprin­kle with the rose­mary and cayenne and stir thor­oughly again. Remove from heat and let sit for awhile to cool off. Just before serv­ing, toss thor­oughly again because some sugar will stick to the bot­tom. These can be kept in a ziplock bag for a few days, but my advice is: indulge the temp­ta­tion only once! Then be a good girl and give them away.