the best lamb ever (sorry, also a nice social evening)

But first, aren’t these the sweet­est faces? It’s not even appar­ent that they’re at West­min­ster Abbey, which was exces­sively cool. And I must say that the uni­forms of our school are really quite bor­ing com­pared with those of the school who sat behind us, (“we’re from Put­ney,” one gull explained earnestly). Those other gulls wore white col­lared shirts, grey pin­nies, grey cardi­gans, light blue blaz­ers, match­ing light blue berets, and grey rug­ger socks with a light blue band at the top. John and I gave a brief thought to chang­ing Avery to what­ever school that was. The Deputy Head of King’s Col­lege, Miss Clarke, has explained to me that our very dull blue, white and green tar­tan has some spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance, but it’s lost on me. Bor­ing! How­ever, when they’re all cov­ered up in their nice long coats they look quite charm­ing, and here’s where they get the word: they look uni­form. Distinguished.

I’m sit­ting here with a giant glass of fresh-squeezed juice: beet­root, red kale, gin­ger, pear, and apple. The color is incred­i­bly intense: no mat­ter what else you put in, once a beet­root passes through the juicer, your bev­er­age is deep, dark pur­plish red. It just has to be good for me! And it had bet­ter, because let me tell you of the indul­gences of last night’s Din­ner With Vin­cent.

I con­fess to hav­ing felt almost too fatiguee to look for­ward to a social evening, not for any good rea­son, but chilly after stand­ing around in the cold dark watch­ing Avery tear around the ring on the irre­press­ible Ana­logue. That pony is TOO fast, even Avery admits. Once given the go-ahead to can­ter, he is just hell bent, and to con­trol his head, every trot starts to look like dres­sage as he strains against the reins! He just loves to run. So I was a tiny bit ner­vous dur­ing the whole les­son, and then the #94 bus didn’t seem too keen on stop­ping to let the ponies cross the Bayswa­ter Road, which is not accept­able. It’s nerve-wracking enough when every car and bus stops early, and with no doubts. But this bus dri­ver either really wanted a close-up look at the ponies, or wasn’t pay­ing atten­tion. At any rate, by the time we got home I felt a bit like lying down with a hot water bot­tle and scram­bling eggs for sup­per. Alas, I had to make din­ner for Avery and her new babysit­ter Alexa (who is a dead-ringer for Reese With­er­spoon, a rid­ing instruc­tor and a Jane Austen fan, so we were about to adopt her at first glance). A lit­tle olive oil, four cloves of gar­lic, half an onion, two cans of toma­toes and a dash of Ital­ian sea­son­ing, sim­mer for a bit, then throw in 1/2 cup of ricotta. Done.

We headed off toward Ham­mer­smith in Emmy, top down, and it was impos­si­ble not have our spir­its rise. A nice quar­ter moon in a sky full of swiftly mov­ing clouds, a lit­tle jaunt around the neigh­bor­hood because we were unfash­ion­ably on time, then into the glow­ing con­tem­po­rary house that Vin­cent has cre­ated, and now, sadly sold. Per­haps this was a last hur­rah? Peter and a first guest were already sit­ting around the scrubbed pine kitchen table, hav­ing mar­ti­nis, so we joined them and I was imme­di­ately the laugh­ing stock for ask­ing, “What did you put in my drink to make it green, Peter?” “Uh, Kris­ten, it’s a green glass.” Hmm, I guess I was a bit tired!We were intro­duced to Marc Pachter, an old friend of Vincent’s father and now an old friend of Vincent’s, and then in came Jane Eng­land and Peter Gordon-Stables (what a com­pletely per­fect Eng­lish name, and it fits his old-world, shy ele­gance), of the gallery where I had become so nos­tal­gic last week. We began chat­ting, and the sub­ject of Thanks­giv­ing came up, Vin­cent hav­ing hosted 15 to our 12 on the night of. “I just hope my turkey soup turns out well,” I said, and my thoughts turned to the poten­tial maraud­ers who might ven­ture into our gar­den at night. “Get this weird story,” I con­tin­ued, “John woke me up this morn­ing and asked, ‘Guess what I just saw?’, and I said…” John stopped me, “No, Peter, now what would you have said if Jane came in first thing in the morn­ing and said, ‘Gues what I just saw?’” Peter thought for a sec­ond and said, “I guess I’d say a fox.” !!!! This is a weird town.

We were joined by a lovely archi­tec­tural cou­ple (no, they weren’t in the style of Queen Anne or the Bauhaus, I mean they are both archi­tects), Mal­colm and Kate. John imme­di­ately was drawn to Kate, a beau­ti­ful and very funny mother of two, and I was granted my silent wish and was seated next to Mal­colm. I have a real soft spot, mostly born out of unfa­mil­iar­ity in real life but huge fond­ness in fic­tion, for the Eng­lish Gen­tle­man. I like signet rings, and degrees from Oxford, and a courtly sense of good man­ners. So Mal­colm was just my cup of tea, tall and fair in a good grey suit, full of self-deprecating but intel­li­gent con­ver­sa­tion. We sat down to quite sim­ply the best lamb I have ever tucked into. And I like almost all lamb. I’ll eat the stuff they carve off revolv­ing ver­ti­cal spits in Brook­lyn, or the salty lit­tle chops of a Paris bistro, or the rare and suc­cu­lent rack of lamb in an Oxford­shire coun­try pub. How­ever. This slow-roasted shoul­der (a cut I have never eaten before) was a rev­e­la­tion. I am sadly aware that it’s a mis­take to have any­thing for the first time at Vincent’s house, because then the bar is set impos­si­bly high for any future encoun­ters with what­ever it is. But he assures me that it’s hard to screw up, and I believe him.

Vincent’s Shoul­der of Lamb
(serves per­haps six?)

1 large lemon not peeled (whole)
1 large onion peeled (whole)
1 whole head of gar­lic peeled
2 large bunches of corian­der
1 tbsp ground corian­der
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp corian­der seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 tsps dried chilli flakes (or to taste)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pep­per to taste

1 1/2 cups peeled pistachios

Reserve pis­ta­chios. Whizz every­thing else in your food proces­sor until it has com­bined and you have a paste-like mush. Add more oil and lemon juice if nec­es­sary (remem­ber it needs to stick to the lamb, so don’t leave it too runny either).

Add pis­ta­chios and pulse until nuts are com­bined through the mush but be sure not to over process as you want some large-ish chunks of nuts to remain.

Smear the shoul­der of lamb (bone in) on both sides with the mixture.

Put in roast­ing pan and cover with tin foil.

Cook for 2 hours at 350 degrees, remov­ing foil for last 20–30 min­utes until crust looks nice and tasty and meat looks brown. Cook­ing times vary depend­ing on size of shoul­der, but remem­ber it’s next to impos­si­ble to over cook as the meat has plenty of fat and is roast­ing in its own juice. Just be sure not to burn the crust — hence
the foil.

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

I can assure you that this was glo­ri­ous. One is usu­ally (at least in the mod­ern food world) cau­tioned against let­ting lamb get brown inside, because the cuts we usu­ally use like the chop, the whole rack, or the del­i­cate noisette are so fat-free. But this method and cut resulted in a tex­ture not unlike the meati­est of pork ribs, and the exot­i­cally fla­vored rub was just per­fect. With it, Vin­cent served roasted car­rots with cumin and a cous­cous. Sublime.

And we had fun. Our Thanks­giv­ing din­ner (although too short in time because of the dreaded School Night) and our evening with Vin­cent reminded John and me, as we dis­cussed going home­ward, that you’re dif­fer­ent peo­ple with adults. As much fun as we have with Avery at meal­times, there is only so much vari­ety that a (at least my) child will accept in her food, and no mat­ter how long the meal takes to pre­pare, she and John are fin­ished in exactly 14 min­utes. SO to sit at a can­dlelit table, NOT of my own set­ting, and talk to new, intrigu­ing peo­ple, and eat some­thing lov­ingly pre­pared by some­one who loves to cook and loves me too, is some­thing of an eye-opener. And new things to talk about! The hid­den lay­ers of mean­ing in the Eng­lish tele­vi­sion pro­grammes they all grew up with but are unfa­mil­iar to me, like “Thomas the Tank Engine” and some­thing called “Noddy.” The goings-on at Jane and Peter’s gallery, which were famil­iar enough to me to be under­stand­able, but involve artists I have never heard of. And then, of course, we talked about our chil­dren, and the flum­mox­ing nature of the mod­ern child. Mal­colm reflected on a con­ver­sa­tion he had with his son about fam­i­lies recently. “And then his thoughts turned to the fragility of the fam­ily, and he asked me, ‘Did God give me both a mommy and a daddy in case some­thing hap­pens to one of you?’ Well, I didn’t know what to say! I explained that all fam­i­lies are dif­fer­ent, and that he and his sis­ter would always be taken care of, but that there would come a day when he was ready to stretch his wings…” Peter at the end of the table said, dead­pan, “I think it would have been sim­pler just to say ‘Yes.’”

Finally we stuffed our­selves with choco­late pecan tart (not even sweet, per se, and served with creme fraiche, yum), and John and I sug­gested that as it was an hour and a half past the time we told Alexa we’d be home, maybe we ought to mosey in that direc­tion. Vin­cent kissed me and said, “I still love you even though you’re the FIRST TO LEAVE.” Because it is awful how one cou­ple stands up and some­how a gen­eral mean­der­ing toward the door begins to hap­pen to everyone.

Today is the first sunny day in sim­ply ages, so I’m try­ing to think what we could do after school. Of course this would not be the Wednes­day we have tick­ets for ice skat­ing. No, it had to be pour­ing ice-cold rain that day. Per­haps just what Avery calls a “noth­ing after­noon,” where she curls up with a book and a throw and a hot water bot­tle, maybe a cou­ple of cats.

Has any­one seen the new James Bond? My blog friend Lara has quite a pos­i­tive review posted, but beware of spoil­ers. I am just not sure I’m brave enough to see it, although he is grow­ing on me. Plus if my crush actor Matthew Mac­fadyen doesn’t get some­thing out there for me to watch, I hate to say it, allegiance-switching is not an impossibility.