The Boat Race, and qui­et holidays

There are any num­ber of ways to live in Eng­land as a for­eign­er, to be sure.  You can main­tain an alle­giance to your Amer­i­can roots, deter­mined to find Lucky Charms for £7 a box and fol­low­ing Red Sox news, or you can devel­op a full-on Eng­lish accent and dress in Purdeys tweeds.  Or you can do as we tend to do, some­where in between, and bring a naive Amer­i­can enthu­si­asm to as many Eng­lish doings as we can pos­si­bly understand.

Among these is the Oxford and Cam­bridge Boat Race, every spring.  We became aware of this tra­di­tion­al sport­ing encounter two years ago when I invit­ed Eng­lish friends to Sun­day lunch, and they accept­ed with the pro­vi­so that we wan­der down to the riv­er at an appoint­ed time to watch “The Boat Race.”  There are many boat races, but this one is The Boat Race, gath­er­ing thou­sands of sup­port­ers along the Thames from Put­ney, where it begins, to a spot where it ends, just shy of Chiswick Bridge.

For a week or so ahead of this big Race, there were lots and lots of small­er races — for school­child­ren, for ama­teurs, for senior cit­i­zens — and every day, the riv­er was cov­ered with boats for the row­ers, and boats for their coach­es along­side, shout­ing instruc­tions at them through mega­phones.  And on the banks of the riv­er, on either side, lined up team after team of hardy spring spec­i­mens, shoul­der­ing their bur­dens cheer­ful­ly, look­ing as priv­i­leged and posh as any group of peo­ple I’ve ever seen.  These peo­ple will run the coun­try some­day, it would seem.

It was a real treat to live so near the riv­er.  Every errand we ran, we passed scores of peo­ple sit­ting on the wall sep­a­rat­ing the road from the tow­path, drink­ing pints, smok­ing con­vivial­ly, bask­ing in the rare sun­shine.  Final­ly the Big Race Day arrived.

This was the scene in our neigh­bor­hood yes­ter­day, when we watched the race from my friend Elspeth’s house, sip­ping glass­es of bub­bly and nib­bling deli­cious tid­bits: Boursin-stuffed chick­en bites wrapped in bacon, nuggets of but­ter­nut squash cooked in maple syrup and cin­na­mon, per­fect egg may­on­naise on sour­dough toast squares.  We felt quite spoiled look­ing down at the wet watch­ers without.

No sun­shine, sad­ly, just a steady driz­zle of the sort of Eng­lish rain that you just ignore after awhile.  It’s hydrating.

All along the riv­er, win­dows were flung open, lit­tle-used bal­conies filled with peo­ple, and there was a gen­er­al air of fes­tiv­i­ty, even under the wet grey sky.

Believe it or not, the Race for which every­one along the Thames becomes so excit­ed lasts only about 16 min­utes!  So we all watched the begin­ning, out of sight, on tel­ly, and then when Oxford, who hap­pened to be lead­ing, round­ed the bend in the riv­er and were vis­i­ble, we trooped out into the rain to enjoy the brief few moments when their boat was before our eyes.

Much more vis­i­ble and impres­sive was the host of motor­boats fol­low­ing, con­tain­ing press, rich peo­ple, rich­er peo­ple, exec­u­tives from the com­pa­nies who spon­sored the race.

A British friend of mine was a bit deri­sive.  “It used to be that the row­ers were just ordi­nary stu­dents at the uni­ver­si­ties who liked to row.  Now they recruit peo­ple from the Olympics, I believe, and there are SPON­SORS.”  Dirty word, that, rather bring­ing the love­ly Eng­lish tra­di­tion down to (unspo­ken words) an Amer­i­can level.

Ah well, we enjoyed it.  I had to run before it was over, to get to church on time to ring for Even­song, catch­ing the smiles of lots of famil­iar parish­ioners — peo­ple I see in the fruit and veg shop, peo­ple I’ve trained with at Home-Start, peo­ple from my new yoga class.  It was ter­ri­bly cosy and Eng­lish, but my ring­ing was real­ly not up to snuff.  I’ve begun work on a new skill called “a touch,” where­in you’re mer­ri­ly ring­ing away to your heart’s con­tent in your labo­ri­ous­ly mem­o­rized pat­tern, and a cru­el, cru­el per­son called a con­duc­tor shouts, “Bob!” and every­thing changes — where you are, where you’re meant to go, who you’re meant to fol­low.  I might not be up to the chal­lenge, but I’ve haven’t giv­en up yet.

Avery is on hol­i­day now, “end of term.”  Spring is offi­cial­ly here, with all the trees in bud.  Our love­ly clean­ing lady labored away sweep­ing and mop­ping our wide stone ter­race this week, only to come indoor, shut the kitchen door and look back to see…

Are they pos­si­bly cher­ry blos­soms of some kind?  I know not, but I find their pink delights much nicer than a pris­tine terrace.

In that spring­time mood of inven­tion, and re-inven­tion, I was moved one evening to cre­ate a real­ly sim­ple, light, deli­cious Thai dish, so much bet­ter than any­thing you could have deliv­ered to your door cost­ing so much more.  This is a very mild yet fla­vor­ful recipe that will appeal to adults and chil­dren alike.

Thai Chick­en Stir-Fry with Sliv­ered Green Beans and Red Peppers

(serves 4)

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 large hand­ful green beans, sliced lengthwise

2 red pep­pers, slivered

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

1‑inch-long knob gin­ger, peeled and grated

1 stalk lemon­grass, minced

1 hot Thai chilli, minced

2 Kaf­fir lime leaves

zest and juice of 1 lime

pinch ground turmeric

3 chick­en breast fil­lets, cut into slivers

1 soup-size tin coconut milk

sea salt to taste

coriander/cilantro leaves to taste

hot chili oil to taste

In a large fry­ing pan, heat the sesame oil, then add the beans and pep­pers, gar­lic, gin­ger, lemon­grass and chilli.  Fry for 1 minute, then add the lime leaves, the lime zest and juice and the turmer­ic.  Add the chick­en sliv­ers and toss over high heat until the chick­en is just ten­der.  Add the coconut milk and sea­son.  Sim­mer for a moment to warm the coconut milk, then serve with steamed rice or fried rice.

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My friend Janet was here for a long vis­it from New York, which meant that we could have a love­ly, mud­dy, net­tly vis­it to our plot of land.

We stood in the cen­ter of the plot, imag­in­ing where rooms would go, how high we would build, what the views would even­tu­al­ly be.  The views are ever-chang­ing as the build­ings along­side take shape.

We repaired with our visions to a near­by fab­u­lous restau­rant, The Brigade, housed in an old fire­house.  Inven­tive, afford­able food cooked by a team of for­mer­ly home­less trainee chefs.  An incred­i­bly wor­thy project, and the salmon with grilled skin on a bed of fen­nel and sat­sumas?  Yes please.

Vis­its to the site always make the oth­er­wise fan­tas­ti­cal project seem rather more real, for the dura­tion of the time I stand there.  John is deep into archi­tect choic­es now, and very soon things will begin to happen.

These school hol­i­days — even tak­ing place just before huge exams, which means we can’t go away — would­n’t be the same with­out “Uni­ver­si­ty Chal­lenge.”  This is, of course, the mad­den­ing­ly pre­ten­tious and yet addic­tive British game show, pit­ting two uni­ver­si­ty quiz teams against each oth­er to ask them impos­si­ble ques­tions.  Tak­en togeth­er, the three of us here at home make up the knowl­edge of approx­i­mate­ly one of the stu­dents on the tel­ly.  If John’s mom is with us, we are one and a half stu­dents in total.

We award our­selves points if we guess any­thing that the com­peti­tors guess, even if they’re wrong.

All maths ques­tions are ignored by all of us.  Avery occa­sion­al­ly stuns with an unex­pect­ed physics answer.

Quiz­mas­ter: “Can you name two fla­vors of quarks?”

Avery: “Strange and charmed.”  (this was cor­rect, if you can imagine)

I am dis­tress­ing­ly unre­li­able in mat­ters of art his­to­ry (defunct PhD lets me down), but very good on arcane food ingre­di­ents and 20th cen­tu­ry fic­tion.  John of course gets all the archi­tec­ture and most of the eco­nom­ics ques­tions.  Most­ly we are silly.

Quiz­mas­ter: “Please pro­vide a three-let­ter word, that with an added con­so­nant can become anoth­er word, like ‘hut,’ and ‘shut.’ ”

Avery: “Or like ‘hit’ and…”

Quiz­mas­ter: “Which Ger­man town saw the first out­break of the bovine dis­ease which results in stillbirths?”

Avery: “Foot and Mouth!”

John: “Ah yes, the pop­u­lar Ger­man tourist des­ti­na­tion of ‘Foot and Mouth’…”

One qui­et Sat­ur­day after­noon, Avery and I turned to bak­ing to keep our­selves out of trou­ble.  Now, I am no bak­er as you know, but Avery found the recipe, so I did the shop­ping and we got down to busi­ness togeth­er in the kitchen, for so-called “Buck­eye Brown­ies,” an Amer­i­can ref­er­ence that even I don’t get.  These were gor­geous, although we cut out a cup of the sug­gest­ed amount of white sug­ar in the brown­ie base, and anoth­er cup of the pow­dered sug­ar in the peanut but­ter fill­ing.  I think you could cut even more.  Deli­cious, in tiny bites.

Since I do not have much of a sweet tooth, I need­ed to cre­ate some­thing equal­ly lux­u­ri­ous for me, but savoury.  It was easy to alight on an idea.

Chick­en Liv­er Pate

(makes enough to fill three ramekins, 7x3 cm/3/1 inch approx.)

3 tbsps but­ter melted

1 small white onion, diced

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 bay leaf

1 pound chick­en liv­ers, trimmed of all sinew and stringy membrane

3 tbsps cold but­ter, cut in 6 pieces

1 tbsp double/heavy cream

2 tbsps brandy or Cognac

sea salt and pep­per to taste

Melt the but­ter in a fry­ing pan wide enough to accom­mo­date the chick­en liv­ers in one lay­er.  Cook onion and gar­lic with bay leaf till veg­eta­bles are soft, then remove bay leaf. Add trimmed chick­en liv­ers (it isn’t impor­tant to keep the liv­ers intact when you trim them). Cook just till ten­der. Place all in food proces­sor. Turn it on and through the top add, one at a time, the pieces of cold but­ter, puls­ing for a few sec­onds between each addi­tion, and then the cream and the brandy or cognac. Blend till smooth, then sea­son to taste.  Pass through a fine sieve, press­ing with a spat­u­la. Dis­card what remains and pour pate into ramekins. Chill at least 2 hours.  Serve with crack­ers or toast­ed baguette.

After all these treats, we decid­ed we need­ed some amuse­ment and exer­cise, and with John’s refusal to let Avery and me get a kit­ten, we have been forced to turn to Tacy, poor girl.  She is real­ly get­ting the hang of her new har­ness and lead.

She was just approach­ing being com­fort­able enough to step out of the gar­den, when a neigh­bor walked by. Alert!

All the cats are on high alert when the Vis­i­tor Kit­ty, called “Cres­si­da” by us (although local knowl­edge claims it to be a boy) comes to call.  Here she sits among all the notes and books and papers that could be claim­ing Avery’s attention.

These lazy days won’t last, we know — and we’ll look back on them with nos­tal­gia once exams begin next month for real — so we are enjoy­ing them while they are here.