the last bits of moving

Well, we did take a break from the whole annoy­ing mov­ing job to spend a day in Oxford with my dear friend Jo Ann, who shares my pas­sion for Richard Armitage. This is only one of the long list of qual­i­ties that makes her a hilar­i­ous and ener­getic com­pan­ion, though, so we man­aged to get through the whole after­noon with­out resort­ing to crush-talk, to the undis­guised relief of my hus­band, child and vis­it­ing child Sophie. (She did come to lunch today, how­ever, and once John went to run errands we were straight onto the com­puter, howl­ing with laugh­ter over the var­i­ous fan­sites devoted to our man. A girl has to have some silly fun now and then.)

Spent the night and next day in Stan­ton, Glouces­ter­shire, watch­ing the girls ride, had high tea in Upper Slaugh­ter, and as you see fed the ducks in Lower Slaugh­ter. And then real life reared its ugly head again and we were back to the boxes and boxes of stuff in the new house. But you know what, we are so happy here that we don’t even really mind any of the annoy­ing things we do in ser­vice of the house, and of set­tling in. I think we pro­tected our­selves while we were in the old flat, not think­ing about it too much, how much we weren’t suited to that house, how hor­ri­fy­ing the rent was, but now that we’re out I can tell you, Ham­mer­smith is HEAVEN.

Real peo­ple live here! We see lit­tle boys bounc­ing foot­balls across the road to each other, moth­ers wheel­ing babies, neigh­bors bicy­cling around so fre­quently that I already rec­og­nize peo­ple (some­thing that never hap­pened in two and a half years in May­fair). I am already great friends with my dry cleaner who suf­fered through remov­ing all the cat hair from two sweaters upon which, I fear, the tab­bies had been sleep­ing in my closet for, yes, two and a half years. Harry the dry cleaner, lately of Bagh­dad, the first Kurd I have ever met, and he treated me to a far more learned expo­si­tion on the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Iraq than I have man­aged to glean from any recent news­pa­pers. Imag­ine, an actual mer­chant who is a real per­son and doesn’t mind a chat.

And the cor­ner store guy knows now that I always have my own bag and he doesn’t need to offer one to me. And there is an Irish butcher, and a halal butcher to choose from, but so far nowhere that I can buy basil. Hmm. I must suc­cumb to Marks and Spencer because I am moved to make pesto for din­ner. Oh, how I can cook in this kitchen! Gas stove, a total delight, and that grill? It is chang­ing my life. AND a huge fridge and freezer with… drum roll please… an ICE MAKER! Let me never com­plain again, now that I have an ice maker and a dryer that is sep­a­rate from my wash­ing machine. Laun­dry had gone from being an absolute drudgery to quite a pleas­ant lit­tle task, and one that doesn’t absorb my entire day as well as tak­ing off all the var­nish on the ban­is­ter as it did in my old flat. Where else could I dry sheets and pil­low­cases? Ah well, we sur­vived the walk-through in the old flat yes­ter­day and it looks just fine, now that the carpet’s been cleaned and the holes in the wall filled in and painted over. Whew.

It’s so hard to believe that just three weeks ago, every­thing we owned was in an other postal code being lived with, and now we have almost com­pletely set­tled in. Yes­ter­day we hosted the homeowner’s insur­ance appraiser, and he com­pli­mented us on our degree of being set­tled. All we’re wait­ing for is to find a proper wardrobe and chest of draw­ers for Avery’s room, so we can empty the last three boxes. Her room is so charm­ing, set at the top of the house with her horsey rosettes strung along the ceil­ing and books every­where. And our room? Airy, light, sunny, gor­geous. We look out onto a long row of grotty look­ing houses that are mostly flats, lived in by some very inter­est­ing look­ing peo­ple. And the street and gar­den are filled with birdsong.

At our Indian feast the other night, we let Tacy out into the gar­den and she went away. Don’t know where, but she dis­ap­peared for a cou­ple of hours. So I have just now ordered a col­lar and tag for her, with my phone num­ber and her name on it. Just in case. Not that she has a mobile, but…

I’m a bit at loose ends because Avery’s class is going to the Globe The­atre tonight to see “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Drea,” and she’s spend­ing the inter­ven­ing post-school hours at Anna’s house to avoid the long com­mute there and back, both ways. We’ll pick her up late tonight at the the­atre, so I’ve got to come up with some Avery doesn’t like, for din­ner. But first I must tell you about two per­fect new sal­ads. My friend Olimpia in par­tic­u­lar is look­ing for bar­be­cue side dishes, and I can rec­om­mend these totally. The first one I invented, but the sec­ond one is the brain­child of the great Anglo-Indian chef Atul Kochhar, and boy can that man com­bine fla­vors to make you sing. And guess what? They’re both chock-ful of super foods.

Chopped Spinach and Chick­pea Salad
(serves four)

1 can chick­peas, drained
4 cups spinach leaves, some­what tightly packed
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1 red onion, diced

dress­ing:
3 tbsps olive oil
dash hot pep­per oil
1 tbsp bal­samic vine­gar
juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsps fresh corian­der pesto (or basil pesto)
dash salt
1/2 tsp oregano

In sev­eral batches, care­fully blitz the spinach leaves in the Cuisi­nart or Mag­imix, in short bursts of power. Don’t let the leaves get mushy. Just pulse the power and take care to shift the leaves with a spat­ula occa­sion­ally if need me. You want the leaves chopped some­where between coarse and fine, but not mushy. Com­bine all the ingre­di­ents and dress­ing and toss VERY well. Lovely!

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Atul Kochhar’s Warm Salad of Ten­der­stem Broc­coli and Chick­peas
(serves four)

2 tbsps olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves gar­lic, peeled and sliced very thin
1–2 small red chill­ies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 hand­fuls ten­der­stem broc­coli, cut into whole flo­rets with stems sliced diag­o­nally in bite-size pieces
1 can chick­peas, drained
1 medium red onion, thickly sliced
1 medium red pep­per, juli­enned
2 tbsps lime juice
sea salt
freshly ground black pep­per
hand­ful fresh corian­der (cilantro)

Heat the oil in a skil­let or wok and add the cumin seeds and gar­lic, cook­ing until the gar­lic is translu­cent but tak­ing care not to brown it. Add the chillis and broc­coli and cook until ten­der. Add the chick­peas, onion and red pep­per and saute for 30 sec­onds. Toss with the lime juice and serve on a plat­ter, topped by the corian­der leaves. Very refreshing!

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Now Atul says to serve his salad imme­di­ately, but I couldn’t as I had guests to enter­tain and wanted to cook ahead of time. Room tem­per­a­ture was won­der­ful, although I did wait to add the corian­der until just before serving.

Tonight is lamb chops because Avery’s not here to com­plain about our cru­elty to ani­mals, plus steamed pota­toes with pesto. And then tomorrow’s my writ­ing class and I’ve sub­mit­ted a piece on Moroc­can meat­balls, about which I’m quite ner­vous. I’m afraid that if some­one says, “I’m afraid I don’t quite see the point of the story, com­bined with the recipe,” I might just say, “Nei­ther do I,” and crawl under the desk. Such is the pres­sure of writ­ing for the public!