the last fran­tic weeks, and REWARD!

We all know that life is a roller coast­er.  Some­times on the down­ward bits of the ride, we’d like to get off, say­ing, “Actu­al­ly, this sort of up and down expe­ri­ence does­n’t suit me.  I’ll go for the bumper cars instead, as I’m quite able to han­dle hard knocks.  It’s the ups and downs I can’t deal with.”  But life does­n’t give us the option to change rides in the mid­dle of the fair.

What life does do, how­ev­er, is give us, every once in awhile, a mas­sive upward tra­jec­to­ry, and a chance to hov­er at the top of the track, with a heady sense of oxy­gen and a clear view of every­thing below: where we’ve been, how high we had to climb to get where we are now.

The last few weeks have seen me all over the damn ride.  But I’m on a def­i­nite high now, with my beloved “Tonight at 7.30” get­ting glow­ing reviews on both Ama­zon US and Ama­zon UK.  Life does­n’t get much hap­pi­er than that.

But let’s go back­wards, through this mad month of mine.  You def­i­nite­ly need a bit of a glimpse of last week’s half-term “hol­i­day.”

How long has it been since you were in a posi­tion to spend four days in a remote coun­try dis­trict with­out inter­net, tele­vi­sion or tele­phone, unless you got in a car and drove five miles? Before you answer that, how long has it been since you were in said sit­u­a­tion, and then the car was dri­ven away by your hus­band, leav­ing you and your off­spring in the misty Devon coun­try­side in a mas­sive 18th cen­tu­ry stone house?  I give you: The Library.

Of course in this pho­to we’ve just arrived, with all the clob­ber we (I) seem to require to leave home: sev­er­al thick sweaters, Wellies, can­dles and can­dle­sticks, a pop­corn mak­er, an immer­sion blender, my spe­cial salt.  And John was there to set­tle us in, and to look quite Lord of the Manor as he did so.

The first day was love­ly.  The sky dawned unbe­liev­ably blue.  Here is our view from the main house to the “Orangery” where Avery slept.  Yes, Mom (my moth­er was total­ly dis­be­liev­ing when I revealed this to her): we actu­al­ly made Avery sleep in an out­build­ing.  An unheat­ed out­build­ing.  Hey, we brought along an elec­tric blan­ket!  And under this bright blue sky, it seemed quite rea­son­able.  Real­ly.  It was only after John left, and the skies opened and the tem­per­a­ture dropped right down, that we realised it had been a bit mad.  Here was her “room.”

As befits an Orangery, there was an orange.

At least the orig­i­nal glass ceil­ing had long-since giv­en way and be replaced with a nor­mal roof.  Can you imag­ine the tem­per­a­ture with a glass ceiling?

When we planned our Devon get­away a few weeks ago, we didn’t reck­on with the arrival in Lon­don of our fab­u­lous archi­tect from Paris, who would want to spend the mid­dle of the week with his beloved client, por­ing over draw­ings and large-scale mod­els of our dream home. But we had made our plans, and so we went, agree­ing that John would leave halfway through the week, and Avery and I would stay on, just the two of us for a cou­ple of days, and relax.

It was a mind-bog­gling con­trast to the mul­ti-task­ing-on-steroids way I usu­al­ly live my life, the peace­ful week in the wilds of Devon. I could tend my fire, or I could cook, or I could read. That’s all. We watched and lis­tened to the native birds fly­ing from one ancient tree to anoth­er, from the wide win­dow seats, admir­ing the carved stone accou­trements on the facade.

We read aloud fun­ny bits from what­ev­er book had tak­en our fan­cy. Avery and I have had par­tic­u­lar fun since she dis­cov­ered Lord Peter Wim­sey, as I’ve mem­o­rized near­ly all of his adven­tures in detection.

She would begin read­ing aloud, and I chimed in with por­tions of dia­logue. “Lord Saint George says that he gate-crashed your acquain­tance, destroyed your prop­er­ty, and that you instant­ly con­clud­ed he must be a rela­tion of mine.” “…bum­blin’ away like a bum­ble-bee in a bot­tle…” John rolled his eyes.

Well, he did do, until he drove away leav­ing us utter­ly becalmed in that iso­lat­ed place! I hon­est­ly felt a bit of a pan­ic attack­ing doing my food shop­ping, know­ing that for 48 hours I would have absolute­ly NO Plan B, short of call­ing 999, and even I rec­og­nize that run­ning out of but­ter is prob­a­bly not a real emergency.

Avery brought back her belong­ings from the quaint but cav­ernous and unheat­ed “Orangery” and I devot­ed myself to keep­ing the fire up so she could stay warm.

The last two nights she slept in the equal­ly cav­ernous but heat­ed main room of the “Library,” with its cher­ry-red walls and crack­ling fire. There was a wild kit­ty sight­ing! A striped and curlicued crea­ture with point­ed and atten­tive ears, perched below the ha-ha. When he met our eyes, he ran like the wind, tear­ing around the ancient yew trees to a safe haven some­where. The last morn­ing, sit­ting in the win­dow seat dry­ing my hair, I saw him again, but limp­ing this time.  We put out roast chick­en for him.

Said roast chick­en embod­ied for me the thrift that always comes over me in those shiv­ery, old-fash­ioned Eng­lish coun­try hol­i­days in a Land­mark Trust house. You roast the chick­en for din­ner one night, with rich pota­toes dauphi­noise. The next lunch, you shred the chick­en and sauté the two dish­es togeth­er for a rich sort of hash. Then, the next lunch, you pile juicy scraps on but­tered toast along with thick slices of sweet onion. Then you put out the final shreds for the cat. All from a small, unpre­ten­tious kitchen con­tain­ing every­thing you need.  Nat­u­ral­ly I trav­el with my own apron.

Oh, the stars! We were so far out in the coun­try­side that the stars seemed to be a kind of quilt or blan­ket that we’d thrown over us to make a fort, like we used to do with din­ing room chairs. The stars were so close! And the longer we stood, shiv­er­ing, pulling our sweaters around us, the more appeared. I feel sad that there can­not be a pho­to­graph of this expe­ri­ence, the sight of the stars min­gling with the smell of woodsmoke and the feel of a thick cash­mere cardigan.

But by the time Fri­day came, Avery and I were ready to leave behind rus­tic coun­try charm.   Mod­ern women can exist only so long in a world where email can be checked only at unpre­dictable times under one par­tic­u­lar­ly drip­py tree, in the cold rain.

We came home, via taxi, two trains, a tube ride and anoth­er taxi.  I found that while we were away, Face­book had sim­ply explod­ed with every­one’s pho­tos of the cook­book arriv­ing in their homes, dish­es they were cook­ing, their joy at final­ly hav­ing it in their hands, after so many months of antic­i­pa­tion.  Kick­starter had made it all such fun, such a com­mu­ni­ty project.  All my friends and fam­i­ly, all over the world, such a unique sup­port sys­tem, had got their rewards.

The last month has exceed­ed beyond my wildest dreams the sheer FUN of let­ting “Tonight at 7.30” loose on the world. Since I last updat­ed you all on what was hap­pen­ing, EVERY­THING has hap­pened. Sev­en years of patient labor, not to men­tion about six months of absolute flat-out devo­tion, paid off in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of when I first set out to “write a cookbook.”

The most impor­tant thing to remem­ber is that with­out Avery, and her extra­or­di­nary pho­to­graph­ic abil­i­ties, what had been my dream would like­ly have stayed just that, a dream. Until she picked up her cam­era and made my food beau­ti­ful, and made my rather lone­ly project a part­ner­ship, I could nev­er find the focus I need­ed just to get the book DONE, not to mat­ter out there in the world. She gave the project a shape, and a pur­pose. I can nev­er say enough to thank her for that.

On the 22nd of Jan­u­ary, the books arrived! Twen­ty-three beau­ti­ful card­board car­tons, all the way from Chi­na, embla­zoned with “Tonight at 7.30” and some excit­ing­ly exot­ic char­ac­ters which were even­tu­al­ly trans­lat­ed by a Chi­nese friend as “last box has sev­en copies.”

Nev­er mind, it WAS exot­ic and thrilling to receive the deliv­ery, which John did as I was out and about. Oh, the texts as I trun­dled home on the bus. “THEY’RE HERE!”

 I raced home to embrace my babies. Avery came home from school to find the car­tons piled high – 11 of them for the UPS guy to come deliv­ery to Ama­zon – in the front hall.

 “Oh, my God, did they come?” “Yes,” I frowned, sur­prised at her vehe­mence when, after all, we’ve had an advance copy in our pos­ses­sion since Christmas.

“Did you open them?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Oh, please can I have one, or maybe more?”

“Well, yes, but why on earth are you act­ing like this?” I put a copy of the book in her hands.

(Deaf­en­ing silence.)

“Oh. I meant the pota­to snacks, you know, from Poland, the ones you ordered for me from Amazon?”

Now it all made sense.

The UPS guy real­ly WAS excit­ed, though, when he arrived, to put my car­tons on his dol­ly and play his role in my lit­tle dra­ma. “I’ll look after these babies for you!”

And then began the final stretch of Project Cook­book. Every day, Avery and I signed copies for the love­ly peo­ple who had ordered them.

It prob­a­bly didn’t occur to me when I blithe­ly made that offer on Kick­starter – “a signed copy and an apron”! — that I’d have to mail them all myself.

John popped off to Paris for a cou­ple of days to see his archi­tect, leav­ing me slight­ly over­whelmed but quite hap­py to get down to the busi­ness of fold­ing and packing.

By the time I was fin­ished, I felt overqual­i­fied for a job at the Gap. Then I real­ized that I don’t dri­ve. A love­ly car ser­vice came to get me and my piles of books. I had a grub­by lit­tle piece of paper on which was writ­ten the num­bers of parcels going to Amer­i­ca, to Europe, to South Africa, to Aus­tralia. I was the Post Office’s employee’s worst night­mare. “How much will this cost to send to Spain? Because I need five of what­ev­er that is, and 22 to Amer­i­ca, and…” The poor lady def­i­nite­ly would have ben­e­fit­ed from work­ing on com­mis­sion, that day.

On the way home from the post office, I thought, “You need a treat.  You need some­thing just for YOU.”  When Avery came in from school, I asked, “Do you want to share a treat with me, the thing I most want­ed as a reward for a job well-done?”  And I offered up a plate of crispy, salty roast­ed guinea fowl SKIN.  Just the skin!  We could eat the real meat anoth­er time, but that after­noon, we sat on the sofa togeth­er eat­ing that skin and feel­ing quite, quite hap­py.  That was a good day to remember.

John came home from Paris with draw­ings of our dream home, and I felt ter­ri­bly emo­tion­al, sit­ting in our can­dlelit liv­ing room that night, emp­ty of cook­books, look­ing at the plans. So much of our hard work com­ing to fruition, all at the same time.

As I was sit­ting on my hands wait­ing for every­one to tell me that their books had arrived, I was hap­py to have my friend Cather­ine arrive from Amer­i­ca to help me cook for the book launch! Oh, the fun we had.

We chopped end­less heads of gar­lic, big red bell pep­pers, the insides of over 100 small mush­rooms, sautéed, mixed, stirred, tast­ed. We chopped tar­ragon, dill, cilantro and pars­ley and roast­ed salmon, for mousse. We made a lot of food.

We got a lot of talk­ing done. To think that we had met, actu­al­ly met, only twice in per­son, two days in a row, some four years ago. But when you get two avid writ­ers to begin cor­re­spond­ing over the pond, you get a great deal of vir­tu­al con­ver­sa­tion. It’s mag­i­cal to get emails from a nov­el­ist, I have found. And so we just picked up where we had left off, all those years ago. And… she likes Tacy.

The next day dawned bright and beau­ti­ful, as befit­ted a book launch. John drove me to Madeleine’s Cake Bou­tique under a cloud­less blue sky.

My elves — Eliz­a­beth, Fiona, Kim and Sue — arrived to help me build the wee salmon mouss­es on endive and baguette, to serve, pour bub­bly, greet guests. Avery arrived to sign books. John arrived with the till and a ready smile for every­one, as always the glue that holds every­thing together.

Kim curat­ed the apron display.

Eliz­a­beth got artis­tic with the salmon on chico­ry, Fiona car­ried trays of mush­rooms, Sue poured count­less glass­es of Pros­ec­co, Lisa made batch after batch of, you guessed it, her very own madeleines. (She had wise­ly come to this deci­sion after one tra­gi-com­ic after­noon spent leaf­ing through my dessert recipes, lacon­ic in the extreme, she felt. “What do you intend your read­ers to bake this apple and banana cake IN, Kris­ten? You don’t say in the recipe!” “Oh, a tea cup, or a wine glass?” I sug­gest friv­o­lous­ly.) Her madeleines were, every­one agreed, the best ever.  Lisa is the best ever, really.

She was the per­fect host­ess, and I watched her grate­ful­ly, mind­ful of the hard work she put in for the launch itself, but also of the num­ber of times she held my hand (and often my head) as I told her sto­ry after sto­ry of the birth of the book.

My dar­ling sis­ter sent flow­ers!  Extrav­a­gant and beau­ti­ful, “all the way from Amer­i­ca,” peo­ple kept marvelling.

Every­one under the sun came. Avery’s for­mer skat­ing teacher! My social work super­vi­sors! The recep­tion­ist at Avery’s school, my fel­low bell­ringers.  Mike has long been a fan of my cheesy spinach, which he insists on call­ing “green goo.”  Now his beloved Jill can make it for him.

I felt very pleased that after years of see­ing me only as a bum­bling, slow-learn­ing ringer, my teacher Eddie could final­ly see me in a slight­ly more capa­ble light.  He brought his beau­ti­ful daughter.

There were friends I’ve sweat­ed through weight-train­ing with, and strug­gled through writ­ing class­es with!

 

My friend Col­in was thrilled to meet so many beau­ti­ful ladies, but he had a moment just for me.

My elves slaved away.  But I think they also had fun, if the smiles were any­thing to go by.  I have the best friends in the world.

Oh, the madeleines!

 

Sue, doing what Sue does best: mak­ing peo­ple feel comfortable.

It was one of the best after­noons of my life. And it was my 50^th birth­day! What a per­fect way to cel­e­brate. Avery inscribed book after book, apron after apron flew from the box­es.  I could­n’t real­ly believe that some­thing we had worked so hard for, for such a long time, had actu­al­ly come to fruition.  You know how it’s pos­si­ble that such a moment, so hot­ly antic­i­pat­ed, will dis­ap­point?  It just did­n’t.  It was a won­der­ful, per­fect day.  The only thing that could have made it bet­ter would have been to have our fam­i­lies to help cel­e­brate, since they had done so much to make the book happen.

Final­ly 5 o’clock came. We packed up the car with the rent­ed wine­glass­es, birth­day presents, the unsold books and aprons, and John drove them home. And I was tak­en to Elizabeth’s house in the cold dusk, to be giv­en presents and to chat, and thence to one of the best meals of my life at “The Glasshouse,” a sim­ply divine restau­rant in Kew, where we indulged in such things as the Per­fect Man­hat­tan, foie gras wrapped in duck con­fit, roast­ed stuffed guinea fowl breast, cele­ri­ac fon­dant. And a pas­sion-fruit tart with a can­dle in it. Sim­ply perfection.

So begins my 51^st year. How on earth will the sec­ond half-cen­tu­ry com­pete? I vow to take much bet­ter care of my blog, since “Kris­ten in Lon­don” is where my cook­ing life was born and bred. Who knows? Per­haps it’s time for Vol­ume II…