the new nest

Our nest is dif­fer­ent, that’s for cer­tain.  It does­n’t feel emp­ty, quite, but it’s a new feeling.

Avery’s gone off to Oxford, final­ly, after so many months of anticipation!

Just over a week ago, we packed up a rental car with loads of care­ful­ly-filled lug­gage and drove the sur­pris­ing­ly short dis­tance up the motor­way, to arrive under per­fect­ly blue skies and autum­nal, crispy air.  It was just as beau­ti­ful as we hoped, and Avery set­tled in very eas­i­ly, into dap­pled loveliness.

 With sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle fuss, all her belong­ings float­ed into place in her col­lege rooms.  She seemed to have been there for­ev­er, really.

I will admit that it felt very odd to dri­ve away leav­ing her there, but as the miles went by and we talked about how we were feel­ing, it was with a com­plete­ly pos­i­tive mood.  After all, her being there is some­thing she’s worked extreme­ly hard for, and the new chap­ter has begun.  It helps that Oxford is sim­ply breath­tak­ing.  Avery sent this pho­to to us last night, of her quad.

It’s won­der­ful to think of her walk­ing from place to place in Oxford, soak­ing in this atmosphere.

It’s def­i­nite­ly been for the best that John and I have more than enough on our plates to keep us busier than we real­ly want to be.  There is the house move, to be sure, which involves a seem­ing­ly end­less parade of tasks, the lat­est being today’s ven­ture into the dank, moldy, mis­er­able base­ment — I will NOT miss hav­ing to descend into it! — to go through a sim­ply tow­er­ing stack of Christ­mas pic­ture books, dust­ing them off and choos­ing which ones I real­ly can’t live without.

The out­landish thing is that there is anoth­er stack just as tall that my favorite tod­dler twins are tak­ing home with them this after­noon!  How on earth did we amass such a col­lec­tion?  Because our entire lives with Avery have been defined by BOOKS!  Nev­er mind, hours of hol­i­day bliss are col­lect­ed between the cov­ers of these love­ly tomes, and the mem­o­ries will remain intact.  I per­son­al­ly plan to leaf through each and every one, in our new home, this hol­i­day season.

Unbe­liev­ably, two weeks from today the movers arrive to do their best/worst to pack us up in two days, then the fol­low­ing two days they unpack us in SE1, to our even­tu­al delight, I’m sure.  We are tak­ing absolute­ly noth­ing with us that we don’t love, and actu­al­ly some won­der­ful things will be com­ing out of stor­age to join us, no doubt feel­ing quite new and excit­ing — a rug, a bench, pos­si­bly a sofa bought months ago at auc­tion and near­ly for­got­ten.  What fun that will be!

Because I’m me, lots of my time has been hap­pi­ly spent with my new Home-Start fam­i­ly, which for rea­sons of obvi­ous con­fi­den­tial­i­ty I can’t tell you any­thing about, except that I’m safe say­ing it’s a very small baby, and a mum who is a fab­u­lous, fan­tas­tic cook and has been gen­er­ous­ly teach­ing me her time-hon­oured, passed-down-by-mum recipes.  I give you quite sim­ply the most authen­tic, heav­en­ly lentil dish you will ever taste.

Tar­ka Daal

(serves lots, per­haps 6–8)

about 1 cup/250 grams orange, yel­low or brown lentils

about 3 cups water

1 medi­um tomato

1 medi­um onion

3 cloves garlic

1 heap­ing tsp ground coriander

1 heap­ing tsp ground cumin

1 heap­ing tsp ground turmeric

1 heap­ing tsp chili powder

1 heap­ing tsp garam masala

1/2 cup/125 ml veg­etable oil

1 medi­um onion, rough­ly sliced

3 cloves gar­lic, chopped fine

1 medi­um tomato

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

1/2 cup/125 ml plain yoghurt

fresh coriander/cilantro leaves to garnish

Pour the lentils into a heavy-bot­tomed saucepan and cov­er with water.  You may need more water as they cook down. Into the lentils, coarse­ly chop the toma­to, onion and gar­lic.  My friend does this with a small, sharp knife, right from her hand into the pot.  Sprin­kle with all the spices.  Bring to a sim­mer and cook until soft, adding more water if need­ed, about 30 min­utes.  Make sure the lentils are tru­ly soft.

While they are cook­ing, heat the oil in a fry­ing pan till very hot, then add the onions and gar­lic and fry until brown.  This is absolute­ly cru­cial — con­tin­ue to cook them past the lev­el you would for any oth­er recipe, except per­haps a biryani.  They need to be fried near­ly crisp, and you will find that they begin to stick togeth­er in clumps.  This is perfect.

Now add them to the sim­mered lentils.

As the oily onions and gar­lic hit the wet lentils, they will make a crack­ling sound, very sat­is­fy­ing, which the Pak­ista­nis believe mim­ics the sound of fire­crack­ers, and the Urdu word for fire­crack­er is “Tar­ka.”  Hence “Tar­ka Daal,” since “Daal” is Urdu for “lentils.”

Stir thor­ough­ly and add the sec­ond toma­to.  Cook just a bit.  Sea­son well and stir in half the yogurt.  Serve topped with the remain­ing yogurt and the cilantro.

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This dish is sim­ply heav­en­ly!  So com­plex, so sat­is­fy­ing with a roast­ed chick­en, a nice piece of fish, or with a fried egg on top and more crispy onions… the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less!  Of course my friend serves it with a nice chick­en cur­ry and boiled rice, which is a very good thing to do.

We have been hav­ing such fun togeth­er, learn­ing from each oth­er, tak­ing a very long bus ride to the near­est halal shop to buy all the spices I need, plus spe­cial pick­led man­goes, pota­to pan­cakes, and bak­lawa to assuage the taste Avery acquired in Greece.  I’ll have to take some more to her when we visit.

Bell-ring­ing has been going quite well, with Plain Bob near­ly under my belt.  How I love the bellcham­ber with its humor­ous win­dows shin­ing in the sun.

As is usu­al the sec­ond week­end of Octo­ber, we bell-ringers took over the stock­ing and run­ning of the church Cof­fee Shop on Sat­ur­day.  I baked!  Lemon polen­ta cake with blue­ber­ries, choco­late chip fudge cake.

At the same time a Ring­ing Train­ing Ses­sion took place in the bellcham­ber, filled to the brim with teach­ers and learners.

I spent the whole day in the church, feel­ing as usu­al that I was in an Agatha Christie nov­el minus the dead body (so far), serv­ing cof­fee, greet­ing the twins and their beau­ti­ful mum, when they came by for choco­late cake and a spot of gardening.

John popped in — look­ing as out of place amongst the ringers eat­ing lunch as would a gold­en retriev­er amongst a gag­gle of geese! — to con­fer on the ingre­di­ents for the meat­loaf I was plan­ning for din­ner.  One of the few ben­e­fits to Avery’s absence is the free­dom to eat what­ev­er we like, even if it’s not her favorite.

Meat­loaf, ah, I’ve missed you.  This recipe is inspired by the divine David Rosen­garten, author of the Dean and Delu­ca Cook­book from our hal­cy­on New York City days.  I’ve replaced the dried herbs with fresh, and added a bit of cot­tage cheese, plus I always grind my own meat, and I’ve replaced all-beef with a trio of meats.

Per­fect Soft-and-Moist Meatloaf

(serves 6)

1 pound/450 grams beef chuck (or rump or chump)

1/2 pound/225 grams lamb neck fil­let, or lamb steaks

1/2 pound/225 grams pork shoul­der or fat­ty chops

3 cups/5 slices/180 grams bread (David uses white; I used granary)

1 egg

2/3 cup/155 ml milk

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

dash fresh ground nutmeg

hand­ful basil leaves, cut into ribbons

1 medi­um onion, fine­ly chopped

3 stalks cel­ery with leaves, fine­ly chopped

hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, fine­ly chopped

12 rash­ers bacon, light­ly browned and chopped roughly

1/2 cup/100 grams cot­tage cheese, small curd

Cut the meats into chunks of about 2 inch­es, trimmed of excess fat (but leave some).  Pass through your grinder, alter­nat­ing the meats so they mix loose­ly.  Set aside.

Com­bine the bread and milk, then beat the egg light­ly and add to the mix.  Leave for a minute or so, then stir to break up the bread quite fine­ly.  Add all the oth­er ingre­di­ents and mix well.  Mix into meats until ful­ly inte­grat­ed, then pat into a but­tered loaf pan.  As David says, a loaf pan (rather than sim­ply mound­ing the mix­ture in a dish) allows only the top to brown and the rest is soft and comforting.

Bake at 350F/180C for 55 min­utes, then let rest for five min­utes before slic­ing.  This meat­loaf is per­fect with a pale gravy, such you might have left­over from roast­ing a chick­en.  Mashed pota­toes a MUST.

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The evening of The Divine Meat­loaf, a love­ly local man came to buy Avery’s bed, which we had undressed dur­ing the day.  He and John toiled up and down the stairs from the top of the house to the hall­way, car­ry­ing bits and pieces.  I stood in the door mak­ing sure Tacy did­n’t escape.  It was an unfor­get­table autum­nal moment — the intense­ly nos­tal­gic aro­ma of the meat­loaf steal­ing through the house, the dry leaves swoop­ing down the pave­ment, tall trees rustling in the wind, the bed going to a new home.  Avery will have the guest bed now, which began its life as her lit­tle-girl bed.  Full circle.

The next morn­ing, after ring­ing for ser­vices, I made my way to Glouces­ter Road to meet up with the incom­pa­ra­ble Sil­ver Fox (my pal Rosie), and our part­ner-in-crime, the heav­en­ly Sam.  We shared rather a dis­gust­ing brunch — how DOES one part­ly over­cook a poached egg whilst leav­ing the white still liq­uid?  Nev­er mind.  We were together.

We mean­dered over to the Bromp­ton Cer­e­mo­ny, where mem­bers of the Banks fam­i­ly that Rosie stud­ies at Kingston Lacy are buried.

“So, Rosie, where are the graves?” Sam asked, look­ing around at the ivy-cov­ered stones and mon­u­ments, under a bril­liant blue sky.

“Mmm, not exact­ly sure,” Rosie mur­mured, almost as if she were try­ing not to be heard.

“You mean, they could be any­where?” I asked, look­ing with a bit more atten­tion at the expan­sive grounds.

“Well, yes, but it’s only 39 acres,” Rosie assured us, “and some­thing tells me we’ll just COME upon them.”

Read­ers, we did not.  But that did­n’t spoil our fun on a glo­ri­ous fall day, kick­ing leaves under our feet, enjoy­ing the num­ber­less paeans of praise to this or that Fan­ny, Amelia, Eliza Jane and Septimus.

 We mean­dered here, wan­dered there, chat­ted about food, Avery, Sam’s career plans, Rosie’s plans to come back with a loca­tion (!) for her graves.  Sud­den­ly Rosie stopped in her tracks.

“Look, a stoat, rush­ing through the under­brush!  Oh, no, it’s a squir­rel.”  (Deep disappointment.)

“Rosie, in what uni­verse would there be a stoat just run­ning wild in a cemetery?”

“Well, the sign said that it’s a very wel­com­ing habi­tat for hun­dreds of species.”

“Very pos­si­bly, but BIRDS, and RODENTS.  Not small pigs!”

[Author’s note: it has been point­ed out to me by a loy­al read­er that I was think­ing of a SHOAT.  Like this.

A STOAT is this, much more like­ly to be haunt­ing the cemetery:

And I REAL­LY WANT ONE.]

Final­ly we gave in and realised the Bankses were not going to pop and say, “We’re here!” and we decid­ed to leave their dis­cov­ery for anoth­er day.  We part­ed at the bus stop, as usu­al reluc­tant to say good­bye.  Until next time, my friends.

Late after­noon saw me at one of my favorite events: ring­ing for Choral Even­song, on an autumn Sun­day when 5:30 is just begin­ning to feel like evening, a bit crisp, with a hint of woodsmoke in the air.  I ped­alled along the qui­eten­ing High Street, pep­pered with par­ents tot­ing weary chil­dren along the love­ly vil­lage road.  What a beau­ti­ful place to live.

We gath­ered to ring, lis­ten­ing to the choir prac­tic­ing.  My fel­low ringers, and my beloved vic­ar, are some of my very favorite people.

“Why the pho­tographs, Kris­ten?” Giles asks (he’s the chap on the right, the per­fect Eng­lish gentleman).

“Because I’m leaving.”

“Oh, come now, you’re not going THAT far.”

But he, Richard and Trisha posed for me, indul­gent­ly.  And then we rang.  Not bril­liant­ly, but we rang.

Which is a fair atti­tude these days to life with all its joys and changes.  We do it.  Not always bril­liant­ly, but we do it.  And in the back of our minds, we know Avery is hap­py, and send­ing us pho­tographs, and that’s all that real­ly matters.