Twelve Days of Summer

Shh.… can you hear it?

Wasn’t there a poet that said “unheard melodies are sweet­est”?  That’s what I’m hear­ing today, out on my ter­race, dap­pled in mid-afternoon sun­shine, a goldfinch on the dis­tant bird­feeder, the hydrangea finally in bloom.  Unheard melodies.  It’s per­fectly quiet.  For once, this entire sum­mer, there is noth­ing happening.

Quiet.

To be sure, this morn­ing the air rang with the sound of Avery, Kate and neigh­bor Taylor’s laugh­ing as they jumped on the tram­po­line (some­one has taught Kate to say “boing” but no one is own­ing up to it).  And even ear­lier in the day you could have heard John and me apol­o­giz­ing for bad ten­nis shots, at the court next to the pool.  But right now… silence.

Actu­ally, mostly what you hear at the ten­nis court are the unceas­ing accu­sa­tions of “Leo, that was so LONG,” and “You idiot, it’s not 30/30, it’s 40/40, what are you, blind?” from the four­some we have come to call The Grumpy Old Men.  Four men in their 80s, in vary­ing stages of decrepi­tude, but all shar­ing an unerr­ing instinct for the unpleas­ant com­ment, hurled at one another as the game pro­gresses.  One day we actu­ally booked the shady court, because I had had my fill of play­ing in the blaz­ing sun, and would you believe these guys refused to move over!  “We’ll give you a cou­ple of bucks to go away,” one of them jeered.  In between games they trade slightly off-color sto­ries about their exploits off-court, many of them punc­tu­ated with ref­er­ences to Via­gra.  Hon­estly, you have to hand it to them, infirm as they are, still in their ten­nis whites bat­ting the ball back and forth.  But get off the shady court, gentlemen!

The quiet of my after­noon has been inter­rupted by my intre­pid hus­band, haul­ing fire­wood from across the road to our wood­shed in the back of his trusty Land Rover, circa 1967.

He is puff­ing and sweat­ing in the sun, but I can assure you that he’ll be full of pride in his achieve­ment later, and full of plans for our Christ­mas hol­i­day here, with plenty of firewood.

It’s the Twelve Days of Sum­mer, that’s all we have left.  Who would have guessed on that day in early July that the sum­mer would speed by so quickly?  Well, I would have, because I know from sum­mers back that that’s how it goes.  You pack up in Lon­don, lit­tle believ­ing that the hol­i­day has really arrived, and you float across the wide Atlantic, slowly leav­ing behind the school year cares of home­work, wretched piano teach­ers, steamy days in Lost Prop­erty, the bur­glar alarm that WILL NOT stop turn­ing itself on every time a cat goes by… and you arrive at Red Gate Farm.

For about a week  you revel in the peace, and then the crazi­ness begins.  End­less friends and fam­ily troop in and out, bring­ing dishes of food, num­ber­less can­dles are lit and burn down as con­ver­sa­tions spin out around the table.  Troop­ing into the hot city for plays, shop­ping trips, lunches, din­ners, fam­ily get-togethers… and days at the sta­ble, watch­ing the teenager go round and round, me try­ing not to sneeze…

And life picks up pace.  Every sum­mer.  Trips to the ice cream shop up the road, for that one fried-food lunch at Denmo’s that leaves us remem­ber­ing why I learned to fry shrimp, after­noons see-sawing with Kate, explo­rations of the barn to dis­cover once and for all WHERE is the hard­ware for our shut­ters?  And vis­its to Tricia’s farm, where I come away with a new friend and an apron­ful of treasures…

Until we’re left at the end think­ing, “Where did the time go?”  So I’m glad to have one after­noon, just one Thurs­day after­noon, with noth­ing to do but sit here and appre­ci­ate the horses whin­ny­ing in the back meadow…

Actu­ally, our quiet day today will be enlivened by a visit to the local farmer’s mar­ket, one of my favorite places to be on any given sum­mer Thurs­day.  Will the peach farmer be as drop-dead gor­geous as usual, or will he have sent his dad along instead?  We can hope.

So life this past week has been fran­tic, even for me.  The last time to breathe was Sat­ur­day, when after a whole day of cook­ing for the fol­low­ing day’s party, we piled in the car and headed over to New Mil­ford to The Archive, a unique col­lec­tion of pho­tographs of New York City, adver­tise­ments for long-gone health prod­ucts, Campbell’s cream of mush­room soup, Real Silk hosiery and Lana Turner.  All the images were col­lected by Hugh A. Dunne, and the enter­prise is now run by his delight­ful daugh­ter Susie and her hus­band Jeff, in a Vic­to­rian house on a sunny street.  So far they’ve been able to orga­nize only a bit of his half-million-object col­lec­tion, so we couldn’t find any­thing about Tribeca.  Next time.

And Sun­day brought the party of the cen­tury.  Of two cen­turies, actu­ally, since it was a gath­er­ing to cel­e­brate the 200th birth­day of the house!  I know, in Eng­land that’s noth­ing to write home about, but here in NEW Eng­land, we get excited about two hun­dred years.  To think of the births and deaths, ill­ness and tragedy, wed­dings and wars this house has seen.  And my mother’s birth­day, sub­stan­tially less than 200 of them, fell on the same week­end, so the party we nor­mally have for her kind of… exploded!  Added to the gen­eral fam­ily may­hem were dig­ni­taries from the South­bury Land trust, of which con­stel­la­tion of acres our prop­erty is a shin­ing star.  And our friends Olimpia and Tony, all the way from the Catskills!

And from the far­thest away, my dar­ling friend Becky and her two girls, Avery’s best friend Anna and her sis­ter Ellie, all the way from Char­lotte!  They made a really good dec­o­rat­ing committee.

And of course Jill and her girls… Jane got the award for hav­ing the most fun with her feet.  The socks… didn’t survive.

The day was one of those that even as it’s hap­pen­ing, stands out as one of the best.  Right now I close my eyes and see the day unfold, watch­ing every­one fall into place in the hap­pi­est spot pos­si­ble.  Rol­lie rolled up early in his pickup to unload the long tables that would later hold untold amounts of deli­cious food… he and I man­han­dled stuff out quick as light­ning, unfold­ing chairs, shak­ing out cush­ions.  What would we do with­out Rol­lie and Judy?  Because along with the tables and chairs came Judy’s col­lec­tion of plates in every size you can imag­ine, and table­cloths, and broc­coli salad with bacon!

And then up came Becky’s rental car and out spilled the girls, miles taller than when I saw them last a year and a half ago, sud­denly young ladies, as is my own, so why am I sur­prised?  And Becky her­self, she of the warmest, lin­ger­ing hugs, her serene face, her bub­bling laugh, her South­ernisms.  “What do y’all want me to do to help?”  And instantly we were back in our old Lon­don mode of pitch­ing in together, hold­ing down table­cloths in the breeze, tap­ing them down, pour­ing ice into buck­ets, arrang­ing Squirt and Diet Pepsi and pink lemon­ade and beers.

And Shel­ley, all the way from New York state, behind the scenes tak­ing the most deli­cious pho­tos… how did she become so tal­ented!  It was Shel­ley who cap­tured Jane’s feet… priceless.

Olimpia and Tony brought her usual ambrosial array of Ital­ian del­i­ca­cies to unpack, ooh and ahh over, taste “just to make sure they’re OK…”  Meat­balls in a tomato sauce redo­lent of fresh basil, beef ribs with the meat falling off the bone, plump sausages and fresh, warm rolls and a gar­licky caponata with capers and black olives.  Olimpia!  Will you marry me?

And the party unfolded.  There were, in addi­tion to Olimpia’s offer­ings, my own sticky chicken wings in a sauce of dark molasses, beer and gar­lic, red cab­bage slaw with a sesame oil and gin­ger dress­ing, plus blue poppy seeds… an orzo salad with my home­made pesto and chopped Moroc­can olives, and Tri­cia brought a lovely col­or­ful salad of her own beans and edi­ble cal­en­dula flowers!

There were prac­ti­cally hun­dreds of dev­illed eggs because they are the favorite of the birth­day girl, my mother.  Why don’t I make them more often?

Dev­illed Eggs

(allow a whole egg per per­son, so this serves 24)

2 dozen very fresh eggs (makes eas­ier peel­ing when they’re fresh)

about 1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 tbsps dijon mustard

1 tsp mild curry pow­der, or kefta seasoning

fresh ground pep­per and sea salt to taste

Place eggs in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cover with water, plus an inch over that.  Bring to a boil, then turn off heat, cover pan and leave for 15 min­utes.  Drain and place in a cool bowl, add a hand­ful or two of ice cubes and cover with cold water.  Leave until cool, then peel and cut eggs in half lengthwise.

Remove yolks to a large bowl and add enough may­on­naise for your taste.  My daugh­ter likes very lit­tle; I can never get enough may­on­naise on any­thing!  Sea­son with curry pow­der and salt and pep­per, then spoon the mix­ture into each egg half.  Arrange on a plat­ter and dust with paprika, just, as the great food/mystery writer Vir­ginia Rich says, “for pretty.”  Done.

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I wish I had stopped to take pho­tographs of all the food, like a good blog­ger should, but to be hon­est, for once I was actu­ally AT my party, actu­ally IN my life!  And there­fore, some moments went unpho­tographed.  But here’s a sense of the beauty of the table.

It was a won­der­ful, lively, friendly party, with a whole other party going on in the kitchen as cleanup started… Olimpia, Becky and Jill ended up in a sort of soror­ity of suds, trad­ing life sto­ries, orga­niz­ing and bring­ing order to chaos as only three super­women could do.

Anne made a speech!  As elo­quently as only Anne could do, chron­i­cling the “lucky days” of our house and its pro­tected prop­erty, end­ing with the day we decided to buy it.  How lucky WE have been in our neigh­bors, who started out as lovely peo­ple to wave to over a white picket fence, and have grown into the best of friends.

And then there was the cake.  Choco­late mousse, with some sort of Frangelico or other alcohol-y essence, and “Red Gate Farm 1810–2010″ and “Happy Birth­day, Mona” on it.  Mona?  My mother explained to the party at large.  “My name is really Nonna, Ital­ian for grand­mother, but some­how in the first year of this tra­di­tional August party, the baker lis­tened to “Happy Birth­day, Nonna,” and heard ‘Happy Birth­day, Mona.’  Now every­one, espe­cially Jane, insists on ‘Mona.’”

What a won­der­ful day… and just as every­one began to drift away, large rain­drops fell onto the enor­mous maple leaves over­head, shield­ing us as that tree has shielded this ter­race since the last owner’s hus­band built it him­self of rocks from the prop­erty.  Finally, the party was over, for another year.

But Becky’s fam­ily visit had just begun!  She is the most won­der­ful house­guest: casu­ally pick­ing up dishes to dry, laun­dry to fold, much as Rose­mary does, so hav­ing the two of them together meant I hardly had to lift a fin­ger!  And the chats… oh, the lux­ury of hav­ing her HERE, where I could give her a hug if I wanted to, where we could sit for hours and just “visit,” as she says in her South­ern way.  Not the sort of fran­tic vis­it­ing you do on a phone from Char­lotte to Lon­don, where you know you have to hang up in fif­teen min­utes, and you’re left with a whole list of things you for­got to say.

No, this is the sort of over-the-kitchen-table vis­it­ing that took me straight back to her Lon­don kitchen, where there were always at least four and usu­ally more lit­tle girls in school uni­forms run­ning around, shriek­ing, look­ing for snacks, sit­ting on our laps.  Becky and her fam­ily rep­re­sent for me a whole part of my life, a sim­pler one when our chil­dren were always with us, and lit­tle, full of Sports Days and school con­certs and play­dates.  When did play­dates dis­ap­pear?  Some­where after Becky moved away, tak­ing a cer­tain part of life with her.

But for four days, we got it back.  Magic.

Not the least of which were…

Becky’s Cheesy Thanks­giv­ing Potatoes

(serves at least 8, but more with other side dishes on offer)

3 lbs/1 ½ kilos pota­toes (Maris Piper in Eng­land is a good choice, or a Yukon Gold in the US)
3 round shal­lots or 1 banana shal­lot, minced
2 cups/ 474 ml grated or shred­ded Ched­dar or Dou­ble Glouces­ter cheese
1 tsp gar­lic pow­der
sea salt and pep­per
3 cups/1 pint/474 ml sin­gle cream or Half and Half

Boil pota­toes until eas­ily pierced with a fork, then peel when cool. Grate them on a coarse grater and set aside.

Lighly oil or non­stick spray a deep glass or pot­tery casse­role dish, per­haps 9 inches in diam­e­ter and 5 inches or so high (mine is round, which is an appeal­ing shape). Scat­ter a layer of grated pota­toes on the bot­tom, then cover with a layer of cheese, a sprin­kling of shal­lot, a sprin­kle of gar­lic pow­der, and sea­son well. Repeat lay­er­ing until you have run out of ingre­di­ents, end­ing with cheese. Then pour the cream over the casserole.

Bake at 180C, 350F until bub­bly and the cheese begins to brown, about 45 min­utes, depend­ing on the depth of the casserole.

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Of all the dishes that have come out of my kitchen all sum­mer, this one was a first in many ways: all the chil­dren ate it, every­one had sec­ond help­ings, and it was ALL gone, no left­overs!  Becky always says cru­elly, “This is even bet­ter sec­ond day,” know­ing in her heart of hearts that there is NEVER a sec­ond day.

And big news: while the girls were all here, our friend Alice decided to adopt Jes­samy!  She is the fluffi­est of all three kit­tens, with quite a beau­ti­ful per­son­al­ity.  And to think she’ll now be in our lives for­ever, just a visit to Man­hat­tan away.  And there are inklings that there may be some babysit­ting duties at Christ­mas to look for­ward to…

Then we were off to one last fam­ily lunch at my sister’s house (lovely flank steak, Joel, and I cooked my telly con­test soup!), and then good­bye to my mother, father and brother until Christ­mas.  It was a wrench to pack them up into my sister’s car and wave them off to the air­port.  But glass half full: it was unfor­get­table to have them here.

And to make us feel bet­ter, we packed up the girls and headed to Quassy!  Quassy holds a spe­cial place in my heart, because I can’t decide if I love it, or hate it.  A lit­tle of each, I think.  It’s old fash­ioned, it’s hot, the air smells nau­se­at­ingly of cot­ton candy and fried dough (I know, don’t ask), the rides are almost all too scary for me, but it’s a bit of our sum­mer tra­di­tion.  So I go.

This sum­mer Avery and John actu­ally went on the Mad Mouse, a hideously rick­ety roller coaster, and guess what?  They’re demol­ish­ing it later in the sum­mer (like, tomor­row prob­a­bly) and build­ing a new one!  Who would ride a roller coaster on its LAST LEGS, adver­tised as such?  My daugh­ter and hus­band.  Yikes.

Then home for pizza and a hair­color spa led by Becky, with much hilar­ity and cha­grin from our girls as they set­tled into bed only to find that the air mat­tress had sprung a leak!  A mad dash to bring up all the cush­ions from sofas… a crazy end to a crazy visit.

And so they departed.  We were left with a quiet house, my head and heart burst­ing full of mem­o­ries that I will only really believe in on some cold, gray, rainy day in Lon­don. Then, I’ll sit back and watch the droplets stream down my Eng­lish win­dows, and con­jure up a house full of birth­day guests and the smell of L’Oreal, the taste of birth­day cake and the feel­ing of my mother’s arms around me in a hug, and the heft of Molly on my hip, and it will be sum­mer again.