we’re near­ly on our way

I’m such a basi­cal­ly home­body-ish, untech­ni­cal per­son that it always seems quite lit­er­al­ly incred­i­ble to me that tonight we could share a fab­u­lous din­ner with Anne and David, can­dlelit on our pic­nic table over­look­ing our peace­ful lawn and barns, and tomor­row at this time we’ll be high above the Atlantic cour­tesy of British Air­ways wing­ing toward home, and 43-ish hours from now we’ll be cozi­ly ensconced in our Lon­don flat, sur­round­ed by kit­ties and unpacked lug­gage and look­ing for­ward to the Michael­mas term, that fresh and autum­nal term of the Eng­lish school year in which all res­o­lu­tions about home­work and play­dates, diet and exer­cise seem pos­si­ble, and the spec­tre of Christ­mas has not yet raised its head!

Avery already has a plan of play with Anna, whose mom, my dear friend Becky, called today, bring­ing the spir­it of our Lon­don life into my Con­necti­cut kitchen. I found it so hard to rec­on­cile the sounds of my Amer­i­can wash­er and ice­mak­er with the sound of Beck­y’s voice, which con­jures up her Lon­don kitchen, our Lon­don cof­fee dates, Lon­don school func­tions. The odd thing is hav­ing such entrenched, cozy, and encom­pass­ing lives in both places.

Judy stopped by today as we were read­ing and laz­ing out on the ter­race, to say thanks for din­ner the oth­er night, for the return of her pieplate, a promise to hand on her cook­ie recipe, and to report on the funer­al we observed from the ten­nis court today, the funer­al of a beloved com­mu­ni­ty fire mar­shal. Some­thing in me was so touched to have a friend who would include us in this sto­ry, to help us under­stand the town we call home for only sev­en weeks a year, now, let us in on what we observed from afar, watch­ing vin­tage fire engines leav­ing the church­yard, know­ing some­one impor­tant had left the town.

And then to have Anne and David here tonight, help­ing me gath­er thoughts on the cook­book I’m work­ing on, a reis­sue of her grand­moth­er’s recipes. And thoughts on con­tribut­ing to the new South­bury Library for which there are still fundrais­ing paving stones and oth­er ded­i­cat­able items avail­able. The Avery Memo­r­i­al Late Returns Win­dow? The Paul Fred­er­ick­son Hand-Dry­er in the Men’s Room? We can’t afford the Chil­dren’s Cir­cu­la­tion Desk ($45,000!), but we can still think big.

We are just tremen­dous­ly lucky to have every­one we have where we have them, that’s all.

Well, leave we must. To pick up the threads of what was so absorb­ing sev­en weeks ago, and now seems like a dream! What will the school play be (Peter Pan being so won­der­ful last year), to be announced before Christ­mas? Will we end up in Ire­land for Octo­ber break with John’s par­ents? How will my new auto­bi­og­ra­phy writ­ing course go? What to do for Avery’s birth­day in Novem­ber? Who will be Head Girl, and Head of Curie House at King’s Col­lege Prep? When will our porter bring back our beloved Mini Coop­er from her sum­mer sojourn in Kent? What sort of seats did I man­age to get for us at Saint Joan at the Nation­al The­atre? Horse of the Year Show in Birm­ing­ham beck­ons, but do we have tick­ets? So many unan­swered ques­tions need­ing our attention.

And it’s some­thing that I go back to Lon­don armed with at least two new great recipes. Our last din­ner of dill-but­ter shrimp with Jill, Joel and Jane was won­der­ful, but since my shrimp tonight turned out so well I’m going to priv­i­lege Joel’s clas­sic chick­en dish that we have enjoyed so much chez Grove.

Parme­san Crust­ed Chick­en Breasts

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Avery has a new best friend, who Anne kind­ly informed us this morn­ing is a cater­pil­lar about to become an Amer­i­can Dag­ger Moth. She has named him Mar­cus, and he comes every­where with her. “Would you watch Mar­cus for me, Mum­my, while I get a book? He’s very well-behaved, so you should­n’t have any trou­ble with him.” He came with us to ten­nis this morn­ing, and wan­dered over to meet Rol­lie who came to say good­bye. She did leave him at home while we went to the famous Rich’s Farm Ice Cream Shop in near­by Oxford, one of Anne and David’s favorite spots, which they’ve been wax­ing lyri­cal about for years now, so we final­ly got there. Pump­kin ice cream! Sounds absurd but it was deli­cious, total­ly sim­ple and rich. We all stood around in the breezy first-of-Sep­tem­ber sun­shine, under the per­fect­ly blue sky with just a few ear­ly autum­nal leaves float­ing about. The per­fect last activity.

Well, I can report that my first expe­ri­ence cook­ing clams was, last night, a total suc­cess. Here’s what you need to remem­ber about clams: each one cooks at a dif­fer­ent pace. So unlike mus­sels, which if they don’t open after, say, ten min­utes, are assumed to be dead and there­fore ined­i­ble, clams need to be coaxed along a bit. And since my hor­ror was to over­cook them and end up with gar­lic-fla­vored rub­ber bands, I took each lit­tle one out of the steam­ing liq­uid as soon as it opened. There were ful­ly 10 min­utes between when the first one opened and when the last final­ly suc­cumbed, and it did­n’t seem to have any­thing to do with size, which sur­prised me.

Lin­gui­ni With Shrimp and Clams

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Well, I don’t love clams, but I tried one to assure myself that they were deli­cious, and they were. The shrimp were lus­cious and fun to peel (be sure to pro­vide body bowls for your guests to dump their shells), and each strand of lin­gui­ni coat­ed with but­tery sauce. With a lit­tle toast­ed focac­cia on the side, and a toma­to-moz­zarel­la sal­ad after (and Anne and David brought lus­cious berries and ice cream), it was the per­fect end-of-sum­mer meal.

Next post: LONDON!