when cats make friends (and I make Stroganoff)

Well, the pace of life is ratch­et­ing up as it does dur­ing this fes­tive, con­fus­ing, pres­suris­ing and lovely sea­son! Tacy has cho­sen her own inim­itable way to han­dle the stress: she’s going visiting.

The first lit­tle widen­ing of her tiny life was around Avery’s birth­day when we gave Avery the horse jumps for the gar­den. We opened the gar­den door to take them out, and before we knew it, Tacy was out and about. I felt ner­vous about it at first because of her no-front claws sit­u­a­tion, and her gen­eral air of adorable naivete, but hey, you only live once. Or nine times. So out she went, and then we began leav­ing our bed­room win­dow open and she and Hermione, the only two svelte enough to fit, spend many happy hours com­ing in and out.

Then one day in Novem­ber our neigh­bors Janet and John knocked on our door, and said, “Do you know that Tacy comes to visit us?” Appar­ently one family’s devo­tion is not enough. So she shows up at their sit­ting room win­dow, and if they’re in view, they open it, and she washes her lit­tle feet on the hand towel I can see in their win­dow sill, and spends a lit­tle time being pet­ted by other peo­ple. Well, now it’s got so cold that we can’t just leave the win­dow open, so if I see their light on, and one of them in the win­dow, I open ours and out she goes like a flash. Then I look over at their win­dows and there is Janet or John, open­ing up, and in she goes. One night it got quite late and I was con­cerned, see­ing no Tacy facey at my win­dow to be let in. But at the stroke of 11, I heard their win­dow scrape open, and there she was. When I saw Janet the next day she said in all earnest­ness, “Does Tacy have a cur­few? I thought 11 was all right.” And on Sun­day she came home at 10. “Well,” I rea­soned, “It’s a school night.”

The rest of us do not find the hol­i­day sea­son quite so escapable. It’s all lovely in and of itself. It’s the aggre­gate that gets to me! The sched­ul­ing, and deci­sions about what gift is appro­pri­ate for a teacher who has Avery part of the day but not every day, singing rehearsals, clean uni­forms, trans­port, mak­ing sure every­one eats prop­erly, the insis­tence of SOME CAT of sleep­ing on all the Christ­mas cards that arrive in the post. I line them up nicely on the lit­tle Chi­nese chest, and next minute they’re flat under a cat.

We dropped in one evening at the lovely, if neglected and falling down, Vic­to­rian St Mark’s Church here in May­fair, and heard an enthu­si­as­tic and inspi­ra­tion rather Bap­tist style of Christ­mas car­ols, lots of hand wav­ing and “Yea, Lord,” very heart­warm­ing. And the rev­erend (or what­ever the proper term is) gave a short speech express­ing the congregation’s wish that the church remain a place of wor­ship, and not a nail salon. A lit­tle research after­wards revealed the sad future of the build­ing itself, Grade I listed but lack­ing a donor to keep it up as a reli­gious insti­tu­tion. And in this real-estate obsessed town, of course some­one will snap it up and turn it into lux­ury con­do­mini­ums. I have to say I saw a look of cun­ning and avarice on my own husband’s coun­te­nance. “Grade I listed, you say?” But it was a sweet evening.

In the midst of all the play­dates, present wrap­ping, shop­ping, dili­gent home­work efforts and trips to and from the sta­ble, I have become addicted to a char­i­ta­ble web­site called FreeRice. I have to warn you: do not go there if you have any­thing press­ing to do in the next hour or so. Hour! I’ve spent more than that to reach level 50 (it took ages! and then I was obsessed with get­ting back). Here’s how it works. It’s a vocab­u­lary quiz, and for every word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to feed the hun­gry. It’s all non-profit and paid for by the adver­tis­ers who get seen every time you click and get a new screen. Go on, try it when you’ve been online for 2 hours try­ing to order a t-shirt for your fourth cousin once removed and you can’t take e-commerce for anther moment.

And when you need to feed your own fam­ily but don’t have a ton of time of money to spare, try this inex­pen­sive, fool­proof and deli­cious repast, per­fect with some mashed pota­toes and steamed broc­coli for a com­fort dinner.

Pork Ten­der­loin in Milk
(serves 4)

1 pork ten­der­loin
2 sprigs rose­mary
2 small onions, quar­tered
6 cloves gar­lic, peeled and squished slightly
2 cups whole milk
salt and pepper

Now line a 9x13 dish with alu­minium foil and lay the rose­mary in the cen­ter. Then lay the ten­der­loin across it, sur­round with the onions and gar­lic, and pour over the milk. Salt and pep­per, and roast in the oven at 425 degrees for 35–40 min­utes, depend on how done you like it. Roasted, that’s all it takes.

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I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a clas­sic Ital­ian prepa­ra­tion. And while we’re on the comfort-food/cold night culi­nary theme, how about:

Meat­balls Stroganoff with White Wine and Fresh Thyme
(serves 8)

1 pound each: ground lamb, ground pork
4 tbsps but­ter
2 tbsps flour
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 white onion, minced
1 pound white mush­rooms (or fancy if you like), chopped
1 cup white wine
2 cups beef stock
2 cups sour cream (or creme fraiche, or a mix­ture as I used)
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
salt and pepper

Mix your meats and form into 2-inch balls, or what­ever size you like. Place on a plate and set aside.

In a large, heavy saucepan, melt the but­ter and add the flour. This is an ordi­nary roux, for thick­en­ing, so cook it but don’t burn it, until it’s golden and bub­bling. Now add the gar­lic, onions and mush­rooms and stir until they’re all mixed up in the roux. Add the white wine and stand back! Lower the heat and stir, then add the beef stock, and stir until thick. Add the sour cream, thyme, salt and pep­per. Now gen­tly drop the meat­balls, in a close sin­gle layer, into the sauce. Cover lightly, turn down the heat and sim­mer for 25 min­utes. You can stir and turn them occasionally.

Serve with but­tered noo­dles and steamed car­rots. Lovely.

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Well, I’m off to pick up some last-minute Christ­mas gifts for Avery, then the final school pickup of the term (yippee! no more alarm until Jan­u­ary), then lunch with a cou­ple of friends from school, and to see a skat­ing per­for­mance by the instruc­tors at Avery’s rink. Is John going with us? Let’s see, his exact words were, I believe, “I would rather poke my eye­balls out with hot nee­dles.” Fair enough. I, on the other hand, will mar­tyr myself. Sigh. That’s the hol­i­day spirit.