a real­ly fun­ny film, and the new best lamb

Well, it’s not a clas­sic yet, but it might become one. “Run, Fat­boy, Run” is real­ly worth see­ing, if you like self-dep­re­cat­ing, sophis­ti­cat­ed Eng­lish com­e­dy. I don’t know if it will have wide release in the States, but it should. It always amazes me that we here in Eng­land can real­ly love an actor like Simon Pegg, and he can be phe­nom­e­nal­ly suc­cess­ful here, and yet there aren’t a lot of Amer­i­cans who will rec­og­nize him. When­ev­er I think that our two cul­tures are grad­u­al­ly merg­ing and los­ing all indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ty, I com­fort myself with that fact. Although I’d like him to be successful.

Any­way, my gor­geous friend Dalia and I met up yes­ter­day for lunch (I was in food-spy mode as I tried to iden­ti­fy all the ingre­di­ents in my favorite soft-shell crabs at Man­darin Kitchen), and to see the film. First we had to catch up (her sum­mer trip back to her Lebanese fam­i­ly in Nige­ria (how exot­ic is that?) and dis­cuss the food. She rec­om­mend­ed the crab­meat and sweet­corn soup, and it was deli­cious, but take a leaf from Dali­a’s book and order soy sauce and chilli sauce to go with it, as it kicks the fla­vor up from its orig­i­nal rather bland stance.

I can’t wait till our new writ­ing course begins week after next: “Prose Fic­tion and Auto­bi­og­ra­phy” at Birk­beck, part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. Every­one not employed full­time should take note: so many col­leges do part-time cours­es, and it’s a great inex­pen­sive way to try out a new sub­ject and make Eng­lish friends. It will be so nice to see Dalia every week, instead of the ran­dom get-togeth­ers we man­age now. She is my polar oppo­site in near­ly every way: lit­tle and dark, with a fiery tem­per and very strong, pas­sion­ate opin­ions about absolute­ly every­thing. She is a fas­ci­nat­ing com­bi­na­tion of ter­ri­bly strong and very gen­tle, and one of those com­fort­ing friends where I could turn to her in any sit­u­a­tion and know that she would be on my side. And we haven’t even been friends for a very long time. But it’s been a joy to have her to play with. Plus she’s mar­ried to a sax­o­phone-play­ing mod­el with what has to be a dev­as­tat­ing Irish accent. I can’t wait to meet him.

So I weasled what will have to pass for a recipe from the head wait­ress (most impor­tant­ly, no bat­ter, just flour), and I’ll be giv­ing it a try when Becky and her fam­i­ly come to din­ner on Sun­day. Beck­y’s bring­ing her famous Chick­en Mar­bel­la as well, since nei­ther she nor any child would con­sent to eat­ing soft-shell crabs! I hope I’ll have both my recipe and Beck­y’s when Mon­day morn­ing comes around.

The movie was great fun. A rather sil­ly premise: man throws preg­nant fiance over at the altar, then fast-for­wards five years and wants her back, but has to com­pete with her obnox­ious Amer­i­can (sad­ly a rather repet­i­tive descrip­tion over here, I’m afraid) boyfriend who runs marathons. So Simon Peg­g’s char­ac­ter decides to run the marathon as well. But run­ning under­neath is a sweet sto­ry between Pegg and his lit­tle son, and a hilar­i­ous friend­ship between Pegg and the DIVINE Dylan Moran. I am such a suck­er for an Irish accent! Or Scot­tish, come to that. And it’s an in-love-with-Lon­don film. Great panoram­ic shots as well as cosy neigh­bor­hood ram­bles. You’ll love it.

I met up with Avery and John at the incom­pa­ra­ble Daunt Books in the Maryle­bone High Street, and we came away with an embar­rass­ing stack of books. I can’t seem to say no to a book pur­chase. She is in such heav­en in a book­store or library, and then reads them all over and over. “Are you sure you need ALL those books, Avery?” She thought for a moment. “I sup­pose I could go over them again,” she said, and came up with a cou­ple she thought she could live with­out, includ­ing a gor­geous book on the Flower Fairies she loves so much. “How about if you wait until your birth­day for that one? It’s not very far away,” I sug­gest­ed, and the lit­tle dear agreed, because she is a nice per­son. “But Mum­my,” she averred, “I know to a grownup sev­en weeks is not a long time, but to me…”

Now the last few days there has been a lit­tle nip in the air, and more than occa­sion­al leaves drift­ing down into the gar­den. The giant tree (that if I were a real Eng­lish per­son I could iden­ti­fy) at the bot­tom of the gar­den is turn­ing from its dark sum­mer green to a sort of yel­lowy shade, and I know it won’t be long before the whole gar­den is stripped of its leaves, so I’m enjoy­ing it. It also makes me think of win­try foods, and so last night’s din­ner was appro­pri­ate­ly warm­ing. I need to think of a bet­ter name for this recipe, clear­ly, schmi­er being the only word that comes to mind (in Alyssa’s voice, since this week was Rosh Hashanah). But the coat­ing was­n’t crispy so it could­n’t be called a crust, nor was it dry so it was­n’t a rub. Help!

Shoul­der of Lamb with a Pinenut-Spice Schmi­er

*************

With this we had our favorite spinach and cheese casse­role. It’s a very for­giv­ing recipe. Because I was feel­ing lazy, I revert­ed to frozen spinach, and because I had not ade­quate­ly gro­cery shopped, I had no evap­o­rat­ed milk. I used skim milk and some parme­san cheese instead, and it was love­ly. There being a refrig­er­a­tor full of cheese, I did not indul­gent­ly buy some­thing spe­cial for the casse­role, and it turns out Red Leices­ter is fab­u­lous in this dish.

Well, today is back to the skat­ing rink for Avery. I will just be glad to get away from this desk and its piles of pass­port appli­ca­tions, school appli­ca­tions, insur­ance forms, accoun­tants’ bills and the like. TGIF!