Birth­day Week

I’ll admit it.

I was going to lie and say it had been a whole week since I blogged because I Had Been So Busy.

And while it’s true, I have been run­ning to and fro, watch­ing Avery cre­ate ever-cool­er new out­fits as above, see­ing plays, cook­ing, turn­ing 45 (no need to expand on the num­ber of years, that’s for sure), the rea­son I have not been blog­ging is…

SHEER INTIM­I­DA­TION.

Out of the good­ness of her shar­ing heart, a dear friend of mine point­ed me to a blog she enjoyed, say­ing, “Her tone is very dif­fer­ent from yours, but I think you might find her inspir­ing.” I’m almost afraid to point YOU to this blog, because it is my sin­cere fear that any­one who sees this supe­ri­or blog will have no time for me anymore.

Sob.

She’s Pio­neer Woman, and she is per­fect in every way. She lives on a ranch with four unbe­liev­ably pho­to­genic chil­dren, hordes of hors­es, acres of cows, and mass­es of sexy cow­boys as far as the eye can see, includ­ing her hus­band. She gar­dens, she cooks splen­did­ly (her COOK­BOOK has just been pub­lished, which put me over the edge), she even home-schools. And she’s gor­geous. And nice.

I could spit.

Well, as you can see, the most that this state of severe neg­a­tive self esteem has pro­duced is a pho­to behind the ban­ner of my blog, and a new descrip­tion, and a new “About Me.” What has not tran­spired is a recipe index. Or the uber-expen­sive Nikon cam­era with which she takes her glo­ri­ous pho­tos, or the Pho­to­shop soft­ware to alter them all to perfection.

Just a pho­to behind my ban­ner, that’s all. But it’s a start. And since it was my birth­day table after my sub­lime par­ty, I’m post­ing it sep­a­rate­ly on this post. In real­i­ty: it’s the typ­i­cal image of my life, my moth­er-in-law says, which makes me very happy.

Most­ly I spent the sev­en days of my silence turn­ing 45. Plan­ning to turn 45, cook­ing for the love­ly ladies who came to help me turn 45, clean­ing up after us all, and gen­er­al­ly doz­ing around ana­lyz­ing whether or not I felt any old­er. It was a glo­ri­ous birthday.

The first delight­ful thing that hap­pened in my obses­sive plan­ning lead­ing up to the par­ty was a dis­cov­ery in my base­ment (which could yield almost any sur­prise, it has to be said). This par­tic­u­lar sur­prise was a Ziplock bag full of tar­nished sil­ver nap­kin rings. Back in the days when John and I spent a lot of time think­ing up presents to give each oth­er, one of our fall­backs was a nap­kin ring, to be brought out at the end­less din­ner par­ties we gave, pre-Avery. We bought them at antique shops and flea mar­kets, peo­ple gave them to us for birth­days and anniver­saries, and most cel­e­bra­to­ry of all, we com­mis­sioned them from our friend the jew­el­er, Lin­da Lee John­son, our neigh­bor in our SoHo loft build­ing and the mak­er of all the beau­ti­ful things we have ever owned.

And some­how, in the con­fu­sion of all our many mov­ings of house, those gor­geous things were stuffed into a plas­tic bag and for­got­ten on a cel­lar shelf. Awful.

It was but the work of a moment to bring them up, cov­er them in sil­ver pol­ish and shine them up. Two are engraved with the date, month and year of our first date! And one says “John + Kris­ten,” and anoth­er is a giant sil­ver flower shape, and one, a Vic­to­ri­an beau­ty, says “Ellen Ben­nett,” who one of my birth­day guests joked was actu­al­ly John’s first wife.

What a find.

I spent all of Sat­ur­day pol­ish­ing cham­pagne glass­es, pol­ish­ing forks and knives and spoons, and soak­ing beans for the cas­soulet that would be my birth­day sup­per, Sun­day night. Because why buy an ordi­nary tin of hari­cot beans and pour off the water in about 26 sec­onds, when you can, instead, soak dry organ­ic beans for 22 hours, chang­ing the water three times? Always go the extra mile.

Sat­ur­day night found us on our way (and on, and ON) to a lit­tle-known Oscar Wilde play, “Lord Sav­ile’s Crime,” in Brom­ley, of all places. Fifty-two min­utes to dri­ve there did­n’t sound so unrea­son­able, on google maps. How they lied. It was at least an hour and a half, with impos­si­ble direc­tions and ter­ri­ble traf­fic. I could feel John fum­ing next to me, watch­ing the min­utes tick by, final­ly say­ing, “Of all the neigh­bor­hoods we’ve been through on the way to this b**dy play, there isn’t a sin­gle one I’m plan­ning to vis­it again.” Ouch. Rain, final­ly, to cap it all off.

But the play was love­ly! A crazy Vic­to­ri­an farce, with Lee Mead of “Joseph and the Amaz­ing Tech­ni­col­or Dream­coat” fame, in the lead. He’s been told by a psy­chic that he’s going to com­mit a mur­der, and in order that he not mur­der his beloved fiance, he finds oth­er rela­tions and friends he thinks he can bump off instead. Great cos­tumes, and a stage design and direc­tion that was almost like anoth­er char­ac­ter, it was so clever.

And some­how find­ing our way home was even more Dra­con­ian than get­ting there. But we made it.

Sun­day I… cooked. And cooked, and cooked some more. I shelled sweet­corn, chopped gar­lic, sim­mered duck, spun let­tuce, sauteed lamb, baked sausages, sliced car­rots and cel­ery, wept over onions.

I filled can­dle hold­ers with can­dles, fold­ed old white vin­tage nap­kins into my pol­ished nap­kin rings, chose soup bowls and wine glass­es, and John hoovered the house to be ready, and lit the fire in the liv­ing room upstairs.

And they came. My friend JoAnn all the way from Oxford! My neigh­bors and friends from school, ready for fun, gos­sip, and the exchange of wis­dom and emo­tion and sil­ly anec­dotes that makes up the great good for­tune of hav­ing girl­friends. Heav­en. Avery and John came in late from their own din­ner par­ty (cooked by the hus­band of one of my guests!), had a piece of love­ly choco­late cake made by my friend Annie and dec­o­rat­ed with a “K” in rasp­ber­ries by her daugh­ter. Final­ly every­one depart­ed into the rainy night and JoAnn and I made a desul­to­ry attempt to han­dle the mess in the kitchen, get­ting only about halfway through before we sim­ply had to stop, sit and chat a bit, and then fall into bed. A gor­geous, love­ly night.

Many would find it sil­ly, even incom­pre­hen­si­ble, that my idea of a birth­day par­ty was to cook every­thing myself and then have to clean up. But it was heav­en­ly. Eight girl­friends, some of whom knew each oth­er but some did not, dressed up, bear­ing cham­pagne and presents, with can­dle­light and the aro­ma of sweet­corn and rock­et soup, cas­soulet, the gor­geous pur­ple hyacinths on the table and many dif­fer­ent sub­tle perfumes.

And on Mon­day morn­ing, per­haps the best gift of all: the win­dow clean­er came! I’m ashamed to say we’ve lived here for near­ly two years and not… had the win­dows cleaned. Ken­ny came, hung his frame out­side and inside the win­dows, and after just a few hours our win­dows gleamed in unac­cus­tomed sparkle! I almost felt we’d fall out of them if we got too close. Per­fect birth­day present for me. Then to lunch at La Trompette in Chiswick: foie gras and chick­en liv­er par­fait with fresh brioche, then I had cod with lit­tle gnoc­chi in a puree of cepes (how hard can THAT be to pro­duce, and be so mag­i­cal? just mush­rooms, after all), and John had sea bass fil­let with chick peas, aubergine and squid stuffed with diced red pep­per… a cheese board and gran­ite of grape­fruit, and out into the slushy, slow-falling snow, stag­ger­ing home in delight.

Home to be giv­en my birth­day presents, which SO rep­re­sent who I am: a tiny spice grinder, a tart slicer, an olive oil decanter, and a gor­geous white shirt and black skirt from The­o­ry. Plus a pair of “duvets for the feet”: feath­ery slip­pers, per­fect for this cold, cold house.

And all over for anoth­er year. My feel­ing is this: if you have to get old­er, and come up against a mile­stone like 45 years, why not cel­e­brate it with those you love, get out of your com­fort zone a bit by invit­ing peo­ple who don’t know each oth­er, cook some­thing you haven’t cooked before, light the can­dles, pour the cham­pagne, watch the snowflakes out­side the win­dows (clean!), and…enjoy with a crisp, salty bite.

Spicy Parme­san crisps
(serves 8)

1 cup grat­ed Parmesan
1/4 cup flour
2 tsps black onion seeds
1 tsp cayenne

Mix every­thing thor­ough­ly. On a grease­proof paper or a non­stick-sprayed sur­face, place a table­spoon of the mix­ture spaced 1/2 inch apart and bake at 425F/220C for about 2 min­utes, watch­ing care­ful­ly so they don’t burn. Trans­fer to a plate to cool, and the crisps can be stored in a closed tin for up to 3 days. Per­fect with champagne.