Brideshead Revis­it­ed, revisited

But first, an impor­tant Shrimp Announce­ment: there is no way, con­trary to the cav­a­lier advice I gave you in the recipe yes­ter­day, that the shrimp recipe I gave you can feed four. Scratch that, it can’t even serve two. We ate like lit­tle wolves, while Avery swam peace­ful­ly in her bath, being an unshrim­p­like per­son. I for­got how much I love that dish. So dou­ble it def­i­nite­ly, and maybe even more, for four. Even with the rice to soak up all the spicy good­ness, we were both left peer­ing into the serv­ing dish in dis­may when it was fin­ished. Make it right away, do.

Avery has a dread­ful cough. She said this morn­ing with rel­ish, between cough­ing up lungs, “I’m so excit­ed for today!” “Why, what do you have going on?” I asked in sur­prise. “NOTH­ING.” So we sat around and did noth­ing. Or rather, she sat around and watched movie after movie. We start­ed out with “Peter Pan,” which got her all fired up for next week’s school audi­tions for their per­for­mance of said dra­ma, in the sum­mer term. We’re angling for her to be a mer­maid, since they get to sing, or one of the spe­cial two “Lost Boys” who get actu­al lines. Then it was onto her school ver­sion of “Joseph and the Amaz­ing Tech­ni­col­or Dream­coat,” “The Phoenix and the Car­pet,”) while John and I cleaned out clos­ets in our bed­room. Sev­en bags of clothes for Oxfam, whooppee.

I found things with dry clean­ing tags in them from the last time we lived in Lon­don, in 1993. Which means said gar­ments have not been worn in 15 years. Why have I placed them in box­es and moved them at least five times since then, if I did­n’t care any more than that? But some items of sen­ti­men­tal val­ue: the cardi­gan I was wear­ing when John met me lo these 24 years ago, a sweat­shirt from Bryn Mawr with 1992 embla­zoned on it, the year I got my PhD! And it’s cov­ered with paint from when we refur­bished the din­ing room in our first home in Maple­wood, New Jer­sey. And the lit­tle tweed dress my moth­er was wear­ing in her engage­ment pho­to­graph for her local news­pa­per! Quite a sen­ti­men­tal journey.

But we were glad enough to fin­ish and col­lapse to watch the first episode of “Brideshead Revis­it­ed.” I for­got what a won­der­ful, evoca­tive, beau­ti­ful pro­duc­tion that was. A bit too sub­tle for Avery, all sorts of mor­tal nuances that she was­n’t very inter­est­ed in. But it will be nice to have in reserve for times when we need a lit­tle ele­gant enter­tain­ment. Was there ever any­one more beau­ti­ful than the young Antho­ny Andrews? He turns up, as well, in one of the new Miss Marples, play­ing Tom­my of “Tom­my and Tup­pence,” nev­er my favorite Agatha Christie char­ac­ters, and a very weird tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion (com­plete­ly chang­ing the sto­ry, picky picky), but still well done in his capa­ble hands. And of course the per­fect Jere­my Irons as Charles. From the spe­cial edi­tion brochure that came with the DVD I learned the touch­ing fact that the rooms at Oxford that Charles inhab­its in the film are the real-live rooms where Eve­lyn Waugh actu­al­ly lived. Sigh, to go to Oxford. Maybe Avery will go.

Do you feel in the mood for a slight­ly obses­sive-com­pul­sive din­ner prepa­ra­tion? I have to say, it’s sat­is­fy­ing not only to pre­pare, but it’s deli­cious as well. For some rea­son, all the but­ler-served meals in “Brideshead Revis­it­ed” made me long for a slight­ly elab­o­rate din­ner with, cru­cial­ly, a sauce. So between home and Marks & Sparks I invent­ed this. Have a go.

Chick­en with Par­ma Ham and Asparagus
(serves four)

3 tbsps butter
6 leaves fresh sage, whole
4 bone­less chick­en breasts, skin removed
4 toothpicks
20 stalks thin aspara­gus, snapped at the weak point on the stem
4 slices Par­ma ham
16 leaves baby spinach
6 mush­rooms, sliced thin
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 shal­lot, minced
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup sin­gle cream
salt and pep­per to taste

Melt but­ter in large skil­let and fry sage leaves until crispy, then remove the leaves and take skil­let off heat. Lay chick­en breasts on a cut­ting board and either 1) pound them quite flat, or 2) cut as large a slit as pos­si­ble in one side, to make a pock­et. Now, on a sep­a­rate cut­ting board, lay out Par­ma ham slices next to one anoth­er. At one end of each slice, pile on four spinach leaves, and lay 5 stalks of aspara­gus on each pile of spinach. Roll up the ham around the spinach and aspara­gus and tuck the lit­tle roll into the chick­en pock­et, or roll up in the flat­tened chick­en breast if you went that route. Secure with a tooth­pick. Aren’t they cute?

Now, heat up the but­ter in the skil­let again. Lay the chick­en breasts in the but­ter and brown, then turn over and brown again. After about 3 min­utes on each side, take chick­en out and put on a plate, set aside. Add more but­ter if nec­es­sary and throw in the gar­lic, shal­lot and mush­rooms to saute until soft. Deglaze the skil­let with the wine and cook down for 3 min­utes, then add the cream, salt and pep­per and stir. Care­ful­ly scoot the mush­rooms to the sides of the skil­let to make room for the chick­en breasts, and lay them in the sauce. Cov­er and cook for six min­utes at a sim­mer. Serve on a plat­ter with the sage leaves on top.

Yum yum!

With this we had mashed pota­toes and sauteed red pep­per strips, and I here­by promise, no more mashed pota­toes for awhile. Such a guilty plea­sure, but I should turn our pasty white win­ter bod­ies toward more vir­tu­ous side dish­es, like the lentils, or a risot­to with at least some veg­eta­bles in it. Actu­al­ly the lentil dish is quite like a Mid­dle East­ern risot­to, isn’t it? I’m sure I’m not the first cook to draw that comparison.

Right. I’ll close with a spe­cial wish for my Indi­ana rel­a­tives: GO COLTS!