butcher’s hol­i­day

You know the expres­sion, “bus­man­’s hol­i­day,” where the poor bus dri­ver spends his vaca­tion dri­ving his fam­i­ly some­where? Well, I got the Sel­f­ridges Food Hall ver­sion over the week­end. I was feel­ing peck­ish, and frankly wish­ing to repeat my spicy shrimp recipe from the night before, and maybe do it even spici­er, when my enthu­si­asm was com­plete­ly damp­ened by the notion that I might have to pay 26 pounds a kilo for the priv­i­lege. I’m sor­ry, $50 for one at-home din­ner was quite lit­er­al­ly too much to swal­low. Plan B? Well, there was a spe­cial on leg of lamb, and that sound­ed quite tasty as well, only even on sale, the leg came to… 26 pounds. Urk! Could­n’t do it. Final­ly I told the butch­er I was on a bud­get and what did he rec­om­mend? “I have a very fru­gal hus­band,” I explained, “and he won’t enjoy his din­ner if he sees these price tags.” He shook his head and said,“In my opin­ion, hus­bands don’t appre­ci­ate econ­o­my when it comes to the din­ner plate, but if you think it will lead to domes­tic har­mo­ny, you give it a try. How about a nice pork roast, on the bone, with the crack­ling scored, like, to make it nice and crispy?” “Oh, that sounds per­fect,” I decid­ed, and with a price tag of just over 6 pounds I was hap­py. “You’re mak­ing me hun­gry, describ­ing the crack­ling,” I told the butch­er, “and I’m going to put him on a bed of onions, gar­lic and rose­mary, and driz­zle him with olive oil. Does­n’t that sound good?”

“I have to be hon­est with you, madam, I don’t eat meat. Almost nev­er, that is. Can’t bear the stuff. Give me a choice, and I’ll take lasagne every time.”

Well!

As I car­ried on shop­ping, the idea began to take hold, and by the time I got home I was ready to put away my pork roast and get on with lasagne, which choice was met with loud cheers from my ail­ing child, who thought it would slide down nice­ly past a sore throat. And in def­er­ence to my veg­e­tar­i­an butch­er, I left out the meat, but a nice lay­er of sauteed beef mince or sausage tucked between pas­ta sheets would go down a treat, as they say in my adopt­ed land.

Veg­e­tar­i­an Lasagne
(serves 8 easily)

15 lasagne sheets
3 tbsps olive oil
5 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 medi­um onion, minced
3 soup-size cans chopped tomatoes
3 tbsps Ital­ian seasoning
2 cups ricot­ta cheese
2 cups moz­zarel­la cheese, fresh­ly grated
1/2 cup grat­ed pecori­no or parmesan

Pour your olive oil into a heavy saucepan and saute and onion and gar­lic till soft, then throw in the sea­son­ing and toma­toes and sim­mer for 15 min­utes. Mean­while, bring a big stock­pot of water to the boil, with salt added. Cook your lasagne sheets until ten­der, and drain off the water. Now, in a well-non­stick-sprayed 9 x 13 dish, place a lay­er of pas­ta sheets, then spread out one cup of ricot­ta, cov­er with half the toma­to sauce, and repeat the whole thing. Final­ly top it all with the moz­zarel­la. I can’t stress enough how unhap­py I would be if you went out and bought a hor­rid plas­tic pack­age of the stuff called “shred­ded moz­zarel­la.” Two things: it bears no resem­blance to either the taste or tex­ture of real moz­zarel­la, which comes in a nice ball sus­pend­ed in milky liq­uid. Sec­ond­ly, have you ever thought of where it got shred­ded? How many unclean sur­faces might all the sides of those lit­tle shreds have touched? No. Buy two nice balls of real moz­zarel­la, and although it will cost you a cou­ple of pounds or dol­lars more, it’s deli­cious, healthy and clean. Then you just push it along your box grater with a plate under­neath, and when it gets too squishy to grate any­more, you just tear it apart with your fin­gers. Lec­ture over. Now top with the pecori­no, and pop in a 400 degree oven for an hour.

This dish is so easy peasy, and it cooks itself for the hour before din­ner, so you can sit on your child’s bath­room floor while she takes a restora­tive bath, and read aloud one of the nicest books ever writ­ten about a child mov­ing to Lon­don, “Blow Out the Moon” by Lib­by Kopo­nen. She must be an extreme­ly nice per­son, and clever as well, to have writ­ten a book that so spells awk­ward, intel­li­gent child­hood, and that appeals to child and par­ent alike. Avery has been giv­en at least four copies, and they have made oth­er lit­tle girls very hap­py as well. It’s Lib­by’s own life sto­ry, and how she attained adult­hood with such a com­pre­hen­sive mem­o­ry of her expe­ri­ences here, I can­not imag­ine. And she main­tains a web site with many more details of her expe­ri­ences, and sto­ries of writ­ing the book. She and Avery have actu­al­ly cor­re­spond­ed by email! That sort of an effort would make one life worth hav­ing been lived. What a joy. Plus it’s illus­trat­ed with real pho­tographs from her child­hood, as well as fac­sim­i­les of her actu­al home­work, and let­ters from friends. Won­der­ful, except that the chap­ter I was read­ing as my lasagne bub­bled got me very teary-eyed, with its depic­tion of a tru­ly mag­nif­i­cent head­mistress. My love for our own Mrs D is nev­er very far from my mind, and I won­der how much she knows about her influ­ence on the lit­tle gulls that pass through her school. I try to tell her every so often, but I think a per­son with the larg­er-than-life per­son­al­i­ty of a Mrs D has a hard time com­ing down to earth to real­ly hear praise.

Well, I dried my eyes and we had our din­ner, along with a nice sal­ad for which I made a spicy dress­ing laden with red chill­ies and mus­tard. I have to laugh and tell you: this week’s Hel­lo! mag­a­zine fea­tures a recipe pur­port­ed to be by Cherie Blair (can’t imag­ine she spends much time bun­dled in an apron, but maybe I’m just a cyn­ic). It’s “Sprouts Supreme,” with a creamy dress­ing that I will try tonight, and let you know. I am slight­ly tak­en aback by the instruc­tion to boil them for 15 min­utes, which I think is a lit­er­al recipe for dis­as­ter. It would leave all the fla­vor in the water, and just a hor­rid taste of cab­bage in its wake, that method would. I shall steam mine for 3 min­utes. It reminds me of one of our first Eng­lish culi­nary expe­ri­ences (although I think it was more a mat­ter of a real­ly bad cook, not an Eng­lish per­son per se), with love­ly hosts who shall remain name­less. The wife put a saucepan of cau­li­flower in water on the stove, turned up the heat, and sug­gest­ed a nice walk around the lake before din­ner! Eeek. I think there was a sad fil­let of salmon that was sac­ri­ficed as well.

Speak­ing of recipes, let me direct you to an excel­lent food­ie web­site, as ner­vous as I am that you will stop read­ing mine. I love every­thing she says about food. Enjoy!