Hap­py St Patrick­’s Day!

In hon­or of my half-Irish hus­band, I feel absolute­ly com­pelled to share with you all the recipe for a soup I think I sort of invent­ed today.  It is, for a short time, the GREEN­EST food I have ever seen!  Then as time goes on, it gets a lit­tle less vivid.  Is that due to oxi­diza­tion?  In any case, you can prac­ti­cal­ly feel the nutri­tion seep­ing into your bones when you take a warm, vel­vety spoon­ful of:

Creamy Spinach and Cel­ery Soup

(serves 4)

2 tbsps butter

1 shal­lot, minced

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

3 small pota­toes, cubed (about a large handful)

1 cup cel­ery, chopped roughly

2 tsps cel­ery salt

480 grams/about 18 ounces, or in Eng­land two large bags washed baby spinach

2 cups chick­en or veg­etable stock

1/2 cup whip­ping cream

Melt the but­ter in a large heavy saucepan and add shal­lot, gar­lic, pota­toes and cel­ery.  Saute until the gar­lic is soft­ened.  Add the cel­ery salt and the spinach.  It will seem like a great deal of unwieldy leaves, but do not despair.  Pour over the stock and bring to a sim­mer.  The spinach will quick­ly wilt.  Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes until the pota­toes are soft.  Puree with a hand blender, then add cream.

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It is hard to describe the expe­ri­ence of this soup: it actu­al­ly TASTES green.  The spinach fla­vor is intense, but it’s also enlivened by the two notes of cel­ery.  The pota­toes add just the right amount of thick­ness and the cream cuts down the mas­sive iron jolt from the spinach.  It is mar­vel­lous.  And each per­son is eat­ing a half a bag of spinach in one sitting!

This pleas­ant expe­ri­ence today at lunch came on the heels of a  morn­ing at Lost Prop­er­ty.  Now, you all know of my devo­tion to this activ­i­ty, the Lost and Found Room at my daugh­ter’s school, scene of many mar­vel­lous adven­tures fold­ing dirty net­ball shirts with the oth­er Ladies Who Vol­un­teer, unpick­ing num­ber­less name tapes so that we might sell unclaimed games skirts, home to many pecu­liar “lost” items, many of whose pres­ence begs the ques­tion of what they were doing in school in the first place.  We’ve had six match­ing choco­late fish, a rub­ber orca in a Ball jar, a giant stuffed clown bear­ing the logo of a promi­nent boys school.  What we have not had, until this morn­ing, is a tin of Refried Pin­to Beans.

My fel­low vol­un­teer, Diana, placed her head on one side and con­sid­ered.  “It’s good to know they’re veg­e­tar­i­an,” she said in mys­ti­fi­ca­tion.  “How could they not be?  They’re beans.”  “No,” I explained, “most refried beans are fried in lard.”  “Ugh,” she said.”  “That image will be hard to get out of my head.”

We wad­ed through piles of dirty unmatched train­ers (Eng­lish for sneak­ers), sweaty games shirts cov­ered in mud, lacrosse sticks sim­i­lar­ly bedaubed, and piles of class notes.  “Who­ev­er Nel­lie is, she lost EVERY­THING today.  How will she get any work done?”  As always, we spent a tiny bit of time think­ing about how many advanced degrees will be rep­re­sent­ed in the women who vol­un­teer at the Sale on Tues­day, how many hours of our time we will devote to mak­ing a small amount of mon­ey to pay for, say, a day and a half in the edu­ca­tion of one of the girls on schol­ar­ship.  Ah well, it all makes for con­vivial fun.

And a wel­come dis­trac­tion from the mind­bend­ing­ly irri­tat­ing job of house-hunt­ing.  How many hours of my life have I spent tour­ing oth­er peo­ple’s hous­es?  More than I care to imag­ine.  We think that some real estate peo­ple must get paid per house they man­age to drag you to, because none of them seem to pay any atten­tion to our mea­gre require­ments: a great kitchen, a cer­tain num­ber of bed­rooms, a rea­son­able dis­tance to school, a cer­tain bud­get.  In response to these guide­lines we have seen hous­es with gal­ley kitchens in which I would not be able to extend both arms at the same time, hous­es with many,  many bed­rooms extend­ing up into the gray Lon­don sky — “but we have only one child!” we wail -, hous­es with no pub­lic trans­port with­in hail, and hous­es cost­ing 30% more than we can afford.

Ah well, at least it isn’t raining.

And yes­ter­day after­noon was the much-antic­i­pat­ed Singing Tea at Avery’s school.  I always think that’s the fun­ni­est phrase, to an Amer­i­can.  Tea, singing?  But it mere­ly means that we par­ents of chil­dren who take singing lessons are invit­ed, once a term, to have tea after school and lis­ten to them all sing the songs they will per­form for their exams on Sat­ur­day.  How Avery dreads the exams, with their nerve-wrack­ing sight-singing, and the fact that they always occur pre­cise­ly four days after she has come down with a cold.  But it was love­ly to sit back, fold our hands, and lis­ten to the incred­i­ble vari­ety of songs cho­sen.  Songs in Ser­bian, Russ­ian, and Latin, not to men­tion the usu­al French and Ital­ian and Ger­man.  Avery sang, “The Water is Wide,” which ALWAYS makes me cry, but I was good and kept con­trol over myself.  “But your eyes were very watery,” Avery point­ed out after­ward.  That’s very good, for me.

The biggest excite­ment of our week has been Avery’s audi­tion for the wild­ly admired British sit­com “Out­num­bered,” and then her call­back to meet the writ­ers and per­form improv with them!  And then yes­ter­day came an extreme­ly enthu­si­as­tic email from her cast­ing agent!  Avery is in the final two girls being con­sid­ered for the role, which is real­ly excit­ing and a fine reward for the end­less Sat­ur­days she has spent in act­ing class.  “The part is for a morose Amer­i­can teenag­er!” Avery announces in delight.  “I hope that one of those qual­i­ties will require ACT­ING,” I rejoined.  We can only hope!  But the final two girls: that’s won­der­ful.  Good on you, Avery.

The the­atre beck­ons tonight, so I must dash.  Don’t you find that on the nights when you have the­atre tick­ets, you real­ly real­ly are not in the mood to go?  We feel that way every sin­gle time.  Some­how, on those after­noons when you antic­i­pate going out, noth­ing sounds more appeal­ing than to stay cozi­ly at home doing absolute­ly noth­ing.  But it means din­ner out, and Avery has a date with the microwave, and a bowl of spinach soup.