heav­en on earth

At King’s Cross Sta­tion on Mon­day, cold and damp from the per­sis­tent driz­zle, we said good­bye to Avery and off she went for a week in York­shire at the Arvon Foun­da­tion writ­ing course.  Today we picked up a poet.

Left Hand

It was used well before, like a mould-mot­tle book

hasti­ly writ­ten notes tast­ing of ink

bluish-green dye of a near for­got­ten Easter

recall­ing the stark white and red nurs­es’ uniforms

the coarse wool of a soldier’s coat

the flim­sy paper of cig­a­rettes and yel­lowed tobac­co stains

a tum­bler of whiskey, the weight of the glass

cres­cents of nails press­ing into its palm

not quite an enti­ty in itself,

not quite enough on its own,

con­tent in its inferiority –

an under­study, unprepared.

********

I can­not extol enough the bril­liance of the Arvon way of life.  Sev­er­al years ago I spent a week in the wilds of Devon on a course designed to teach us “food writ­ing.”  Morn­ings of work­shops with fel­low writ­ers and tutors — pub­lished food writ­ers — lunch­es spent dis­cussing whose work had been the star that morn­ing, then after­noons in pri­vate tuto­ri­als and mas­sive edit­ing after hear­ing what they had to say!  Then din­ners cooked in teams and evenings spent read­ing aloud.  An inten­si­ty I can’t real­ly describe, but now Avery understands.

Almost bet­ter than the writ­ing are the friend­ships forged.  I don’t want to think about life with­out the dear, dear friends I made dur­ing that week.  We will have our annu­al reunion in May, bring­ing mass­es of ingre­di­ents togeth­er to spend end­less hours in the kitchen cook­ing our favorite dish­es, laugh­ing and catch­ing up.  Oh, the pork crack­ling, the 15-ingre­di­ent leg of lamb, the celes­tial choco­late pud­ding…  In the after­noons we will read aloud what­ev­er we’ve been writ­ing late­ly.  A life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence.  I am thrilled for Avery that she has had the same joy­ous week, nev­er to be forgotten.

How we missed her!  But we were out in the coun­try­side hav­ing our own adven­tures.  Over 20 years ago John and I, togeth­er with his fab­u­lous par­ents, dis­cov­ered the clever­est of Eng­lish orga­ni­za­tions: The Land­mark Trust.  It calls itself a “build­ing preser­va­tion char­i­ty,” but in real­i­ty it’s a com­plete­ly quirky and quixot­ic group of peo­ple obsessed with sav­ing the past and bring­ing it into the present.

They find aban­doned barns, church­es, mills, and that most eccen­tric of British build­ings, the “fol­ly.” (pic­ture a giant stone pineap­ple with beds and bath­rooms inside!)  They chase away birds in res­i­dence, tear away plas­ter walls to reveal 18th cen­tu­ry paint­ings, fres­coed ceil­ings, ancient floors and doors.

Every­thing that can be pre­served is pre­served, and fur­nished with blue wil­low chi­na, pris­tine white bed­li­nens, price­less ori­en­tal rugs and antique fur­ni­ture, puz­zles, books and oh… the views.

Since our ear­ly days liv­ing in Eng­land in the 1990s right through to this week, we’ve stayed in per­haps 20 Land­mark Trust build­ings — in Eng­land, Scot­land, Flo­rence, Ver­mont, Ire­land… sim­ply heav­en­ly.  And I can cook!  This time it was the West Ban­quet­ing House in Chip­ping Cam­p­den, the Cotswolds.  There is no more gor­geous place on earth, to my mind.

Nat­u­ral­ly, when it’s April in Eng­land, a great deal of time must be spent pur­su­ing the local live­stock, name­ly… lambs.

We took end­less long walks across the fields of stun­ning rape­seed, soon to be har­vest­ed and made into the pre­cious elixir, rape­seed oil.

We vis­it­ed anoth­er of our old favorite places from many years ago, Buck­land Manor.  Images of a long-ago vis­it with my par­ents filled my mind, my young and healthy dad emerg­ing drip­ping from the swim­ming pool, look­ing for­ward to the hotel’s lux­u­ry cream tea and a walk in the beau­ti­ful gardens.

We vis­it­ed church after church, admir­ing the ancient floors with their inset gravestones.

Of course, you can’t always have dead­ly seri­ous grave­yards.  This par­tic­u­lar spec­i­men from our local church­yard had us shak­ing our heads.  Either Alice Mabel was an awful­ly under­stand­ing wife, or there’s some strife in the afterlife.

We vis­it­ed the love­ly mar­ket town of Stow-on-the-Wold for a lit­tle cheese — Stowe Soft, a very nice­ly smelly goat cheese — and organ­ic salmon, and the incom­pa­ra­bly posh and styl­ish Dayles­ford Organ­ic, where I picked up a head of cele­ri­ac and a bun­dle of wild gar­lic for the stun­ning­ly delicious:

Cele­ri­ac Puree with Wild Gar­lic and Sour Cream

(serves 4)

small head cele­ri­ac, peeled and cut into cubes

skim milk near­ly (but not quite) to cover

2 tbsps sour cream

2 tbsps butter

hand­ful wild gar­lic leaves, chiffonade-chopped

salt and pep­per to taste

In a medi­um saucepan, place the cele­ri­ac and pour on skim milk, per­haps 1 1/2 cups depend­ing on the size of the cele­ri­ac head.  Do not cov­er cele­ri­ac com­plete­ly or you will end up with cele­ri­ac soup (still gor­geous but not this recipe!).  Cook over medi­um heat, tak­ing care not to burn on the bot­tom, until the cele­ri­ac is soft, per­haps 25 min­utes.  Puree with hand blender, then beat in sour cream and but­ter, then add wild gar­lic.  Sea­son to taste.

As always when we are with­out Avery, I cook mad­ly a whole host of dish­es she does­n’t like.  Among them this week was roast­ed pork bel­ly from Check­etts butch­ers in Bourton-on-the-Water.

Is there any more savory, rich dish?

And the sim­plest of all pos­si­ble side dish­es, an onion with its cen­ter spooned out and filled with Robi­o­la cheese, then sprin­kled with Fox Point Sea­son­ing and baked for 30 minutes.

With a vis­it to his­toric Chastle­ton House…

And our tra­di­tion­al walk across the fields between Low­er Slaugh­ter and Upper Slaugh­ter to gaze upon Lords of the Manor Hotel, anoth­er favorite from over the years…

Home again, and reunit­ed with our new­ly mint­ed poet, life is very peace­ful indeed.