hid­den treasures

How do I know it’s high sum­mer?  Because in that par­tic­u­lar sea­son, here in Con­necti­cut, our dai­ly ten­nis games hap­pen all too often on the mid­dle court, with one quar­tet of Grumpy Old Men on one side and ANOTH­ER quar­tet of them on the oth­er.  Why they both­er to gath­er seem­ing­ly every moment of the day that we might want to play, only to shout and moan at each oth­er — “You stu­pid idiot, put on your glass­es, that shot was So LAWNG, whaddarya, crazy?” — I can­not imag­ine.  Bless their hearts, I sup­pose, putting on their whites, dri­ving to the court, lean­ing against their rac­quets as if they were canes, sweat­ing in the hot sun.

John’s onto a cool scheme at Ten­nis Ware­house where­by we can test a whole array of rac­quets, and then order the ones we like best.  Yes­ter­day we bat­tled it out with four choic­es and either I’m a total suck­er for sug­ges­tion, or it actu­al­ly makes a dif­fer­ence to have a good rac­quet.  I hit some killer back­hands, lis­ten­ing to the sum­mer wind whistling through the mesh.  As we played, the pre­dict­ed clouds rolled in and we had time just for a quick dip in the munic­i­pal pool before scoop­ing up Avery who had got all shiv­ery in the gath­er­ing dark­ness.  “Let’s go home, it’s COLD!”

I’m feel­ing vir­tu­ous right now because I turned Drill Sergeant and insist­ed that we all pitch and clean house today.  John with the vac­u­um, Avery a dish­tow­el and a bot­tle of lemon oil, I armed with a sponge and Clorox.  The three of us can get through this tiny house in an hour, top to bot­tom, no more dead spi­ders, even the kitchen cup­boards turned out and bleached, every­thing shiny clean.  Even the silver.

AND we final­ly paint­ed the gate!  The poor old thing sim­ply fell apart last autumn and our dear neigh­bors Anne and David actu­al­ly had a new gate built for us, as a Christ­mas sur­prise.  It hung on the fence all win­ter and spring, white as the snow that cov­ered it, until we got our act togeth­er over the week­end and restored it.  Now we’re “Red Gate Farm” once again.

For awhile last week, the weath­er was sim­ply too crazy to be believed, triple-dig­it heat and ram­pant humid­i­ty.  Too hot even to cook!  We ate slaw, burst­ing with Padron pep­pers, shred­ded car­rots, three dif­fer­ent kinds of cab­bage, a spicy dressing.

And of course we chose one of those ridicu­lous­ly hot days to clean out the base­ment.  We’ve had insur­ance peo­ple here to look at the storm dam­age from the win­ter and give instruc­tions on hav­ing every­thing repaired, and to offer advice about keep­ing our house in bet­ter con­di­tion in gen­er­al.  Top of the list?  No card­board, ANY­WHERE.  Espe­cial­ly not in the base­ment.  Sim­ply a mold TRAP, my dears.  So we strug­gled through the slug­gy humid­i­ty and brought up end­less box­es, all unut­ter­ably drea­ry and damp and depress­ing.  Filled no few­er than six rub­bish bags for the dump!  But in one of the box­es we found a huge stack of my child­hood LPs!  I can tell you that our tech-savvy, 21st-cen­tu­ry daugh­ter fell in LOVE.

Avery has sim­ply been in heav­en, learn­ing to lift the records up by their edges — she is of a gen­er­a­tion whose music is invis­i­ble! not even CDs any­more, every­thing is down­loaded — appre­ci­at­ing the mono nature of the sound.  “It’s so much bet­ter, espe­cial­ly if you need to share head­phones!  You both get the same song.”  And I have loved find­ing old favorite, like my dad’s beloved Bob Newhart!And my com­plete col­lec­tion of Dan Fogel­berg, an embar­rass­ing pile of Eric Car­men and Toto, and of course records so banal one won­ders why on earth we bought them in the first place.  I think this one can be laid at my moth­er’s door!

Final­ly the base­ment was emp­ty of all evil card­board, and I escaped to lunch in Green­wich with Alyssa.  The poor car’s AC sim­ply could not cope with the intense sun­shine, the stop-and-go traf­fic on the high­way.  I arrived rum­pled and sweaty, a state not at all helped by real­iz­ing, as I parked in the lot on Main Street, that I had no Amer­i­can mon­ey!  No change for the meter!  I stood around in the glar­ing sun, try­ing to think what to do, when a nice lady sit­ting on a park bench res­cued me with a quick sale of quarters.

I limped along to Morel­lo for our twice-year­ly treat that we both look for­ward to ridicu­lous­ly.  As usu­al, we exchange gifts that reflect our par­tic­u­lar under­stand­ing of each oth­er.  “I knew you would want a William and Cather­ine tin full of bis­cuits!” I say, hand­ing it over.  “See, on each side of the tin is a draw­ing of a build­ing that is mean­ing­ful to them… St Andrews Uni­ver­si­ty, of course…”

Alyssa in turn pro­duces sev­er­al bags of spices she’s brought me from Istan­bul!  A cin­na­mo­ny meat­ball mix that smelled divine, even through the plas­tic bag.

We had a chance to make a dent in all the gos­sip that can’t fit in an email or on one of our marathon trans­lat­lantic phone calls.  Time to exchange impres­sions on being moth­ers to teenagers.  We agree com­plete­ly, as always, on every­thing, includ­ing the food, which was sim­ply deli­cious, begin­ning with crispy cala­mari.  I then had a tuna tartare, cool and refresh­ing, unex­pect­ed­ly stud­ded with sliv­ered green olives!  It was easy enough to come home and repli­cate it.

Tuna Tartare

(serves 4 for a dain­ty appetizer)

1 pound VERY fresh sushi-grade tuna

2 tbsps tiny capers, chopped

3 tbsps green olives, sliced in half, then sliced thin (mine came with chilli flakes, a nice addition)

2 tbsps olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsps ponzu sauce

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

2 hand­fuls frisee lettuce

1 avo­ca­do, sliced and driz­zled with lemon juice

extra olive oil for drizzling.

Chop the tuna fair­ly fine, much small­er than bite-size pieces, but not mushed.  Place in a medi­um bowl and add the capers, olives, olive oil, lemon juice and 1 tbsp of the ponzu sauce.  Ponzu sauce, in case you have not cooked with it before, is a rev­e­la­tion.  It is a slight­ly fishy, very cit­rusy, clear soy-based sauce that lends itself per­fect­ly to sushi and sashi­mi sal­ads.  Sea­son the mix­ture and set aside.

In anoth­er bowl, place the frisee and driz­zle with remain­ing ponzu sauce.  Mix with your hands.  For each serv­ing, place a bit of frisee and some avo­ca­do slices on a plate.  Divide the tuna mix­ture into four serv­ings and place each serv­ing in a lit­tle ramekin, pack­ing the mix­ture tight­ly.  Turn ramekin upside down on plate.  Driz­zle with a bit of olive oil and serve cold.

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So fresh and unusu­al!  And the amaz­ing thing was that mak­ing the tartare at home cost less than a quar­ter of the price in the restau­rant.  Even with real­ly high-qual­i­ty tuna.

Despite the intense heat, Jill and Joel had the ener­gy to invite us to din­ner.  We played with the girls on the swingset, watch­ing Jane’s cheeks get pinker and pinker, Mol­ly shak­ing her pony­tails ever faster, we adults field­ing sib­ling rival­ry, peel­ing corn, get­ting down on the ground to meet Snow­ball, their enor­mous white cat.  And Joel cooked a gor­geous sup­per of chick­en stuffed with moz­zarel­la, pro­sciut­to and diced red pep­per, baked with bread­crumbs.  How I ADORE being cooked for!  It’s so rare!  Of course I love prepar­ing din­ner myself, and I love feed­ing peo­ple, but there is some­thing won­der­ful about sit­ting down at some­one else’s table and hav­ing a plate of food I did not pre­pare myself appear in front of me.  Thank you, Joel.

In the intense heat we decid­ed to walk up to the mead­ow and watch the Han­nan boys get­ting in the hay.  We were just in time, as they were gath­er­ing up the bales that very morn­ing.  What a per­fect, Amer­i­can, Con­necti­cu­ty sight.

Avery found the bales to be per­fect fod­der for her pho­tog­ra­phy skills.  I like the pho­to of her tak­ing photos.

Now we have a prob­lem.  The boys have mowed the whole mead­ow, but their mow­ers are too enor­mous to come close to John’s dad’s beloved bench.  We need a pre­ci­sion tool to take up there with  us some­day, although some­thing about the wild­ness is beau­ti­ful, too.

On our way home from the mead­ow, John and I stopped to chat with Mike, the neigh­bor who pas­tures his hors­es in the mead­ow behind our house, to ask him the favor of cut­ting some brush near our falling-down stone wall.  While we were there, we fell to dis­cussing the wildlife sit­u­a­tion.  “There’s been a fair amount of coy­ote-shoot­ing going on this win­ter and spring,” Mike revealed.  “Maybe that’s why there are so many rab­bits, and wild turkeys?” John won­dered.  “Yep, and the deer are lik­ing it too.  Don’t know what’s become of all those dead coy­otes, but you’ll hear the shots.”  Coun­try life.

Sev­er­al min­utes lat­er Mike went rolling by, down the road on his mow­er, wav­ing wild­ly in the air.  Anne and I, stand­ing at the fence shar­ing a plate of but­ter­scotch brown­ies, shout­ed, “What’s up?”  “BEES!  Or maybe HOR­NETS! I ran over their nest, I think!”  He stopped, though, to have a brownie.

But­ter­scotch Brownies

(makes about 32 small brownies)

1/2 cup but­ter, melted

2 cups dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp bak­ing powder

1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingre­di­ents togeth­er and beat well with an elec­tric mix­er.  Pour into a 9x13 pan and bake at 350F/180C for 35 minutes

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These were the per­fect gift to take along to my bell­ring­ing band on Sun­day.  Luck­i­ly the heat had bro­ken even the tini­est bit by then, so that the air con­di­tion­er up in the ring­ing cham­ber could strug­gle along a bit and we could sur­vive.  It’s a beau­ti­ful ring­ing chamber.

This time I “rang up” the tenor bell, which at near­ly a ton is the heav­i­est bell in the ring.  “Ring­ing up” means gain­ing grad­u­al­ly enough momen­tum with the rope pulls to take the bell from hang­ing mouth-down­wards, to being propped against the bal­ance, mouth-upwards.

I had felt some trep­i­da­tion as I drove toward the tow­er, which I con­fessed to my teacher as soon as I arrived.  “I’m feel­ing ner­vous,” I said.  “Why do you think you are?” he asked kind­ly.  “I think I am wor­ried that last week I went way far­ther than I can rea­son­ably be expect­ed to go, and although it was excit­ing, I can’t repeat it.”

“Well,” he con­sid­ered, “Bell­ring­ing is all about push­ing to the next lev­el, so let’s take where you were last week and see if we can get you con­fi­dent about that, and then go just a lit­tle far­ther.  We’ll take care of you, and don’t YOU for­get to have fun.”

And so I did!  “Remem­ber, this is sup­posed to be FUN!” shout­ed John, the white-haired men­tor of the group.  “At least they did­n’t give you the Wim­ble­don bell,” he laughed, refer­ring to the bell so-called because it’s sit­u­at­ed smack in the mid­dle of the room and so the per­son ring­ing it has to swing his head from side to side the whole time, to watch the oth­er ringers, just like at a ten­nis match!

We rang rounds, and I got bet­ter and bet­ter.  Then we did some call changes, and I did bet­ter.  Then we rang some­thing called “Kalei­do­scope,” where the mid­dle two of six bells — num­bers 3 and 4 — switch places at a shout­ed instruc­tion, and con­tin­ue to switch places for a num­ber of “blows.”  This I was not so good at because the switch has to hap­pen IMME­DI­ATE­LY and that calls for a con­trol of the bell that I find dif­fi­cult, still.  To be able to WAIT at the top, to pull instant­ly faster or slow­er.  It’s mad­den­ing!  But addictive.

Home, exhil­a­rat­ed, to feed Anne, David and Katie home­made piz­za, and to lis­ten to “Mrs Robin­son” and “Are You Going To Scar­bor­ough Fair” on the LP play­er they’ve loaned us!  Some­how, after a life­time of being told to han­dle the records with care, I have man­aged to clean mold off them all with a bleachy sponge, and yet they play!

Prob­a­bly there’s a life les­son in there.

And the heat BROKE.  Mind you, it’s still jol­ly hot!  But I could final­ly turn on the oven, dur­ing a refresh­ing thun­der­stormy evening, and pro­duce Moroc­can meat­balls — includ­ing Alyssa’s spe­cial spice mix — with poached eggs.

And a real­ly intrigu­ing side dish if you find your­self with a fridge full of baby arti­chokes and you’re tired of eat­ing them just steamed.

Baked Arti­chokes With Pep­pers and Cheese

(serves 4)

8 baby artichokes

1 poblano pep­per, sliced thin

1 clove gar­lic, minced

hand­ful tiny toma­toes, halved

1/4 cup grat­ed Parmesan

2 tbsps olive oil

1/4 cup Panko breadcrumbs

1 tbsp melt­ed butter

Pre­pare the arti­chokes by pulling off most of the out­er leaves and cut­ting off 1 inch at the tops.  Stand up in a shal­low dish with a lid and pour water about an inch up in the dish.  Steam arti­chokes for 20 min­utes.  Cut the arti­chokes in half from top to bot­tom and care­ful­ly pull out JUST the heart and the inner leaves above it.  Each nugget you pull out of each half should be about the size of your thumb.  Cut these nuggets in half top to bot­tom and lay in a bak­ing dish.

Scat­ter the sliced pep­per, minced gar­lic and halved toma­toes over the arti­chokes and sprin­kle with the cheese, olive oil, bread­crumbs and but­ter.  Bake at 425F/220C for about 15 minutes.

Deli­cious!  So unusu­al, a bit crispy, oily, salty and cheesy.

For the moment here, all is calm.  Gary the ground­hog has come for his mel­on lunch.  We take this pho­to­graph every sin­gle sum­mer, iden­ti­cal, although I think each sum­mer it may be a new Gary.  I don’t real­ly know about the lifes­pan of a groundhog.

John is tak­ing a nap.  Avery is bliss­ful­ly order­ing make­up from the Sepho­ra sale.  Two squirm­ing lob­sters are await­ing steam­ing for sup­per.  Jes­samy is reclin­ing on her favorite win­dowsill, hav­ing emerged once the vac­u­um clean­er stopped wail­ing.  All is right with the world.