June flies by

Such pleas­ant Lon­don days as these are, I real­ly have all I could pos­si­bly wish for.  Exam results are trick­ling in — 95% in Russ­ian!  so thrilling -, the sun is shin­ing enough to make it pos­si­ble for us to bike to the ten­nis courts, play as best we can (hav­ing Wim­ble­don cov­er­age to come home to is a bit demor­al­iz­ing), then bike home.  Bell­ring­ing has reached a new mile­stone: I have learned all the phys­i­cal skills I need to do any­thing I ever want to do.  Now, as my tire­less teacher Arnold says, “do that about four thou­sand more times and you’ll be begin­ning to know what you’re about.”

Life is good.

One morn­ing my friend Antonel­la, knit­ter extra­or­di­naire, stopped by to bring my new jumper: a fine roll­neck in the most beau­ti­ful shade of blue.  We sat for a long time, dis­cussing — as women our age are wont to do — what we are plan­ning to do with the last third of our lives.  Chil­dren fly­ing the coop, hus­bands occu­pied with bank­ing or bar­ris­ter­ing or Bru­tal­ist archi­tec­ture, depend­ing on the hus­band, and where shall life take us?  So many moth­ers who threw them­selves whole­heart­ed­ly into their edu­ca­tions, their careers, and then put them on hold to pro­vide three meals a day plus snacks, moral sup­port and home­work super­vi­sion.  Now what?

Now if I were Antonel­la, I’d be knit­ting up a storm.  Why should I be her first client?  I had bet­ter not be her last.  She has even, as you see, giv­en me a pair of fluffy cabled hand­warm­ers, knit­ted from the left­over wool of my roll­neck.  “Does­n’t it amaze you that you can DO this?” I bleat.  “Not real­ly,” she smiles, com­plete­ly tak­ing her genius in stride.  Don’t you love the label?  Antonel­la, too, is a one-off.

More like­ly than knit­ting, she will become a school coun­selor.  “It’s one of the few pro­fes­sions where it is actu­al­ly an advan­tage to be our age, and to have had chil­dren,” she explains.  Yes, indeed, how much bet­ter to have a wise, com­pas­sion­ate coun­selor with a few smile lines and a his­to­ry of guid­ing her own chil­dren through life’s tri­als, than a fresh-faced youth who’s much clos­er to BEING a child than rais­ing one.

As for me, Antonel­la thinks I should be teach­ing peo­ple to cook.  There is some­thing in that idea, as I love teach­ing any­one how to do any­thing I know, and my own child has so sur­passed me in skills that I have noth­ing left to offer!  But I could teach some­one to make pizza.

Home­made Piz­za With Dol­celat­te, Black Olives and Bacon

(dough makes 4 piz­zas, top­pings make 1 which will serve 2 people)

The first thing to learn about mak­ing piz­za is that you have to start about four hours before you want to eat, in order to give the dough time to rise, twice.  This means that mak­ing more dough than you need is a very good idea, because then the sec­ond time you want piz­za, you have the dough already and can mere­ly pile things upon it.

Mak­ing dough could not be eas­i­er.  This recipe will make enough dough for 4 pizzas.

DOUGH:

500 grams/18 ounces plain flour

1 pack­et dried yeast granules

1 tbsp Ital­ian seasoning

250 grams/9 ounces warm water

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp milk

TOP­PINGS:

250 grams/1/2 pound-ish Dol­celat­te or mild Gor­gonzo­la cheese, crumbled

6 strips streaky (Amer­i­can) smoked bacon

hand­ful black oil-cured olives, pitted

hand­ful grat­ed Parmesan

driz­zle good olive oil

In a very large bowl, mix togeth­er with a fork all the dry ingre­di­ents, then mix the water, oil and milk and pour it onto the dry stuff.  Mix with a fork and then your hands, bring­ing togeth­er all the bits of flour.  If you need a bit more water, just add it in sprin­kles.  When the dough hangs togeth­er and has incor­po­rat­ed all the flour, knead it gen­tly with the ball of your hand, this way and that, turn­ing and squish­ing, until it is a fine smooth blob.  Oil the inside of your bowl com­plete­ly, put the dough in it and cov­er the bowl tight­ly with cling film.  Put in a warm place (the back of the top of an Aga is very good, or your laun­dry room when the dry­er is going) for about 2–3 hours until the dough has dou­bled in size.  Uncov­er and punch the dough down.  Cov­er again and let rise slight­ly again, for per­haps 1 more hour.  It will not rise as much this time.

Brown your bacon in a heavy skil­let until crisp, and drain on paper tow­els.  Crum­ble when cool.

Place your piz­za stone in your very hot (220C/425F) oven for at least half an hour before the dough is ready.  Now pinch off about 1/4 of the dough and cov­er your clean coun­ter­top with flour, as well as your hands, and the ball of dough, and your rolling pin.  Roll the dough out, flour­ing lib­er­al­ly on top and under­neath, until it is the size of your piz­za stone.  Take the stone from the oven, place the dough on it and bake for about 10 min­utes or until thor­ough­ly dry and a bit crisp.

Pile on your top­pings as even­ly as pos­si­ble.  Driz­zle the olive oil over all and bake again until cheese is a bit melty, per­haps anoth­er 8–10 minutes.

*********************

I actu­al­ly offered a day of mak­ing piz­za to my daugh­ter’s school raf­fle at Christ­mas, but the stu­dent who won it… nev­er took me up on it.  It would have been such fun!  Make the dough, and mean­while teach them to make pesto, and toma­to sauce, how to pre­pare veg­eta­bles for piz­za, and then pile on the top­pings and let them eat it when fin­ished!  I still might do that, sometime.

Most­ly it is a great com­fort to me to know that all my intel­li­gent, kind-heart­ed girl­friends are feel­ing much the same way these days, about chil­dren fly­ing the coop.  I actu­al­ly feel that there is a syn­drome, lit­tle-acknowl­edged, that hap­pens slight­ly before the famous “Emp­ty Nest.”  My nest isn’t emp­ty yet, and I actu­al­ly feel I’ll be ready for that when it is.  What I find hard right now is “Slight­ly Emp­ty Nest,” where my child is going off for ever longer peri­ods of time to do ever more var­ied things with­out me, but she still needs a snack when she gets home and a ful­ly lis­ten­ing ear and a hot water bot­tle in a chilly bed at night.  And some­one to watch the Hyde Park Show, no mat­ter whether it is rain­ing or not.

And just when I think life can’t sur­prise me any­more, as I’m prepar­ing myself for a six-hour day watch­ing Avery watch oth­er peo­ple on ponies, a voice says, “Isn’t that Kris­ten?” and I look up to see my old friend Jen­nifer, a nov­el­ist I met some years ago and had some­how lost touch with!  And so what might have been a rather long day of being sprin­kled on became a catch-up with some­one I real­ly liked, thought of when I shelved her nov­el on mov­ing day, but for­got to find again.  And there she was, moth­er of the famous Cal­lum, the ONLY boy at the sta­ble, a source of much inter­est to the girls.

“If I had child­hood to live over again, I’d be that only boy at the sta­ble, with all those gor­geous girls!” John always says.

We talked non­stop about what had hap­pened since we saw each oth­er last.  Var­i­ous stages of writer’s block for both of us, uncer­tain­ty about what we want­ed to do with our writ­ing next, for both of us.  “Have you nev­er thought of turn­ing your blog into a sort of book?” Jen­nifer asked.  Anoth­er ambi­tion for those Emp­ty Nest years, I think, to plan over a bowl of:

Creamy Cele­ri­ac Soup

(serves at least 4)

1 head cele­ri­ac (cel­ery root in America)

3 tbsps butter

1 shal­lot, chopped roughly

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

4 cloves gar­lic, chopped roughly

splash left­over white wine or champagne

chick­en stock to cov­er celeriac

cream and milk, to taste

sea salt and pep­per, to taste

hand­ful chives, minced

Peel the cele­ri­ac care­ful­ly and cut into 1‑inch cubes.  Melt the but­ter in a heavy saucepan and add the cele­ri­ac, shal­lot, thyme and gar­lic.  Cook until gar­lic and shal­lot are soft.  Pour in splash of wine.  Cov­er all with chick­en stock and sim­mer for 20 min­utes.  Blend thor­ough­ly with a hand blender, adding cream and milk if it gets too thick, and until you have the con­sis­ten­cy you want.  This soup is VELVETY.

Sea­son to taste and sprin­kle chives over.

This soup was my reward for hav­ing put in a wet, slimy, stinky after­noon at the school Sports Field in order to gath­er up all the nasty unwant­ed PE kit we could find, to sort, wash, bleach, dry and iron in order to sell them to the incom­ing New Girls at their Wel­come Tea.  Why all we vol­un­teers at Lost Prop­er­ty find this to be fun, I can­not real­ly explain, but once the piles of mis­match­ing boots, the wadded up “white” PE shirts, the grimy lacrosse sticks and wrin­kled games skirts had all been cleaned and organ­ised, the sense of sat­is­fac­tion was tremen­dous!  It was a love­ly after­noon yes­ter­day, watch­ing the New Girls (and their par­ents, hard to tell who looked more scared!) min­gle in the Main Hall drink­ing tea and eat­ing cup­cakes, then scur­ry­ing back to the tiny lit­tle maths room where my fel­low vol­un­teers were mad­ly sell­ing all the kit!  Avery and her friends cir­cled the Hall as well, chat­ting with teach­ers in an impos­si­bly grownup way, steal­ing cup­cakes, get­ting me to filch glass­es of spark­ly water for them.  Heav­en, just to be there and enjoy it all.

Now, as is my cus­tom in June when every­thing hap­pens far too quick­ly for me to warn you, I must tell you how much fun “Taste of Lon­don” was, once more!  Put it in your cal­en­ders right now, mid-June in Regen­t’s Park.  This is an incom­pa­ra­bly deli­cious event where top Lon­don restau­rants gath­er under tents (thank good­ness, as it was pelt­ing with rain!) to sell tiny “tastes” of their sig­na­ture dish­es.  This year, every­thing seemed to be a BURG­ER!  Shrimp and scal­lop burg­ers from Scot­t’s, hand-ground beef and mar­row burg­ers from Cor­ri­g­an’s, spit roast­ed suck­ling pig and black truf­fle burg­ers from Launce­s­ton Place, and the piece de resis­tance, the best food we have ever tast­ed in our LIVES, foie gras burg­ers from Club Gas­con!

Quite sim­ply, a SLAB of foie gras topped with sliv­ers of truf­fle and a light­ly mayo-ed pick­le.  We went back for sec­onds!  Impos­si­bly deli­cious, lux­u­ri­ous, dare I say it, unc­tu­ous.  Sheer gluttony.

Then there was a salt cod bran­dade with crispy squid in a black ink bat­ter, so unusu­al, from Roux at the Lan­dau, oh oh OH!  And braised pork cheeks with creamed pota­toes and a clove sauce, from Petrus.   The delight of “Taste of Lon­don” for peo­ple like us, who NEV­ER ever go out to din­ner, is that we had near­ly a dozen “tastes” of the best food Lon­don has to offer, for about £25 per per­son.  What a treat, and such fun to share it with John, who’s nev­er been before!  And I must say it’s nice to go with the per­son you feel com­fort­able kiss­ing, because that way you can share everything!

We came away with fresh ingre­di­ents as well: a spe­cial com­bo of strawberries…

and toma­toes…

From the Good Natured Fruit Com­pa­ny, quite sim­ply the best of what these fruits are that you will ever taste.  Straw­ber­ries as only the British can pro­duce them, red right the way through.  I’d show you, but we ate them all.

But it has­n’t all been about food, this June.  We’ve also been to the the­atre!  Last week was “Antigone” at the South­wark Play­house, with my cher­ished crush, Edward Pether­bridge in the role of Tire­sias.  Now, I hate to tell you that this play is over, but take heart: we should all sup­port the South­wark Play­house with its man­date to show­case young tal­ent.  The play was so, so rel­e­vant, so time­ly, with lines like “A ruler can­not remain rigid.  Only the trees that learn to bend can sur­vive a storm.  The rigid trees will be uproot­ed.”  Is Syr­ia listening?

And because it was the birth­day of Dorothy L. Say­ers, whose detec­tive hero Lord Peter Wim­sey was por­trayed so mem­o­rably by Edward  on tel­ly in the 1980s, he spoke after­ward to the mem­bers of the Say­ers Soci­ety who had come to the play.  Was there ever any­one so poet­i­cal­ly artic­u­late as Edward, whose sen­tences are arranged with semi-colons and dash­es, sprin­kled with lit­er­ary allu­sions and jokes from his the­atri­cal past… sim­ply mag­ic.  Avery was entranced.  “What chance do peo­ple of my own age have when there is some­one so bril­liant as Edward?”  Long may he have work in the Lon­don the­atre where we can see him, and not be lim­it­ed to my Wim­sey DVDs.

But it’s NOT too late for you to see “Much Ado About Noth­ing”!  With quite sim­ply the great­est com­ic duo I can imag­ine play­ing the roles of Beat­rice and Benedick: Cather­ine Tate and David Ten­nant!  I know it is a cliche, but part of what is so stim­u­lat­ing about liv­ing in Lon­don is how PRESENT Shake­speare is here, how the direc­tor chose to place the place in the 1980s, com­plete with dread­ful music, den­im play­suits, big sun­glass­es, white plim­solls, and how these two actors were able to inject the dia­logue with such con­tem­po­rary mean­ing!  When Benedick has become con­vinced that Beat­rice loves him, and she comes sulk­i­ly to sum­mon him to sup­per, he rejoic­es.  “She comes to say, ‘I have been sent to tell you it is time for din­ner.’… Dou­ble mean­ing?!?”  You could hard­ly believe the words had been writ­ten 500 years ago.

It would­n’t be an update on life with­out let­ting you know that bell­ring­ing is real­ly going joy­ful­ly.  I have found a tow­er in which to ring all sum­mer long in Amer­i­ca!  Just once a week, about a 45-minute dri­ve away from Red Gate Farm, with a very wel­com­ing mer­ry band of ringers who assure me with ABSOLUTE­LY no irony that they have a group of “11–13 year olds where you’ll fit in perfectly!”

Last week at my 8th-hour les­son with Arnold, I was allowed to ring the bell down, take the inner tube off the clap­per, and then thrilling­ly, ring the bell UP with prop­er bell­ring­ing “ding dong” sounds ema­nat­ing from the tow­er!  This excit­ing mile­stone occurred pre­cise­ly at 5 p.m. when the Tenor bell was chim­ing the hour.  My own bell picked up right where it left off and the chim­ing sounds waft­ed out over the Vil­lage.  “The neigh­bors will think there’s a fire,” Arnold joked mild­ly, but I was THRILLED beyond words.  I suc­cess­ful­ly rang the bell up and, as they say, “set it at bal­ance,” which means it’s up and ready to ring down again.  Then in a fog of hap­pi­ness I put on my jack­et and went out, pick­ing up my bicycle.

There I encoun­tered a disheveled, har­ried-look­ing father mind­ing two lit­tle boys in a carriage.

“What dar­ling babies!” I said.

“Eigh­teen months,” he said weari­ly.  “We come here every day at 5 o’clock to hear the five chimes of the bell.  But for some rea­son, today it was 105 o’clock!”

I explained about my first time ring­ing the bell up with sound, and he emerged from his fatigue to rejoice with me.  “That’s a real accom­plish­ment, isn’t it, boys?”

I ped­alled off into the June evening, feel­ing that every­thing was quite, quite right with the world.  And to thank Arnold, on Sat­ur­day I took a plate of very nice lemon bars, if I do say so myself.  It’s a recipe from allrecipes.com, although I altered it by adding lemon and orange zest, and a touch of lemon essence to the base.

Lemon Bars

(makes about 24)

1 cup but­ter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

2 cups all-pur­pose flour

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1/4 cup all-pur­pose flour

1 tsp lemon essence

2 lemons, juiced

zest of 1 lemon, 1 orange