Non­na’s vis­it, Part One

As if the sheer fun of my moth­er-in-law’s vis­its weren’t enough, there’s the added fil­lip that her arrival means we DO things.  Rather than tak­ing yet anoth­er jar of tuna out of the pantry for an unin­spired lunch, we actu­al­ly got in the car last week and drove to Rich­mond, where we tucked into quite the most per­fect lunch ever, at Peter­sham Nurs­eries.  Brain­child of the out­stand­ing Aus­tralian chef Skye Gyn­gell, this restau­rant serves the sim­plest food ever to win a Miche­lin star.  Every dish is a tri­umph of del­i­cate, com­plex fla­vors and pared-down visu­als, and every bite is pre­cise­ly per­fect and restrained, yet lus­cious.  And in the most gor­geous of settings.

Before our lunch we wan­dered through the Nurs­eries them­selves, and then the shop, an Aladdin’s cave filled with every hor­ti­cul­tur­al delight you could imag­ine and many I could­n’t, plus chi­na, glass, gar­den­ing tools, French wrap­ping paper, every gift you could ever want to give any­one.  A glo­ri­ous amal­gam of styl­ish and stim­u­lat­ing feasts for the eye.

I rev­elled in eat­ing food I could nev­er make at home, or would nev­er think of mak­ing at home, although I came away with two inspi­ra­tions that we did recre­ate, lat­er on.  My first course of carpac­cio of sea bass was stun­ning­ly sim­ple: translu­cent­ly thin slices of raw fish, topped with rounds of spicy red chilli and a scat­ter­ing of flat-leaf pars­ley and a sprin­kling of very intense olive oil.  Then I had scal­lops, although truth be told, every ele­ment of the dish was more mem­o­rable than the scal­lops them­selves.  Radic­chio, braised in bal­sam­ic vine­gar and then grilled, and yel­low run­ner beans cooked to a per­fect ten­der­ness.  And the crown­ing glo­ry: a mint and anchovy sauce that sent me straight home to recre­ate it.

Rose­mary and John each had braised rab­bit in a com­plex toma­toey broth.  Why have I nev­er cooked rab­bit?  And John had salt cod bran­dade, a first for all of us and not the last.  Salty, rich, deli­cious.  We car­ried on our usu­al hol­i­day-lunch-out con­ver­sa­tions, dart­ing around among “real estate we have known,” dis­cus­sions of future pos­si­ble vaca­tion spots, Avery and the fact that she is Prac­ti­cal­ly Per­fect in Every Way (this top­ic can be aired for a sur­pris­ing­ly long time among the three of us), and how much fun John’s dad would have, with us, shar­ing our lunch.  He felt very close by.  We were happy.

And mint and anchovy sauce!  Isn’t that an unex­pect­ed com­bi­na­tion?  I think mint is being used increas­ing­ly in savory dish­es, and I can cer­tain­ly see why.  It was but the work of a moment to run next door, throw myself on James’s mer­cy, beg for mint.

“Noth­ing would give me greater plea­sure!” he exclaimed (there is no one more court­ly than James).  “Can I get you a glass of wine?  Let me put on my gar­den­ing shoes, and dear, where are the kitchen shears?”  He led the way to his idyl­lic gar­den, down to the herb patch, and cut some nice mature leaves.  “I’m not very hap­py with this mint, but it will do you in a pinch.”

Mint and Anchovy Sauce

(serves 4 as a condi­ment with grilled scal­lops, chick­en, lamb or beef)

1 dozen large mint leaves

large hand­ful flat-leaf parsley

4 anchovies in olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 cloves garlic

sev­er­al grinds fresh black pepper

sea salt to taste

Place all ingre­di­ents in a small food proces­sor or blender and blitz till very smooth.  Sea­son care­ful­ly — the amount of salt required will depend entire­ly on how salty your anchovies are.  I served this sauce with sauteed scal­lops and spaghet­ti, but it would be equal­ly good on grilled chick­en, lamb or a juicy steak.

Today, in fact, I made the sauce again, mixed in a heap­ing table­spoon of may­on­naise and it was a STUN­NING accom­pa­ni­ment to a grilled burg­er with hal­lou­mi cheese.

There is just noth­ing like eat­ing some­thing new, in a fab­u­lous restau­rant, and feel­ing, “Hey, I can make that!”

We need­ed all the nour­ish­ment we could get for our out­ing on a chilly evening to see “Lord of the Flies” at the Regen­t’s Park Open Air The­atre, so we stopped off at one of my favorite haunts, scene of so many hap­py lun­cheons with my old pal Becky.  At the Relais de Venise de l’En­tre­cote in Maryle­bone, there is only one thing on the menu: steak frites.  With a green sal­ad.  Unlim­it­ed deliv­er­ies of all these things, with a creamy, cur­ry-ish, mus­tardy sauce that is mys­te­ri­ous and to die for.

Then a long walk through the Park, where Avery com­muned with a hun­gry squir­rel (even though she had noth­ing to feed him).

We set­tled into our seats, feel­ing slight­ly embar­rassed at the mas­sive can­vas bag of sup­plies I had brought: blan­kets, scarves, jack­ets, hand­warm­ers, a Ther­mos of hot choco­late and a flask of Scotch!  But when the sun set, a cold breeze ruf­fled the leaves high in the night sky, and we end­ed up using every sin­gle thing, rev­el­ling in the coziness.

The play was superb!  Give the first act the ben­e­fit of the doubt  as there is some­thing painful­ly awk­ward about the devel­op­ment of the boys from inno­cent, uni­formed school chil­dren who have sur­vived a plane crash into rag­ing uncivilised lunatics.  But the sec­ond act is well worth the invest­ment of the first, and as usu­al, full advan­tage is tak­en of the set­ting of the The­atre and the pos­si­bil­i­ties for cre­at­ing the illu­sion of hap­pen­ing and places far beyond the scope of the stage.

Sat­ur­day found me at bell­ring­ing prac­tice, learn­ing final­ly to put togeth­er the two strokes, sal­ly and back­stroke.  I did fair­ly well until the end of the rope got a bit out of con­trol and I made the dread­ful error of…looking up.  “Don’t look up!” shout­ed Eddie and Arnold togeth­er.  So scary!  “Your eyes can­not keep up with the move­ment of the rope and you will end in dis­as­ter.  Just LOOK AHEAD and don’t panic!”

Then we were off to watch Avery in pos­si­bly the most bor­ing event of the year: Pony Club Day in Hyde Park.  This used to be a day out of some moment, back when SHE was the lit­tle girl being led around on this and that pony, fol­lowed in her every move­ment by her dot­ing par­ents with at least one cam­era.  In those days, sev­er­al moth­ers would join me in set­ting up a lit­tle stand from which we sold brown­ies, cook­ies and fairy cakes to ben­e­fit the vet-bill fund at the sta­ble.  Those were love­ly times.

These days, how­ev­er, Avery is a Near­ly Adult Rid­er and as such, her skills are divert­ed from actu­al­ly rid­ing to help­ing recal­ci­trant and uncharm­ing chil­dren ride.  Which activ­i­ty we watched, in a desul­to­ry fash­ion, repair­ing now and again to a blan­ket in the chill air, to read a few pages of a magazine.

Final­ly she was giv­en the last task of mind­ing two rebel­lious ponies with oppo­site wish­es, after which we could go home.

Now it is Revi­sion Week in advance of next week’s exams at school.  This means good news, Avery is home all week, shar­ing meals and some con­ver­sa­tion, between geog­ra­phy and Russ­ian notes.  I feel hap­pi­er just being able to see her dur­ing the day.  Bad news, she is glued to her studies.

In this sit­u­a­tion, stuck at home, all I can do is pro­vide food.  How about my new dis­cov­ery, from Peter­sham Nurs­eries?  I give you Robi­o­la cheese — made from sheep, cow and goat’s milk — with shards of cel­ery and a real­ly fan­cy olive oil.  There are at least two cheese that go by the name Robi­o­la, and our pre­ferred vari­ety is a round, dense goat’s cheese tex­ture with a gen­tle, edi­ble rind.  The oth­er type is a square cheese of a much run­nier, Brie-like tex­ture, also very deli­cious and more eas­i­ly found.  This is the our pre­ferred type, to be found so far only  at Maryle­bone’s La Fro­magerie.

Do you fan­cy spend­ing your entire pay­check on a selec­tion of impos­si­bly pre­ten­tious exot­ic veg­eta­bles?  La Fro­magerie is the place for you.  It felt expen­sive just tak­ing the photographs.

Today’s lunch was a spec­tac­u­lar inven­tion, and one which all my veg­e­tar­i­an read­ers should heed.

Grilled Red Pep­pers with Robi­o­la, Cel­ery Sprouts and Egg

(one half pep­per per person)

Cut each red pep­per in half from top to bot­tom.  Care­ful­ly remove any web­bing and seeds from inside the pep­per halves, leav­ing the stem intact (I removed mine and I wish I hadn’t).

Place a good chunk of your Robi­o­la — or any eas­i­ly melt­ing cheese — in each pep­per half, then sprin­kle with cel­ery sprouts and top with a raw egg, pour­ing the egg in slow­ly so that it oozes around and under the cheese and is com­plete­ly con­tained by the pep­per.  Place the pep­pers on the hottest part of your grill, or in the hot Aga oven.  Cook for about 20 min­utes or until the white of the egg is cooked.  A slight­ly run­ny yolk is ide­al, but can be hard to achieve.

What a delight this lit­tle trea­sure is to eat!  Hot, ten­der red pep­per and charred skin, melty rich cheese, fresh and jaun­ty cel­ery sprouts and final­ly that lux­u­ri­ous egg.  I think you could eas­i­ly do this in a large flat mush­room — Por­to­bel­lo, for exam­ple — or in a hol­lowed-out zuc­chi­ni (Amer­i­can style) or a lit­tle round green cour­gette (from Wait­rose here in England).

The rain has come this after­noon, scup­per­ing our half-heart­ed plans to vis­it our local ceme­tery.  It’s Bank Hol­i­day Mon­day, so there can be no shop­ping — yes­ter­day Avery and her Non­na had quite a spree in South Kens­ing­ton while I raid­ed Whole Foods!  It’s a qui­et, driz­zly inter­lude before our next adventure.