of best friends and a birth­day girl

The humid­i­ty has real­ly set­tled in.  It’s that decep­tive sort of weath­er that makes you don your ten­nis togs, grab JUST not enough cold water, and head to the courts.  After you’ve moved around for about five sec­onds, you’re SOAKED!  It’s a nice tem­per­a­ture if you don’t MOVE.

Last night was one of those icon­ic Con­necti­cut evenings, heavy with damp, fra­grant air, rolling dis­tant thun­der and flash­es of heat light­ning behind Stillmead­ow.  I dashed across to leave a pack­age that had come UPS for Anne and David, open­ing our sweet lit­tle red gate to run across the dusty road, knock on their door, hear sounds of Katie’s bath­time, look in at the cozy lamp­light, feel­ing at once like a bit of a voyeur and also intense­ly grate­ful for our friend­ly lit­tle bend of road.

How I love hav­ing Kate turn up to tram­po­line, her moth­er to sit down for a quick sand­wich — today’s of slices of a rolled-up moz­zarel­la, pancetta and pars­ley con­coc­tion, plus the juici­est of heir­loom tom­toes — lis­ten­ing to her dad strug­gling with the lawn­mow­er across the road.  And more heat thun­der and light­ning, today at lunchtime.  They are the best pos­si­ble neighbors.

Avery’s best friend from baby­hood has turned up for her annu­al vis­it.  Cici came to meet Avery when Avery was three days old and Cici a grownup lady of six months, and they were joined at the hip for nine years, until we moved to Lon­don.  Their friend­ship is one that sur­vives from year to year with a mys­te­ri­ous alche­my from lit­tle girl­hood to the beau­ti­ful young women they are now.  The two of them haven’t changed one iota.

They’re teenagers, which means they can watch eleven­ty hun­dred episodes of “Amer­i­ca’s Top Mod­el” in a row, while com­par­ing the rel­a­tive mer­its of Amer­i­can and Euro­pean can­dy, then sleep for twelve  hours.  They also don’t mind the heat if they can be on an amuse­ment park ride, so John has tak­en them off this after­noon to Quassy and after shar­ing a few rides with them, has left them to spend a hot after­noon filled with roller coast­ers, The Sat­u­ra­tion Sta­tion, and fried dough.  Last night they ate their weight in spaghet­ti car­bonara, so my con­science is clear.  I have fed them real food.

Cici is the last in our series of sum­mer vis­i­tors, and a nice crown­ing touch to a sea­son of cel­e­bra­tions.  My moth­er has come and gone, for her big 75th birth­day week­end.  What fun we had.

Oh, the food we cooked!  We made our way to Jill and Joel’s house for an on-the-day birth­day din­ner, where my con­tri­bu­tion was tri-col­or slaw, with pop­py seeds and an Every­thing Dressing.

Tri-Col­or Slaw

(serves at least eight)

1/2 head red cabbage

1/2 head Savoy cabbage

4 car­rots, shredded

Dress­ing: 1/3 cup each: olive oil (I used the left­overs from a jar of mar­i­nat­ed arti­chokes!), may­on­naise, lemon juice, Thou­sand Island dress­ing, plus 1 tbsp Dijon mus­tard and 1 tbsp pop­py seeds

Shred both cab­bages and all the car­rots, toss with dress­ing.  Serve room tem­per­a­ture or cold.

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

And my good­ness, Joel cooked an incred­i­ble din­ner.  Grilled pork ten­der­loin and the best risotto.

Fresh Toma­to Risot­to with Basil

(serves four)

5 cups chick­en broth

4 tbsps butter

1/2 chopped onion

1 tbsp veg­etable oil

1 1/2 pounds firm ripe toma­toes, peeled, seed­ed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

salt and fresh­ly ground pepper

1 1/2 cups carnaroli, arbo­rio or vialone nano rice (about 10 ounces)

1/2 cup fresh­ly grat­ed Parme­san cheese

10 basil leaves cut into very thin strips

In a medi­um saucepan, bring the broth to a boil and keep sim­mer­ing constantly.

In a large saucepan, com­bine 2 tbsps of the but­ter with the onion and the oil.  Cook over mod­er­ate hear, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until the onion turns pale gold.  Add the toma­toes and a pinch each of salt and pep­per and cook, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, for 10 minutes.

Add the rice and stir to thor­ough­ly coat the grains.  Add 1/2 cup of the sim­mer­ing broth to the rice and stir con­stant­ly until most of the liq­uid has been absorbed; adjust the heat to main­tain a sim­mer.  Grad­u­al­ly add more broth, 1/2 cup at a time, and cook, stir­ring the rice con­stant­ly to pre­vent it stick­ing to the pan at any time.  The rice is done when it is firm but ten­der, with­out a chalky center.

Add the remain­ing but­ter, the cheese and the basil and stir for 1 minute longer.  Sea­son with salt and pep­per and serve at once.

It was love­ly to have all the girls togeth­er with their grand­moth­er and John’s mom, sit­ting in the back­yard with the swingset and the chalk games being played on the dri­ve­way.  And after risot­to, there were cupcakes.

My dear moth­er loves noth­ing more than a plate of sweet things!

Jill and Joel’s kit­ty Snow­ball marched back and forth with first a half-dead chip­munk and then a more-than-half-dead bird in his mouth… “The cycle of life,” said Joel.  “Final­ly, anoth­er man in the house.  That’s my boy.”

And we gave Mom her present — “the most fun I’ve had with my fam­i­ly in a very long time!” John said, describ­ing the evening we put it all togeth­er.  The 75th birth­day Per­son­al Crossword.

How we racked our brains for clues, and answers!  Going all the way back to Mom’s child­hood, her favorite movies, sports teams, col­or, flower, tele­vi­sion shows, all our names, the neigh­bor­hoods she’s lived in… it was SUCH fun.  And she enjoyed it.

But the fun did­n’t stop there.  The next day brought them all to our house for the annu­al par­ty, dec­o­rat­ed care­ful­ly with as many yel­low bal­loons as we can fit in the back of the Land Rover.

Even a very cool teenag­er is hap­py to get out of bed to tie a few thou­sand bal­loons to the fence and the bird feeder!

It is always such fun for me to work in the kitchen as the time for the par­ty approach­es, and to watch cars pull up in the dri­ve­way, filled by a hap­py group of so many won­der­ful peo­ple.  Of course, it’s a com­plete acci­dent that some of them come armed with the most deli­cious food, like Cathy and her straw­ber­ry-rhubarb pie, or Olimpia and her famous meat­balls!  It’s the friend­ship that matters.

And of course it’s a com­plete­ly coin­ci­dence that Tri­cia and Rol­lie come armed with every­one’s favorite baby, Tiny Rol­lie.  Olimpia and Tony may have enjoyed spend­ing time with him, just a little.

There was the table of lit­tle girls…

And while I did not get a decent pic­ture of my dear friend Shel­ley, I did snap Avery with Shel­ley’s present.  There is a lady who under­stands cats.

There was time to sit for a time to appre­ci­ate every­one’s spe­cial con­tri­bu­tions: the won­der­ful sto­ries that Cathy tells of her aunt liv­ing here in our house, Shel­ley’s ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of the gene­ol­o­gy that makes her eighth cousins some­thing-removed from Anne, Joel and Olimpia’s con­tri­bu­tions of ideas for egg­plant meat­balls, the shouts of the lit­tle girls (and one big girl, ever-patient) on the tram­po­line, ring­ing sweet­ly in the dis­tance.  First Joel super­vised and they were crazy.

And then, because they all adore John’s mom who wield­ed the cam­era (as we all count on her to do!), they posed for her, each of them beau­ti­ful in her own unique way.

My hus­band’s good humor and end­less ener­gy with the girls and the Land Rover, added the spice of Every­one’s Favorite Dad to the mix.

And Anne did­n’t save all her baby enthu­si­asm for her own.  She had time for Tiny Rol­lie, too.

Jill and Avery sim­ply can­not take a bad pho­to­graph.  The two most beau­ti­ful girls at the par­ty, perhaps.

And what part do I play in all this?  I am the rope that draws every­one in, the chron­i­cler of our times togeth­er, the grate­ful audi­ence for every­one’s charms.  And the pro­duc­er of grilled scal­lops wrapped in bacon, it must be said.

Through it all, my moth­er per­formed her usu­al mir­a­cle of find­ing some­thing to talk about with every­one.  She had brought the cross­word with her to beg for mer­cy, to ask for help with the last three or four clues (and they weren’t our best effort, I admit).  She sat on the shady ter­race with Anne’s and Olimpia’s flo­ral trib­utes all around her, and enjoyed all her favorite foods, which hap­pen ‑hap­pen!- to be my favorite foods!  There were chick­en liv­ers sauteed in but­ter and Madeira, mush­rooms stuffed with sausage, pecans baked with spiced but­ter, heir­loom toma­to sal­ad with moz­zarel­la, olive oil and lemon juice.  I think she was happy.

And for once, Jill, Joel and John’s stric­tures that “it’s not a par­ty at Red Gate Farm unless every­one’s cry­ing” did not come true.  The day end­ed mag­i­cal­ly, as all birth­days should, with cake.

Now it is all over for anoth­er year.  The birth­day is over, the last hugs have been exchanged, and my moth­er and broth­er have gone home.  Thank good­ness John’s mom has stayed behind to cheer us up.  Although, to tell you the truth… we’re pret­ty hap­py these days.