sur­viv­ing winter

It must be a con­se­quence of get­ting old­er (old?) that the end­less parade of grey, wet, blowy days in Feb­ru­ary have a depres­sive effect.  Our dai­ly walks along the tow path by the riv­er are treks along sticky vis­tas of mud, our faces slapped by cold driz­zle. There are signs of hope, however.

It’s no longer dark when Avery comes home from school, the fun­ny lit­tle tree in our front dri­ve­way has begun, opti­misti­cal­ly, to put out lit­tle pur­ple shoots that will even­tu­al­ly blos­som into beau­ti­ful flow­ers. And it’s my birth­day month!  I could feel, way back in Jan­u­ary, that a par­ty would be a most wel­come diver­sion from the daili­ness of life.  And so it was.  My absolute favorite way to spend a day, gath­er­ing up our best nap­kins and nap­kin rings, clean­ing the old Russ­ian sil­ver, hunt­ing for ingre­di­ents for all my favorite foods.  The sun even came out to cel­e­brate! And how I cooked!  Creamy cele­ri­ac soup, served in beau­ti­ful crys­tal shot glass­es and topped with a crisp shard of bacon.  These were such fun to hold, warm and com­fort­ing, in one hand, with a glass of bub­bly in the oth­er! Ten of my favorite ladies gath­ered on the cold night, bear­ing flow­ers, home­made elder­flower cor­dial, pussy wil­lows, cham­pagne and an enor­mous stack of books, and not a sin­gle dupli­cate!  So, so thought­ful.  It was heav­en­ly to intro­duce all my guests to each oth­er — and I could have invit­ed three times as many women, so lucky am I have such staunch and enter­tain­ing friends.  But I did­n’t have 30 plates!  We tucked into a ter­rine of smoked salmon and poached salmon mousse, fra­grant with tar­ragon, dill, chives and cilantro. Then it was onto my hands-down favorite dish of all time, chick­en meat­balls in a rich sour cream-brandy-papri­ka sauce.  Served with bas­mati rice tossed through with sauteed broc­col­i­ni and aspara­gus, though I say it myself, it was won­der­ful. The loveli­est thing was watch­ing the mix of ladies, right down the table, find­ing points of com­mon inter­est, whether Amer­i­can or British, whether the moth­er of a new­born or the proud grand­moth­er of twins, whether friends I have met online or friends with whom I have dec­o­rat­ed for the school Christ­mas Fair, every­one chat­tered hap­pi­ly.  And the nicest, most sat­is­fy­ing thing was that it was­n’t just chat.  We dis­cussed reli­gion, pol­i­tics, lit­er­a­ture, char­i­ty work, trav­el, books.  A heav­en­ly evening.

And what could pos­si­bly say Valen­tine’s Day like home­made sausages?  Yes, I con­tin­ue in my obses­sion with mincing/grinding my own meat, as the Great Horse­meat Scan­dal con­tin­ues here in Europe.  Horse in IKEA sausages!  I’m sure there’s a fab­u­lous Swedish word for that phe­nom­e­non.  So it was but the work of a moment to appear at the butcher’s to buy love­ly pork steaks, veni­son and chick­en breasts and haul out the min­cer.  Add some cheese, herbs and spices and bob’s your uncle. The first time around, we made love­ly sausage pat­ties.  So fresh, so pure, so savoury!  But of course I had to go one step fur­ther and approach the butch­er the next time for real sausage cas­ings.  Lam­b’s intestines, if you please!  Slip­pery, latex-like tubes of unbe­liev­able strength.  “Brings back mem­o­ries, eh?” the butch­er leered.  Our friend Sam turned up for the first batch, at an all-sausage din­ner.  We weren’t thrilled with the veni­son, rather dry.  But the chick­en with feta and Fox Point and pork with caramelised fen­nel and red onion, plus my friend Kim’s fen­nel sea­son­ing, were divine. It was such a suc­cess that a few days lat­er, we had a sausage-mak­ing party!

But some­times you have to go the extra mile and make some­thing com­plete­ly NEW.  Some­thing exot­ic, for­eign, thrilling.  I’ve had two of those exper­i­ments late­ly and they were both resound­ing successes.

Do you like Thai fla­vors?  I LOVE them, so refresh­ing, so dif­fer­ent from Amer­i­can or Eng­lish or Ital­ian fla­vors.  Just a few well-cho­sen ingre­di­ents and you have super aro­mas float­ing around the house.  I was so in the mood for Tom Yum Soup last week, and brought in shrimp and coconut milk, as well as hot chill­is and corian­der.  It was only when the local food shop had closed and dark­ness had fall­en that I began to cook and I real­ized to my cha­grin that in a kitchen clean-out, I had thrown away my jar of Tom Yum paste.  Oh no, it’s only the MAIN INGREDIENT.

Nev­er mind, if some­one could make it and put it in a jar, sure­ly I could make it!  And I could.  So much fresh­er, more intense and bet­ter than any­thing in a jar, I promise you.  And I had every­thing I need­ed in my pantry and fridge.

Home­made Tom Yum Paste

(makes enough for soup to serve 4)

1 stalk lemon­grass, light­ly crushed, or zest of 1 lemon

1‑inch knob of gin­ger, peeled

2 Kaf­fir lime leaves — 2/3 leaves sliced thin­ly, or zest of 1 lime

1 tbsp Thai roast­ed chilli paste or chilli gar­lic sauce

Thai bird’s eye chill­ies, to taste

2 tbsps Thai fish sauce — 2 tbsp

juice of 1 lime

1 banana shal­lot, peeled and cut into chunks

pinch sug­ar

hand­ful coriander/cilantro

Sim­ply place every­thing in your food proces­sor and process till as smooth as you can get it.  Dump it in a saucepan with a can of half-fat coconut milk and 2 cups/500 grams boil­ing water.

Now for the soup:

1 pound raw peeled shrimp

8 chest­nut mush­rooms, thin­ly sliced

1 bunch scallions/spring onions, thin­ly sliced both white and green part

chopped red hot chill­is to taste

hand­ful coriander/cilantro leaves, no stems

Bring the paste and milk mix­ture to a sim­mer and put in the shrimp and mush­rooms.  Sim­mer for just a cou­ple of min­utes until the shrimp are JUST cooked. Add every­thing else and serve hot.  Divine!

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So exot­ic!  And you made it all yourself.

Then, there is the new veg­etable in our lives.  We went out to the delec­table local Riva, the most per­fect Ital­ian restau­rant ever, for John’s birth­day the last week of the month.  And there we were giv­en puntarelle, a chico­ry-like veg­etable that con­tains, hid­den in its core depths and cov­ered in many pointy leaves, lit­tle aspara­gus-like spears.  These were served in a sim­ply heav­en­ly anchovy-laced oily dress­ing.

I had to find puntarelle of my own.  They were slight­ly crisp, but slight­ly wilty, and so pret­ty.  Plus who can resist a veg­etable you’ve nev­er even HEARD of before?  I cer­tain­ly could­n’t.  So I searched and searched and final­ly found this incred­i­ble food source, Natoo­ra, who offered me many oth­er deli­cious things like veal escalopes and bur­ra­ta and salame, and turned up on my doorstep with puntarelle.  Here they are, whole.

Then, you strip away the EXTREME­LY bit­ter out­er leaves to reveal the lit­tle spears.

Then you cut off the spears one by one and slice them into strips.  This step allows more sur­faces to be revealed and exposed to the cold water bath to fol­low, which removes all bit­ter­ness.  Allow at least an hour.

Then you make a dress­ing of olive oil, lemon juice, gar­lic, black pep­per and as much or as lit­tle anchovy as you want.  For us, six anchovies were just right for one head of puntarelle.

How yum­my, how for­eign, how fun!  I had ordered two heads and now I wish I had ordered loads more.  They would also be good with a blue cheese dress­ing, I think.  A Roman del­i­ca­cy!  I am short­ly to be in pos­ses­sion of SEEDS, which I shall take home to my dear Con­necti­cut friend to plant in her gar­den.  Fin­gers crossed.  I can report in the mean­time that this anchovy dress­ing is addic­tive.  I driz­zled it over a fen­nel sal­ad yes­ter­day and it was a delight.  Don’t for­get to rinse the anchovies if they’re pre­served in salt.

And there you have it, real­ly.  These adven­tures plus a cou­ple of fab­u­lous polit­i­cal plays — “The Audi­ence,” all about the 60 years of the Queen’s week­ly meet­ings with the cur­rent Prime  Min­is­ter — and “This House,” chron­i­cling the Par­lia­men­tary lead-up to the Thatch­er years.  We have seen so much incred­i­ble the­atre this year that I feel quite sur­feit­ed, quite spoiled.  But why not take advan­tage of liv­ing in the great­est the­atre cap­i­tal of the world, AND hav­ing a daugh­ter doing a dra­ma GCSE exam?  We can write it all off to Avery’s education.

Well, the ear­ly March sun has set.  I for once am not cook­ing din­ner and await the deliv­ery of crispy, no-work-for-me wood oven piz­za.  Enjoy these length­en­ing days…