the annu­al jour­ney of friendship

Every “May Bank Hol­i­day,” that quin­tes­sen­tial­ly British name for the last week­end in April/first week­end in May, when all cit­i­zens look to the news and to the skies to wish for sun­shine on their Mon­day off work, I get togeth­er with six of my best friends to cel­e­brate “The Gath­er­ing of Nuts in May.”  The GNIMers, as we call our­selves, are the blessed group of food writ­ers from a 2008 Arvon Foun­da­tion course in the misty, iso­lat­ed, mag­i­cal hills of Devon.

After five days of gru­elling work togeth­er — under the tute­lage of our peer­less Orlan­do — we decid­ed life would not be com­plete if we did not try to repli­cate as much as we could the friend­ship of that week.  And so our year­ly reunions, which we begin antic­i­pat­ing the moment one is over.  This is the moment from last year.

Last Fri­day dawned cold and drea­ry in Lon­don and so I was glad to make my way, laden with too-heavy bags full of tealights, Mal­don salt, fresh herbs, Fox Point Sea­son­ing and oth­er things that made John shake his head (“you can get chick­en stock in Der­byshire, you know!”), to Euston Sta­tion and hop (well, stag­ger) on a train to Bux­ton, there to miss my con­nec­tion and wait shiv­er­ing for an hour, thence to Bakewell.

There was Rosie!  Our Sil­ver Fox, the pre­cious glue that binds us togeth­er.  Rooms are warmer, jokes fun­nier, food more delec­table, when Fox­ette is with us.  “There is just so much fat on my palate,” she regaled us for the first of 100 times over the week­end, mock­ing the judge of “Creme de la Creme,” sure­ly the most irri­tat­ing cook­ing pro­gramme of all time.

Orlan­do!  I wish my blog could con­vey his tear-induc­ing Culi­nary French­man impres­sion.  “But no, you are not allowed to use the word ‘deli­cious’, or ‘crispy”, Mon Dieu!”

Susan smiled her lov­ing, indul­gent smile, the best lis­ten­er in the world.

Pauline arrived with her car jour­ney-proved sour­dough bread, pop­ping it into the oven and mak­ing the kitchen imme­di­ate­ly the most appeal­ing place on earth.

After a long catch-up ses­sion of hear­ing every­one’s news, good and bad, we set­tled in to wait for Sam and Katie, dis­tract­ing our­selves with the prepa­ra­tion of the first of the many mam­moth meals we would concoct.

“Here is the kilo of duck fat for you, Kris­ten, and your 16 duck legs,” Rosie said, sure­ly the first time that sen­tence has ever been uttered.  Hon­est­ly, she could have been arrest­ed with that lot on the grounds of Type Two dia­betes alone.  It IS an awe­some duck dish, though, fra­grant with bay leaves, gar­lic, white wine, rose­mary and thyme.

Final­ly Katie turned up, armed with a Bundt cake as one nor­mal­ly is.  My roomie!  How we love our ear­ly-morn­ing paja­maed chats.

We set­tled down to those lus­cious duck legs, Rosie point­ing out again how thor­ough­ly she felt that “the fat is on my palate.”  With them we tucked into my unfe­lic­i­tous­ly named “creamy rice,” which real­ly is the per­fect side dish for any­thing with a love­ly juice to soak up.  Just steam bas­mati rice in chick­en stock, and add dou­ble cream and Fox Point Sea­son­ing.  There was plen­ty of new-sea­son aspara­gus, and to fin­ish off, Susan’s tra­di­tion­al Marks & Spencer bespoke cake, just for us.

We lin­gered long at the table and talked long into the evening about such pithy top­ics as best way to clear drains (whole mack­er­el and Coca-Cola were bandied about as can­di­dates for the job), whether or not my per­fume is too strong (“I feel you should­n’t be able to smell it until you hug me,” I averred, so there was some exper­i­men­ta­tion and the sub­ject was aired many more times over the fol­low­ing few days and sub­ject­ed to the benign opin­ions of all).  Final­ly to bed, all of us feel­ing that per­fect GNIM sense of the first divine meal behind us, with antic­i­pa­tion of what the mor­row would bring.

It brought bright sun­shine, a blue blink­ing sky, and a dri­ve in Orlan­do’s con­vert­ible to Chatsworth House, ances­tral home to the Devon­shires, one of Eng­land’s most illus­tri­ous ancient families.

What a place!  This is the out­ra­geous cen­ter hall, fea­tured in the tel­ly film “Death Comes to Pem­ber­ley.”

We wan­dered for sim­ply hours, enjoy­ing most par­tic­u­lar­ly the cur­rent exhi­bi­tion of Cecil Beat­on and the Devon­shire Cir­cle, with their admirable mot­to, “Per­haps the world’s sec­ond-worst crime is bore­dom; the first is being a bore.”

Best room?  The library.  Yes please.

Best view?  Side lawn, although we did not tour it because the weath­er was by now rather appalling.

Best sculp­ture?  This impos­si­bly accom­plished mar­ble piece by Rafael­li Mon­ti (1818–1881).  Yes, it is all mar­ble, even the veil.

This bust is not, in fact, Matthew Mac­fadyen, nor is it Mr Dar­cy, sadly.

But that icon­ic tour of the white mar­ble gallery was filmed here, in “Pride and Prej­u­dice”, 2005.

I was inor­di­nate­ly and irri­tat­ing­ly proud to iden­ti­fy a wall of paint­ings as being by Lucian Freud.

It was felt that my PhD was not quite mori­bund after all.

Most mem­o­rably in the whole of the day, Orlan­do was invit­ed to play the great Stein­way grand piano in the music room.

Seri­ous­ly.  Wild beasts every­where were tamed.  It was thrilling; there was applause.  Rosie was lured by the sound from a far­away room.  “Right away, as soon as I heard it, I knew it was our Orlando.”

Final­ly we raid­ed the gift shop.

“What is that thing stick­ing out of your bag, Orlando?”

“A feath­er duster for get­ting behind radiators.”

“What — you came to Chatsworth and bought a feath­er duster for radi­a­tors? Why Chatsworth?  It has to be the world’s most expen­sive feath­er duster.”

“Well, they have a lot of radi­a­tors, don’t they?”

Per­haps they use it for this dome.

Katie bought, as one does in a state­ly home gift shop, a book extolling 25 or 100 (I for­get) ways to fold napkins.

“I know what would be real­ly, real­ly fun­ny to do,” Orlan­do pro­posed.  “Every time you try to go through a door, PUSH if it says PULL…”

“And PULL if it says PUSH.”

This game fol­lowed us through the rest of the week­end, get­ting a laugh every time.  You can see — we are easy to entertain.

Starv­ing to death, we repaired to the cafe for some­thing pur­port­ing to be “lamb hash” but cer­tain­ly was­n’t, and the oblig­a­tory Bakewell Tart.

It was dis­cov­ered that some of our num­ber had missed what was appar­ent­ly the whole point of the entire­ty of Chatsworth, a trompe l’oeil vio­lin.  Fur­ther, those who had seen it felt it was a sight with­out which their lives would not be complete.

Clear­ly, those of us who had not been so per­spi­ca­cious would have to go back. Sigh.

We found a sweet guide who took us up in the lift, and then detached vel­vet rope after vel­vet rope to give us a shortcut.

“Did you see those tourists?  If looks could kill!” we gloated.

The vio­lin, by Jan van der Vaart (1653–1727) was well worth see­ing.  Unbe­liev­able, real­ly.  It’s just paint.  (Sam was under­whelmed, lead­ing us to realise that per­haps we had­n’t ade­quate­ly explained trompe l’oeil.)

Final­ly, after a ruinous vis­it to the Farm Shop, we felt we had wrest­ed from Chatsworth every sin­gle oppor­tu­ni­ty for fun, and head­ed home.  Singing “Cal­i­for­nia Girls” at the top of our lungs, sport­ing the sun­glass­es that are almost nev­er need­ed in Eng­land, smok­ing a for­bid­den cig­a­rette hand-rolled by Sam, it was a per­fect, per­fect moment.

Once home, we tend­ed to our con­tri­bu­tions to the evening’s feast.  Orlan­do scooped up the herbed and wine‑y duck fat I’d saved from last night’s din­ner and applied it to the gor­geous leg of lamb we’d acquired at the Chatsworth Farm Shop.  I devot­ed myself to a pos­i­tive over­dose of beet­roots, peeled, quar­tered, sprin­kled with olive oil and fresh thyme, ready to roast.

There were roast­ed potatoes.

Of course, every­thing about being with these friends is jol­ly and per­fect, but quite pos­si­bly the MOST fun bit is being in the com­pa­ny of peo­ple who are obsessed with food and cook­ing as I am.  Even my fam­i­ly, dear and sup­port­ive as they are, get a bit eye-glazy at some points with my intense inter­est in every detail of a dish, with a meal.  But with these six we can eas­i­ly sit around the din­ing table for a few hours, dis­cussing each ingre­di­ent, each way of treat­ing each ingre­di­ent, oth­er choic­es that could have been made, oth­er com­bi­na­tions to try next time.  It is pure heaven.

We fin­ished with Katie’s Bundt cake and mac­er­at­ed straw­ber­ries and retired to bed, com­plete­ly hap­py with our lot.

In the morn­ing I rose ear­ly to get my head on straight because of course, being me, I was­n’t con­tent with a relax­ing, easy Sun­day.  Oh no.  I had to go and get myself fixed up to RING BELLS.  After a sus­tain­ing break­fast of Pauline’s fab­u­lous rye, spelt and car­away bread and bacon, that is.

Ringers take a keen pride in ring­ing every chance they get.  It’s a mat­ter of con­vivi­al­i­ty, part­ly, and a com­pet­i­tive desire to rack up as many tow­ers (or “church­es” as I per­sist in think­ing of them) on one’s resume as pos­si­ble.  For me, it’s also a per­verse ambi­tion to fright­en myself as often as pos­si­ble.  Per­haps some­day, I won’t find ring­ing bells fright­en­ing, but for now, I con­sole myself that if dai­ly dos­es of fear can stave off demen­tia, I’m in great shape.

So know­ing I would be in Bakewell for the week­end, it was but the work of a moment to enter the post­code into Dove, the bell­ring­ing loca­tion find­er, and see that All Saints Bakewell was my des­ti­na­tion, with eight very heavy bells of a Vic­to­ri­an nature.  I emailed the Tow­er Cap­tain and was told that yes, I would be very wel­come indeed.

We all trooped up the steep hill to the church.  Rosie snapped me at the gate, pos­si­bly want­i­ng to get a last image of me before I was defeat­ed by the task to come.

I found that my arrival had been woven into the day’s expectations.

We climbed the steps to the very large ring­ing cham­ber and my friends set­tled in for their very first expo­sure to my weird and won­der­ful hob­by.  The Tow­er Cap­tain was as hap­py as all Tow­er Cap­tains are to put every­one in the pic­ture, with a suc­cinct and stir­ring explanation.

Every tow­er has a lit­tle mod­el of a bell and its frame, the pride of Eng­lish change-ringing.

So we took hold of our ropes.

“Can you ring rounds and call changes, Kris­ten?” I was asked.  I assured them I could.  And we did.

It went so well that I was asked to tre­ble to Plain Bob Minor, which I had nev­er done before.  Just to tell you more than you want to know, if a method is called “dou­bles” it means that one bell is always ring­ing in last place.  This makes it very easy to ring first when it’s your turn, obvi­ous­ly, because to ring first means you ring after who’s just rung last, and all you have to do is look around the cir­cle to see who that was.  In a method called “minor,” as was pro­posed on Sun­day, there is no one bell always ring­ing last, so ring­ing first can be quite tricky.  You have to do it by rhythm.

More than you want­ed to know, no doubt.

At din­ner, the night before, I had been pep­pered with ques­tions about what every­one could expect in the ring­ing cham­ber, and I had explained about the tre­ble say­ing, “Look to,” which means every­one meets every­one else’s eyes to ascer­tain we’re ready, and the tre­ble says, “Tre­ble’s going, she’s gone.”  Because in the immor­tal words of Dorothy L. Say­ers, “bells, like ships and kit­tens, have a way of being female.”  So being asked to “tre­ble” was per­fect, because every­one got to see what I had described, in liv­ing col­or.  So exciting!

The salient point is that it went very well.  I have, over the last few months, appar­ent­ly been learn­ing quite a lot, at my dar­ling Fos­ter Lane tow­er.  Final­ly we rang “down,” so that the bells could be safe­ly stored hang­ing down­ward.  And that went very well, too!  We rang down in peal, one of the most beau­ti­ful sounds in the world.  And then it was fin­ished, and out into the misty morn­ing we went.

There is no feel­ing of relief quite so intense as hav­ing fin­ished ring­ing!  We were all quite gid­dy and joy­ous in the cool Sun­day air.

We had worked up quite an appetite, one way and anoth­er, so it was back home to con­coct yet anoth­er feast.

It’s fun­ny how at our reunions, we just fall into place in the kitchen.  I had brought some stu­pen­dous smoked salmon, so a lit­tle appe­tis­er was in order.

Sam’s con­tri­bu­tion was quick-roast­ed chick­ens with lemon and Fox Point.

“You know what?” Katie asked.  “We did­n’t buy a vegetable.”

“Why do we always have to have a veg­etable?” I asked plaintively.

“I’ll make mac­a­roni and cheese,” Rosie offered imme­di­ate­ly.  “That can be our veg­etable.  I’ll put in some chives.”

This dish, with a bit of crunchy bacon and a hint of spice in the top­ping, proved to be a very pop­u­lar veg­etable indeed.

We con­clud­ed with Rosie’s evap­o­rat­ed milk ice cream and rhubarb, and sat on at the table, shar­ing sto­ries of the food world and its glo­ri­ous mis­takes: for exam­ple, a din­ner par­ty end­ing with a dessert made by a cook who read the word “marsala” and inter­pret­ed it as “garam masala,” there­by sub­sti­tut­ing for a love­ly sweet wine (liq­uid) an Indi­an spice blend (pow­der).  Can you imag­ine what might have been as much as a half cup of cur­ry pow­der, in a dessert?  And win­ning the award for Best Typo in a Cook­book — “one-inch knob of grat­ed fin­ger,” instead of “gin­ger.”  At least, pre­sum­ably, one would­n’t car­ry through with that mis­tak­en instruction!

Laugh­ing, now, remem­ber­ing the humor of Orlan­do, or Orlan­deau, or Orlan­dough… oh my ribs hurt.

We talked fast and furi­ous to dis­tract us from the fact that my train depar­ture was immi­nent.  It was time for the cel­e­bra­to­ry group pho­to.  First, “look to…”

Then, “be silly…”

Then, “aren’t we lucky to have each other…”

To Bux­ton we drove, to explore that rather odd spa town, lost in the mists of Victoriana.

I bought a gin­ger grater, as one does in Bux­ton.  One has to have sou­venirs.  And then every­one accom­pa­nied me to the train sta­tion, and with a flur­ry of French-accent­ed hugs and push­es to the pull door, I was off.  The train lurched away, and the Der­byshire land­scape float­ed by, a per­fect back­drop to my mus­ings about food, fun, friend­ship and grat­i­tude.  Until next year…