the hid­den beau­ty of exams

It’s a good news/bad news sce­nario, and since I’m Scan­di­na­vian I always want the bad news first: Avery’s long-dread­ed end-of-year school exams begin tomor­row morn­ing. Five days, 11 exams, noth­ing else. Just exams.

The good news? She was home all day, every day last week and I sim­ply LOVED it. I try not to think, most of the time, about how much time she spends away from me these days, because I know it’s the wave of the future, it’s healthy, and in the hideous mod­ern expres­sion, “it’s all good.” I hate that phrase because it’s NOT all good. I miss her, and I find myself long­ing stu­pid­ly for the days when she was far more depen­dent on me, and there­fore with­in my sight much more than she is now. I real­ize that to have a young lady on the doorstep of being adult, so capa­ble and ele­gant and knowl­edge­able, is “all good.” It’s won­der­ful to drop her off at her act­ing class and see that she no longer has any need of any­one accom­pa­ny­ing her, and her teach­ers have inside jokes with her, and she can be count­ed on to be a fun­ny, hard­work­ing mem­ber of the group.

And even her rid­ing lessons, where I used to take her, set­tle myself down with a mag­a­zine and sort of sigh at hav­ing to watch her go round and round, being led by one of the big girls… these days SHE’S the big girl at the sta­bles at the week­ends, the one the adults rely on to help the lit­tle ones. There’s no more watch­ing: she’s off in Hyde Park lead­ing the lit­tle ones. I love it that peo­ple have grown to depend on my child, that she’s respon­si­ble and resource­ful. It’s all you wish for, real­ly, as a parent.

Except for more time with her! I wish for that.

So this week, as oner­ous as it was for her, was a delight for me. I pro­vid­ed her with “fre­quent lit­tle meals,” as my friend Shel­ley so lov­ing­ly once said about feed­ing a kit­ten! Bowls of juicy, blood-red Amer­i­can cher­ries to be gnawed around the pits, bits of toast­ed baguette spread with salty Nor­mandy but­ter, Dan­ish sala­mi of such a pink­ish hue that we find our­selves won­der­ing if Den­mark feeds its pigs food col­or­ing! And fresh fried had­dock, bat­tered in home­made bread­crumbs, four-cheese lasagne with a sneaky lay­er of spinach, chick­en in sour cream sauce with brandy and a spe­cial papri­ka pro­vid­ed by my chum Rosie… not to men­tion count­less aspara­gus spears, broc­coli flo­rets, sug­ar snap peas, and, best of all…

Avery’s Exam-Week Blue­ber­ry Muffins
(makes six medi­um-sized muffins)

5 oz/150g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp bak­ing powder
1 large egg
1 1/2 oz/40g white sugar
1/2 vanil­la pod, scraped
zest of 1/2 lemon
2 oz/50g but­ter, melted
1 cup blueberries

Heat oven to 350F/180C. Line the muf­fin tin with paper lin­ers, or but­ter and flour each muf­fin space.

Sift (or sim­ply shake through a sieve, as I do since I don’t own a sifter) the flour, salt and bak­ing pow­der into a bowl just large enough to hold them. In a larg­er bowl, stir togeth­er the egg, sug­ar, vanil­la pod scrap­ings, lemon zest and butter.

Fold the flour mix­ture into the egg mix­ture just gen­tly, mix­ing until all is JUST wet but leav­ing behind plen­ty of lumps. Care­ful­ly stir in blue­ber­ries and divide among muf­fin cups.

Bake for 25–30 min­utes, or until just browned and firm. The blue­ber­ry juice will have bub­bled up and may look a bit messy around the edges, but that’s what keeps them juicy and love­ly. If you used paper cups, remove the muffins (in their paper cups) from the muf­fin tin right away.

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Can you believe how lit­tle sug­ar is in this recipe? I was absolute­ly shocked, but I should­n’t be sur­prised, because the basic mea­sure­ments of flour and bak­ing pow­der and sug­ar were tak­en from Delia Smith, and she is so very sensible.

If you have a hun­gry child around the house, split one of these open while still warm, tuck a nice piece of but­ter inside, put it back togeth­er and deliv­er it, with a good nap­kin to wipe those but­tery fin­gers, and watch the appre­ci­a­tion steal over the lit­tle face. Or not so lit­tle, in Avery’s case.

I hate to think that I equate love COM­PLETE­LY with food, but I know I come close. Tonight I offered Avery a sort of junk-food choco­late pud­ding with a hot sauce, one of her favorites, and she accept­ed, say­ing, “First, can I have a huge hug?” Once hugged, she smiled and said, “That’s bet­ter than choco­late. I can save the pud­ding for tomorrow.”

Oth­er than exam hell, we’ve been fair­ly dull and qui­et, accom­plish­ing things like weed­ing the oxy­gen-rich plant­ed roof of our guest room (I hat­ed to tell John after, but it did­n’t look much dif­fer­ent… he did dis­cov­er some wild straw­ber­ries out there, how­ev­er, a total mys­tery). And I ruth­less­ly cleared out all my kitchen cup­boards, dis­cov­er­ing uncharm­ing things like six dif­fer­ent opened pack­ets of cous­cous (guess what we had for din­ner tonight), at least five opened pack­ets of pinenuts, count­less part­ly-used pack­ets of mis­match­ing pas­ta and no few­er than sev­en dif­fer­ent types of miso soup paste! What on earth? So every­thing has been wiped down, thrown away when absolute­ly nec­es­sary, con­sol­i­dat­ed and count­ed up. Remind me not to buy any dried chick­en soup for about anoth­er cen­tu­ry. The same goes for tinned tuna! I fore­see some odd meals com­ing up. Just wait till I hit the freez­er. Fan­cy some thawed smoked salmon with home­made bread­crumbs and limoncello?

And we’ve been enter­tained by our neigh­bors, both lit­er­al­ly (a love­ly drinks par­ty last night in the gar­den with the first Pimms of the year!) and more acci­den­tal­ly, when Sel­va appeared out­side in front with a giant elec­tri­cal saw and enough ener­gy to cut our side of the hedge while he cut theirs. Oth­er neigh­bors walked by, weight­ed down fes­tive­ly with box­es of wine bot­tles, and we all ribbed Sel­va about his hedge-cut­ting skills. “I want a top­i­ary chick­en, sit­ting on an egg, like that one a cou­ple of streets over,” John said, and I chimed in, “Or a pony, or a kit­ten, please.” Sel­va did­n’t skip a beat. “Actu­al­ly, it was already in the shape of a chick­en, so I have refash­ioned it into a top­i­ary hedge-shaped hedge.”

Lots of par­ties being bandied about: Annie and Kei­th’s always splen­did drinks with the most tempt­ing and gor­geous small eats you can imag­ine, includ­ing my favorite of smoked salmon mixed with creme fraiche on lit­tle bli­n­is… can’t wait for that. And Avery’s giv­ing a par­ty! “Mock­tails” and vin­tage prom dress­es, which should be a hoot. I brought home from Indi­anapo­lis a peer­less pink dress made for my MOTH­ER by my GRAND­MOTH­ER, a satin top, with lay­ers of tulle skirt and a huge­ly long sash, and it fits Avery like the prover­bial glove, so that inspired her to ask her friends to look round the char­i­ty shops and flea mar­kets. They will all sim­ply pile into the sit­ting room with sleep­ing bags after­ward, to watch some­thing involv­ing Grace Kel­ly, and fall into choco­late sun­daes. I timid­ly men­tioned the notion of “real food” and piz­za was men­tioned, so that should take care of all the basic food groups.

Well, tomor­row Lost Prop­er­ty beck­ons, which always requires the utmost in my ener­gy. And some­times a face mask, if the lacrosse boots are par­tic­u­lar­ly pun­gent. But you know the best bit? Avery will come to vis­it while I’m there, I will be able to hear how the morn­ing’s exams went and offer com­fort for the after­noon’s efforts, and for sure, there will be a hug available.