the most won­der­ful week­end, as always

It’s that time of year again, when sev­en of the most food-obsessed peo­ple in Britain gath­er at an undis­closed loca­tion — St Mawes, in Corn­wall, on an improb­a­bly beau­ti­ful part of the coast­line — to spend a week­end indulging in our favourite past­times.  These include, in no par­tic­u­lar order, talk­ing about food shop­ping, actu­al food shop­ping, eat­ing, talk­ing about eat­ing, plan­ning the next ses­sion of all of the above, rinse, repeat.

You’ll remem­ber that this adven­ture hap­pens each ear­ly May Bank Hol­i­day, the annu­al glut­to­nous result of our 2008 meet­ing in Devon with the Arvon Foun­da­tion.  Whilst the “food writ­ing” part of my com­mit­ment has dwin­dled to my annu­al blog post and the nev­er-end­ing efforts toward Vol­ume Two of the cook­book, all the rest of the fun remains: the sil­ly, end­less­ly repeat­ed jokes, the fran­tic catch­ing-up of a year’s news, the exchang­ing of recipes and inspi­ra­tions, and the COOK­ING.  This year marks our tenth anniversary!

But I get ahead of myself.  There was the jour­ney, a long, cheap jour­ney from Water­loo to the coast of Corn­wall.  Oh, the views along the way!

I arrived in Exeter St Davids to be met by the incom­pa­ra­ble Orlan­do, who grabbed my suit­case (because he is at heart an old-fash­ioned Eng­lish gen­tle­man) and imme­di­ate­ly set the tone for the week­end with his greet­ing, “I like your legs, Kris­ten.”  To be fair, I was wear­ing, at the time, skin-tight leg­gings fea­tur­ing Olde Eng­lish text of “Ham­let.”

“I wear them so I always have some­thing sen­sa­tion­al to read in the train,” I explained.  And we were on our way, with dar­ling Susan to keep us company.

How much time could Orlan­do and I spend togeth­er before we final­ly ran out of things to talk about?  As Claire from Out­lander says, “That amount of time does­n’t exist.”  We cov­ered sour­dough bread meth­ods, sous-vide machines, the sta­tus of John’s build­ing project, tele­vi­sion shows I think he should watch (name­ly “The Ter­ror” which we just fin­ished, in case you want a ship­wreck adven­ture with a super­nat­ur­al sub­plot), the var­i­ous ways in which Orlan­do spoils his pre­cious black kit­ten Mag­no­lia (known as Nola).  Nola has a pul­ley-sys­tem har­ness so she can play safe­ly on their roof ter­race.  The har­ness is embell­ished with a police badge, denot­ing her sur­veil­lance responsibilities.

Susan took a well-deserved nap dur­ing these pere­gri­na­tions and we arrived at the house in record time.

To be met by Rosie, the warm, cosy, hilar­i­ous, infi­nite­ly gen­er­ous glue that holds us all together!

Not that Orlan­do ever calls her Rosie.  Since the first year of our friend­ship, she has been known by any num­ber of vari­a­tions of “Fox,” for rea­sons lost in the mists of time.  She is Fox­ie, The Sil­ver Fox, Fox­ette, Fox­glove, Lady Fox…

Pauline arrived!

She wast­ed no time in get­ting our irre­place­able Sam into an intense dis­cus­sion about, what, the view?  Very possibly.

And then there was Katie!  My beloved room­mate since the beginning.

We were together!

The light on this first evening is always the same, regard­less of the weath­er.  I call it “eupho­ria laven­der.”  Drinks were poured, talk was fast and furious.

Every­one’s faces reflect­ed their joy in being togeth­er.  To think that young Sam was a child of 21 when we first met!  (He’s still the baby of the family.)

There is always so much ground to cov­er, we nev­er cease chattering.

Pauline got down to busi­ness with a very clever anno­tat­ed map of every loca­tion of pre­vi­ous reunions.  Sea­sides, coun­try­sides, north, south, east and west.  Where to go next year?  It’s nev­er too ear­ly to start dis­cussing it, let’s be real.

The map fin­ished, it was a delight­ful reminder of all the fab­u­lous adven­tures we have shared together.

At last the Sains­bury’s deliv­ery arrived and I could get down to busi­ness with my usu­al Fri­day-night reunion respon­si­bil­i­ty: DIN­NER!  This time my new chilli to which I am devot­ed, with porci­ni mush­rooms hydrat­ed in espres­so.  Such fun to under­chef with every­one stand­ing around offer­ing sug­ges­tions, gos­sip­ing, catch­ing up.

The fin­ished dish was just as deli­cious as I had hoped.  And Sam’s beau­ti­ful pho­tographs enhanced it even further.

Just such a beau­ti­ful place!

We ate our chilli around the big din­ing table, look­ing out into the spring evening, feel­ing lucky.

Sat­ur­day morn­ing dawned fog­gy, in that way that coastal places do, and you enjoy it because you know it won’t last.  The sun will even­tu­al­ly triumph.

Which, in due time, it did.  It was a hot one!

After break­fast we bun­dled our­selves into Orlan­do’s con­vert­ible and Sam’s cute hybrid — unbe­liev­ably pre­car­i­ous­ly parked on the ter­ri­bly nar­row dri­ve­way that was reached only after mir­a­cles, from the near­ly ver­ti­cal road!  But oh, the beau­ty of that wall that made it all so difficult.

Can you just imag­ine the work­man­ship, not to men­tion the sheer devo­tion to beau­ty, that result­ed in this intri­cate, mas­ter­ful, ancient wall?

We made our way across the lit­tle body of water that sep­a­rates St Mawes from Fal­mouth (the fer­ry was so incon­se­quen­tial that the ride was over before I even realised we were mov­ing, hence no pho­to­graph).  After a beau­ti­ful dri­ve through the Cor­nish coun­try­side and plen­ty of “Beach Boys” play­ing at full vol­ume, we arrived in Truro, which I have only ever read about in the kind of sap­py Eng­lish fic­tion I love to read.  The Cathe­dral — oh my.

I was hearti­ly glad I had not signed myself up to ring any bell that might be con­tained in these walls.  I’d have been prop­er­ly ter­ri­fied (there are 14 of them, mind you!).  But I was excit­ed, once inside, to see the ropes attached to said bells — plen­ty close enough for me!

We wan­dered around inside, find­ing the tomb of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (the very first gram­mar nazi).  How thrilling to find this, after my many, many re-read­ings of “84, Char­ing Cross Road,” with Helene Hanf­f’s devot­ed descrip­tions of his work.

And sure­ly the world’s most uncom­fort­able pair of dead spouses.

“I can­not believe that I must spend eter­ni­ty clutch­ing this thorny rose, and try­ing to prop my head up with my hand,” she moaned.

“At least you have that hand avail­able,” he chimed in, “I’m sit­ting on mine, plus I have to hold this book in per­pe­tu­ity, and I’ve already read it.  I think it’s the Bible.”

We peered in shop win­dows, acquired a mas­sive salmon for the fol­low­ing day’s lun­cheon par­ty, and stopped for a drink in the town square.

Sam kept up a run­ning com­men­tary com­plain­ing about the atro­cious nature of the busk­ing musi­cians near­by, and then it was time to head to the Roy­al Muse­um of Corn­wall, where Susan had booked a tour for us.

“Are you the food writ­ers, then?  Come along,” said our very infor­ma­tive and tal­ent­ed vol­un­teer guide, Sue.  Orlan­do imme­di­ate­ly point­ed out Rosie and me to her.  “You’ll want to watch out for those trou­ble-mak­ers,” he said.  We tried to behave.

There was a gor­geous, elab­o­rate tile map on the floor, and we crouched over it, find­ing our loca­tion in St Mawes. (I bought a tea tow­el of this map, naturally.)

The muse­um was filled with any num­ber of fas­ci­nat­ing things rang­ing from the first riv­et­ed cof­fee cup — riv­et­ing, I can tell you — a col­lec­tion of real­ly grim pho­tographs remind­ing us of the tru­ly hor­rif­ic lives that tin min­ers lived, and an elab­o­rate 18th cen­tu­ry car­riage, a por­trait of The Tallest Man in Corn­wall, and a pic­ture of an unat­trac­tive, puffy man, Thomas Daniell, who appar­ent­ly inspired the char­ac­ter of Ross Poldark (but not his appear­ance, sadly).

Orlan­do paused in front of a par­tic­u­lar­ly tooth­some dis­play of gold­en treasures.

“Thir­teen pounds seems incred­i­bly rea­son­able for this ring,” he mused.  The tour guide eyed him stern­ly like the head­mistress I have no doubt she was.  “I will sort you out lat­er, young man.”

Once fin­ished with our very enjoy­able tour, we were escort­ed up to the archival library in the top floor of the muse­um where we were received gra­cious­ly by Angela, the librar­i­an.  She had put togeth­er an incred­i­bly thought­ful dis­play of books and pam­phlets based on her email exchange with our Susan, who had alert­ed her to a num­ber of our inter­ests: food, knit­ting, Poldark, to name a few.  We felt quite heart­bro­ken that we had but a half hour or so to peruse the col­lec­tion — gain­ing inspi­ra­tion to buy a knit­ting book for Avery, acquir­ing a clas­sic recipe for Cor­nish saf­fron cake, gaz­ing at some pho­tographs of Aiden Turn­er — before ran­som­ing our cars and head­ing home.

The ride home was just a spec­ta­cle of beau­ty, with nar­row roads cross­ing gorsey moors and open­ing out onto vis­tas of sparkling seas.

We wan­dered around the lit­tle town, pos­i­tive­ly embrac­ing behav­ing like the tourists I reg­u­lar­ly growl at around Tate Mod­ern and the Globe.  (“Why aren’t these French chil­dren in school in France where they belong?”  “Don’t tourists know they can­not walk five abreast across the bridge?”)  Every­one as far as the eye could see was hav­ing fun, and fun of a sea­side sort, not a Lon­don sort.

We want­ed to have fish and chips for sup­per, but the nice place we alight­ed on could­n’t fit us in, and the oth­er place was, in a word, sticky.  So Katie and I became ultra bossy and sim­ply marched our­selves into the local Co-op, emerg­ing with two chick­ens, some aspara­gus, and a cou­ple of bags of pota­toes.  “We’re cook­ing in!”  We announced this to the rest of the group, who were enjoy­ing ear­ly cock­tails at a local pub.

Why are hol­i­day drinks so much more fes­tive and potent than ordi­nary drinks?  Beau­ti­ful, too.  Sam’s pho­to­graph says it all.

Every­one fell in hap­pi­ly with our plans.  And why not?  Why pay many times as much mon­ey for some­thing we would­n’t enjoy half as much, and any­way, cook­ing togeth­er is a hoot!  Katie and I walked the pre­cip­i­tous path home, escort­ed by Orlan­do who, of course, knew a short cut.  We arrived at home, unpacked our gro­ceries and head­ed back down to the town to join the oth­ers for a drink.  A most pre­cip­i­tous walk!

Only when we arrived to join our friends, ful­ly half of them had gone home the long way, miss­ing us, expect­ing to find us there, but con­fronting instead an emp­ty, locked house.  Back up we went to let them in, pass­ing the most abun­dant rose­mary bush along the way.  Per­fec­tion for our bar­be­cue-roast­ed pota­toes to come.

Katie and I had such fun, spatch­cock­ing the chick­ens, trim­ming the aspara­gus, prep­ping the pota­toes with bay leaves from a local bush.  Rosie came in from the pub announc­ing, “Just so you know — I AM DRUNK!”

As a result of this announce­ment, The Fox­ette was not allowed to han­dle any sharp objects or approach the bar­be­cue.  I think even­tu­al­ly she was allowed to tear let­tuce up for a sal­ad.  (To tell you the absolute truth, our Fox enjoys claim­ing to be drunk more than she actu­al­ly was drunk.  It’s just an excuse for her high spirits.)

Katie manned the bar­be­cue with admirable aplomb, and I mixed up a rose­mary-gar­lic but­ter to brush on at the last moment.  Just look at this radi­ant smile.  My roomie!

What a dinner!

Long after the chick­ens had been chewed and the pota­toes plun­dered, we sat around the table indulging in the sort of con­ver­sa­tion that only we sev­en could enjoy.  Top­ics cov­ered includ­ed the rel­a­tive mer­its of hand blenders, reg­u­lar blenders, food proces­sors and KitchenAids.  When do you real­ly NEED extra-vir­gin olive oil?  Does sour­dough require a ban­neton?  To pre­heat ovens or not?

We were spell-bound (or riv­et­ed, as the case may be), and sat for ages with our sor­bets and cups of tea, rem­i­nisc­ing about reunions past, dream­ing about reunions yet to come.  Where for next year?

No mat­ter how tired we are when we tum­ble into bed, Katie and I always man­age to perk up for our room­mate dis­cus­sions.  This year was no excep­tion.  We talked about Katie’s fin­ished degree, her stud­ies into behav­ioral psy­chol­o­gy, my progress on Vol­ume Two of “Tonight at 7.30,” var­i­ous solu­tions to the pho­tog­ra­phy prob­lem, Avery’s activ­i­ties at Oxford and her future (Katie sur­vived Oxford her­self and knows what she’s talk­ing about), how to write a good email when you want to get across a thorny mat­ter.  “Just nev­er, ever use the word ‘but.’  It’s just can­cels out any­thing pos­i­tive you’ve said before.  Say ‘and.’  Every time.”

We dis­cussed the upcom­ing din­ner par­ty this week for our esteemed and rather intim­i­dat­ing archi­tects.  “Should I make some­thing real­ly chic and impres­sive?” I wondered.

“No,” Katie con­sid­ered, “you should make some­thing that real­ly reflects who you tru­ly are, so he knows what sort of kitchen you need, what sort of hosts you are.”  What sage advice.

Sun­day morn­ing found us in a fren­zy of prepa­ra­tions to host Pauline’s sis­ter and her fam­i­ly for a mam­moth and deli­cious lunch.  We gath­ered on the ter­race to shout and wave embar­rass­ing­ly at them as they approached on the ferry.

Giant slabs of salmon, roast­ed local aspara­gus, my own chick­pea and cau­li­flower sal­ad with a mus­tardy dress­ing, Rosie’s delec­table chopped sal­ad con­tain­ing absolute­ly every­thing, and all cul­mi­nat­ing in Pauline’s Essen­tial Wob­bly Elder­flower Jelly.

As deli­cious as was the yoghurt and dill dip­ping sauce that Pauline made to accom­pa­ny her salmon, the real rev­e­la­tion of the day (espe­cial­ly for us cooks inter­est­ed in all inno­va­tions) was Rosie’s divine Chick­pea Water May­on­naise.  I give you her recipe, in her voice.

Chick­pea Water May­on­naise (veg­an)

(makes a lit­tle more than a cup of mayo)

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

What fun, what a love­ly fam­i­ly Pauline has.

It was decid­ed that a walk along the beach would clear any cob­webs, so an intre­pid por­tion of our crew set out.  Sunshine!

We encoun­tered that mod­ern phe­nom­e­non that sim­ply dri­ves me mad: the miss­ing apostrophe.

Across the road was, how­ev­er, this:

“If Sams are air­planes,” observed Orlan­do, “per­haps they DO bank.”

I con­clud­ed, “The fam­i­ly evi­dent­ly could afford only one apos­tro­phe, and they decid­ed the cot­tage need­ed it more than the bank.”

We said good­bye reluc­tant­ly to Pauline’s love­ly fam­i­ly and hunt­ed up left­overs for our din­ner.  Orlan­do pro­duced, final­ly, after lov­ing atten­tion all day, the most per­fect loaf of sour­dough bread.

I mourned.  “Remem­ber my Bread Ahead sour­dough mas­ter­class?  After that, my starter was a non-starter and I nev­er made a suc­cess­ful loaf.  I just can’t do it!”  Orlan­do was not con­vinced.  “You just lack con­fi­dence.  I will send home some of my starter with you and you will be fine.  What’s this sour­dough atti­tude, anyway?”

What left­overs!  That’s what hap­pens when sev­en food-obsessed peo­ple hang around together.

The morn­ing found us break­fast­ing abun­dant­ly in the Eng­lish fash­ion with fried eggs, poached eggs, bacon, sausages, spicy toma­to rel­ish, sweet toma­to ketchup, fried bread, sauteed mushrooms.

Susan’s gor­geous saf­fron Cor­nish bread.  With mar­malade, no less.

We lounged on the sun­ny ter­race, indulging in our favourite past-time — ban­ter, most of it extreme­ly child­ish.  Putting up the can­vas table umbrella…

“Do you want me to hold that while you screw it?”

“Sam, I’ve got to get to work on your sausage.”

“Did you know that ‘going to see a man about a dog’ means going to have a wee?”  “What a lex­i­con of euphemisms we’re bandy­ing about.  Even­tu­al­ly they are more rude than what you’re real­ly talk­ing about.”

“We had a guest at our hotel who insist­ed that Le Creuset was pro­nounced ‘Le Crew-Ay.”

Every­one offered up sto­ries of fam­i­ly say­ings.  “My moth­er used to say that when peo­ple were very hum­ble, well, they had a lot to be hum­ble about.”  “Mine said about food she did­n’t real­ly like, ‘well, you would­n’t want it every day, would you?’ ”

All bathed in the light of Cornwall…

I sat back in appre­ci­a­tion of all the wit, humour and love going on around me.  I’m nev­er the clever sto­ry­teller or the one with wit­ty repar­tee; rather I’m the audi­ence.  As one of the artists in last year’s exhi­bi­tion observed in a real­ly touch­ing email to me, “Willa Cather said that some peo­ple are the light­ed can­dle, and some peo­ple are the mir­ror that reflects that light.  You are a mir­ror.”  I can live with that.

Sam men­tioned he was going to share all his week­end’s pho­tos with us via Dropbox.

I wailed.  “I can’t han­dle Drop­box!  It’s too confusing.”

Orlan­do broke in.  “Kris­ten, what is this sour­dough-Drop­box atti­tude you have?  You get a very par­tic­u­lar look on your face when you insist you can’t do things.  Stop it at once.”  “Sour­dough-Drop­box” has become short­hand ever since for my inabil­i­ty to mas­ter var­i­ous things, like Plain Bob Minor in the ring­ing chamber.

We hat­ed to pack up and go.  Such fun, such beauty.

It was time to pile into Orlan­do’s con­vert­ible and dri­ve away.  Good­byes are hard.

Many frus­trat­ing trav­el hours lat­er — closed tracks, dam­aged trains, stand­ing room only — I was final­ly home.

I went to bed with a head and heart full of mem­o­ries.  All over for anoth­er year.