Leek & potato soup

There is nothing, nothing so comforting as a bowl of soup when the weather starts to change. Last weekend whilst I was dog-sitting the Bassets, it was grey & raining outside and I wanted something warm for supper.

So I made fridge soup - what goes in the pot is what is discovered lurking in the vegetable drawer. I found a leek and three quarters of an onion, so with three medium potatoes from the larder, I made my own version of leek & potato soup.

First chop up the vegetables: (ignore browning potatoes, I cldn't find my camera for a bit)



Heat some olive oil, & throw onions & leeks into heavy pot over very low heat and put on lid.



When they have softened cover with water/stock to two inches over. Add chopped potatoes.



Turn up heat so liquid simmers and cook for around 20-15 minutes until potatoes are completely soft.



Whizz it all together with immersion blender for speed or, if like me you like smooth soup with some chunks, take out a large ladleful of potato first, adding back once you've whizzed the rest. Equally you can pass through a sieve, use a mouli-legumes or shove it all in the Magimix.



And ta da! Super quick & easy leek & vegetable soup. I added a blob of sour cream to mine.

Goodbye Finchley...you stayed true to form to the very last moment

Although I was worried that I would disgrace myself by weeping all over Bassets on departure from the house, I was saved by the antics of l'enfant. Just as I was gathering together the possessions I had strewn around the kitchen: cape, shawls, laptop, book, and the rest, Finch decided to engage in evil-ness.

With one clever scoop of his long Basset nose he winkled out a wide cylindrical gift pack of chocolate chip cookies from beneath a scarf in my carry on.

Beyond pleased with himself, his little chops jacked open just as far as they could possibly go around the oversize packet, he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and bolted for the living room, front paws working in tandem, nineteen to the dozen.

As he skidded across the kitchen floor, the cellophane split and large cookies wheeled across the rug. Max was there in seconds and lil’sis’s present started to go snip snap down the gullets of two snack obsessed hounds.

Chuckling away, we managed to rescue most of them. I just hope lil'sis doesn't find any dog hairs on her cookies.

Goodbye New Jersey

Fete Nationale.



L'enfant's first day in Jersey.



Max distinctly unimpressed with the arrival of l'enfant



S'mores: who knew Hershey's could actually be edible?



JK working it. Can you tell she works in fashion?



Eton Mess. My dastardly plan to make everyone fat





L'enfant as puppyfootwarmer





Y's birthday, er, cake

London here I come...

I’m feeling rather sad at the thought of leaving New Jersey. It’s been wonderful getting to spend proper time with J& Y, and with les Bassets, and I shall miss them very much. And what am I going to do without those silky Basset ears to play with?

After my stressful bolt around Manhattan yesterday, we have had a calm evening, eating Y’s delicious homemade cauliflower au gratin off our laps, and watching the Star Trek movie (a second time for both J & me; we were just geeking out by watching it again), teaching Y how to do the Vulcan hand salute & eating Magnolia’s chocolate devil’s food cake.

J remarked that I seemed quietly excited about my trip back to England and he was right…sort of. It’s always lovely to see family, friends and dogs, but I don’t really want to be in England right now, not one bit. But my mother is feeling mis & I think we both need to regroup.

So I’m sugar coating the pill by arranging lovely things to do instead. The basic plan is that I will spend the weeks writing & clearing attics with my mother at the family home in the countryside near Banbury, and the weekends in London, until I return to NYC at the beginning of January.

Highlights so far include a Tweetup in London this weekend with various of my blog & Twitter acquaintance, seeing New Moon with my best friend Miss P, and the prospect of dinner & a stay at the new Dean Street Townhouse hotel from the Soho House stable, which opens next week. There's also a chance I may get to see the wonderful Tania Kindersley as we serendipitously find ourselves in the same part of the world. (Tania lives in Scotland and I in America, so this is luck indeed.)

Whilst I am on the subject of Tania, her & Sarah Vine's most excellent book Backwards in High Heels
would be the perfect Christmas present for intelligent and loved girlfriends. Read about it here & buy it here(It's out in America in the New Year.)

Flying Wild Turkeys

Bet you never thought you'd see that header on a fashion blog.

We had a flock of wild turkeys land in the garden:



I was about fifty feet away so this is a little blurry (& I only got four - there were a lot more):



But: WILD TURKEYS! In the GARDEN! This does not happen in England. EVER. Turkeys live in sheds getting porky for Christmas back home.

And then, the icing on the cake: they flew off! Seriously, we had flying wild turkeys over our garden.

God I love America.

PS Silly moo commentator who said I was staying in the suburbs: how d'you like dem apples now?

Sunset in New Jersey

Since I graduated from university, I've lived mostly in two of the world's biggest, most light polluted cities: London and New York. Not only does it become difficult to see the seasons change, beyond adding or subtracting layers from your wardrobe, but you forget what it's like to look at the sky.

I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday in the New Jersey countryside confused and alarmed. Outside my window, the trees gleamed silver, as though the garden was bathed by an alien klieg light. It was as bright as day and I could see into every corner.

It took more than a few minutes for me to work out that it was a full moon. Although I grew up in rural Kent in England, from the age of 19 I've lived in cities and I have no memory of seeing a garden lit by the moon.

It was more than disconcerting. I think of myself as a country girl at heart, for all the trappings of big city success, and to realise that I hadn't spent time anywhere in years that experienced darkness complete enough for the light shed by a full moon to register was a body blow.

Today I looked up from my desk, where I was toiling over my manuscript and saw the most beautiful purple sky as the sun set behind the leaf stripped trees. Something else you don't see in the city.

I realised yet again how fortunate I am to have such wonderful friends who have hosted me here in this ravishingly beautiful part of New Jersey whilst I have worked on my book this summer & autumn.

I leave in two weeks for England, the final stage in a year which has seen me spend time in London, the English countryside, Switzerland, San Francisco, Los Angeles - and all of California in between those cities, New York and New Jersey. I have no idea where I will be in January, but I know it will be a good place thanks, in part, to the fabulous people I have met & spent time with this year.

Now, where was I?

Well, it’s all go here in the East Coast’s version of Stepford (my fellow blogger MTFF lives in the West Coast’s). I did dusting today in preparation for our pre-Halloween supper party tomorrow, and managed to finish the ironing which has been on top of the washing machine for two weeks. (All of you who came here for tales of fashion-related New York glamour may leave now.)

Our Halloween pumpkins are carved and they would have been in position on the front door step, looking suitably scary, but for the ravening local wildlife which took a large chunk out of the bat pumpkin overnight.

We brought them indoors for safety this evening, only to discover a few hours later that the puppy had chewed out the bat’s eyes. There’s obviously some Sophoclean metaphor to be drawn from this but frankly I can’t be arsed to work it out.

I’m still ploughing through the Gmail inbox of hell. I managed to clear out the LLG one last week, which was relatively simple as I only had 452 unread emails and most of them were press releases pushing soap powder, erotic chocolate, and designer collaborations thought up by FMCG marketing gurus with giant cheque books and dumbass clients. I have created a folder called ‘Lunatic Story Pitches’, the contents of which I shall no doubt regale you all with one day.

Unfortunately I have 958 unread emails in my work Gmail account which is more daunting, as not only do they have to be read but most of them require some kind of action to be taken. I’m quite surprised that I have any friends left, given that the chances of my replying to their email, let alone writing one off my own bat, before I have dealt with the work backlog, is less than zero right now.

I’m also planning England: The Return. It’s not a permanent one, thank Christ, but I am flying back for six weeks or so before/over Christmas to finish The Great Attic Clearance™, remove my mother from the iron grip of divorce-related neurosis, drive my sister to the point of insanity by spreading my possessions over all surfaces of her one bedroom flat, acquire some more parking tickets for my father's car, and prod the faithful hound.

Groundhog Day

I was complaining only yesterday that, whilst we have herds of Bambis frolicking over the lawns here, groundhogs are in particularly short supply now that hibernation time approaches.

I am very taken with these furry native American creatures: I had my first sighting ever from a car in July and was beside myself at the cuteness. But today is the first time I have actually seen one up close, pottering around the back yard. It mooched around for five or so minutes, before shuffling back into the undergrowth. Made my day.



ps Just discovered that they are also known as whistle pigs. Love.

How to carve a Halloween pumpkin

Head out in pouring rain to farm stand:



Give self muscle spasm pushing autumnal accoutrements to car:



On arrival back home take two pumpkins:



Place on steps for carving inspiration:



Take high class carving tools:



For the terminally stupid:



Make a lid:



Ignore wonkiness caused by using pixie sized 2" mini saw (because no one trusts you with the carving knife).

Wrench lid off:





Spend twenty minutes removing fibrous insides, obsessing over every last seed:



Abort plan for complicated stencil & go for simplest possible design in line with personal creative abilities. Carve out shapes with doll size instruments:



Ta da:



Am pumpkin carving genius.

Believe this is so until Y presents finished pumpkin forty minutes later:



Curses.

Halloween build up

Goodness I AM excited about Halloween. This year I say no darlinks to glitzy Manhattan socializing (Heidi Klum's annual Halloween party et al) & too many ambitious plans, and yes siree to the joys of pumpkin carving, trick or treating, and eating as much candy as I can possibly manage in the rural environs of Colts Neck, New Jersey.

My great friend H works with my host GG, and is flying in from London to NJ for business. Completely brilliantly his wife (and my lovely friend too), M is coming along, so we have decided to have a pre-Halloween Raclette supper party here on Friday, before we ramp up for the continuous doorbell ringing on Saturday.



Tomorrow we start the pumpkin carving. There will be photographs taken, as long as I don’t slice open an artery. (GG has banned Y & me from using any large knives – we are both uninsured and I have dyspraxia - so we should be okay.)



Photographs: New Jersey pumpkins & gourds last weekend in Colts Neck

Fall colors in Cheesequake State Park, New Jersey

The fall colours are extraordinary in New Jersey this weekend,



so the five of us (me, Y, GG & les chiens x2) drove out to Cheesequake State Park, Matawan (up near the shore), for a stroll which turned into an epic 2.5hrs walk as we took a slightly longer trail than planned.

Fortunately we were well prepared: GG had ample cookie, apple & water supplies to keep us going in his knapsack. Although maybe next time I might swap denim short shorts, cashmere, Wolfords & wellies for fleece, jeans and hiking boots. (I do possess these things!)

We started off walking through the woods around the lake:





After circumnavigating the entire lake, we ended up at this vista point, where it's hard to believe that we were a scant hour from Manhattan:



We then headed over the boardwalks which cross the coastal salt marshes to the pine forest:





Finch was game:



But was exhausted by the time we were three quarters done:



As were we.

God knows why I thought it a Good Idea to do commando style speed trotting up and down the steep wooden forest steps half away around the trail. Lunacy.

There are more images on my Flickr page.

Birthday raclette

Two weeks ago today Y managed a double whammy birthday present for GG: a Raclette machine was bought, wrapped and given to GG. Once unwrapped, it was promptly plugged in and we revealed the bowls and plates of Raclette cheese, peppers, prosciutto, boiled potatoes, onions & gherkins.

Along with a rather good bottle of white Burgundy (to follow the bottle of Taittinger we had already consumed). Fortunately, the drinking of water with Raclette cheese is much frowned upon as it is said to interfere with the digestion of the cheese. The Swiss really are very clever.





So I start with one abstemious potato:



Then the melted dish of Raclette is removed from under the hotplate and the cheese is slid over the poor, lonely potato:



But wait! There's one final step:



Paprika sprinkled, one can start shoving melted cheese & potato down one's gullet as quickly as possible. Just in time for the next dish of melted cheese to appear to accompany the next potato. And so on.

I wish I could say that I had stopped eating after I'd finished smearing umpteen little dishes of melted Raclette cheese all over my face. But no. There was more:



Y made a ganache & caramel layer cake of such richness and badness and 65% chocolate that I could only manage a slice. But goodness what a slice it was:



I need to take up running. Or something.