Springing in my steps
An easy & yummy supper party menu, what it's like hanging out with famous writers and other nice things
A cheery round up this week because it has been a good week (if I don’t read the news).
This is helpful – a Substack from The Multitude: How To Enjoy A Bad Day (in case you do read the news).
There have been some fun lists going around here about things one feels too old for/not yet old enough for (see India Knight). One of my troubles in this area has been breakfast radio. Radio 4 is too heavy and depressing before 9am, and any politician sent on to the Today programme knows only how not to answer the question put before them. I do like Jamie and Amanda on Heart, but it’s sometimes a tad on the inane side (they had a story running for three days recently about Amanda and her husband planning to spend an afternoon playing badminton together). I left Radio One behind years ago, obvs. Scott Mills, newly on Radio Two, seems like a nice man and a pro, but someone described him as sounding like a competition winner and now I can’t get it out of my head. But then I remembered that the very lovely and witty Nick Grimshaw has taken over Radio Six in the mornings and he is fantastic. It’s relaxing to be in the hands of someone who is confident in what he’s doing, plus he plays the kind of music that contains just enough nostalgia/familiarity to make you feel at home but also new stuff, to make you feel hip.
Nice segue there because Nick G also does a great podcast – Dish – with Angela Hartnett, who is one of my absolute girl crushes. I was lucky enough to be invited for a supper at her restaurant Café Murano this week and the food was TO DIE FOR. The dinner was thrown by my Italian publishers (Neri Pozza) for their British authors, and it feels for me like I imagine it must feel like to be an actor at the pre-Oscars tea party for British hopefuls. They do it every year for London Book Fair. There’s Tracey Chevalier (‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’), Lisa Jewell (‘Ralph’s Party’), David Nicholls (‘One Day’), Sonia Faleiro (‘The Good Girls’). In previous years (but not this one) also William Boyd (who I had wanted to see to tell him how lovely his Desert Island Discs was) and Edward St Aubyn (Patrick Melrose series), who is quite shy but so charming with an old-fashioned courteousness.
What do writers talk about when they get together? Rather brilliantly, they do actually talk about writing. Because when else do we get to talk to people who pass as our colleagues? Last year, I made Edward St A snort wine through his nose when I told him that I write as much as I can in a day, and when I get stuck, in order to keep moving forward I simply write in capital letters ‘AND THEN THIS HAPPENS OR SOME SHIT LIKE THAT.’ I know that I can leave it to be dealt with in the edits. He writes very slowly, he said, carefully editing the whole way along. All writers look for a magic bullet but the truth is, either way is fine, and so far as I can tell it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Charles Cumming (‘A Spy by Nature’) told me he writes 500 words a day but at the end of six months, his first draft requires very little going over. I write 1500 words a day, and it’s done in three months but then I have to spend a further three months editing it.
You want to know what they’re really like, don’t you? Well…David Nicholls is always utterly, utterly lovely, as you would expect him to be, and asks questions of the person he’s talking to, and blushes charmingly if you tell him how much you loved his latest work. David survives writing life, he says, by alternating novels with scripts. (Grass is always greener when you’re doing one or the other.) Lisa Jewell is warm, clever and the sharpest tool in the box. We were talking with someone who has recently broken into writing after a different career, about how long one keeps the day job after the first book deal, and Lisa admitted that she’d worked for a bit as a temp but she’d got a huge deal for her first two books way back in the late ‘90s and has never looked back. She makes her success look easy (and she wears it well) but I’d say there’s a lot of discipline going on there. Sonia Faleiro ate like a sparrow, was tiny and wise, and I made her laugh a lot (which makes me love a person). I was sorry to have to scuttle home on the 10.28 train.
I threw a supper party of my own and was fretting about what to cook, when my husband asked why I didn’t follow my own advice and just keep it simple. So I did, and it meant I could spend the day making the house look lovely instead of sweating over diced onions. For me, this means lots of tiny bunches of Narcissi ‘Tete a Tete’ crammed in the middle of the table and around the room; taller vases of daffodils mixed with yellow and white tulips in the rest of the house; candles lit exactly half an hour before everyone arrives; towels, water and ibuprofen in the guest bedroom; mopping the floor and getting out the glass polish so everything is sparkling; ice cubes in the ice bucket; white wine chilling in the fridge. I love my house in those ten minutes before it kicks off.
Here's what we had, and I promise the eaters raved:
Diana Henry’s red peppers with ’Nduja (I didn’t even know what this was until recently – it’s an Italian spreadable spiced sausage – you find it amongst the salamis etc at an ordinary supermarket). 1.5 red peppers per person, halved and de-seeded. Brush with olive oil and roast in hot oven for 20 minutes. Then put chunks of nduja in the halves and roast for another 15 minutes. Peppers should get nicely charred at the edges. When cool enough to handle, divide onto plates with torn burrata. Henry suggests you offer it with ciabatta, too, but I didn’t. Great pic of the dish here.
Main dish. Delia Smith – this chicken supper is SO easy, also not £££ and it’s low-fat. The only thing I would change would be to slice the chicken just before serving as whole chicken thighs are not very pretty, if you use the boneless kind (as I did). This recipe is for two, just multiply as necessary (though you can x 4 the meat but only x3 the liquids):
4 plump chicken thighs
5fl oz/150ml Shaoxing (Chinese brown rice wine)
3fl oz/75ml Japanese soy sauce
Heaped tspn grated fresh root ginger
4 cloves garlic, crushed
5 whole star anise
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Put the skinless chicken thighs in a casserole dish. Mix everything else up in a big jug or bowl with 55ml water and slosh over the chicken. I like to do this a few hours before but it’s not necessary. Place on a medium heat and bring to the boil. Then put in oven at gas 6/400F/200C, no need to cover, and bake for 40 minutes, turning chicken over halfway through. Serve on rice, with the sauce poured over and finely sliced spring onion and red chilli scattered on top. I also served wok-fried/steamed greens. I like to do three different kinds of greens (broccoli, sweetheart cabbage, sugar snap peas) with a little ginger and garlic.
Pudding: Butterscotch sauce, this served 8.
First, get out the tiny bowls (I have stacks of these from Ikea, endlessly useful – just buy 30, every party you ever have you’ll use them somehow), and give each person a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, with a generous pour of hot butterscotch sauce. The small bowls make it feel treat-like and not onerous. It is the naughtiest thing in the world and utterly delicious. Also from Delia. I suspect she’s not not fashionable any more but if you want to know how to do a thing, she’ll tell you.
Melt in a saucepan, over low heat: 2 oz/50g butter, 3oz/75g soft brown sugar, 2oz/50g granulated sugar and 5oz/150g golden syrup (approx 1/3 of a 450g tin). When completely melted and liquid, continue to heat gently for another five minutes. Turn off heat under the saucepan. Then gradually stir in 4fl oz/110ml double cream, and a few drops of vanilla essence. Stir for a few more minutes until absolutely smooth. Serve hot or cold. Keeps well for weeks in a cool place in a screw top jar. (Says Delia. Ha. It has never lasted weeks in my house.)
The room also looked very pretty because I had spent two days painting it in Farrow & Ball’s Pink Ground. It’s such a good colour in this room, which is almost all windows – almost like unset plaster, quite earthy, giving it a warmth that is absent from some of the more acid pinks. It keeps the room light in grey weather but glows marvellously in sunshine. And I know F&B is a cliché but an interior designer friend explained to me that it's the consistency of the product that is so good. Any scuffs or retouches can be easily painted a long time after the original coat has gone on, where a cheaper brand may change the tone slightly. I did the modern colour drenching – it’s on the skirting, ceiling and walls – I love it. Our house is a cottage with low-ceilinged proportions, and colour drenching does improve the sense of height.
Also in the category of lovely things, the husband and I marked 15 years of marriage this week. We snapped a selfie to commemorate the occasion, while we were taking a walk in the grounds around Cliveden, where we got engaged, but we look bewildered and amused. Which I decided summed it up nicely…
That’s it! Have a gorgeous weekend. If you enjoyed this, click a heart and let me know – it’s so encouraging.
Love the photo at the end, you look so happy, and the dining room makes me want to paint something with that colour! Funny and informative as always!
Wonderful!