May 4 – May 11

It’s been a great short week – Bank Holiday Monday, which was a nice catch up day for us. Tuesday I headed to Camden Town (Stables Market) for lunch at Gilgamesh with the St. Johns Wood Women’s Club. Cool group of ladies who’ve had varied work/living experiences, many with kids at the Amer. School.

We had incredibly good Pan Asian food – I particularly enjoyed the sushi, sea bass and scallops. Say that five times fast. The area around Gilgamesh is cool – lots of funky shops (cyberpunk to vintage clothing, esoteric record stores, unusual furniture, piercing places, you name it, along w/ more mainstream stuff – and what looked like great street food). Many are housed in Stables Market, a converted Victorian horse hospital. I took a quick stroll around the market but will need to go back to absorb the sights and sounds at a more leisurely pace.

Waddesdon Manor

On Wednesday I caught up w/ a group headed to Waddesdon Manor for a tour. The place is spellbindingly beautiful, a French villa built in 1880 by the Rothschilds (specifically Ferdinand). Queen Victoria visited there in 1890.

The house has been passed through the family over the years, bequeathed to the National Trust in 1957 and opened to the public two years later. At one point Waddesdon was used as a refuge for evacuee children during WW2.

Here is a description of the place per Waddesdon’s web page soliciting film crews…

Built in the style of a 16th century, French Renaissance-style château of the Loire, Waddesdon’s wine cellars are modeled on private vaults of Bordelais vineyards. The Dairy is also French in tone but has a Germanic accent to its steeply pitched roofs. There are over 7 miles of quiet roads and lanes only used by estate and farm traffic, unusual estate buildings and stunning views over the Vale of Aylesbury. (Waddesdon has appeared in a few movies, one a Ballywood flick.)

These days Lord Rothschild (Jacob) manages the Manor, which houses collections from four generations of Rothschilds (25,000 items, ranging from manuscripts to porcelain, furniture to contemporary sculpture, from ironwork to musical instruments, from tradecards to gold boxes).

May happens to be open furniture month, which means various pieces (desks, dressers, tables, etc.) had doors and drawers open. Thus offering us the inside view, quite literally. Some have hidden keyholes and secret compartments – fun to see.

Gorgeous pieces, heavily detailed. Forty-five rooms are on view with “exceptional collections of French 17th century decorative arts and English portraits. (French royal furniture, porcelain and Savonnerie carpets, and portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough and Romney, Dutch Golden Age paintings, 18th century books, drawings, textiles, 16th century limoges, enamel and majolica and a spectacular 18th century silver dinner service commissioned by George III.)”

Outside an immense garden surrounds the house, not sure where it begins and ends – trails, playground, aviary, statues, a huge bird topiary, stunning trees and flowers, fountains…

Our tour guide was fabulous, a lovely older lady with a lilting voice who is obviously impassioned about the house and its treasures. We ran short on time so raced through the 2nd floor. I’d love to go back – so much to absorb.

Gutting Quail, Pub Grub and Zoo-ing It

And on Friday, after a great literacy event hosted by ASL first graders, I treated myself to lunch at a cooking school with some other women who live in the area. We had a great time chopping veggies for our shrimp risotto (our chef instructor did a very quick run down/demo of what we were supposed to do, then turned us loose with knives, garbage bowls, vegetables and shrimp). And quail. With their heads on.
We had to whack them off (the heads), then break the quails’ backs, gut them and cut the birds into four pieces. It was hideous. But at least all 10 of us were in it together.

Suffice it to say in future, should I decide quail is on the menu, I’ll pay the bigger bucks to have it cleaned. Therein I can handle removing the liver or whatever, giving it a rinse and a pat w/ a paper towel.

We then seasoned our little birds, tossed them in a hot skillet (w/ olive oil), added a big dollop of honey and some soy sauce and served them over a bed of seasoned rocket tossed w/ citrus sections, citrus juice and good olive oil. Fabulous.

Our main course was risotto – we ran short on time so our chef friend pinch hit for us, didn’t season it enough though. And dessert, which we did not make but did plate (panna cotta with strawberry sauce) was to die for.

We got to eat all this around a big wooden table, sipping a lovely white wine. I’d do that again in a heartbeat, with or without those little quail waiting for some savagery.

Since Joe headed for the US Friday, the kids and I wandered over to the Clifton Pub for dinner (minors are ok in many pubs for early dinners -- i.e. before 7:00 – there’s even a guide to best pubs for families here).

CP is a few blocks from us and apparently Kate Moss hangs out there occasionally. No doubt she could walk by and I’d be oblivious (I’m not much of a People reader, I guess). When we were there it looked like a pretty non-descript crowd, though. Good food, nice change of pace.

Saturday we headed off to the London Zoo again because now that we’re members, why not?!? (Plus we need to maximize the membership!) This time we shopped (birthday parties and who doesn’t like a gift from the zoo, plus we get a discount), hit the merry-go-round, checked out the butterflies, monkeys, burrowing animals and giraffes and that was enough for one day, as we had a birthday party to hit later. Kids had lots of fun at both. (Apparently at British b-day parties the cake isn’t eaten at the party, it’s toted home and consumed later. This being an American family, kids ate their Madeline cake on site.)

Real Food Festival

And today so totally rocked – we went to the Real Food Festival at Earl’s Court. The place was foodie heaven – tons of stalls with olives, fresh juices, yogurt, cheeses, hams/prosciuttos/salamis/cured meats galore, sausages/lamb/pork/beef (free range, organic, salt marsh…), eggs, pickles, oils and more oils (including rapeseed), pates, honey, PB, cookies, crackers, breads…on and on and on.

I never did eat lunch, just tasted my way through until I no longer wanted anything bitesize!

Kids made off with all kinds of freebies (last day of the festival always helps). Aside from all the food, they enjoyed Petals the water buffalo (yes, in the middle of this thing was a big black water buffalo w/ a ring through her nose – quite pampered, quite a contrast to many of the water buffalo we saw in India). They both brushed and petted her, tried several pieces of buffalo mozzarella, some buffalo ice cream, etc. We watched a demo on stretching mozzarella, too. The guy who did it made different shapes with the cheese (a chicken, a pig, etc.).

Claire got to feed some bum lambs, there were chickens in a cage to admire, a jersey cow and her twins were chewing their cud and a 30 minute sheep show captivated half the crowd (the guy doing that brought 8 or 10 sheep out on stage, one at a time, to music (i.e. “Pretty Woman”).

Each had a name tag and stood or sat eating grain at his/her station as the guy told about the various breeds and what they offer (prolific parenting, for example, bigger lamb steaks, ability to survive in rainy climates, optimum wool for specific uses, etc).

He did a shearing demo (first hair cut for one of these fluffy sheep) and left us with the sheep dancing on stage. Great mix of fun and interesting facts about the wool/sheep industry in the UK. (Sucks to be in the wool biz here now; one fleece is worth 50 pence and it costs 1 pound to shear…and still the farmer carries on…)

After four hours of food, we trekked back, loaded down with oil and salami, the best parmesan I’ve had in ages, a big round of bread, some PB (what can I say; I LOVE peanut butter and nowadays I’m into the natural kind) and various other odds and ends. Next foodie excursion I’ll bring a packhorse. Joe lucked out; 1) he didn’t have to carry anything and 2) he didn’t have to suffer through me traversing every inch of the place – his mode of operandi at these things is to eat and run.