Oxford, again

 I spent the first week of February in Oxford for work meetings – two days with my newly-formed department of four, then another two with the larger team of central staff. There were about 40 of us there altogether. We did team-building stuff – Meyers-Briggs personality exercises, show and tell, a bowling excursion – and presentations about what each of our departments does. We had intensive discussions about how we’re going to implement our organization’s newly approved and very ambitious strategic plan. We had software training sessions and meetings that took advantage of the fact that people who normally work scattered across four different countries were briefly in the same building. We reveled in the weirdness of walking in early to get emails done, and finding an office full of people that we mostly see only on skype calls, and how simultaneously normal and surreal that felt.

Simultaneously normal and surreal is a good description of my whole week in Oxford. Because I lived there for so long, it still feels like home: I spent my first afternoon doing a list of errands in the city centre, visiting shops I used to be in and out of at least once a week. While I was making the rounds, I ran into local friends who were doing the same, accompanied by their grandson who I knew about but hadn’t yet met. We had an impromptu chat and then went our separate ways, so I could finish up in time to meet another group of friends for dinner – most of whom I had seen when I was here last year, but one of whom I hadn’t since I moved away six years ago. All very lovely and normal – but yet surreal, because I live halfway around the world now, and Miss B and DP were not waiting at home in our tiny old house in west Oxford, but going about their business in shorts and flip-flops in Canberra while I unpacked flannel pajamas and woolly socks at bedtime. It’s so easy to slot back in that it makes me forget time is always passing.

And on it went: my hostess, J., one of the founding members of my organization, but recently retired and on to other things; still up on all the gossip, but her primary interests are no longer the everyday dramas of our formerly shared work and colleagues. My new department – two of us who’ve worked together for years and two who’ve been in the organization less than six months – meeting in person for the first time on Monday, and separation on Friday feeling like a wrench. Our central team: longtime colleagues and recent additions; established relationships and emerging dynamics; new information and ancient history. And bookending the week, the plane trip that takes you from summer to winter, dry to wet, sunlight to darkness, and then back; between two places that are painfully full of familiar things and memories, and seem all at once close enough to touch and on different planets. And strangest of all is that it’s so easy – and yet such a massive task – to travel between the two, while life goes on in both places, regardless of where you might be.

So perhaps it’s fitting that my latest favorite restaurant in Oxford - which I’ve been to multiple times on my last two visits, and which furnished the most memorable dinner of the week - wasn’t even open when I last lived there.

More beautiful food photography courtesy of MJ

January roundup

I fully intended to publish this post about 2 weeks ago - I had the photos lined up and prepped and everything, so I could have it on here before I left for my trip to England (more on that later). But, once again, I ran out of time.

I'm posting it now so we can get caught up to the present and then move on to current happenings. So - notable items from the rest of January:

I've been eating some variation of this a lot lately: heat some oil in a skillet, saute some chopped salami and pepper, throw in some greens to wilt, then clear a space and crack in an egg or two. Serve with a piece of toast and you've got a complete meal in a very short time. Works for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. (Miss B won't touch this with a bargepole, but DP has warmed to it after seeing me eat it several times.)

I didn't finish undecorating the Christmas tree until January 22. This is a new record in slackness. I blame going on a beach vacation in the second week of January, which never happens to me in the northern hemisphere.

Aforementioned beach vacation: sand castle construction underway. To say nothing of the stunning natural landscape that is Jervis Bay, just doing its thing in the background.

One of my goals this year is to develop my cake-decorating skills - and to allow sufficient time and opportunity to practice. Behold: my birthday gift to myself, on which I spent a happy and absorbed hour.

In the spirit of DIY January, I selected Dorie Greenspan's beurre and sel jammers when DP asked me to bake something as his contribution to his department's first morning tea gathering of the year. Mainly because they provided an unmissable opportunity to tackle some of the umpteen half-empty jars of homemade jam taking up space in the fridge; I emptied about four jars into the two dozen cookies this recipe makes. Favorable reports back from the crew at work.

And finally, a reminder to myself (and anyone else who might need it) about the greatness of simple but delicious things: a soft-boiled egg for breakfast, eaten with strips of buttered, toasted bread (known as "soldiers" in England). Almost as enjoyable as the eating part was using one of the beautiful egg cups I bought at a Christmas market in Birmingham years ago, and thinking of the friends who took us there and the lovely day we had. There is always so much more to food than just the ingestion, or even the preparation, of it.

That's all for January. Stay tuned for reports from the latest jaunt to England.

Australia Day

We’ve just had a holiday weekend in Australia, in celebration of Australia Day. Australia Day, for anyone who doesn’t already know, is kind of a cross between the 4^th of July and Labor Day (US version). The 4^th of July part is that Australia Day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet on January 26, 1788 – in other words, the arrival of the first European immigrants, convicts and their guards from the British Isles. The Labor Day part is that Australia Day marks the official end of summer holidays in Australia and a return to business as usual; everyone goes back to school over the next week, and people who have been lazing at the coast since mid-December will return to regular office hours and business attire.

(Digression: I don’t really understand why January 26 was chosen as Australia Day, since it has little to do with the establishment of Australia as a political entity – certainly less, for example, than Federation Day (January 1, 1901) when Australia was officially federated as a country. It would be like the US choosing whatever day the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, or some similar event, rather than the day that we declared our intention to establish ourselves as a sovereign nation. And that’s before we even get into the feelings of Indigenous Australians about January 26, which cannot be characterized as positive in any way. So it seems like a lose-lose proposition, and I suspect its timing as the culmination of the summer holidays may weigh more heavily in its selection than its political or cultural significance. But what do I know? I’m just a Yank. 

End digression.)

In the tradition of three-day weekends everywhere I’ve lived, Australia Day provides an excuse for lots of social activity, and ours certainly did its job. We started on Friday night with a dinner party, where we met lots of new people. Miss B came along (babysitters are thin on the ground on holiday weekends) and stayed up scandalously late with a fellow grade schooler whose babysitter was also AWOL. Saturday DP disappeared for most of the day to drop in on some kind of wargaming convention with the male half of a group of family friends; Miss B and I met up with the female half for an extended kaffeeklatsch at Canberra’s most famous (and possibly only) chocolate shop. Sunday we hosted lunch for a group of DP’s colleagues, including a delightful and adorable seven-month-old; I made a variation of my now-standard summer Sunday lunch, throwing in a kale salad to provide sufficient nourishment for a vegetarian guest (and bolstering the tomato-and-avocado salad with some marinated feta).

Yesterday, to round things off, we went to a cookout hosted by friends with a pool who live on the other side of the lake. I packed swim stuff and a bottle of Prosecco, baked a batch of blondies (excuse me, fudgey choc chip slice), and we set off. I think we had all been subconsciously expecting that we would spend the afternoon hanging out with the hosting friends, and maybe one or two other people, and an unspoken ripple of dismay wafted through the car when we turned the corner onto their street and saw at least a dozen cars clustered outside their house, all belonging to people we were unlikely to know.

This is what happens when a family of introverts hits its collective wall of social engagement at the same time. But since we are all (reasonably) well behaved, we braced ourselves, went inside, and joined in. Miss B went swimming with a crowd of kids, we ate some tasty food, DP and I each had a couple of conversations with friends of our hosts (as well as some dedicated time with the hosts themselves, happily). After about 3 hours, we said our goodbyes and headed home. Once there, we scattered ourselves to the far corners of the house, and everyone fell asleep for an hour or so.

After all that, no one felt like an elaborate dinner last night, so I took the opportunity to combine creative re-purposing of leftovers with a DIY January project. We had roast beef sandwiches with aioli and mustard on toasted (homemade) white bread; leftover kale salad; and homemade potato chips. (Note: Miss B was having none of any of this, and ate leftover pizza and chopped cucumbers instead.)

DIY salt and pepper potato chips

I used the cold oil method for these, and they are as kick-ass as the fries I made a couple of weeks ago. They are just enough work to make you appreciate how much better homemade potato chips are than storebought ones, without being a total PITA.

2 small potatoes per person (probably one regular-sized per person would be enough, but those in my current bag are not much bigger than golf balls)

canola or other neutrally flavored oil for frying

salt and pepper

Scrub the potatoes, remove any sprouts, eyes, or other unsightly bits, and cut into very thin slices using a mandolin. (As usual, I did not peel my potatoes, but whether or not you do is up to you. Also, of course you can use a knife, but the mandolin makes the slices all the same thickness, so they cook at the same rate – a desirable feature when frying.)

Line a baking sheet with brown paper and set aside.

Place potatoes in cooking vessel of choice (see here for information about choosing an appropriate vessel for this recipe) and cover with oil.

Put the pan over low-medium heat and cover pan with a splatter screen if you have one (or about halfway with the pot lid if you don’t). Keep an eye on the pan as the oil heats, stirring the chips occasionally to make sure they’re not sticking.

When the oil starts to boil, stir the chips again and check the heat setting to make sure the boil is maintained consistently without a) dying off or b) overflowing and starting a fire. Continue stirring chips every few minutes as they cook; once they start boiling, they should take 10-15 minutes to fry. Once they are consistently a light-golden brown, they are done.

Turn off the heat. Once the oil settles down, use a slotted spoon or similar to scoop cooked chips out of the oil and onto the paper-lined baking tray.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Consume immediately.