Germs and Ginger

A walk, a particular child, and a recipe that cuts through memories.

When my parents took a sabbatical in 1996, the family who rented our house offered to look after our cat for the year. There would be a lot of travel in my parents’ future and perhaps a non-pet friendly rental — all too much for a tiny, sassy cat my Florentine friend had aptly named Topina, Italian for little mouse. But when the new family moved in, Topina moved out. She didn’t like their dog, their food or their large, domineering cat, so instead settled in at our neighbour’s house on top of their piano where every afternoon a shaft of light would warm her back. When my parents returned a year later, Topina moved back in. 

When I returned from my trip a few weeks ago and promptly tested positive for Covid, my twelve year-old son Rex moved out. He doesn’t like strange germs, the potential for contamination and the sound of guttural coughing, so he settled into my sister’s basement around the corner. He and his cousin put their team jerseys on the wall, stashed candy under the sofa, and plugged in Rex’s favourite essential oil diffuser, to keep things fresh. 

This is not a surprise. Rex is particular. He eats with his legs crossed, a fork in his left, knife in his right, a napkin on his lap. He holds his water glass with a slender, long hand, controlling its location in the midst of myriad family members and the potential for cross-contamination. He chews silently, and expects the same from you. Picnics on a beach are out of the question; the thought of sand in his food is unbearable. Eating a take-away salad from a crowded London café in the midst of a Covid resurgence? Unthinkable.

*

On our last afternoon in London, my sister and I wandered along Westbourne Grove, soaking up the energy and noting the changes since I had worked in the neighbourhood twenty years before. There were many boutiques where antique shops had been. Sally Clarke had a new place on the corner of Portobello, and the fish shop on Kensington Church Street had moved to Westbourne Grove alongside the new Supermarket of Dreams. But many things were just the same — throngs of people still weaved through the Saturday market on Portobello. Eric, the owner of Books for Cooks on Blenheim Street sat at the tiny table outside the shop sipping tea with his friend, the neighbourhood barber, and Lindy was still smiling in the door of Ceramica Blue, as if time hadn’t passed at all. By the time we had wandered over to the original Ottolenghi location on Ledbury, where Lindy’s colourful glass plates against the long, white shared table had once helped to establish the now famous vibrant Ottolenghi aesthetic, we were hungry. A gentle rain started to fall as we waited in line, staring at the salads — zucchini and cantaloupe with lemon pesto and Manchego, roasted eggplant with red peppers and long, dripping lengths of monks’ beard, baby potatoes with pumpkin seed brittle. I settled on a takeaway box filled with a spoonful of the aubergine and a vibrant pea purée topped with spiky green onions. 

—

I ate the salad with a wooden fork while staring through the empty window of what was once Emma Hope shoes. I still have the red suede heels I bought off the sale rack after Luke, my eldest, was born. I remember pushing the stroller into the shop, clinging to the only thing on my body that hadn’t changed since giving birth — my feet. Those shoes made everything instantly fabulous, even the stretchy black trousers that were on heavy rotation that long winter in London. And now the shop had been cleared out, it appeared, overnight. As I stared at the empty shoe racks, papers abandoned on a table and a lone pen sitting on a well-worn carpet, a flavour cut through the memory — pickled ginger, studded through the minty peas. I’ve made a version of these peas many times — puréed with mint and shallots and served with scallops or loosened with stock and served as soup. But never had I thought to add pickled ginger to this flavour palette. Like the shoes, it made this simple staple fabulous. 

*

Thankfully, I didn’t lose my sense of smell or taste when I had Covid. Hot mugs of tea filled with fresh ginger, honey and lemon kept me company between bouts of Borgen. When I felt better, I found Ottolenghi’s recipe for crushed peas with pickled ginger online. The ginger is pickled with fresh thyme and lemon, and the peas are puréed with freshly grated horseradish along with creamy goat’s cheese and lots of lemon zest. No wonder it was so good. 

I ate the salad with my friend Andrea, a fellow lover of colour and flavour surprises. I saved what was left of it and put it in the fridge, knowing that as Ottolenghi suggests, it makes for great picnic food. I’ll serve it when Rex comes home, perhaps in the backyard, away from sand, with about six feet between us. 

A note on the recipe: Ottolenghi has labeled the recipe here as a ‘dip’. When the peas are piled together with pea shoots, spinach, and topped with pickled ginger and sliced green onions, it becomes very salad-like. Either way, it’s flexible.