A Table by the Window: A Novel of Family Secrets and Heirloom Recipes (Two Blue Doors) by Hillary Manton Lodge Read Free Book Online Page A

a 4-pound piece of shoulder, trimmed
    3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
    1 bottle dry white wine
    2 bulbs garlic, unpeeled and sliced in half through the widest part
    10 sprigs each fresh rosemary, thyme, and savory
    5 fresh or dried bay leaves
    For the beans:
    2 cups dried white beans, preferably cannellini, soaked overnight in water
    5 cloves garlic, smashed
    3 sprigs fresh thyme and parsley and a bay leaf tied together with kitchen twine
    10 whole cloves
    1 large onion, halved
    Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
    2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    2 tablespoons crème fraîche
    Preheat oven to 300°F Dry the lamb with paper towels and rub with oil; season with plenty of salt and pepper. Heat a 6-quart dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add lamb and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes. Transfer lamb to a plate. Add wine and 2 cups water to the dutch oven; scrape up browned bits from bottom of pot. Nestle garlic and herbs in a large oval casserole dish; place lamb on top of herbs; add wine mixture from dutch oven. Cover lamb with tinfoil; transfer to oven and roast, basting frequently, for 3½ hours. Uncover, flip lamb (a pair of tongs and a wooden spatula is good for this), and continue to cook, basting frequently, until lamb is very tender, 3 to 3½ more hours. Transfer to a rack and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
    Meanwhile, prepare the beans. About 1½ hours before the lamb is done, drain beans and transfer to a 4-quart saucepan along with 6 cups water, 4 cloves garlic, and the herb bundle. Insert the cloves into the onion and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until beans are tender, about 1 hour. Remove pot from heat. Season the beans with salt and pepper.
    Discard herbs and strain beans, reserving cooking liquid. Transfer 2 cups beans, ¼ cup cooking liquid, oil, crème fraîche, and one of the garlic cloves to a blender and purée. Stir puréed bean mixture and about 1 cup of the cooking liquid back into pot and cover to keep warm until lamb is cooked. Check seasonings again, adding salt and pepper as necessary.
    Serve the lamb sliced or torn into rough chunks, alongside the beans. Best when eaten in good company.
    Serves 6 to 8.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who love chocolate, and communists.
    —L ESLIE M OAK M URRAY
    The conversation over dinner the previous night inspired me to invite Maman to lunch and light shopping the following Tuesday. I knew Maman tended to keep a busy social calendar, but was pleased when she agreed to meet me on Northwest Twenty-Third.
    We were close, but not in the traditional American mother-and-daughter sense. I was aware, growing up, that my mother was different from my classmates’ moms.
    She worked, for one, and not as a nurse or a teacher or a bank teller, but as a pastry chef. In the mornings while she worked—she’d be at work at five—my sisters supervised my exodus to school. In the afternoons, Maman would be home and we’d have adventures. We attended museums, walked through gardens. She took me to nice restaurants, where I was expected to behave in a civilized fashion.
    I was the baby of the family, which my siblings reminded me of constantly, Sophie in particular. “When I was your age,” she’d say, “I took care of myself and I lived at the restaurant.”
    By the time I showed up, though, the restaurant had been a success for multiple years and life had become more stable. Maman had time to do things with us in the afternoons, rather than work in the pastry kitchen in the morning and manage the front of the house in the evenings.
    Unlike my classmates’ moms, my mother had style. She wore silk, good jewelry, and high heels. She’d sooner die than wear a themed sweater, unless the theme was “nautical stripe.” She never complained about finding jeans that fit, partly because she had most of