Worst tornado in 40+ years doesn't keep us from St. Louis, but makes trip interesting

Friday, 22 April. 7:45 pm, central time.

We'd been en route from London for 16 hours. Our connecting flight from Chicago was on the approach to St. Louis, already running almost two hours late because of the violent thunderstorms that had been sweeping across the Midwest. The storms out the window were frightening and impressive, with towering thunderheads above a thick carpet of clouds sparking with lightening. (The photo's not mine, but does give you a good sense of what I was seeing out the window.) A break between two storm fronts was giving us enough room to get on the ground.

Then the pilot pulled up. He announced that the control tower had been evacuated and we needed to fly on. A few minutes later, Lambert Field took a direct hit by a particularly violent tornado; the worst in St. Louis for 40 years. While we flew on to Kansas City, our friends who'd been waiting to pick us up were running for shelter on the lower level behind the baggage carousels. The windows in the terminal above had imploded, sending rain, tree branches and debris swirling through the building on currents of high winds.

Anne and Mike reported that the storm blast was over in a minute, but shock and fear followed, with people bloodied by the windows stumbling around looking for help and passengers getting off planes that had been caught on the tarmac in the midst of it all trembling with the trauma. Our friends saw no evidence of organisation or leadership from the airport staff, who were in the same panic as everyone else. News coverage suggests that things improved, but Anne and Mike didn't stick around to check it out. Checking via a weather app on his iPad, Mike could see that the coast was clear ... or, at least, tornado free ... made for the car and drove home carefully through the debris field that was the surrounding highways.

Back in Kansas City, 250 miles west of where we wanted to be, skies were clear and the night was warm. Less pleasantly, every rental car was sold out, there were no outlets open in the terminals to get food or drink and three full planeloads of people were milling around waiting for an announcement. Waiting for flights the next morning wasn't a reasonable option, as the St. Louis airport was closed and all the planes there would be grounded for a while as inspectors looked for damage. American was, instead, scrambling for buses. No easy commission late on a Friday night. Three finally emerged out of the dark at 11:30 and we scrambled aboard for a four and a half hour drive back across the state.

As we approached the airport, we had the surreal feeling of driving through a disaster film. It was incredibly dark, since power was out throughout the area. Most of the illumination came from the flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles, which were thick on the ground. Along the highway we could see overturned cars, snapped trees and slabs of debris that had been people's roofs, furniture and lives.

Though I grew up in the tornado zone and moved to the violent heart of it when I lived in Dallas, I still couldn't quite believe the damage I was seeing. Dawn brought in the news crews who captured the damage for the world, and there was St. Louis leading the national news. Every year there are four or five news stories about some community being flattened. You grow up knowing the signs and how to take action if a storm is coming. But seeing one wipe out a community I know well (in fact, the neighbourhood where I lived until I was seven) was sobering. Piers, who always teases me when I talk about the severity of Midwestern weather, was respectfully silent. And Anne and Mike may never volunteer to pick us up at the airport again.

It was a dramatic start to the trip. We're thankful that we, and all we care about, are safe, and that Chesterfield (where our house is) was entirely untouched. We're hoping the rest of the trip is a bit less extraordinary.

Countryside and kitchen combine for weekend comfort

Friday night. 7:30. Your author stumbles out of a video editing suite into the crowded streets of Soho, blinking with surprise at the sunshine drenching the world. Typical for those all-consuming corporate projects that take over your life (we used to call them "death marches" at EDS), I hadn't even noticed that we were on the brink of the first weekend of fine weather granted to us this year.

Good timing. While this particular death march still has a few miles to go, the end is clearly in sight and the worst is over. Time for some R&R. Time to bring the work/life balance back in line. Which, this weekend, meant steering clear of anything that appeared on any of my four running to do lists (work, wedding, household, St. Louis) and devoting myself completely to life.

Saturday morning we put the top down on the car, threw young Datchet the spaniel in the back (Mr. Darcy lacks the energy for road trips these days) and took a meandering route to a nearby National Trust property. One of the glories of Basingstoke, frankly, is how quickly you're out of it. Within two miles of our house we were in narrow, steeply-banked wooded lanes inter-spersed with picturesque villages. Charming Georgian vicarages, worthy village churches, fields dotted with sheep and their gambolling newborn and gates to notable estates abound. This is, after all, Jane Austen country, and our little drive from Hatch Warren to Alresford could have been a carriage jaunt between Emma's Highbury and the Dashwoods' Norland Park. (Austen's cottage is actually just a few miles from here, but I'm saving that for a girls' day out.)

Our objective was Hinton Amper, a small country house with lovely gardens east of Winchester. The Trust has lots of jaw-dropping stately homes, but over the years I've come to have a particular soft spot for the little places. The more manageable estates you could actually see yourself moving into and maintaining. Granted, this would be after a very big lottery win, as something like the Hinton Amper estate would be on the market for six to eight million these days with even limited acreage. But the point is, "real people" (more or less) could live in these places; bankers and corporate execs as opposed to the lofty aristocracy. This house has a hall, a couple of reception rooms, a library, office and big dining room on display downstairs and five bedrooms above. Pretty much my dream spread, really.

The whole place is set up for house parties and copious entertaining, which was in fact what its owner Ralph Dutton used the place for in the '60s and '70s. The library has the best views in the house and is filled with plenty of comfortable chairs from which to enjoy them. The drawing room could accommodate multiple little groups of guests without bothering anyone. And the dining room could easily stretch to 20, yet could seat eight without seeming too big. Upstairs, the master suite is separated by the staircase hall from the guest rooms, creating admirable privacy for owner and visitors. Best of all, the place is packed with a gorgeous collection of mostly Georgian furniture and decorative arts. It's light, airy, sophisticated and elegant.

The gardens outside the windows are great for a stroll, with all the classic English elements like yew hedges, topiary, herbaceous borders, artfully placed statuary and your requisite classical temple garden folly. Best of all, the house and garden is on the ridge of a hill, thus the rolling Hampshire countryside, stretching away to a picturesque distance, becomes part of the garden.

If dipping into English heritage is one way I achieve contentment, getting into the kitchen is another. And I did it in a big way this weekend. Piers, Sainsbury's and the local farm shop all benefitted from my search for stress reduction.

I planned Saturday's menu sitting in the garden drinking painkillers. I learned to make this soul soothing concoction from a cheerful bartender at Pusser's Bar in St. John. Frankly, it's hard to imagine why anyone would need pain killed or soul soothed in that spot ... looking out over an array of smaller Virgin Islands dotting a technicolour sea while palms wave behind you ... but the man insisted it was one of the most popular drinks on the menu. Mix equal amounts of dark rum (Captain Morgan's spiced works best), orange juice and pineapple juice. Add just enough coconut milk to give it a milky colour. Blend. Pour over ice. Top with freshly grated nutmeg. The mix of fruit juices completely masks the alcohol and the little bit of coconut milk moderates the sweetness of the orange and pineapple. You can drink a lot of these without feeling like you've overdosed in an ice cream store, as can happen with too many of other types of tropical drinks.

My menu, however, veered away from the Caribbean. First to the Mediterranean, as I whipped up a starter of home made Baba Ganoush (roasted aubergine/eggplant dip). home made artichoke hummus and anchovy-stuffed green olives (made by some Spanish people in a factory, presumably). Piers isn't particularly fond of any of that stuff, so I moved closer to Northern Europe for the main course.

I marinated duck breasts in olive oil, armagnac, fresh thyme and prunes, using the same marinade, sans the prunes, on a bowl of plum halves. Both went onto the BBQ grill, with the plums coming off once they'd gotten soft to be futher stewed down into a sauce with more armagnac and some sugar. I've never barbecued duck before, and we don't have any lights on our patio, both of which are my excuse for the duck being slightly overdone. I should have pulled the coals over to the side before putting on the meat, getting a slower, smokier cooking action. But it wasn't bad. I served the meat on a bed of crushed potatoes with steamed tender stemmed broccoli on the side.

My pudding started with some salted macadamias coated with caramelised sugar. And once I'd melted the stuff down, I decided to experiment with spinnning it. They make this look so easy on Masterchef. Melt some sugar down, dip your spoon into it, do a few twirls, eh voila! This is clearly a hell of a lot harder than it looks. (And I suppose the number of pain killers I'd consumed might have lessened my manual dexterity.) I managed a couple of rudimentary spun sugar baskets with fibres of wildly various thicknesses. This covered a brownie square topped with strawberries, a dollop of creme fraiche and those candied nuts. Frankly, the basket added nothing whatsoever to the taste (sugar overdose, actually), but it did look fun and I might experiment again.

I hadn't been planning on further gourmet attemps on Sunday, but we found ourselves at the local gourmet farm shop in search of chicken liver (Piers doing his own kitchen experimentation with a pate recipe) and the butcher had some exquisite veal. I couldn't resist, as I'd been thinking about trying to copy veal nuncio from Charlie Gitto's restaurant in St. Louis. This consists of lightly breaded veal scaloppine topped with a fontina cheese and crab sauce.

I always like to prep my own cutlets. My scaloppine pounder is one of my favourite kitchen items and, frankly, the fervour required to bang out that meat is a soothing yet productive act of violence. My skill in sugar spinning may be minimal, but years of practice mean I can get veal thin and smooth, ever-so-gently dusted in a mix of flour and fine bread crumbs after a bath in egg whites, then grilled rapidly in a bit of olive oil. It's so thin it takes no more than a minute to cook. The meat would have been delicious unadorned, but the sauce added a decadent richness. Loaded with butter, cream, cheese and crab ... all Piers' favourites ... it brought one of my favourite Italian comfort foods into the realm of my fiance's French tastes.

The farm shop also had round zucchine (courgette) about the size of grapefruit, so perfect for stuffing. I halved them, then hollowed them out and boiled the shells to soften them up. After finely dicing the flesh I had removed, I added diced leeks, roasted red peper and garlic, then fried that up in a bit of olive oil. Added a bit of grated parmesan and pecorino, then spooned into those softened shells and into the oven to bake for 20 minutes, mostly just to meld the flavours together. Both the veal and the stuffed zucchini went on top of plain papardelle, which looked good and soaked up the sauces.

Firmly into the Italian comfort food mode now, I had to keep going with dessert. Another treasure on hand at the farm shop was Sicilian blood oranges. Piers segmented these (one of his more admirable culinary skills) and added them to last night's leftover strawberries. That vivid red and orange mixture went into large red wine glasses which I then topped up with the home made zabaglione.

This is a dead easy dish that never fails to impress. There are plenty of versions that call for heavy cream which, I believe, makes it too rich. Zabaglione should be a light and pungent accompaniment to fruit, a classic summer dish. I use Lorenza di Medici's recipe, from the battered "Beautiful Italy" cookbook that's been my staple for two decades now. Mix egg yolks and sugar in a double boiler and whisk 'til frothy. Add marsala wine and continue whisking 'til mixture doubles and starts to thicken. Fold in an egg white. And there you have it. Easy, except for the vigorous wrist action.

And now, the weekend has ended and the prospect of another tough week stretches ahead. I am, thanks to the kitchen, relaxed and ready to face it. And my fiance has been particularly well fed. I'd better be careful, or he'll actually look forward to work crises so he can enjoy the culinary stress relief.

A parade of strong women reminds me to focus, soldier on and look for the positive

The theme for the week past seems to have been strong women. Particularly appropriate for a stress-filled period in which I felt in great need of fortitude, and encountered a few more lost and helpless moments than usual.

It started on Mothering Sunday, as I sat next to my soon-to-be mother-in-law for a family lunch at Madsen's. (Another blog topic could have been how quickly humans can change their perception of what's tradition. I now have no problem accepting, and enjoying, pickled fish, dark rye bread and a small glass of snapps as celebratory fare.) Piers' Mum, like mine, was raised to be a housewife rather than a wage earner. But, as with mine, marriage didn't work out as planned and she had to make it on her own. She turned her training as a pattern cutter into a deft skill with curtains and upholstery, and from there built an interior design business. She's interesting, assertive, stubborn ... all traits she passed on to her son ... and has enough of the classic English eccentric to fascinate our American wedding guests.

The next woman of the week is Joanna of Naples. Strolling down Cheapside early in the week I was delighted to find a newly-opened branch of Daunt Books, my favourite bookstore on earth. (And another alternative blog topic for the week. This still-independent shop, headquartered in its gorgeous original Edwardian building in Marylebone, is famous for organising its selections by geography. So you'll find travel guides to Florence, "The Agony and the Ecstasy", Tuscan cookbooks and biographies of Lorenzo il Magnifico all in the same section. As that list implies, they specialise in travel, history and historical novels, biography and other thoughtful fare. I can't go in without finding something to add to my must read list.) Screaming out from a central shelf was "Joanna: The Notorious Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily" by Nancy Goldstone. I'd come across mentions of Joanna in Sicilian history, always with anecdotes tempting enough to make me wonder why she wasn't better known. Now Ms. Goldstone comes to the rescue

In the cutthroat, male-dominated 14th century, Joanna inherited the powerful kingdom of Naples from her grandfather at the tender age of 17. She survived the manipulations of an horrific family, the various branches of which were all scheming to get her off the throne and place their own candidates on it. She avoided the plots of a mother-in-law from hell, who tried to get her convicted for her son's (Joanna's first husband) murder in order to get her out of the way to place her elder son (Joanna's brother-in-law) on the throne. Joanna hung on to expand her empire, marry three more times and preside over a court famous throughout Europe for its art, literature and sophistication. Her biography is as good as any novel.

Later in the week I was at a work event with Dame Ellen MacArthur. (And there's the third potential, but dismissed, alternative blog entry. The Tower of London has gone in for corporate hospitality in a big way, usually hosting two or three different events an evening. Wonderful for the corporate guests, who get to see a peaceful and quiet inner ward and get private access to the crown jewels without the hoards of packed tourists. This has sadly diminished the Ceremony of the Keys, however. What was once an almost mystical event for a small group (free tickets by request, by post) is now flooded with all those hospitality guests, who outnumber the handful of tourists from the general public by three to one.)

Ellen has parlayed her fame from solo round-the-world sailing into a career devoted to green issues and a foundation that builds confidence in "at risk" children. This, alone, is very impressive. Most sports figures dabble in philanthropy. It seems a necessary PR tick in the box for such people. But I've rarely seen anyone approach it with such passion. Ellen could have done just enough for her reputation, made a good living off public appearances and sports commentary, and generally kicked back and enjoyed life. Instead she has a driven zeal to make the world a better place, and exploits all of her sponsorship contacts to drag various corporate social responsibility programmes along with her.

Of all the things she said, one stuck out: "When you're alone in a boat, 2000 miles and weeks from land, you know what finite resources are." That certainly got me thinking. We live in such a quick, easy, disposable society. I can have the majority of items I can imagine in my hands with no more than a 10-minute drive and a wave of a debit card. What's not instantly available near home can usually be delivered after the magic of internet shopping in less than three days. Nothing seems finite in a world where everything is at our fingertips. It's an illusion, of course. Whether it's oil, out-of-season cranberries or the perfect white flats to go along with my wedding dress, there's a limit to everything. Not seeing and respecting that limit will get the whole planet into a lot of trouble. So my hat's off to Ellen for her efforts to get us to see this.

Finally, I spent a lot of time thinking about, and praying for, one of my oldest and dearest friends. She's had buckets of my admiration since we first met at the age of 17, when I thought she was the coolest person on the planet. Later I was humbled by how she managed to juggle law school with motherhood, then wowed by her magnificent career, and always impressed by her maintenance of her marriage ... the most long-standing and strongest of all my friends' and a model I hope to copy. Unfortunately, this week I've been most awed by something I wish she didn't have to do: keep far too many plates spinning, and present a capable, professional face to the world, when she's dealing with a mountain of worry and stress. I listen, console, try to provide what support I can. I wish I could do more. I have the confidence she'll make it through the bad times.

Strong women always do.