God Makes Beautiful People

I realize it has only been a day since my last blog, but I just cannot get enough of Antonia, so I think I should write it all down before I forget it all. I also have a hunch that she will be incredibly famous someday. This blog will be completely dedicated to her.

I started my day waking up at an unacceptable hour and I tend to get embarrassed about those type of things because in my mind it is completely lazy, so I wasn’t so sure how my day would turn out. We ate our breakfast at noon on the patio looking out at the beautiful park view, and then Antonia and I were in the kitchen as I was cleaning up and she invited me to go to the market with her and then to have a dinner with her and her boyfriend tonight. Jared and I agreed to the dinner, and I agreed to the market and so it was. I can honestly say today may have topped all other days on our trip thus far.

I don’t know why, but I was so excited about the market at London Bridge that I couldn’t focus on work, so I just wandered around the flat and watched her reupholster a couple of 200 year old chairs with the same fabric that she did the walls in our bedroom with. After what seemed like forever we left the flat and took the tube to the market, which is fantastic. First stop was this awesome chocolate shop where we had rich and creamy hot chocolate, which is a favorite of mine. After the chocolate shop we went into the market for an hour or so and shopped for fresh and specific ingredients for the gourmet meal she was planning to prepare for the evening. As we walked we talked and she began to realize exactly how ignorant I am when it comes to expensive, gourmet food like truffle and French cheese. She knows just about everyone there so she would get me samples of all of these delicious and unique foods and kind of explain where they are from and what they are made of. I mentioned that I had never had Turkish Delight so she bought some for dessert this evening. She also bought about 100 pounds worth of other food for the evening. Seriously – gourmet. But, it is her passion and typical food just will not do for someone who worked for Gordon Ramsay. Yes. THE Gordon Ramsay. This woman is good. She actually quit working for him (had a few bad words to say about him… haha!) and went independent. She has her clients built up though, and she cooks for private parties. She cooks for a lot of the people in the Royal Family of England.

Anyway, after some time at the market and multiple samples of delicious cheeses and wines (and also loads of money spent), we made a final stop for some fresh bread and French cheese and headed back to the apartment. During our time out today I really got to know this woman, at least as much as you can get to know someone within a couple hours time. She talks in a completely different language. Of course, she speaks English, but she uses such large educated words that throw me for a loop. We saw an advertisement today that was grainy and photo shopped and I think it turned into a 5 minute conversation about how hideous it is. I didn’t particularly like the advertisement, but I wasn’t appalled either. She was definitely appalled and had all sorts of artistic views on the photo that a 20 year old college drop-out doesn’t quite understand. I nodded and smiled, but I did get the gist of it. She really didn’t like the advertisement even one bit. We also talked about more important things though and kind of became slightly vulnerable in our conversation. I learned her hurts and heart-breaks and she became much less ‘highly educated chef/sculptor’ and more human to me.

She offered to give me a kind of personal lesson with dinner and she taught me to make chocolate meringues with chocolate sauce and also hollandaise sauce for our fish. I watched her load French butter onto the potatoes and slow-roast them for two hours. I saw her interesting steaming techniques when steaming the asparagus and her artwork as she loaded our plates. It was quite the presentation. We had a three-course meal consisting of 1) Pollock filets with fennel and truffle served over steamed asparagus with French buttered roast potatoes and hollandaise sauce 2) chocolate meringues with dark chocolate sauce and Turkish delight 3)French cheese fondue with a sort of nutty toasted bread. We then followed that with coffee and hours of good talk and a visit to the top floor of the apartment for a panoramic view of the city.

Her boyfriend is extremely charming and he is an architect/landscape artist with a love of musicals so he could relate to both Jared and myself. His name is Antony. Antony and Antonia, kind of cute. Antony is 46 and Antonia is 37. Neither of them has been married or had any children. That seems to be the European way. It was fun telling them that we are 20, got married at 18, and plan on having children in the near future. It is always interesting to hear each person’s walk of life and the choices that they make and the reasons for them and how in turn, those choices mold us into who we are.

Anyway, for the grand finale, I had to of course ask them what they thought of the Harry Potter series when we were on the subject of books and plays and such. She was telling me about the respect that she has for J.K. Rowling and for the books. Turns out, her cousin was the little girl that read Harry Potter for the first time and loved it, and her uncle is the publisher who chose to publish J.K. Rowling. I seriously about fell off of my chair (combination of wine and shock), but I held it together and played it cool all the while taking mental notes of the details to write about it in my blog.

Jared and I could not be any luckier when it came to picking this place in London. Antonia is inspiring, and beautiful inside and out. She cooked us a fantastic gourmet meal and she is kind and caters to our every need. If her apartment is all that I see of London I will be completely satisfied for I have made a friend and I have been inspired.