Committed
I love this picture. Yes, that’s Paul McCartney, pre-knighthood, post-MBE, having lunch with my friend Kara Noble (just to the left of the frame). Kara’s parents were very pally with McCartney back in the day and he was a regular visitor to their home on London’s Abbey Road. On this particular occasion, Paul had originally said he couldn’t make the lunch. Then he heard that Jackson Browne was going to be there (sadly, we can only see the back of his head here, but believe me, it’s Jackson). Paul was a big Jackson Browne fan and wanted to meet him. The hand and nose to Kara’s right belong to the man who brought Jackson along, Don Henley of that little combo, The Eagles. Quite the rock-and-roll chick was Kara. Still is.
Call it British reserve, but Kara never mentioned this event to Jackson, or indeed that she had ever met him before when they were sat on the same table at my wedding almost four years ago. But on the subject of saying things to famous people, as well as “I do”, Colin said something else at our wedding he never thought he’d ever utter: “
I have just finished reading Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert’s follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love. While not as brilliant as her previous book, it’s still worth reading. It’s about the history of marriage and the author, having vowed never again following a hideous and painful divorce, plighting her troth once more .
A therapist friend of Liz’s (her friends call her Liz) says in the book that most of her female clients suffer from a sort of ‘grass is greener’ syndrome, a condition explained thus: all her single patients wish they were married and all her married ones secretly wish they were single. Not me, obviously.
No nuptial is complete without a toast, so here’s the recipe for my favorite cocktail served at our wedding - delicious and so much cheaper than champagne.
Bellini
Ingredients:
Sugar to rim the glass
A wedge of orange (lemon is a tad bitter, but works as a last resort)
Peach juice (Trader Joe’s Dixie Peach is excellent)
Prosecco (Trader Joe’s Zonin is ideal and a very reasonable $5.99 a bottle)
2 fresh raspberries per glass
Recipe:
- Wipe the rim of the champagne flute with the orange flesh.
- Dip the glass in a saucer of sugar.
- Pour an inch of peach juice in the glass.
- Top up with prosecco.
- Place 2 raspberries in the glass.
- Clink glasses with your beloved and say (as Colin and I still do with every alcoholic beverage): “To us.”
Labels: Bellini recipe, Don Henley, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jackson Browne, Kara Noble, Paul McCartney