Finding peace in unusual places

a broken thing, a punnet and a salad recipe you don't need

The washing machine is my spirit animal. Some people may have a snow leopard, a barn owl or a dolphin, but I have a Bosch Freestanding, 9kg load with a 1400rpm spin. It has been my faithful servant and protector for knocking on ten years now and every week I have been grateful for its diligent service. It has laboured for a family of five without complaint, with all the bedding, sport kits, stray underwire from bras and unemptied pockets that entails. Plus, we live near the beach, so I can likely measure, in buckets, the sand that shifts through its intestines. No surprise that it conked out last week at the start of the school holiday. A bit like me.

To cut a long, tedious story short because this is Substack and not the Bosch help centre, the machine can be repaired (yey!) and the cost comes under the insurance I unknowingly agreed to when I booked the call out (double yey, but also how did I not know this, but hey, pat on the back) but the part needed (the drum, so pretty crucial) will take two weeks to arrive (all the boos). I gave a small whimper when the jolly engineer told me this and flailed my arms around, indicating all the people in my house that needed clean pants. Still, these are the moments when we check our privilege and remember what else is going on in the world. Get a grip, Brazier! And so I did, with a little help from my friends.

At the risk, yet again, of sounding like the relentlessly cheerful Pollyanna, I have turned it into a sort of a challenge. You know, the ‘who can I offload an Ikea bag’s worth of washing on’ game. It’s more fun than it sounds. I started with one of my neighbours, who was on his way out to the pub to watch the rugby and kindly left his front door open and texted me machine instructions. I went to my friend Susie’s, and we drank coffee while the cricket whites spun at high speed. At Lucy’s, I turned up with sweet peas, breakfast and a mixed load and left with clean jeans (free of the sticky chilli sauce stain from an overloaded taco) and a bunch of chard from her garden.

Now used to airing my dirty linen in public, I made myself take two heavy bags of bed linen to the launderette, weaving past holiday makers with ice cream dripping down to their elbows. Alright for some, I huffed silently, lugging my sheets through a town seemingly in the middle of a fiesta. Oh woe is me, I thought as I rounded the corner, hoping there would be an available machine, and my trudge hadn’t been in vain. I prayed I would be able to understand how to make these industrial beasts work when I can’t use the telly remote. I took both pairs of specs just in case.

It turned out the hardest part of the laundromat experience was scraping together ten quid in cash. The rest of it was a dream. A line of washers, a bank of dryers, scuffed lino, plastic flowers, royal bunting and a couple of bored people scrolling on their phones as the digital minutes flashed by on the display panels. It was as reverential as a dusty old library, with handwritten yellowing paper signs telling us dogs weren’t allowed, not to be rude to staff, the table was for laundry folding NOT food and here were the emergency numbers for sudden breakdowns - machines not people, although…

I realised as I sat there, high on the pungent combination of different detergents and mesmerised by the round window view of my tumbling soap sudsy washing, that I had found peace. The sort I imagine others get from going to a café full of cats they can stroke, sleeping under the stars or building a model railway. I had a sense of calm and achievement just from being in the laundry, plus there was no phone signal.

Judging by the beautiful photos of full washing lines and smart utility rooms doing the rounds here and on social media too, a lot of us love laundry. While I wait for my machine to be fixed, I think I may have found a new summer hangout. To celebrate, I dumped the damp washing back in the car and got myself a Mr Whippy. With a flake.

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A couple of summery food notes while I am about it.

• My latest honesty box find is pretty exclusive so sorry not to be able to share the co-ordinates. It’s a veg patch tucked away on the local golf course, somewhere around the 17th hole, and diligently maintained by a club elder who leaves the gluts on the wall outside the club house. This is a reward for toing and froing with kids and golf bags. Last week it was a punnet of thumbnail sized red gooseberries.

• One of the cricket dads collected Jesse for a match and dropped off a heavy bag of courgettes. Both things made my day. As I didn’t have to drive anywhere for once, I made two courgette soups - one green, one yellow - and grated the rest for a pasta sauce.

• I am making a lot of Caesar salads at the moment. It’s a great way to get everyone to eat a mound of lettuce and more palatable than my grandmother’s trick of sprinkling sugar on to the leaves when I was little. That was her idea of a recipe. She was not a cook. She hated food, having to make it or eat it, and she would sit disapprovingly at the dinner table, a tiny sparrow in a neat wig, repulsed by our greed and table manners. Every time she heard us talk of a new ingredient we would have to spell it out to her. She couldn’t get her head or her tongue around ‘taramasalata’. God knows what she would make of pomegranate molasses.

RECIPE (sort of) FOR CAESAR SALAD

A big bowl of leaves - the classic crunchiness of little gems works well here, but I mix it with a few handfuls of something peppery and punchier too.

Salad - chunks of cucumber, quick blanched French beans, thinly sliced spring onions, herbs like tarragon, old-fashioned curly parsley (not the soapy flat leaf) or basil. Of course you can add what the hell you like, but I tend not to include tomatoes because I like the greeness and crispness of it all. Texture is a big part of the success of this dish. Plus you can create a tomato salad on the side.

Star of the dish - you don’t need one, but it makes more of a meal of it. Slices of cold roast chicken (the posh supermarket buttermilk fried chicken hooks the teens) or grilled strips of halloumi are the favourites. I don’t veer into fish for this, but you could do salmon, smoked mackerel or prawns. If I was Rockefeller, I would have lobster.

Crucial additions - the croutons have to be homemade. This (and the dressing) is what elevates the whole thing. Take the back end of a loaf (yes sourdough is great here but it’s not the law), cut into small cubes, douse liberally with olive oil, chuck over flaky sea salt and pop in a hot oven for a few minutes. Remember to remain vigilant and not wander off like I did once and returned to wood bark. Leave to cool. Easy to make ahead of time, like the dressing…

5 or 6 tablespoons of mayo

1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar

4 anchovy fillets

1 clove garlic, crushed

20g ish of grated parmesan

salt/pepper

Blitz it all together in a food processor. Dip in the tip of the spoon to taste and then add whatever you want a little more of. I underplay the garlic, but push the anchovy because I love the fishy smokiness which comes through. Scoop into a jam jar and store in the fridge. It should make enough for 4 or 5 large salads if you police the helpings.