* I am now spending a short time writing in the UK. Recently my local paper ” The Cheshire Herald ” was sent to my new address and in the obituary column there was a large picture of Hayley Petit with a remembrance for her birthday. Once again I was washed with emotion. I am so glad not to be living there right now, reliving every moment of that nightmare. It disturbed me driving by the  house that Joshua Komisarjevsky lived in every day, several times a day.   I don’t know how Dr. Petit can relive this over and over again. I thought while we waited for the fate of Joshua Komisarjevsky to be determined I would run this again. I envisioned myself lost in the cliche of suburbia; a doting husband,  3 kids, a dog and cat,  all living harmoniously in a town that was a Maybury RFD.  That is what brought me to Cheshire CT.  We have open space,  green grass with Dads mowing on Saturday afternoons, and fields with gentle rivers  outlined within cobblestone walls. The joke around town was that every road had a 25mph speed limit because we had no crime. Now when people ask me what it is like to have a killer living one mile away, I shudder. The word spread quickly on the 23rd day of July, 2007. I was driving in my car when my daughter’s cell phone rang. It was a friend living out of state that had just heard the news.  A home invasion at 3am, the mother and her two teenage daughters  repeatedly raped and assaulted. Jennifer Petit, the mom, forced to withdraw $15,000 at her local bank. She pleaded via note with the teller, to send the police.  Once she  was brought back to her Cheshire home by Steven Hayes, the two criminals raped her, strangled her, and burned her body. Her girls were tied to the bed posts, repeatedly raped and assaulted and the house was set on fire. Their father Dr. William Petit was tied in the basement, beaten beyond recognition. He managed to escape but not in enough time. The house went up in flames.  The police arrived too late. [pullquote]That night my husband was away. I slept with all four children in my bed. The house was locked, the alarm was on, and I drifted in and out of sleep with my cell phone under my pillow and a knife under my bed. It would be years before I would sleep through the night and not wake at 3am with tears in my eyes and terror in my soul.[/pullquote] The people in town prayed for a motive. A haneous crime such as this couldn’t have been random. In the end, there were no ties and no purpose. They had been randomly stalked the night before at our local grocery store. It could have happened to any one of us. Now all were dead, but a man who lost his family and was sentenced to carry out the rest of his life reconstructing the crime. I did not know Jennifer Petit. I didn’t have to. She was a mom. She was the one walking her baby in the carriage. She was one staying up until 3am, watching her child’s fever to make sure it didn’t go higher. She was the one teaching them to tie their shoes.  She was the one who told her children they could when everyone else said they couldn’t. She was the one who vowed to protect them. Five months after the crime, hundred of volunteers lit luminaries on every street  in an effort to find hope in the midst of the darkness of this tragedy. Lights of Hope has generated over $250,000  for MS in Jennifer Petits’ name. If one were to look in a photo of the Petit’s home the first December of 2007, they might see the girls’ shadows in the trees. However if one were to look down, they would see that in a cold night, on the dark streets of Cheshire CT, a light of hope radiates below. In the open space with the green grass and the gentle rivers, the Petite girls never left us. How could they? The live on in the hearts of the mothers, the children, and the fathers who think of them and pray for them every day.

Today I went to my friend Shelagh’s house in the UK for a cooking class. When I duplicated the dish for my family they went crazy for it so I thought I would share. 

Lemon and Garlic Chicken with a Yogurt and Garlic Sauce

#1) Pick an organic chicken. What I didn’t realize was that chickens take on flavors based on what they were fed, so if they were fed seafood they would taste a bit fishy. Spending the money was well worth it.

#2) Rinse chicken and put in a roasting pan. Squeeze large lemon over the top of the chicken and put the lemon in the cavity of the bird.

#3) Take about 5 or 6 garlic cloves and crush them on a cutting board. Take fresh Rosemary, 1 large twig, and remove the leaves from the branch fanning backward on the stalk so leaves come off easily. (I found out that you cannot use the branch with fresh rosemary however you can with other herbs like coriander or parsley. It depends upon how thick the “branch” is.)

#4) Take about half a stick of butter which ideally has been softened and a sprinkle (about 2 teaspoons) of Kosher Sea Salt (Malden is best if you can get it.)  Take your knife and chop all ingredients together and then using the side of your knife smear all ingredients across the cutting board to make a paste.

#5) Lift the skin off the chicken and gently insert the butter/garlic paste underneath the skin while keeping the skin in tact.

#6) Drizzle olive oil (2 tablespoons)over the chicken.

#7) Put 2 stalks celery chopped into 1 inch pieces inside cavity of chicken with one peeled onion, cut in half.

#8) Take additional cloves of whole garlic and stuff 3 or 4 into the cavity with skin removed and then take 3 or 4 more and tuck them under the legs and wherever else you can on the bird.

#9) Sprinkle dried rosemary, and some more salt and pepper over the top of the bird.

#10) Put the chicken into a hot oven (220 in the UK or 400 in states) for 10 minutes which crisps the chicken and locks in the juices.

#11) Turn the heat down to 180 in UK or 350 in State and cook an additional 40 minutes or until juices run clear.

#12) Take one cup of Greek yogurt and mix with 4 cloves crushed garlic.

#13) Cut chicken arrange on plate and spoon juices from the chicken over the meat and then cover with the yogurt and garlic sauce.

Thirteen days until we return home for the holidays and we are all counting down. At first I have to say that I didn’t miss home. I didn’t miss the day in, day out routines, the endless to-do lists, and the chores that seemed to appear faster than I could check them off. I loved the fact that I was in another country and was able to travel to places that I couldn’t even pronounce. I loved the fact that my house was big enough to feed my family and my pub down the street was three times the size. I loved learning how to cook foods I wasn’t familiar with – ha ha ha, fresh foods. There are no Dunkin Donuts here, no fast food, no super sizing of any kind. When a Brit wants a large beverage they will say “give it to me American style…extra large.” I even got used to recycling and putting out one trash bin for a family of six every TWO weeks. [pullquote]Believe it or not, one dented fender and $5,000 bill later, I even got used to driving on the wrong side of the road. [/pullquote]

Now I am ready to go home. I miss my family, my friends, and I miss my dog and cat. I was afraid to open that door in my heart. I didn’t make too many phone calls home to tell people I missed them. I looked forward and never looked back, until now. The last month I have had a dreaded cold, probably pneumonia. In the absence of sunlight our average time  we get up on a Saturday is somewhere between 10:30 and 11:30. Am I regressing back to college days?

When the trip is over I am sure I will be refreshed and tired of the phone ringing off the hook. I am sure I will want to get out of the freezing cold. I am sure that I will look forward to the trips into London and the outings with my new girlfriends. For now, I will count the days and open that door to everyone I love so much.

It took a few weeks, but I finally managed to unload the minivan. Not that it wasn’t useful, I had decided that when my kids were all out of diapers my minivan days were D-O-N-E. So my husband, the great guy that he is, hooked me up with a really lovely (as they say here in the UK) barely used, Mercedes wagon.

It isn’t easy driving here in the UK. First you are on the WRONG side of the street and then to top it off, you are on the WRONG side of the car. Parking is a nightmare, so they allow people to park all over the place, going in any direction they feel like parking. If you are going North and see a spot going South, you just cut across the lane line and park. The fact that your car is going a different direction is irrelevant. Do you know how many times you drive down a street and begin to panic that you are on a one-way going the wrong direction?  The opening in the street after everyone has jockeyed for position, is about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

When I came home with just my tire flat, I thought I was doing an ok job. My girlfriends here have all whacked up their cars. One of my friends even parked her SUV on top of a MiniCooper, got out and went inside for cocktails, not realizing that she was on top of another car.

“Wait a minute Wendy” my husband said.

“You said a flat tire.”

“Exactly.”

“What happened to the bumper?”

“What bumper?”

“The bumper that came off….huuuuh! Look at the scratch.”

“What scratch?”

‘Whooooh” I gave a good whistle.

“That’s pretty serious” I replied.

“Well, I did hit a curb…….and, I don’t know what to tell you, the curb must have jumped out and taken off the bumper.”

It wasn’t pretty. In less than one month I had managed to dislodge the bumper, pop the tire, and scratch the company car. Maybe I would look into the train. It might be a better idea.

Settling into our little niche in the UK I have to say life is great, different, and great. We are renting a furnished house walking distance from the train and walking distance from town. Yesterday my husband and I got up, make a cup of coffee and walked into town where they had a farmer’s market set up. Everything here is fresh. The vegetables are grown at the farms and sold at market. The creme/cheese/butter comes from the farm as well. When they say expiration date 9/16/11, you aren’t keeping it on the 17th because it won’t be any good. Every Sunday we cook pasta for dinner so we bought olives, cheese, salami, fresh baked bread, truffle oil, and a balsamic glaze made with figs. A big adjustment for us is the beef…you really can’t eat it and enjoy it. Pork, lamb, and chicken are good.

The hardest living adjustment besides driving on the wrong side of the road, is the garbage. Everything here is recycled. I think it took me longer to get through the trash than to cook. You have to separate the paper and cans into one barrel. Food goes into a compost barrel and then all you have left are mainly plastics and those go into trash. My family of six that used to put out 3 barrels a week (on a good week) now puts out ONE BARREL every TWO WEEKS. For me that is more of an accomplishment than getting an advanced degree. I get it. It is good for the environment and looking back, we were pigs. Our neighbors from Germany used to put out one barrel a week and we used to laugh about it. Looking back, I guess the joke was on us.