Cooking Up Stories
Page 1
Cooking Up Stories
Cooking Up Stories
A collection of 18 short stories
Edited by
Liz Hickok and Heather Johnson
Bay Area Library ePublishers
Sunnyvale
Published by
Bay Area Library ePublishers
Sunnyvale Public Library
665 West Olive Avenue
P.O. Box 3714
Sunnyvale, CA 94088
Copyright © 2017 by Sunnyvale Public Library
All rights reserved.
First edition.
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Individual stories and poems were reproduced with permission from the following authors: Joyce Kiefer (2017). Copyright 2017. Ann Davison (2017). Copyright 2017. Pam Wong (2017). Copyright 2017. Heather Fong (2017). Copyright 2017. Patricia Collins (2017). Copyright 2017. Lianne Card (2017). Copyright 2017. Nancy LaRonda Johnson (2017). Copyright 2017. Pooja Kale (2017). Copyright 2017. Allen R. Rosenberg (2017). Copyright 2017. Lisa Scott (2017). Copyright 2017. Cindy Sakihara (2017). Copyright 2017. Shiela Scobba Banning (2017). Copyright 2017. Cathy Broderick (2017). Copyright 2017. Elisabeth Forsyth (2017). Copyright 2017. Gauri Khanolkar (2017). Copyright 2017. Susan Lange (2017). Copyright 2017. Nisha Malani (2017). Copyright 2017. Krithika Yegneswaran (2017). Copyright 2017.
Editors: Liz Hickok and Heather Johnson
Friends of the Sunnyvale Public Library
This project was supported in whole or in part by the Friends of the Sunnyvale Public Library.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Supplied by Sunnyvale Public Library
Cooking up stories / edited by Liz Hickok and Heather Johnson. – First edition.
Includes a collection of 18 short stories in which food or cooking is featured prominently.
ISBN 978-0-9961724-2-4 (electronic book)
1. Food writing. 2. Cooking – Fiction. 3. Short stories. 4. Electronic books. I. Hickok, Liz, editor. II Johnson, Heather, editor. III. Title.
813.0108 –dc23
Table of Contents
Introduction
Life Through Cookery
Colony: A Family Memory of Bees and Honey
Green
Rise of the Cream Puff
An Epicure in Andalusia
Homecoming Soup
Mealtime Rendezvous
Fish Tails
Sneaky Pete’s
Appetite for Applause
The Delights of Dango
Remembering the Price of Perfection
Just Desserts
Life Advice from an Adult Picky Eater
Mango Summer Nostalgia
Cooking, Not My Forte
One Cup of Chai
The Old Brown Diary
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction
For its second publication, the Bay Area Library ePublishers selected a theme which would demonstrate the great diversity of unique voices within our creative communities. That theme ultimately became a call for manuscripts of food writing, a subject that appeals across localities, cultures, and generations.
Cooking Up Stories contains 18 short stories related to food in unique and timeless ways. Fictional tales of mystery are served with a side dish of murder. Nonfiction stories of travel, adventure, and family promise to fill you with delight and warmth. Whatever your appetite demands, the short stories cooked up by these authors have something to appeal to anyone’s literary taste buds.
We think you’ll agree that this year’s anthology achieved a universal appeal while simultaneously continuing BALE’s mission to provide a middle road between traditional publishing and the self-publishing phenomenon for its writers. Many of the stories selected are from writers who are new to the publishing world, while others are more seasoned. With your support as a reader of this cornucopia of stories you, too, participate and support BALE’s mission to re-imagine how libraries connect with local writers and how writers in turn strengthen their bond with their local communities.
Liz Hickok
Heather Johnson
Sunnyvale Public Library, 2017
Life Through Cookery
By Joyce Kiefer
Cookbooks tell my story.
I realize this as I clean the shelves of my kitchen bookcase. They’re filled with cookbooks I’ve bought and product booklets like Jell-O that I’ve sent for over the years. Some, like the ones for appliances I no longer have, beg to be tossed. But I realize, as I review my collection, that four cookbooks reveal the basic ingredients of my life.
I carefully open the 100-year-old My Cookery Book that my grandfather, Donaciano Verdugo, picked up in Australia on a voyage of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. He was the ship’s cook. In Melbourne, he picked up the newly published My Cookery Book by one Flora Pell, who had taught cooking classes in schools through the state of Victoria and produced the book from notes and recipes she gave her students. He must have had my mother in mind. In 1916, she was entering her teens and, as she told me, liked to help my grandmother cook for their large family in San Francisco. The book had diagrams of meat cuts and basic information on nutrition. It offered an educational slice of Aussie tastes with such dishes as treacle and fricassee sheep tongues. It also made my mother curious to see more of the world. Eventually she did.
When I was little, my mother would dig into the back of her recipe drawer to let me examine her father’s gift, but I had to be careful with the brittle pages. Now I carefully remove this small book from a plastic bag. I thumb through the pages to find the soup section. There it is, Ox Tail Soup. It was Miss Pell’s suggestion for a substitute tail that still gets me: “Note – Kangaroo tail may be used the same way.”
She didn’t say what to do with the rest of the kangaroo.
There’s more. On the opposite page is a recipe for mock turtle soup. I figure Miss Pell had in mind the student who found herself in the Outback with neither oxen nor turtles. As a kid who was a squeamish and picky eater, I would gasp with delicious horror as I read the recipe, which starts with the substitute for the turtle, half of a calf’s head. The method part gets right to it. “(1) Wash head, remove brains, blanch head.” After boiling and adding vegetables, Step (8) says, “Remove all meat and tongue from head and cut in pretty shapes.”
My mother never fed me a single dish from our Cookery Book, but the recipes feed my imagination to this day.
When she was a young bride, she bought her own cooking bible –The Modern Priscilla Standard Cook Book: Methods and Recipes, 1929 edition. In line with the Great Depression, the recipes were simple and used few ingredients. I loved the black and white art deco swirls on Priscilla’s cover and best of all, its recipe for Baked Eggplant.
Most people would gag at the color and texture of this casserole – gray-green and spongy. The recipe goes like this: One eggplant, peeled, cubed and boiled until tender. Then add a beaten egg, a chopped onion, butter, and that staple of Depression dishes – bread crumbs. Mom would mash the eggplant like potatoes, the way I liked it. The dish was great the next day and the day after that. Dad wouldn’t eat it. Years later, my own family would refuse it as well.
Pricilla’s Baked Eggplant was a secret taste shared between my mother and me.
I started cooking when I was around ten, so a family friend gave me Fun with Cooking. It features a ten-year-old girl in a pinafore who demonstrates in photos how to do such basic things as make peanut butter cookies, frost chocolate cupcakes, and – best of all – make Butterscotch Squares. Various spots dot the pages, which cling precariously to the binding.
Fun with Cooking has an un-PC dedication by its author, May Blacker Freeman: “W
hat are little girls made of…? To my niece Marilyn, who may want to know what else can be made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”
The “everything nice” includes a pear salad arranged to look like the face of Mickey Mouse, and tuna casserole (tuna packed in oil – the only kind in in the late ‘40’s - a can of mushroom soup, milk, and crumbled potato chips on top.) My joy in cooking was that I could finally prepare an entire meal with my own recipes. I still make the Butterscotch Squares and Golden Stuffed Eggs.
Betty Crocker sits on the top shelf of my book case. She’s still my go-to source for turkey stuffing and great cookies. When I got married in the early 1960s, I bought Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cook Book, first edition 1961. In addition to simple, tasty recipes, it offers subtle lessons on the proper role of a wife at the time. In the first drawings, the cook (always the wife) wears a black scoop-neck blouse, a necklace, and a frilly apron. She’s stirring a pot. The husband, wearing a suit and tie, looks proudly down at what his wife is cooking. He hasn’t got a clue as to how she made it.
My husband would be equally mystified, then and now.
Betty is still my go-to gal for cookies, poultry stuffing and other basics. Over the years, I’ve consulted her so much, that only duct tape keeps her together.
I’ve now turned away from the authority of books. I cherish recipes from friends that I copy on file cards or on pages that go into binders. I clip recipes from our local paper and keep the ones that pass the family taste test, and I trust the Internet to find exactly what I want.
As much fun as a Google search can be, it can’t deliver emotion like reaching for an old book in the back of a drawer, a book that links me to a grandfather I never met and to a far-away place I never dreamed I’d see. When I did visit Australia because my daughter Julie was living there, My Cookery Book had become a national treasure, just as Betty Crocker’s book has become an icon of its time in this country.
A hundred years ago, a man who seldom saw his family brought his daughter, Beatrice, a cookbook from Australia. With it, he delivered a passion for cooking and a love of travel. Both have been passed on to me, and I hope I have handed them off to my daughters as well.
Colony: A Family Memory of Bees and Honey
By Ann Davison
Yesterday, my dad took one last look at the hives. He suits up in his white long-sleeved shirt, light pants, gloves to his elbows to protect from the possible sting, socks high on the outside of his pants, a bright blue sweat band and most importantly a bee veil. The veil is attached to a wide brimmed hat which guards his face. It is a cylinder shaped veil that surrounds his entire head and is gathered at the base of his head to ensure no bees will bother him as he works. He is armed with a hive tool, which is a small handheld crowbar, and a smoker filled with burning pine straw to smoke the bees. The smoke confuses the bees, making them think their hive is on fire and signals them to fly away from the hive. It makes easier work for my dad when fewer bees are present.
There is a buzz in the air. The day has finally arrived and preparations are being made. Today, we will take off honey. We have anxiously waited for the bees to do their jobs collecting the wildflower nectar, storing it and capping it. Finally they have filled their comb, and with a day’s work, we will enjoy the sticky reward. The last look is confirmation that the combs are full of honey and ready to be harvested. The extractor is pulled from the closet; it takes at least two people to haul it as it is nearly three feet tall. The hot knife is set out with the uncapping fork and bowls are stacked. Boxes and boxes of glass mason jars are washed along with their lids.
Once all supplies are in place, it is time to collect the supers from the hives. The hives are made of two to six wooden supers, boxes stacked high to form the hive. Inside, the supers hang up to ten wooden rectangular frames. The 19-inch frames have notches that allow them to be adjusted using the hive tool but keep the bees tightly packed and secure among the wax and comb.
Again, my dad suits up in all the gear, diligent to not skip any steps or a sting will surely result. He smokes the bees and sends them on their way again as he moves the supers, which hold the frames near the front door of our house. With the supers come a smell that is sweet and smoky. There is also a bee or two that could not be fooled to stay away. We will do our best to keep them safe.
Dad will remove his gloves to do more tedious work inside now. He removes four or five of the rectangular frames from the super and places them near his heated knife. You can see the bulging wax and the dark honey trapped inside. Once warm, he uses the electrical knife to cut away the top layer of wax by sliding it along the parallel wooden bars of the frame. The heat of the knife will do the majority of the work but a steady hand is still necessary. This uncaps the honey, and you can see it oozing from the cells. It starts to drip from the frame. If parts are missed by the heated knife, he will use the uncapping fork to gently scrape away any remaining wax. This process is repeated for both sides of the frame. The wax that is cut from the frame by the heated knife is placed in a metal strainer, which is placed inside a bowl, to allow the honey to drip from the wax.
Then it is my job to place the two uncapped frames vertically in the extractor. The large metal cylinder has a crank on one side and a spout on the bottom. Inside, there are two parallel metal cages to hold the frames as the crank spins them around forcing honey to the wall of the cylinder. From there, the honey will drip down the sides of the extractor and collect at the bottom until the amount of honey extracted interferes with the spinning cages. Then it will be time to empty the honey.
I place the second scraped frame into the extractor and spin the crank. Really spin. I spin so hard the extractor starts to bounce on the shoe box where it is set up. Luckily, we have placed a towel down to protect the wooden box. I slow the rhythm of my cranks, and after a minute, I peek inside to check the frames. It’s time to rotate them to force the honey from the second side of each frame. I pull them out of the extractor and simply flip them so now the new side is facing the cage. I spin the crank for another minute. By now, there are two new honey-filled frames ready for me. I remove the frames from the extractor and notice there isn’t a drop of honey left on the once oozing frames. A peek inside the extractor reveals the sides splattered with the sticky goodness.
The empty frames are moved to an empty super, and the process is repeated. Frames decapped, flipped and decapped; forked when needed. Placed in the extractor and spun. Rotated and spun. The wax pile is nearly overflowing. When there is a lull, I sneak a taste of the cut wax that is collecting in in the metal strainer. It’s sweet juices fill my mouth, and the wax is like the best gum I’ve ever tasted. My hands are starting to get sticky. Little pools of honey are forming on the table. A lone bee is buzzing near the door, looking for an escape.
The extractor is starting to drag my crank. A look inside reveals that honey is at the base of the cages. It’s time to empty the extractor into the largest bowls we can find. I open the spout and the golden liquid pours out. Pounds and pounds of honey stream out and I am careful not to spill. Sweet and warm.
This process continues until the supers are full of empty frames. Decap, scrape, spin, flip, repeat. It could take hours. At last, the final frames are spun. We are all sticky, and the frames have been emptied of their sweet reward. The depleted frames are stacked in their supers ready to be placed back on the hive. The bowls of honey are poured back into the extractor to sit overnight. That time will allow any particles of extra wax to float to the top to be skimmed off.
All the equipment will be set outside to let the bees do the majority of the clean-up. In a matter of hours, they will remove almost all of the leftover honey, which will make the washing easy for us. Barely a drop of honey will be wasted but instead given back to the bees that provided it.
First thing in the morning, we will fill each jar with the golden honey. The sides of the extractor will be scraped leaving us with sticky arms. We are left with jars and jars of honey that wil
l be enjoyed just as much as the fresh wax freshly cut from the frame.
Green
By Pam Wong
Bits of green. Yuck.
Raw diced green onions peer back at me as I look down at the soup.
Steamy, comforting smells of wonton soup drift up from a warm pot clutched between my five-year-old legs. Mommy brought her largest aluminum pot to carry this precious soup home. The dented container with its dull silver lid and worn, black knob is like one of the family.
Tonight, there will be big bowls of rich, comforting chicken soup with meaty, smooth wontons floating around. Each wonton gets wrapped in a light-colored skin of dough, which turns soft as a cloud when it’s cooked. Daddy says that the name “wonton” is a Chinese way to say “it swallows as smooth as a cloud.” Slivers of pink, sweet barbecued pork, cha sieu decorate the top... and always, always those bitter green onion bits that adults seem to like so much. I push the green stuff aside in my bowl so they don’t spoil the wonton taste on my tongue.
There is seldom money for extra treats these days. During the week, Daddy struggles to keep his small Chinese manufacturing company open. He says it’s pretty hard getting business contracts in a white-man’s world.
But once in a while, Daddy can set aside a little extra money to buy a steaming batch of take-out wonton soup for a special dinner. Baby brother and Isit on the smooth leatherette back seat of the white four-door Packard sedan. Mommy and Daddy sit on the front seat. We keep Daddy company on the 20-minute drive in our shiny white Packard sedan. We drive from our two-bedroom house in San Francisco’s Sunset District to Chinatown on the other side of town.