by Tamar Myers
At that the kitchen door flew open, and Freni, face flushed and arms flailing, flounced into the room. “You can’t fire me, Magdalena. I quit!”
My stomach churned. Freni has quit her job as cook more times than the Democrats have raised taxes, and twice as many times as the Republicans have been caught raiding the cookie jar. She means it when she says those two awful words, and invariably I have to do something as demeaning as stand on my head in a snowdrift just to get her to recant.
“See what you’ve done?” I wailed to the group. “Now who’s going to cook for us?”
Freni threw her shoulders back. “Yah, who is going to cook?”
Several pairs of eyes fixed on me.
“No way, Jose,” I said. “I couldn’t cook if my life depended on it.”
Freni nodded vigorously. “Magdalena can’t boil water, without burning it.”
Marge Benedict, who had heretofore remained silent, actually raised a bony hand before speaking. “Miss Yoder, perhaps we judges could take turns.” The twinkle left Mr. Mitchell’s eyes faster than you- know-who fell asleep after you-know-what. He stood up.
“Well, I see no reason why Mrs. Hostetler shouldn’t continue to perform her regular duties here at the inn, provided she doesn’t serve us any more of this delicious bread pudding.”
Freni smiled smugly, her mission accomplished. There were, of course, some muttered protests, but they went either unheard or ignored.
Monday was supposed to be a settling-in day for the contestants. Theoretically they were supposed to familiarize themselves with the kitchen and check the supplies of ingredients they had brought with them. It was expected that many ingredients had to be purchased fresh, and a sort of field trip into nearby Bedford had been planned for after lunch.
Hernia, you see, has a population of only fifteen hundred and thirty-two, and that includes the two New York retirees who moved here last summer. Yoder’s Corner Market on Main and Elm is our only local source of food. Sam Yoder—and yes, he is a cousin—relies heavily on the American canning industry, and fresh produce is as foreign to his coolers as Japanese squid. The last time I shopped at Sam’s, I saw a head of lettuce that had been there for three months. I know, because I gouged it with my thumbnail the day it came in, just to see how fast it would be bought. Sam once hung on to a cauliflower for six months before taking it home to his wife.
At any rate, I was to be the official tour guide on the field trip. At the appointed hour I was ready and willing to do my part, dressed for the trip into the big city (Bedford has 3,743 residents, after all) when the hounds of hell were released on my peaceful inn. Armageddon had come to Hernia. I have never heard such a ruckus in my life. The clatter of swords against shields and anguished cries was deafening.
That final battle between good and evil was being fought in my kitchen, and I rushed to catch a glimpse. I am a believer after all, and have no fear of death or what comes after. Although, confidentially, I am not very fond of pain and would prefer to die in my sleep.
Just as I reached the kitchen door, it flew open, narrowly missing my prominent proboscis.
“Hallelujah!” I cried, quite prepared to meet my Maker.
Unfortunately, it was not my Maker I was seeing face-to-face. To the contrary, I had to look down considerably to see that face, and when I did my heart sank. No matter what those liberal theologians say, the face of God does not resemble Freni Hostetler.
“It’s only you!” I wailed, when I could catch my breath.
Freni took a step forward and the door swung shut, hitting her ample derriere. The short, but somewhat unbalanced woman took an unintentional step forward.
“Des macht mich bees!”
“You’re mad? I was headed for my mansion in the sky, until you came barreling through that door.”
“Gur Himmel, Magdalena! Make sense for a change.”
“Me? What on earth is going on in there? I thought it was the end of the world.”
“Ach, it’s only a little disagreement. It will pass.”
My hair would have stood on end had I not been wearing it in a rather tight bun.
“A disagreement with who?”
“Ach, that English woman who wears dead animals.”
The Amish refer to outsiders as English, regardless of their ethnic or national origin. Even we Mennonites, who are closely allied with the Amish, are sometimes referred to in this way.
I stormed into the kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn everywhere. Drawers of ladles, spoons, and the kitchen implements had been dumped on the floor. It was the culinary equivalent of Susannah’s bedroom. Standing there in the middle of it all, looking cool as a cucumber on ice, was Ms. Kimberly McManus Holt.
“Goodness gracious me!” I railed. My faith forbids me to swear, or I might have said a few choice words I’ve heard my sister use—words that she learned from that Presbyterian ex-husband, of course.
Ms. Holt actually smiled. She was wearing a leopard print pantsuit with what looked like a real fur collar. She looked disgustingly elegant.
“Your cook has quite a temper,” she said.
I counted to ten, prayed, and bit my tongue. And then just to be on the safe side, I said the alphabet backward.
“Freni is a pacifist,” I lisped. “Both Amish and Mennonites have a four-hundred-year tradition of turning the other cheek. I’m sure she wouldn’t have lost her temper unless she was thoroughly provoked.”
“I only asked her for a little more shelf space. Quite honestly, I was very polite about it. Suddenly she just lost control and—” she turned slowly in a semicircle, gesturing at the shambles that had been my kitchen— “there you have it.”
“Well, I’m sure—”
I felt a sharp poke in the back of my ribs. “Ask her about the list,” Freni hissed.
“The list?”
“Oh, that!” The leopard lady reached into a spotted pocket and withdrew a small notebook. “I was just inquiring about the whereabouts of some basic kitchen equipment. You know, electric can opener, Cuisinart, metric scale, that kind of thing.”
Freni Sapped furiously. “When I told her we didn’t have those things, Magdalena, she said this was the most primitive kitchen she had ever seen. She said she’d seen more sophisticated kitchens on a safari.”
My dander rose, despite the strictures of my bun. “Primitive? You called my kitchen primitive? I’ll have you know, Ms. Holt, that—”
The door to the kitchen slammed open and Susannah swirled onto the scene. “Oh, Mags, I can’t believe it! It’s just awful!”
“Not now, dear,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m in the middle of something important.”
“But, Mags—”
“Unless,” I hissed, “it’s a matter of life and death, your business can wait until later.”
“But it is a matter of life and death,” Susannah cried. “Mr. Anderson is dead!”
Chapter Five
Freni Hostetler’s Prize-Winning Slow-Baked Bread Pudding
1 loaf (lb.) day-old bread, crust removed, and broken into pieces
½ lb. seedless raisins
1 cup brown sugar
3 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
Butter to grease pan or dish
Preheat oven to 325 degrees (slow oven). Generously grease two-quart glass dish or 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Mix bread pieces with raisins in pan or dish. Pat lightly to compact. Sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg over bread. Whisk together milk, salt, and vanilla and pour evenly over mixture. Set pan or baking dish in a roaster containing hot water. The water should come within a half inch of the top of the bread pudding pan. Put roaster in oven. Bake for two hours, gently turning pudding over several times as milk rises to the top and crust forms. Best served warm with fresh cream or milk. Also good with whipped cream or caramel syrup topping.
Serves 8.
Warning: the smell of this baking might drive you crazy with hunger!
Chapter Six
I cringed. “Dead?”
As much as I hate to admit it, there have been previous deaths at my inn. Ancestors have died here, of course—the most recent being Grandmother Yoder, whose ghost I have seen from time to time. Alas, there have been other deaths as well. One or two have even been officially classified as murders. But lest you panic and cancel your reservations, allow me to assure you that death is everywhere on this planet. It’s just that now it tends to be concentrated in hospitals and on the streets, but there was a time, not too long distant, when folks at home dropped like flies. And I’m not talking about just the Black Plague, either. My point is that an occasional demise adds a certain psychic patina to an establishment, and should be celebrated. Too many deaths, however, can be problematic.
“Yes, dead,” Susannah wailed.
“Ach, here we go again,” Freni said, throwing up her stubby arms.
“Maybe it’s murder,” Ms. Holt said.
I ignored her. “Susannah, are you sure?”
“Positive!”
My sister has been known to dramatize at times. “Start at the beginning, dear,” I said kindly.
“I knocked on his door and it just swung open. Then I saw him, lying on the floor, as dead as a doornail.”
“That’s a cliché, dear. Now tell me, what makes you think he’s dead? Did you take his pulse?”
She recoiled in horror. “Are you crazy? Me, touch a dead man?”
“Well—”
“He’s white as a sheet, Mags, and I don’t think he’s breathing.”
That sounded just like Jimmy Kurtz, one of the few boys I dated in high school. To my knowledge, he was still ostensibly alive. But Mr. Anderson was a paying customer, and an important executive. I wasn’t about to take my chances with a lawsuit.
Perhaps I sounded calm to you, but my heart was pounding like a madman on a xylophone. Even the soles of my feet were quivering.
“Freni, you call 911 in Bedford. Susannah, you sit down and catch your breath. And you,” I said to Ms. Holt, “clean up this mess in the kitchen.”
“Why, I never!” she said, but she did.
Mr. Anderson was the color of boiled rice. I am relieved to report that he was indeed still breathing— Susannah tends to exaggerate, as I said—since I have never been too fond of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It was me who was having trouble breathing. My newly installed elevator is not as reliable as I had hoped, and I can no longer take my impossibly steep stairs two at a time without it showing.
At any rate, although Mr. Anderson had a pulse, he was only semiconscious, and incapable of communicating beyond the occasional unsolicited moan. But Bedford 911 was on the ball, and Mr. Anderson was whisked away to the hospital in less time than it takes to bake an angel food cake. In the meantime, all my guests were milling about, like ants when you’ve brushed away the crumbs—that is, all my guests except for the twinkling Mr. Mitchell. He and his rental car were missing.
I grabbed my car keys. “Freni, I’m driving into Bedford Memorial to see what’s what. While I’m gone, you’re in charge.”
“Ach!” she squawked, but then smiled slyly. “What I say goes then?”
“You’re the man,” I said, borrowing one of my sister’s favorite phrases.
Freni beamed. A wise guest would have followed Mr. Mitchell’s example and made herself as scarce as diamonds on an Amish woman’s wrist.
“What about me?” Susannah whined.
“Well, dear, Freni is the cook, and there’s lunch to make, and—”
“I don’t mean that. Can’t I come with you to the hospital?”
I gave her one of my sterner looks. “All right, you can come, but not the pooch.”
“Ah, Mags—”
My sternest look shut her up, and she stomped off to divest herself of the minuscule mangy mutt.
“And wipe off some of that makeup!” I called kindly to her retreating back. “The folks at the hospital will think Barnum and Bailey had a crackup on the turnpike.”
Perhaps I should have frisked Susannah, but the last time I did that, I ended up with teeth marks that didn’t heal for a week. I am proud to say, however, that my baby sister has done a lot of growing up in recent years. True, it has been a slow process, and her emotions are bonsai replications of the real thing, but she has come a long way since our parents’ tragic deaths.
At any rate, when my sister rejoined me, she was wearing an outfit that actually had seams. And although she was still sporting decades-old mascara, there were isolated patches on her cheeks where the skin showed. Just for the record, she was as pale as Mr. Anderson.
“Can I drive?” she asked.
I was tempted to say “yes,” but I have a brand-new BMW, and not only does Susannah have a lead foot, she has rubber wrists.
“Please, Mags. I’ll take it real easy, I promise. I’ll hardly even take my eyes off the road.”
“Not today, dear. I have too much on my mind.”
“Then when?”
“When you stop smoking, dear.”
Our parents died when Susannah was twenty-two, and supposedly raised, but that doesn’t mean it was too late for me to feel guilty about the way she has turned out. I am a Mennonite, after all. In the guilt department we outshine the Baptists, eclipse the Catholics, and jump past the Jews.
Frankly, I feel more guilt in association with Susannah’s smoking habit than I do about the fact that my baby sister has slept with more men than Mata Hari. At least that is a natural instinct. But for her to spend money for the privilege of asphalting her lungs... on the other hand, I suppose it really is none of my business, as long as she doesn’t smoke in my inn or my car.
“But I have stopped smoking,” she said.
“You didn’t!”
Her head shook like the paint mixer at Home Depot. “I quit two days ago. Cold turkey. Here, smell.” She leaned forward and blessed me with a blast of her breath. She had indeed quit smoking. Flossing and brushing as well.
“Congratulations!” I cried. Two days isn’t even long enough to defrost a turkey, but I didn’t want to discourage the girl.
“Then you’ll let me drive?”
I sighed deeply. “All right, but slow down when you enter a curve, and no talking on my cell phone.”
“Aw, geez.”
“And no giving yourself a pedicure on that straight stretch of Route 96. Remember what happened the last time you did that?”
“That’s because I had a hard time getting the cap off the polish bottle. This time I’ll have the cap already loose.”
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin,” I said, and then immediately regretted it. A woman my age should know better than to draw attention to her flaws.
“You’re no fun, Mags, you know that?”
I dangled the keys in front of her painted peepers. “Time’s awasting, dear, what’s it going to be? Diligent driver, or puerile passenger?”
“Man, you’re mean,” Susannah snarled and snatched the keys.
Susannah and my Beemer each made it to Bedford Memorial in one piece. I, however, had to spend several minutes gathering my wits. I’m still not sure I found all the pieces. I certainly was in no shape to run into the infamous Melvin Stoltzfus in the front lobby.
“Yoder!” he yelled the second we walked in the door. “I have to have a talk with you.”
I cringed as heads turned. After all, there are more Yoders in Bedford County than Burt Reynolds has hair plugs, and half the room had turned to look our way. Much to my surprise, Susannah cringed as well. If I had been in possession of those missing wits, I would have suggested that we make a run for it. Praying mantises are not known for their speed.
Okay. There, I said it. As a woman of faith I am supposed to have a charitable tongue, but in all charity I cannot accurately describe my nemesis cousin without likening him to that bulbous-
eyed insect. Bald, with a huge head on a rope-thin neck, his picture adorns page 52 of Pritchard’s Encyclopedia of Helpful Garden Insects. Unfortunately, the man is anything but helpful. If this brief description is a sin, then so be it.
“Yoder,” he shouted again as he closed in on us, his victims, “it’s about time you showed up.”
“You see,” Susannah hissed, “I told you to let me drive faster.”
I ignored her. They say the best defense is a good offense, and I can be quite offensive if need be.
“What on earth are you doing here, Melvin? Wouldn’t the vet give you your rabies shot?”
“Very funny, Yoder. I’m here to visit Mama who, you very well know, is having her bunions removed. I was just about to leave when that ambulance came in from Hernia. From your place, it seems.”
“So?” It was a defensive response, but the wrong one. I tried again. “Is he...?”
“He’s not dead, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s a relief,” I said carelessly.
The praying mantis took a menacing step closer. “I want you to tell me everything, Yoder.”
“Tell you what?”
“That man—” he consulted a notebook—“Mr. James Anderson, what have you been feeding him?”
“Me?” I trilled.
“I just spoke to Dr. Rosenkrantz. He says it looked like a case of food poisoning.”
“Don’t try pinning it on me, buster. I haven’t cooked a thing in five years.” That was nearly true. While in a romance-induced haze, I cooked one meal for my pseudo-husband, Aaron. The gas it gave us could have powered a hot-air balloon around the world. Instead it merely dampened Aaron’s ardor, and set world records of a different sort.
“Well, then, that cook of yours—”
“That cook happens to be your first cousin once removed, Freni Hostetler. You’ve known her since you were a pupa, for crying out loud.”
“You know what I mean, Yoder. When the man was brought in, he was obviously at death’s door, and this isn’t the first time Freni’s cooking has done someone in.”