by Tamar Myers
Of course one has to remove the dinners from their plastic trays and arrange them on real plates, and don’t forget to dress them up with a sprig of parsley or two. A bit of garnish does for a plate what a bit of makeup does for a woman—that’s what Julia said at any rate. Never having worn the latter (the garnish was accidental), I have to take her word for it.
Alma Cornwater removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. I suspected she might be crying.
“Those recipes were going to be my way out.”
“Out of the mountains?”
“No, out of a trailer with eight kids and a husband who beat me—but only when he was sober, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about that.”
“Good heavens!”
“I was only sixteen when I married Ed. He was twenty-two, fresh back from the army.”
“Viet Nam?”
“Nah, that was over by then. Germany. A place called Hamburg, although Ed called it Beerburg. I didn’t realize it at the time—I guess I didn’t want to see it—but all Ed did, when he wasn’t with me, was drink.”
“I see.”
“I drank too in the beginning. Just to keep him company. But then I got pregnant, and stopped. Ed never could hold down a job, so after Gary was born, I found a job waitressing at Grandma Mae’s diner, and Ed stayed home to take care of the baby. After a while Grandma Mae—her real name was Lucinda— brought me back into the kitchen and taught me how to cook. Lucinda said that it was next to impossible to find someone who could do really good home cooking.”
“Is that a fact?” Personally, I’ve never understood the concept of leaving home to sample home cooking. When I go out, it is specifically to sample something that tastes “store bought.”
Alma nodded. “After a while I guess I got kinda good at it, because I started fooling around with the recipes, and if the customers really liked something, then Lucinda would make it a standard. Anyway, one day this woman comes in, and after she’s eaten and everything, she asks to speak to me.
“So I talk to the woman, and it turns out she’s some kind of a food critic. She said that my gooseberry meat loaf was food for the gods.”
“No kidding.” That was not one of the selections offered by Smoky Mountain Memories, and frankly it didn’t sound very appetizing.
“That’s exactly what she said. And she said I should start writing down my recipes and send them off somewhere.”
“So you jotted them down and sent them off to East Coast Delicacies and—”
Alma was shaking her head. “I didn’t send them anywhere. I had another baby. And then another.”
I wanted to ask her if she had ever heard of birth control, but of course it wasn’t my business. Maybe large families was a cultural thing for her. The Amish have huge families. Grandma Yoder, who was born Amish, and later became a Mennonite, was one of sixteen children. According to one Amish historian, the Amish population doubles every twenty years.
“So how did East Coast Delicacies get a hold of your recipes?”
“That’s the funny thing. About a year later the same woman came into Grandma’s, only this time she really liked my lemon walnut chicken.”
“So do I!”
“This time she gave me an address, and that’s how I sent them to E.C.D. But then nothing happened. After about a year I wrote to the company and asked for my recipes back, but they didn’t answer. I wrote a couple of more times, but still nothing. Then about eight years ago, just a month before my little Lucinda—she’s my youngest child—was born, I went into this big supermarket in Asheville, North Carolina, and there was my lemon walnut chicken and my cream cheese spinach souffle.”
“Get out of town! I love that souffle.”
“Twelve recipes in all, Miss Yoder. And every one but the gooseberry meat loaf and candied cauliflower made it into the Smoky Mountains Memories line. And do you know how much I got paid for those recipes, Miss Yoder?”
I opened my mouth, but that’s as far as I got.
“Not one dime! Nada. Then last year I read an article in Homestyle Cooking that called the Smoky Mountains Memories meals ‘the most appetizing sensation to hit the human palate since the discovery of sugar.’ ” She gasped for air. “They’ve probably made millions off me. Millions! And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
I gently wagged a finger at her. “No swearing in my boudoir, remember? Now have you tried suing them?”
Alma put her glasses back on, all the better to see what kind of fool she was talking to. “I saw a lawyer, if that’s what you mean. But it’s almost impossible to enforce copyrights on recipes.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, take my gooseberry meat loaf—you and I might both have invented the dish.”
“Not hardly, dear. Although once I saw one of my mama’s recipes in a book that the author claimed were her mama’s recipes.”
“Exactly. Recipes get handed down through generations and spread around like a cold in kindergarten. Sure, there may be minor changes, but you can’t prove you were the first one to come up with it. People have been eating for millions of years.”
“Well—” I prudently closed my mouth. There was no point in telling her that I believe—Reverend Schrock does, at any rate—that the world was created in six days and was nowhere near a million years old. Forget millions.
“Anyway, the lawyer said I had as much chance of winning a suit as I did being elected president.”
That was indeed a shame, but probably quite true. Perhaps someday we women will wise up and realize that we comprise over half the population, and that it’s about time we get a chance to officially wear the pants in the White House. What’s the worst we can do? Plunge the country into war? Allow the country to slip into an economic depression? Been there, done that, as Susannah says.
“So how did that make you feel, dear?”
“Angry, of course—hey, I know what you’re doing! You’re trying to get me to spill my guts. You want me to say that I was so mad I killed Mr. Mitchell to get even.”
“Well, did you?” I’m sure I said it in a gentle, coaxing sort of way.
Alma was a tougher nut to crack than I thought. She was on her feet in righteous indignation, her glasses literally steaming up.
“I already told you I didn’t mind seeing him dead. Unlike you, I don’t lie, Miss Yoder—”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Yes, I hated the man’s guts, but I also hate Miss Benedict’s guts. You don’t see her dead, do you?”
“Our Marge Benedict? Skinny, practically anorexic, roving judge and columnist for American Appetite magazine?”
“She’s the one.”
“I must admit she’s not a particularly friendly woman, but she’s not nearly as unpleasant as Miss Holt. Why on earth would you want to kill her?”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Alma practically screamed, “I just hate her guts. She’s the woman who came into Grandma Mae’s all those years ago and got my hopes up.”
“Good heavens! Marge Benedict? You don’t suppose the two of them—no, on second thought, I don’t think so. She wasn’t too fond of George Mitchell either.”
Alma’s glasses had slipped again and she was squinting at me over the rims. The woman might consider trying Krazy Glue.
“What do you know about Miss Benedict and Mr. Mitchell?”
“Nothing,” I said, for her protection. “It’s just a hunch. Have you spoken to her about this?”
“Oh, yeah. The day before yesterday, just after she arrived. But she claims she doesn’t even remember me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, she said she used to travel all around the country reviewing restaurants, but that she doesn’t remember even meeting me. She said she thought it was possible, because she’s been to North Carolina. Of course I had to be careful not to accuse her of anything, since she is one of the judges.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe if we could g
et our hands on some back issues of that magazine, we could find a review of Grandma Mae’s. If her name’s on the review, that would prove she was there.”
Alma traced an imaginary something on my floor with a mud-covered sneaker. “I don’t remember ever seeing a review from American Appetite magazine. That’s the kind of thing Lucinda would have posted by the front door.”
I pointed to the phone. “Why don’t you call her?”
“Can’t. Lucinda died in May. Breast cancer. Her son sold the restaurant to a chain called Applebee’s. They tore down the old place, and built their own. You’d never recognize it now.”
“Tell you what, I’ll talk to Marge. Just sort of generally beat around the bush. Maybe I’ll ask her if she knows of a market for some of Freni’s recipes. It couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Alma shrugged. I think she was writing my name with her shoe. Either that or a very long swear word.
“So, dear, you wanted to see me about something?” I nudged pleasantly.
“Speaking of Mrs. Hostetler, do you think it’s fair to have your sister be the third judge? I mean, y’all are some kind of cousins to Mrs. Hostetler, aren’t you?”
“Is that all? Don’t you worry about Susannah, dear. She and Freni might be cousins, but they’re not the kissing kind. They’re as different as night and day, and those differences drive them both crazy. Anyway, just between you and me, Susannah despises Freni’s bread pudding. It’s Freni who should be worried.”
“Oh.” She didn’t look up. “Miss Yoder, there’s something else.”
“Spit it out, dear,” I said patiently.
“Uh, it’s about Freni—I mean, Mrs. Hostetler.”
“What about her?”
“She means well, I know, but she kind of—you know.”
“Gets in the way?”
“Yeah, and she’s sort of—”
“Bossy?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I’ll speak to her too, but if you want my advice, just get used to it. Live with it, as young people say these days.”
She mumbled a salutation, started to shuffle out, and then turned. “Did you like the lamb burgers with lemon sauce?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Smoky Mountain Memories sixth entree.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said out of kindness. The truth is, I’m not terribly fond of lamb, and that is the only one of their frozen entrees I didn’t sample. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Mama let me bottle-feed little Mary when her mother refused to nurse her, and then served her to the family as Easter dinner three months later.
Alma smiled, and for the first time I saw that she had teeth. “My entry in the contest is curried lamb loaf with peach chutney.”
I willed the contents of my stomach to stay put.
Freni poked her head in the door a few minutes later. “Yah?”
I motioned her in. “Shut the door, dear.”
“Ach, I have things to do.”
“This will take only a minute.”
She shut the door. “God gave you long monkey arms, Magdalena. You should zip your own dresses up.”
“It isn’t that, dear. I wanted to talk to you about our kitchen policy.”
Freni’s chin edged forward. “I don’t have a policy. As long as it’s my kitchen, I do whatever I want.”
“Yes, dear, but technically it’s not your kitchen.”
“Ach!” Freni squawked. A stranger might have thought she’d been struck by an assassin’s bullet.
“Why don’t you sit, dear?” I pointed to the chair.
She waved a stubby hand rapidly in front of her chest. “I knew it would come to this someday, Magdalena. Like Daniel in the Bible, I saw the handwriting on the wall.”
“If any of these guests have been marking on my walls, East Coast Delicacies is going to pay for it!” I was as steamed as a bowl of Chinese rice. You’d be shocked at what the rich and famous can do to a room—no telling what the hoi polloi are capable of doing.
“Ach!” Freni gasped, both hands flapping now. “I’m not really talking about your walls, it’s just a metamorphosis.”
I scratched my head until it hit me like one of Mama’s angel food cakes—with a thud. “Ah, a metaphor! What did you see coming, Freni?”
“Don’t you play dumb with me, Magdalena. When you were a little girl, I used to babysit for you. I’ve diapered you. I know everything there is to know about you. You can’t fool me. I know you’re going to hire one of these English cooks. Well, I may be an old horse, but you’re not going to be the one to put me out to pasture. I quit!”
“Freni! Stop—”
Arms still flailing, she barged for the door. I practically had to tackle her to stop her. In the process, more of my body—clothed, mind you—came into contact with hers than it has with anyone except for Aaron. And possibly Mama.
“I’m not firing you,” I puffed, “and I’m certainly not hiring an English cook. This is the PennDutch Inn, for crying out loud. My guests expect hearty Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, not decorative little snippets to tempt the appetite.”
Freni’s eyes bored into mine. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Then what is this policy business?”
“I just—well—you see, some of the contestants might prefer it if you left them alone when they’re cooking their entries.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?” Freni said, gave me a pitying look, and strode from the room, head held high.
Chapter Twenty-three
I prudently decided to talk to Art Strump before I talked to Marge. Perhaps Art, as another southern cook, had had his recipes pilfered as well. Fortunately, Art was the third of Melvin’s victims to be interviewed and released, so I didn’t have to wait.
We literally bumped heads, he going in the front door, I going out.
Since I do not swear, I had to content myself with a gaggle of grunts, groans, and gasps. Art, on the other hand, said a few things that would have made a sailor blush. Since he was technically outside my house, I decided to go easy on the man. And anyway, my head is undoubtedly harder than his.
“Well, it was your fault, dear,” I said as kindly as I could. “After all, I opened the door. You should have known someone was coming out. This isn’t one of those automatic jobs like at Pat’s I.G.A.”
Art made a reference to copulating feces.
“Hold it right there, buster. Either you can the toilet talk, or it’s back into the cold with you.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled. He was holding his head with both hands. “It hurts like the dickens. Your chin’s like a rock.”
“That was my nose, dear, and it’s more like a needle. But don’t just stand there, unless you want to pay to heat the great outdoors.”
He staggered in and I steered him by his coat sleeve to a warm spot by the fire.
“I thought we might have a little chat,” I said pleasantly.
He had taken off his gloves and was gingerly fingering his forehead. He is, after all, a good three inches shorter than I.
“What do you want to talk about?”
I smiled. “Well, for starters, how did the interrogation go?”
“No offense, ma’am, but y’all’s police chief is— uh—”
“Nuttier than an oak in October?”
“Yes, ma’am. As my mama would say, that boy is two eggs shy of an omelet.”
“Well, at least he didn’t arrest you. He has been known to arrest innocent people before.”
“Ma’am?”
“Oh, yes. It’s happened a couple of times. Of course each time I had to step in and get the accused off the hook. I’m getting pretty good at it now. Some people say I have a sixth sense. I wouldn’t know about that, but if someone looks me straight in the eye, I can usually tell if they’re lying or not.” I leaned forward and stared into his dark brown eyes. “You didn’t have anything against George Mitchell, did you?”
To my r
elief, he didn’t squirm. “No, ma’am, I never met the man before this contest started. He seemed like a nice enough man though, if you ask me.”
It was time to bait him. “Nice? He was always laughing at people behind their backs.”
He said nothing.
“In fact, he snickered so much, I think they named a candy bar after him.”
He regarded me calmly, as mute as a turnip.
I shook my head. “It’s awful what happened to him, but frankly, I wasn’t surprised. Some of the things he did were unconscionable.”
Zip, zero, zilch, nada. Even a Mennonite woman in bed is more responsive than Art Strump.
“Know when to hold them, and know when to fold them,” a country-western singer said to me on his last visit to the PennDutch. Clearly, it was time to fold.
“Well, enough about George Mitchell. I really wanted to talk about Marge Benedict. Did you know that one of her jobs is to collect original recipes for East Coast Delicacies?”
“Isn’t that what this contest is all about?”
“No, I don’t mean just one recipe for some big new campaign. I mean lots of recipes, over the years. Like the ones they used for the Smoky Mountains Memories line of frozen dinners.”
His broad nose wrinkled. “Ugh. I don’t eat frozen dinners.”
“Still, that’s pretty exciting, right?”
“If you say so, ma’am.”
Another dead end. It was time to turn this chassis on a dime.
“Where’s that sweet little Carlie?” I asked brightly.
“She’s still in town, ma’am.”
I shook my head in sympathy. “Poor child. Melvin will grill her like a cheese sandwich. Maybe I should go down there and run interference.”
Something in him flickered.
“What’s the matter, dear? Is there any way I can help?” You’ll have to trust me on this one, but I’ve been told before that I have a voice that could calm the Bosporus Straits.
Art glanced around the room, his eyes lingering on the two doorways. “Carlie is seeing a lawyer.”