You'll Always Have Tara

by Leah Marie Brown

  “I would love to go to dinner with you.”

  “Capital.” He grabs his earpiece off the desk and pushes it back into his ear. “Cheers.”

  And just like that Sin goes back to looking gorgeous and rescuing the world’s ailing businesses (in multiple languages).

  I walk back down the hall, grab a stack of cookbooks from the pantry, and carry everything back to the kitchen table. Mrs. McGregor has set some logs to fire in the fireplace and arranged a lovely tea tray on the table.

  The book at the top of the stack is Mrs. Beeton’s Every Day Cookery. I flip through the foxed pages, working around the discolored spots to read various tips on how to run a proper Victorian household. I set it aside and open a brown leather book with faded blue print. Commonsense Cookery by Colonel Kenney Herbert proves to be an entertaining gastronomic read, offering examples of elaborate dinner menus and concise recipes for complex dishes, like pickled beef tongue and mutton saag.

  Some of the books offer advice unrelated to cooking. For instance, in one book I learn that putting an eel in a bottle of whiskey and drinking from it will “cure frequent and prodigious inebriation.”

  In The Lady’s Handbook and Household Assistant, circa 1886, I find notes scrawled in the margins by a Mrs. Mairead E. Cumiskey. Some of them humorous. Some of them emphatic. Some of them inexplicable.

  “Mrs. McGregor?”

  “What is it, luv?”

  “What is a tallywag?”

  Finished polishing the copper pots and pans, she pours herself a cup of tea and joins me at the table.

  “Is it listed as an ingredient in one of those old cookbooks?”

  “No, ma’am,” I say, sliding the book over to her. “Someone named Mrs. Cumiskey wrote in the margin beside a recipe for oxtail soup, ‘Tougher than tally-wags. ’”

  “I believe a tallywag is an Atlantic sea bass.”

  “Sea bass? What does a fish have to do with oxtail soup?”

  “Why don’t ya giggle it?”

  “Giggle?”

  “Search for the answer on the inter-webs.”

  “Oh,” I say, laughing. “You mean Google.”

  I grab my iPhone and google tallywag.

  Mrs. McGregor was right. A tallywag is an Atlantic sea bass—but it is also Victorian slang for testicles! Mrs. Cumiskey! You naughty girl.

  “You were right,” I say, quickly putting my phone down. “It’s a sea bass.”

  Mrs. McGregor sips her tea and flips through yesterday’s Irish Times, while I finish perusing the cookbooks.

  In the slender, red leather bound Breakfast, Luncheon, and Tea, I find another handwritten note from Mrs. Mairead E. Cumiskey, this one a recipe for potato and Irish cheddar rolls to be served with stew to be served with neck oil (beer). I imagine a bitter winter day, the potato rolls fresh out of the oven, served on a pretty hand painted platter with pats of Irish butter.

  In the last book I find a yellowed sheet of paper stuck between the pages. It is a hastily written recipe for Barmbrack, a traditional Irish fruitcake made with dried sultanas and raisins that have been soaked overnight in spiced whiskey.

  I know Barmbrack is the first recipe I want to try. I will dry Aidan’s apples and plums in the oven and then soak them in Bushmills whiskey overnight. Tomorrow morning, I will make my first loaves of Barmbrack.

  I carry the books back to the pantry and return to review my copious notes. I can’t remember the last time I felt so motivated and creatively inspired! In just a few hours I have collected over a dozen new recipes, learned Victorian food preservation techniques, and added tallywag to my repertoire of testicular slang.

  Mrs. McGregor folds her paper and stands up.

  “I will leave you to it, then, luv,” she says, carrying our empty teacups to the sink. “I have a dental appointment in Dungloe at half-two. If ya give me that list, I’ll stop at the market on my way back and pick up everything ya need.”

  “Thank you.”

  I rip the page with my grocery list off the legal pad and hand it to her.

  “Do you need a ride? I would be happy to take you in Aunt Patricia’s Rover.”

  “Have ya driven in Ireland, then?”

  “Never.”

  “Thanks a million, luv, but I’ll take me chances with old Mrs. O’Kelly. She’s got cataracts and she’s deaf as a broomstick, but she knows how to manage these Donegal roads.”

  How old is Mrs. O’Kelly, I wonder? If Mrs. McGregor is calling the woman old, she must be positively Jurassic.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Stop fretting and start baking.”

  Mrs. McGregor grabs her handbag and sweater off the hook behind the door, gives me a cheery wave, and is about to leave when I remember something I forgot to add to my grocery list.

  “Mrs. McGregor, wait!”

  She turns around.

  “Would you please add bottles of cider to the list?”

  “How many bottles did ya need?”

  “Three or four.”

  “Did ya want Bulmers, then?”

  “No,” I say. “I would like a craft cider. I believe it is made locally. Bánánach Brew. Have you heard of it?”

  An intriguing, enigmatic Mona Lisa smile stretches across her face. “Of course I’ve heard of it.”

  “Great,” I say, smiling.

  “But ya can’t buy it at the SuperValu.”

  “Oh.”

  “Aidan left a few bottles in the fridge.” She walks back to the table, picks up a pen, and jots something down on the legal pad. “The brewery isn’t too far from the castle. I drew a map in case ya want to go there and get more cider.”

  Outside, Mrs. O’Kelly honks her horn. Mrs. McGregor waves again and hurries out the door, leaving me with one more Nancy Drew mystery to solve: the reason for her strange, secretive smile when I asked if she had heard of Bánánach Brew.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Is drinking two bottles of hard cider alone in the middle of the afternoon the sign of a drinking problem? Have I traded my comfort eating for comfort drinking?

  After Mrs. McGregor left, I diced the plums and apples for the Barmbrack and put them in the oven on a low temperature to dry. I got to thinking about desserts I could bake that would be referential to traditional Irish recipes, but original enough to make them my own, and I came up with the idea of making a Bánánach Brew inspired cookie. I opened a bottle of cider just as a reference, but the tart apple aroma seduced me, and before I knew it, I was sitting on the counter, eating a ham sandwich, and drinking straight from the bottle.

  No chilled glass.

  Not even a straw.

  Just straight from the bottle.

  In the middle of the day!

  I feel like a sinner in Sunday school.

  I am now sipping my second bottle of cider while waiting for the first batch of Bánánach Brew cookies to finish baking in the oven. The logs are still crackling and hissing in the fireplace. The air in the kitchen is perfumed with the comforting, homey scents of burning wood, cinnamon, ginger, and apples. Raindrops patter against the windows in a steady, soothing rhythm.

  When the timer goes off, I walk over to the oven, stick my hands in a pair of mitts, and open the oven door. A blast of hot, spicy air hits my face, reminding me of summers in Austin, stepping out of the culinary institute into the scorching Texas heat.

  I carry the cookie sheet to the counter, inhaling the aroma with a critical, assessing nose. Too much cinnamon, not enough apple. My Bánánach Brew cookie recipe will need to be reworked. I know this even before I break one in half and pop it in my mouth.

  The consistency is good, soft, sweet middle with crunchy, slightly salty edges, but the flavor is too weak. The cookies just don’t pack the same tart punch as the cider. These would be perfectly fine cookies to serve at a church social or an afternoon tea for the Charleston Junior Woman’s Club, but I wasn’t aiming for my, how nice mediocre. I don’t want to bake plain, mealy-mouth cookies, the sort of cookies
Melanie Hamilton would have served at Twelve Oaks. I want to bake the sort of cookies Scarlett O’Hara would have served to Rhett if he were to visit her in her bedroom, sassy, seductive cookies that leave you wanting more even though you know they are just plain bad for you.

  So, I open another bottle of cider (Why yes, that does make three and, yes, ma’am, I know I am a shameless sinner.) and begin again. With the first batch, I shredded fresh apples and used standard flour, white sugar, and apple pie spices. This time, I use fresh and dried apples, an oat and flour mixture, a dash of cinnamon and ginger, and apple sugar, which I made by pulverizing dried apple peels with sugar in a spice grinder. I tip in some cider and a splash of Longueville House Irish Apple Brandy.

  While the cookies are baking, I make more apple sugar using the dried apple peels and a combination of muscovado and demerara sugars. I sprinkle the dark apple sugar on top of the cookies a few minutes before I take them out of the oven and the result is spectacular, soft golden brown cookies with a dark, crunchy topping. Best of all, I can taste the cider in this batch. Tart apples, punchy alcohol.

  I am so excited! I want to share my Bánánach Brew Bites with Aidan. After all, he inspired my creation, with his bottles of craft cider hidden away in his rucksack. I would take him a plate of cookies if I knew where he disappeared to each day.

  I grab my iPhone and snap a picture of my failed first batch of Bánánach Brew Bites beside the second, seriously successful batch and upload the picture to my new Instagram account, @WhiskfulThinking.

  My first batch of Irish Hard Cider inspired cookies didn’t make my mouth water, so I tried again and—voila—apple cookies to drool over. Just goes to show, when it comes to baking, you shouldn’t be afraid to take whisks. #instafood #pubcrawl #foodpuns

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sin strolls into the kitchen the next morning as I am mixing whiskey-soaked fruit into Barmbrack batter. He sniffs the air and presses a hand to his flat abdomen.

  “What smells so good?” He looks around the kitchen. “Has Mrs. McGregor made more of her gingerbread?”

  I tuck an errant hair into the bun at the back of my neck and grin. “Mrs. McGregor has abandoned the laboratory. There’s a new scientist in the mix and she’s madder than Victor Frankenstein. Beware!”

  Sin laughs.

  “Mad, perhaps, but you are no Victor Frankenstein,” he says, leaning against the counter. “That is, unless old Victor was utterly charming and beautiful.”

  “Flatterer.”

  “Guilty.”

  He watches me fold more whiskey-soaked apples and raisins into the batter, his lips curved in a dangerous, flirty smile. Lawd! I feel naked. Nekked as a jay bird walking from one end of the prison to the other. I self-consciously run a hand over my apron, wishing I had dressed in something more sophisticated than boots, black leggings, and a soft denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Sin reaches over and brushes my cheek with his finger.

  “You have flour on your face.”

  “Th . . . thank you.”

  Why, why does this man make me jumpier than a nun in a sex shop? Why can’t I just relax and be myself around him? Why is he staring at my lips? Do I have something stuck in my teeth? Please, sweet baby Jesus, tell me I don’t have a raisin stuck in my teeth. So I had one little whiskey-soaked raisin . . .

  “Will you let me have a little taste?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your biscuits. I would like to try your biscuits.”

  He’s talking about my cookies, right? The cookies I just took out of the oven, not my lady bits. He’s not asking to put his tallywag near my . . . hoo-hah.

  “Of course.” I stop mixing my batter, grab a spatula, and scoop three cookies onto a small plate. “I hope you like them.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  His phone begins vibrating in his pocket and a wicked little voice in my head whispers, “Is that your phone or are you just happy to have my biscuits in your hand?” His phone vibrates again and it takes all of my self-control not to look down at his bulging, pulsating pocket.

  He pulls his phone out and looks at the screen.

  “I better get this.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “See you tonight, six thirty?”

  “Sure. Yes. Six thirty.”

  He strides out of the kitchen, the plate of cookies in one hand, his vibrating phone in the other. A second later, I hear him say, “Ohayou gozaimasu.”

  I feel a pang of disappointment—not because Sin has gone, but because I had hoped it would be Aidan strolling through the door, pressing his hand to his stomach and sniffing the air appreciatively. I didn’t see him yesterday, even though I waited up to give him some of my cookies. I heard him moving about his room early this morning, but he was gone before I got up.

  The cakey, fruity Barmbrack is cooling on the counter and I am pulling another batch of Bánánach Brew Bites out of the oven when someone knocks on the back door. I slide the cookies off the baking sheet and onto a wire rack on the counter to cool, before answering the door.

  I expect a deliveryman or a curious tourist to be standing on the step, but it’s a beautiful, leggy blonde with a long fishtail braid hanging over her slender, sweater-clad shoulder. She has sparkling blue eyes the same shade and shape as . .

  “Catriona Gallagher!”

  “Tara Maxwell, as I live and breathe,” she says, in a lilting Irish accent. “Will ya be givin’ me a hug, then, or are ya too important for the Gallaghers now that you’re Lady Tásúildun?”

  “We don’t do hugs, but we will permit a single, chaste kiss pressed to the back of the royal appendage,” I laugh, holding out my flour-dusted hand.

  “La-dee-da! I’ll tell ya what to do with that bloody appendage, Tara Maxwell.”

  We fall into each other’s arms, giggling and squealing like two schoolgirls, the time and distance that separated us for the last ten years instantly vanishing.

  In the kitchen, we sit at the table beside the fire, a fresh pot of tea and plate of cookies between us, filling each other in on the important details of our lives, peppering each other with questions.

  Catriona, I learn, handles public relations and events planning for a luxurious castle hotel and spa down the coast. She lives in a cottage just outside the village with her boyfriend—despite her Catholic granny’s frequent, embarrassing protests—and has no plans to get married.

  “What about ya? Do ya have a fella pining away for ya back in the States?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think of our Aidan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ya know what I mean, ya divvy cow.” She takes a cookie from the plate. “Do ya still fancy me brother or not?”

  I think about Aidan, bare-chested and covered in tats, muscles bulging as he exercises, and my cheeks flush with heat.

  Catriona laughs. “Ya do!”

  “I don’t fancy Aidan.”

  “Ya don’t? Me bollocks!” She takes a bite of her cookie. “Ya fancy our Aidan, ya do. I’d wager he still fancies ya something chronic, too.”

  “Go on with ya, Catriona Gallagher,” I say, waving my hands in a spot-on imitation of Mrs. McGregor. “Himself hardly knows I exist.”

  “Hardly.” She rolls her eyes. “He hardly knows you exist.” She finishes her cookie and takes another off the plate, breaking it in half and dipping it into her tea. “Did ya be making these biscuits, Tara?”

  “Yes,” I say, smiling. “Do you like them?”

  “Like them? I fecking love them.” She finishes the other half of her cookie and wipes her mouth with her napkin. “Are they an American recipe? What do ya call them?”

  “They’re my creation. I call them Bánánach Brew Bites.”

  Catriona covers her mouth with her napkin and looks at me through wide, unblinking eyes.

  “Bánánach Brew Bites?”

  “Yes,” I say, confused by her strange reaction. “Bánánach Brew, after the locally made craft
cider. Have you heard of it?”

  “I have.” She lowers her napkin, revealing a toothy grin. “It’s not very well known, that cider. How did ya come to hear about it?”

  “Aidan gave me a bottle the other day.”

  “Our Aidan gave ya a bottle of Bánánach Brew? Did he now?”

  She chuckles.

  I feel like I missed the punchline of a joke.

  I tell Catriona about running into her brother when I was hiking in the hills, the sudden rainstorm, the abandoned cottage, and his rucksack filled with apples and cider.

  “Did our Aidan tell ya how he came to have the cider?”

  “No.”

  She presses her lips together as if she is trying not to laugh. “Did ya use the cider in the biscuit dough?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is gas!” She laughs and claps her hands. “Does our Aidan know about the biscuits?”

  “No,” I say. “He got home late last night and was gone before I got up this morning. I wanted to take him a tin, but I don’t know where he works.”

  “Grand idea, that one. Take yer man some of these biscuits.” She drops her folded napkin on top of her empty plate and stands. “Let’s go.”

  “You’ll drive me?”

  “I will indeed, Tara Maxwell. In fact, there’s nothing I would rather do.”

  I find two tins in the pantry and fill them with the freshly baked cider cookies, untie my apron, grab my jacket off the hook behind the door, and follow Catriona down the gravel drive to where her car is parked. We climb inside. Catriona turns the key in the ignition and we are off, flying down the drive in a spray of gravel.

  “Where does Aidan work?”

  “It’s not too far from here.” She turns left out of the drive onto the road leading north. “I saw Rhys Burroughes in the village a few days ago. I hardly recognized him. I can’t believe the little boss-eyed fella with the thick Harry Potter glasses and wheezy breath has grown up to be . . . If I wasn’t in love with Cillian I could have a glad eye on Rhys.”

  “He’s certainly changed.”

  “Do ya fancy him, then?” She looks over at me. “More than our Aidan?”