The City Baker's Guide to Country Living

by Louise Miller

  “Well,” Margaret said. “This is the sugarhouse. My husband, Brian, winterized it years ago. Needed a place to do his carving.” She banged her arm against the green front door and it flew open. A plume of sawdust sprang up at our entrance. In the center of the room stood a wood-burning stove, with a long metal pan attached, held up by stacks of bricks. An enamel sink hugged the corner next to a large wooden workbench, and there was a tiny oven in that ocher color no one had used since the 1960s. It was bigger than any apartment I had ever lived in, with plenty of space for a futon and lots of bookshelves. I wondered which window faced east. I stepped around the stove to the back of the cabin while Margaret stood in the open door. A claw-foot bathtub, a little rusty around the drain, sat behind the wood-burning stove. I imagined soaking in the tub, the woodstove blazing, looking out the back windows and into the sugar bush.

  “He said he needed a place to think,” Margaret said. She rubbed her hands together against the cold. “Didn’t like to be at the inn during the busy season.” It was obvious no one had used the cabin for a long time, and I wondered how long it had been since Margaret’s husband had passed away. I was about to ask but, seeing the tight ridge of her shoulders, thought better of it. “You’d have to clean it out yourself,” she said finally, turning to leave. “And you’d have to stay someplace else when the sap’s running. I’m intending to sugar this spring.” Margaret paused in the doorway, her back to me. “It’s a year commitment.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said, my voice urgent, surprising both of us.

  “Yes, well. Let’s see how the pie turned out first.”

  I followed Margaret out of the dusty cabin and closed the green door to what I had already begun to think of as home.

  Chapter Two

  October

  Muffins, coffee cakes, and scones should be ready for the guests by 8 a.m. We need ten loaves of bread for the dining room, your choice, but half should be white and the other whole grain. And make four desserts, at least one chocolate. We have reservations for twenty people so far. First one is at 5 p.m.—M

  I wiped a stray curl out of my eyes with my forearm, careful not to touch my face with my flour-caked hand. My first day at the Sugar Maple and I was already in the weeds. On top of its not looking like a professional kitchen, it wasn’t behaving like one either. My morning had been like an endless bad first date. Sure, that oven looked handsome in its dark black cast iron, but as I dug around I found the inside gritty with burned breadcrumbs and discovered the hard way that it liked to turn itself off from time to time. That burner that looked so calm and steady reared its ugly temper when I turned my back—flames doubling in size and turning an innocently simmering raspberry sauce into a sticky, blackened mass in a matter of seconds. And there I was, on my second batch of blueberry muffins of the morning, the first ones crusty on the outside, raw and oozing on the inside, feeling like it was my first day of cooking school. I popped the pans into the oven, turned the temperature down another twenty-five degrees, and hoped for the best.

  It had taken Margaret three days to call and offer me the position. I imagined it took one day to contemplate the pie and to have her friends and neighbors taste it; one day to contemplate me; and one, I suspected, just to be stubborn. I had stayed on at Hannah’s despite her husband Jonathan’s return from his conference. He was a family doctor but lent his expertise to drug companies, which paid him thousands of dollars to give a talk about some drug he had never tried. For Hannah’s sake, I tried to keep the words conflict of interest and evil power of the pharmaceutical industry from tumbling out of my mouth, but it wasn’t easy. Just when I had decided I was better off returning to Boston, Glen had called to tell me not to rush back, since the club would be closed for a few weeks while they replaced the carpet and repainted, and that “we should talk” when I got back into town.

  That’s when I got Margaret’s call. She informed me that the pie had been “fine” and that if I was interested, I could start my trial run after I had given proper notice to my current employer. Not wanting to explain that my current place of employment was closed for business due to my having set it on fire, I agreed that two weeks from Monday would be doable. I made one trip back down to Boston to pack up the few personal belongings I kept in my little furnished apartment. Then I slipped the keys into my landlord’s mailbox so he would know that I wasn’t coming back.

  • • •

  I stood by the sink, running the tap marked “hot” over the tender underside of my wrist, waiting for the temperature to rise. Out the window two fawns gently nibbled crab apples in the fog. Fawns! At the Emerson the view from my window had been of another building, where a lawyer spent most of his day leaning out the window so he could smoke without leaving his office. When the water was warm enough for a baby to bathe in, I measured out a quart and poured it into a large earthenware bowl. The fresh yeast dissolved as I stirred it in with my fingers. I added flour, one cup at a time, until the mixture turned from liquid to solid, from shapeless batter into something I could grasp, hold onto, push and mold into form. I had just scraped the last bit of dough out of the bowl and onto the cool enameled surface of my workbench when a clean-cut man walked into the kitchen, two stacked milk crates in his gray-work-gloved hands.

  “Morning,” he said as he walked by me and into the walk-in. “You must be the new girl,” he said, pulling off his gloves and removing his baseball cap to reveal dark brown hair cut like a fifties TV show dad’s. “I’m Tom.” He offered me his hand. I smiled and stuck out mine. We both looked at my hand, thick and sticky with dough. It looked like I was wearing a mitten.

  “Yes. Olivia Rawlings.” I began to rub my hands together, trying to find skin. “But please, call me Livvy.”

  Tom toyed with the zipper of his woolen red and black plaid jacket and looked around the kitchen. “Milk, heavy cream, and buttermilk.”

  “That’s great, thank you.” I stood, waiting. “Do you have anything you need me to sign?”

  “Nope.” Tom looked around the kitchen. “She usually leaves a check.”

  “Oh.” The timer on the stove buzzed like an angry wasp. “She didn’t mention anything about it.” Flipping the switch, I made a quick study of the kitchen. No bulletin board, no clipboard near the telephone. Not even a scrap of paper. The scent of browning butter began to fill my nostrils. I pulled on quilted elbow-length oven mitts and opened the oven door, saying a silent prayer to Saint Honoré. The muffins looked cooked. I stuck a wooden skewer into one in the center of the pan. It came out clean. “Thank you,” I sighed.

  “For what?” Tom looked confused.

  “Oh. For being so patient.” I had almost forgotten he was there. “So,” I said, not sure what to do next. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry. “Would you like a cup of coffee while I look for it?” I asked, waving my hand in display model fashion. “I have fresh muffins.”

  Tom pulled up a stool. “I take it black.”

  Town or country, coffee and something sweet could usually smooth out any problem with a deliveryman. I poured coffee into a mug, placed a blueberry muffin on a plate, and set them in front of him. As he ate, I opened drawers and cabinets and looked in the pie safe, over by the coffee pot near the door to the dining room. Like I said, first date.

  “I’m so sorry. Margaret must have forgotten. I’ll have her give you a call when she gets in.”

  Tom took another sip of his coffee.

  Why wouldn’t he leave? I took the ball of bread dough back into my hands and began to knead feverishly, pushing the dough away, then folding it back. “So,” I said, trying to look both professional and busy. “Dairy farmer?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  I peeked up at him. He was picking the bits of muffin stuck to the paper liner. I nodded toward the tray. “Help yourself.”

  He studied the pan for a long moment before choosing the muffin with the most blueberries. “That’s some ou
tfit you’re wearing.”

  I was dressed in my usual work attire—white, boxy chef’s coat, black and gray pinstriped pants, black clogs. I looked up to give him my best raised eyebrow. “It’s just a chef’s coat.” I don’t know why I felt the need to explain this to him.

  “From Boston, I hear.”

  “That’s right,” I said, working the dough into a soft, round ball and placing it gently in a buttered bowl.

  “All the chefs in Boston have purple hair?”

  “Only the best ones.”

  Tom grunted. “Seems like a long way to come for a little job like this one.”

  “It’s not that far, really,” I said, running a tea towel under the faucet to dampen it and draping it over the bowl. “And besides, it’s not like I’m commuting.”

  Tom stood. I thought he was leaving, but he plodded across the kitchen to refill his coffee cup.

  “Plan on staying long?” he asked as he settled himself back onto the stool. I had to stop myself from asking him the same question.

  “That will be up to Margaret, I suppose.”

  Tom popped the bottom of the muffin into his mouth.

  “It true you’re the reason Jeff Rutland over in Lyndonville left his wife?”

  My hand knocked over a measuring cup of water, causing a small wave. Streams of water ran toward the edge of the table, mixing with the flour, creating a pasty mess. “I’m sorry?”

  “I heard you and Jeff Rutland were a thing.”

  “Well, I did stop in Lyndonville for gas. Was he the tall one? With the beard? Or the stout one who wears a trucker hat?”

  Tom coughed out a couple of muffin crumbs.

  I squatted down to mop the floor. “Of course, there was also that man at the feed store, where I stopped by, you know, to browse.”

  Tom crossed his arms across his belly, like he had just finished a large meal. “That’s where he works. He owns the feed store, in fact. A good catch if he weren’t . . .”

  I leaned my forehead against the leg of the table and studied the Nancy Drew under the foot. The Message in the Hollow Oak. “Okay,” I said, standing, “for one thing, I’ve been here officially for how long? Maybe thirty-six hours, tops. How on earth would I have time to have a . . . thing with Jeff Rutland? And who did you hear this from, anyway?”

  Tom shrugged. “Around. At White’s?” The White Market was the only supermarket for thirty miles.

  At least now I knew where to get the local gossip. It’s always good to stay informed. “I’m afraid the mystery behind the break-up of Jeff Rutland’s marriage remains a mystery. It wasn’t me. I’m not sleeping with anyone’s husband, by the way.” At least not anymore, I thought to myself. “Do me a huge favor and go tell that to the cashier girl at White’s. And the butcher. And all the stock boys. Whoever you think will make the news travel fastest.”

  Sarah, the young waitress I had met on the day of my interview, came into the kitchen.

  “Hey, I was hoping it was you,” she said warmly as she pulled off a red down jacket. “Margaret interviewed a few others, but I knew she liked you best. Hey, Tom,” she added.

  “How could you tell? Did she scowl at the others longer?”

  Tom stood and zipped his jacket, his mission apparently completed for the day. “See you girls soon,” he said, tipping his baseball hat as he walked toward the front.

  “No, she pretty much scowls at everyone the same amount.” Sarah gathered her long blond hair and pulled it back into a high, tight ponytail. “It was funny. That afternoon you were here, after she and Dotty had tasted your pie and she’d driven Dotty back to her house, I found her alone in the kitchen eating another piece. She never does that.”

  “Eats seconds?”

  “Eats desserts. She can’t stand them.” Sarah buttoned up her black vest and pinned a bright orange shellacked maple leaf the size of my fist onto her lapel. “So I knew you must have gotten the job.”

  • • •

  While the bread dough rose I worked on my desserts for the dinner guests: a flourless chocolate torte that was more confection than cake; grape-nut custard with vanilla bean and freshly grated nutmeg; lemon mousse made with lemon curd lightened by billowy piles of whipped egg whites and cream, topped with crème chantilly and a candied ginger lace cookie; and, of course, an apple pie. I wanted to see if I could catch Margaret in the act.

  The kitchen was eerily quiet. Sarah explained that since the inn served only a continental breakfast and no lunch, the dinner crew didn’t trickle in till three p.m., an hour after I was scheduled to leave. I hadn’t realized how much I liked the chaotic bustle of a busy kitchen until I spent hours with no one to talk to at the Sugar Maple. Margaret surprised me by not showing up until I was scrubbing dried chocolate off the enamel tabletop and waiting for my last loaves of bread to come out of the oven. I had had nightmarish visions of her sitting in that rocking chair every day, watching me work—like the play No Exit, but with cookie dough—but even that would have been better than spending the day alone. With a sharp nod of her head she walked past me and into the little office, closing the door behind her. I wrote out the evening’s dessert menu on a guest check pad, then yanked at the strings of my apron.

  “So, was everything to your liking?”

  I jumped. Margaret had suddenly appeared before me, arms folded in front of her chest.

  “Yes, of course. Kitchens are all basically the same,” I said, eyeing the books holding up my table. “Still getting used to the ovens and stuff, but breakfast went out on time. Here’s what I made for dessert.” I slid the list across the enamel. Margaret scanned the paper, then tucked the pad into a pocket of her cardigan. It was dark gray this time, with pearl buttons. I swear, she must have robbed a Talbots. “The dairy deliveryman came by with a shipment and was looking for his check, but I couldn’t find one.”

  “Tom Carrigan knows very well I pay him at the end of the month. Check, indeed.” Margaret frowned and began to wipe at a bit of flour that I had missed on the table. “You didn’t give him anything to eat, did you?”

  I folded my apron and placed it on the table. “Just a muffin.”

  “That man’s going to go blind from diabetes.” She shook her head. “Sniffing around like a stray dog looking for scraps.”

  “Well,” I said, pulling the elastic out of my hair, “I made some sketches of how I’d like the desserts to be plated.”

  “I think Alfred can manage on his own.”

  I had yet to meet the elusive Chef Alfred, who had somehow escaped being a part of the hiring process.

  “But he won’t know where to put the sauces,” I said, trying to sound calm. I was used to having complete creative control. Hell, I was used to working every night and plating the desserts myself.

  “I’m assuming the sauces go on the dessert?”

  “Yes.” This is Vermont, I reminded myself. No one from the Times is going to show up tonight with a photographer. “If you don’t need me for anything else?”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “Great.” I grabbed my purse, a beaten-up old canvas bag left over from my bike courier days, and headed out the kitchen door.

  “Miss Rawlings?” Margaret called. “Speaking of stray dogs, could you please remove yours from my sitting room?”

  I stopped and turned around, a weak grin on my face. “Salty? In the sitting room?”

  “On my best love seat.”

  I opened my mouth to apologize, but by the time I could take a breath she had turned on her heel and disappeared back into the office.

  I swung open the door into the dining room and hurried to the front of the house. Sure enough, I found Salty stretched out on the floral love seat closest to the fireplace. He thumped his tail loudly at the sight of me, his long, spotted tongue hanging casually out the side of his mouth in the warmth of the fire.
<
br />   “Come on, Salt,” I called, tapping the side of my thigh. He took a long stretch like Superman flying, gracefully slid his long body onto the ground, and loped ahead of me, his claws tapping on the wood floor.

  • • •

  I walked into the apple orchard. The ground was thick with fallen fruit, bright red and gleaming against the green grass, and the air was heavy with the heady scent of rotting apples. My clogs slipped on the pulpy ground, and I made a mental note to buy sturdier shoes to walk to work in. It was funny to think of the walk through the apple orchard as my commute. In Boston, my walk to the Emerson had included a jaunt through both the Public Garden and the Common. Despite the lush beauty of the willow trees, there was no mistaking the parks for the country. Even at dawn there were always people there—junkies asleep on benches; tiny, elderly Chinese women practicing tai chi by the ponds and gathering ginkgo seeds; and the club kids, with their jet-black hair and ripped tights, still drunk and giggling, stumbling and smoking as they headed to catch the first train back to their apartments for a little sleep before school.

  Salty and I stopped at the cabin just long enough for me to trade my chef’s coat and clogs for a purple fleece jacket and a pair of Converse low-tops before heading out. The maple grove beyond the sugarhouse was burning with color. An old carriage road curved through the trees, the path trimmed with glowing golden ferns, their long bodies stretched back and bent. Salty ran with abandon, stopping short to catch a scent on a tree stump, pricking up his ears and running off again while squirrels squawked their panicked warnings to one another from the branches above. Occasionally the wind would rustle through the branches, sending red leaves to fall gently at my feet. I walked until the maples thinned and blended with oaks and pines.

  I had been walking uphill for some time when I came to a clearing. A rolling field stretched before me, with recently shorn hay, spiraled like jelly rolls, dotting the landscape. Halfway down the field there was a small shed with a tin roof and in the distance a white farmhouse dwarfed by a red barn, complete with a big vegetable garden and acres of apple trees and evergreens. It looked like the plastic Fisher-Price farm my dad had given me one Christmas. I wondered if a cow would moo when I walked into the barn.