by Marta Perry
Snickerdoodles
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar, for rolling
2 teaspoons cinnamon, for rolling
Cream together butter or margarine and sugar. Add egg and beat until fluffy. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt. Blend into creamed mixture to make a stiff dough.
Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Shape the dough into balls the size of walnuts. Roll cookie balls in the cinnamon sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet and flatten with a fork. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until very lightly browned. Remove to cooling rack, cool, and enjoy! Makes about 3 dozen small cookies.
Vegetable Beef Soup
1½ pounds chuck roast with bone
2 large onions, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
4 tablespoons salt
¼ cup barley
2 large carrots, diced
½ head of cabbage, chopped
1 cup potatoes, diced
1 turnip, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
2 boxes frozen mixed vegetables
2 (32-ounce) cans whole or chopped tomatoes, undrained
Place meat, bone, onion, celery, and salt in large pot with two quarts water and boil for 4 hours. Remove the fat and bone. Add barley and cook for 1 hour longer. Add carrots and simmer for 30 minutes. Add cabbage, potatoes, turnip, and parsnip, and simmer another 30 minutes. Add frozen mixed vegetables and tomatoes and continue to simmer for 3 hours. Cool and skim off fat. Add more water as desired to thin the soup. Extra soup can be frozen or canned to preserve it. Makes about 6 quarts.
Dear Reader,
I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting the people of Pleasant Valley. Sarah’s Gift is the fourth book in my Pleasant Valley series, and I’ve loved the chance to revisit and see what’s been happening to the characters I’ve created. Although the place doesn’t actually exist, it seems very real to me, as it is based on the Amish settlements here in my area of central Pennsylvania.
Sarah Mast is, I hope, a tribute to all those who have suffered for their determination to give women the sort of birthing experience they want, and her aunt is modeled after the strong women of my own family, especially my dear grandmother Mattie Dovenberger.
I would love to hear your thoughts about my book. If you’d care to write to me, I’d be happy to reply with a signed bookmark or bookplate and my brochure of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. You can find me on the Web at www.martaperry.com, e-mail me at marta@martaperry .com, or write to me in care of Berkley Publicity Department, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Blessings,
Marta Perry
An Excerpt from
KATIE’S WAY
Pleasant Valley
BOOK FIVE
by Marta Perry
Coming in November 2011 from Berkley Books
Fast-paced chatter in Pennsylvania Dutch, followed by a ripple of women’s laughter, floated through the archway from what used to be a hardware store. Caleb Brand forced himself to focus on the rocking chair he was waxing, trying to ignore the commotion.
He didn’t like change. This building, with its two connected shops, had been a male enclave for years. Now all that was different, because Bishop Mose had decided to rent the other side to Katie Miller for a quilt shop.
Caleb gritted his teeth and rubbed a little harder, trying to concentrate on the grain of the hickory. Rocking chairs were among his best sellers, and this one had turned out to his satisfaction. He’d never let anything leave his shop that he wouldn’t be happy to have in his own home.
Another peal of female laughter. How many women were over there anyway, helping to set up for the opening tomorrow? It sounded like half the sisters in the church district.
There was no reason why Katie Miller, newly komm to Pleasant Valley from Columbia County, shouldn’t open a quilt shop. He wished her well. Just not next door to him.
The bell on his own front door jingled, and he looked up. Bishop Mose, his white beard fluttering in the mild May breeze that swept down the main street of the village, ducked into the shop.
“Bishop Mose.” Caleb half rose, showing the man where he was behind the counter at the rear of the showroom.
“Ach, Caleb, I thought you’d be tucked away in your workshop at this hour.” The bishop, his years seeming to sit lightly on him, wound his way through the handmade wooden furniture that filled the room.
“Nobody’s here to help out today, so I have to mind the shop.” Caleb replaced the lid on the furniture wax, tapping it down tight. “Can I do something for you today?”
“Ach, no.” The bishop’s blue eyes, wise with a lifetime of service to the Amish of Pleasant Valley, crinkled a little. “Chust thought I should see for myself how you’re dealing with your new neighbor.”
Caleb glanced down at the rocker to avoid meeting the bishop’s gaze. “Fine. Everything’s fine, I think.”
Maybe he didn’t understand why Bishop Mose had seen fit to install a quilt shop next to him, but he wouldn’t complain. He’d never forget that when it seemed every person in the valley had turned against him, Bishop Mose had accepted his word.
It was eight years since then, and Caleb supposed folks still talked. But thanks to Bishop Mose, he had his place here.
In the brief silence between them, the sound of women’s voices came through clearly, talking about how best to display some quilts, it seemed.
“That’s gut,” Bishop Mose said. “I thought maybe it would be a bother to you, having a quilt shop next door instead of a hardware store.”
Caleb caressed a curved spindle of the rocker absently, the wood warm and smooth under his hand. Could he drop a hint in the bishop’s ear?
“Well, I did think a hardware store was a better fit with my shop.” He said the words as cautiously as if he were walking on eggs. “We shared more of the same customers, ain’t so?”
“You don’t think the folks who buy Katie’s quilts will be interested in your fine rocking chairs and chests?” Bishop Mose lifted white eyebrows.
Another burst of laughter scraped at Caleb’s nerves. “No. I don’t think a bunch of quilting women are likely to want what—”
He stopped, a little too late, he supposed. Katie Miller stood in the archway, and he didn’t doubt she’d heard him.
He cleared his throat, trying to think what to say, but she beat him to it.
“Ach, Bishop Mose, I thought I heard your voice.” The warm smile she directed toward the bishop probably didn’t include Caleb. “Would you like to see what we’ve done with the shop?”
“We would like nothing better.” He reached across the counter to clap Caleb’s shoulder. “Komm, Caleb. We’ll have a look at your new neighbor, ain’t so?”
Caleb hesitated, glancing at Katie. Her blue eyes were guarded, it seemed to him, and her strong jaw set. Katie Miller looked like a determined woman, one bent on doing things her way.
Which was maybe how she’d reached her midtwenties without marrying, unusual for an Amish woman. And at the moment, her way most likely didn’t include showing him her shop.
But in the next instant, her expression had melted into a smile. She smoothed back a strand of light brown hair under the white kapp on the back of her head and nodded. “Komm. I’d like fine to show you how the shop looks now.”
With the bishop’s hand on his shoulder, Caleb couldn’t very well pull away. He walked through the archway, feeling as if he were moving into a foreign land.
It looked that way, too. Harvey Schmidt’s barrels of nails and spools of wire were long gone, of course. The shop had been stripped down to the bare s
helves during Harvey’s closing sale. But now—
The walls and shelves had been painted white, as had the counters. Against the white, every color possible glowed in bolts of fabric and spools of thread. It looked like a huge flower bed in full bloom.
And that was saying nothing of the quilts. Several quilts were draped on a four-poster maple bed that had been placed in the center of the space. Another quilt, in shades of blue and yellow and white, sagged between Molly, Katie’s cousin—and the reason Katie had come to the valley in the first place—and Sarah Mast, Pleasant Valley’s midwife. Both were up on chairs, obviously trying to hang the quilt from a rod that Harvey had used to support coils of rope.
“That looks like a dangerous thing to be doing.” Bishop Mose was quick to steady the chair on which Molly teetered. “Especially for a new mammi.”
Dimples appeared in Molly’s cheeks. “Ach, you sound just like my Jacob. Anyone would think I was made of glass, to hear him. After all, our little boy is nearly three months old now.”
“Ja, well, komm down anyway,” Katie said, and went quickly to grasp the quilt from them. “This I’ll put on top of the quilts on the bed, so that I can turn each one back when someone wants to see them. I have some quilted table runners that can hang from the rod instead.”
Molly and Sarah climbed down, looking a little relieved, Caleb thought.
“We’ll take care of it. You have guests to show around,” Sarah said.
Katie surrendered the quilt to Sarah and spread her arms wide in a gesture that took in the whole of the small shop. “Here it is, as you can see.” Another smile blossomed on her face, touching her eyes and bringing a glow to her cheeks.
Happiness. Hope. They radiated from Katie like heat from a stove. Caleb couldn’t help but be touched.
But that didn’t change anything, he reminded himself. Having the woman’s business right next door was going to be a nuisance, at the very least.
And if she’d heard what folks said about him, he could only wonder why she’d want to be here at all.
Other Pleasant Valley novels by Marta Perry
LEAH’S CHOICE
RACHEL’S GARDEN
ANNA’S RETURN