Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries)

by Lee Hollis

  “Guess whose husband came home from a trip out of town early to find his wife in bed with a local contractor who was putting a new roof on their house?”

  Hayley feigned interest, but her mind was elsewhere. This was torture. She should just march into Sal’s office and remove herself immediately from this potentially humiliating situation.

  Liddy would’ve prattled on for at least an hour if Hayley didn’t stop her. “Liddy, I really need to hang up. Sal wants this column by three. We’re going to press.”

  “Our little Hayley has her first deadline. That’s so adorable,” Liddy cooed.

  “I need it by noon!” Sal bellowed from the back office, clearly eavesdropping on her conversation.

  Hayley dropped the phone and could faintly hear Liddy still chattering away. “Noon? You said three.”

  “I’m going fishing with Bruce on Long Pond and want to leave early today, so you better come up with something. And fast,” Sal yelled.

  Hayley pictured him in the other room, smiling, enjoying the fact that he was adding pressure to her already frayed nerves. She knew exactly what he was doing. Sal was old school. Pounding out a story in two minutes and racing it over to the printing press. He always did his best work while under the gun. Deadline looming. He loved the chaos of big-city newspaper reporting. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize when he moved back to Bar Harbor to start his own paper that things never moved quite so quickly on the quiet coast of Maine. And this kind of tactic was not going to work on Hayley. Or was it?

  Suddenly, after what seemed like an eternity, Hayley just started typing. She had to write something. And whatever came to mind was certainly better than a blank page. So she wrote. And kept writing. And before she knew it, she was writing the recipe. And then she was done.

  Hayley read it over for typos and then e-mailed it to Sal. She could have made a big production of printing it out and delivering it in person, but she was too scared about his reaction. What if he hated it? She would just have to stand there as he read it, and then get screamed at for doing such a lousy job. But what if he actually liked it? What if her fears were dead wrong? She thought the column was kind of cute. Maybe he would find it charming. As it turned out, her first instinct was right.

  “What the hell is this?” Sal hollered as he came bounding out of his office. Sal was a big guy, so the fact that he actually stood up from his desk and walked all the way out to the front office to yell at her meant he really, really hated it.

  “I can’t print this!”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s all about your personal life. Where the hell are the recipes?”

  “I include them at the end.”

  “This isn’t supposed to be about you. Or your dog. You spend half the column talking about your dog, Leroy! This is a cooking column. For people who want to cook. Not read some precious diary entry.”

  That’s when Sal’s fishing date, Bruce Linney, blew through the door.

  Oh, great. Bruce. Just what Hayley needed.

  Bruce was the crime reporter for the paper. Which meant he was only a part-time employee, because there wasn’t that much crime in Bar Harbor to cover. A lot of women in town found Bruce to be a stud. Especially when he would put on a Speedo to go biking around Eagle Lake shirtless. Women, including Liddy, would actually hike the six miles around the lake just to catch a glimpse of him zooming by on his mountain bike. He was muscular, with close-cropped brown hair, always with some stubble on his face, and a pair of puppy dog brown eyes that made a girl’s heart melt.

  Hayley didn’t get the appeal. I mean, sure he was good-looking, she thought, but then he would open his mouth. It was like getting hit in the face with a bucket of cold water. And he loved the sound of his own voice.

  Bruce believed he had the most important job at the paper, which Hayley found annoying. But mostly, she couldn’t stand the fact that the two of them had dated briefly in high school when he and Hayley had been paired as lab partners in biology. Hayley was terrible in science and when the class was surprised with a pop quiz, she didn’t know one answer, so she winged it and wrote down whatever came to mind. The teacher told them to exchange papers with their partners so they could each grade the other’s paper. When she got hers back, she had an A. Bruce had changed all her answers to the right ones so she wouldn’t fail.

  Okay, not the most noble reason to fall in love, but fall she did. Hard. For about a week. Until she discovered he was dating three other girls, one in algebra, one in typing, one in drivers’ ed. And all of them scoring A’s on their pop quizzes.

  Despite the death of their torrid affair (Hayley at least let him get to second base), there had been some lingering sexual tension between them ever since. Hayley insisted it was just indigestion. There was no way she could ever have feelings for Bruce Linney. Ever.

  “Ready to go, Sal?” Bruce said, eyeing Hayley with a smile. “Looking good, babe.”

  Hayley was too busy trying not to burst into tears over Sal’s horrible reaction to her column to acknowledge the compliment.

  “I can’t go,” Sal said, sighing. “Hayley royally screwed up her first column and now I have to walk her through the basics of journalism.”

  Bruce shook his head. “Why do you need a cooking column anyway? It just takes up space. You should’ve canceled it the second old lady what’s-her-name announced her retirement.”

  “People like Hattie’s column, Bruce,” Hayley said, her cheeks burning with anger. “I get calls all the time from her fans.”

  “Blue-haired ladies with nothing better to do,” Bruce sneered. “Has nothing to do with what’s really going on in the world.”

  “Maybe people want to be entertained sometimes instead of getting hammered constantly by bad news,” Hayley said.

  Bruce ignored her. “You should be focused more on hard news, Sal. Forget the fluff.”

  “Hard news?” Hayley laughed. “Your last two hard news scoops were a stolen moped and a sting to arrest Mrs. Sheldon on Hancock Street for refusing to curb her Labradoodle.”

  “A two hundred dollar fine is nothing to sneeze at, Hayley,” Bruce said proudly. “She won’t be messing up my lawn again.”

  “You know the only reason Bruce is pushing for more crime reporting is so you’ll make him a full-time employee and he can finally get health benefits,” Hayley said.

  “Don’t listen to her, Sal,” Bruce said. “One of these days something big is going to happen in this town, and you won’t have me around to cover it. Now, are we going fishing or what?”

  Sal furrowed his brow, debating with himself.

  “Come on,” Bruce said. “Just print what she wrote. It’s one column. If you get a complaint, then it will be cause to celebrate. That means one person read it.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Sal said. “It’s not like one bad column will stink up the whole paper.”

  “In case you two have forgotten,” Hayley said, glaring at the two of them, “I’m sitting right here.”

  “Okay, Hayley, you win,” Sal said, putting on his Red Sox baseball cap and grabbing a fishing pole from the hall closet. “We’ll run it as written, but I want it buried in the back of the issue. And from now on you write recipes. And only recipes. Plain and simple. Got that?”

  “Yes, fine,” Hayley said, feeling like a complete and utter failure.

  Despite her fantasies of becoming the Maureen Dowd of Down East Maine, it was becoming painfully clear that Hayley’s career as a newspaper columnist was going to be astonishingly short-lived.

  Island Food & Spirits

  by Hayley Powell

  First of all, for those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, I would like to announce that our own Food & Wine columnist, Ms. Hattie Jenkins, is retiring after many wonderful years of writing mouthwatering recipes for all us lucky island residents. Good luck, Hattie! It will be truly hard following in your footsteps, but I will try my best!

  So last night after I got home fro
m work, I was in my kitchen trying to unwind, which I’d like to add here is not always the case when my Shih Tzu Leroy is barking at every passing dog out the open window and I’m yelling at him, “This is why you don’t have any friends!” I honestly think I’ve seen some of the dog owners roll their eyes as they walk past our house.

  Anyway, now I’ve got to come up with another idea for dinner. And it’s not easy when you have kids with completely different tastes in food—one won’t eat anything but pasta and the other has a more sophisticated palate. And she’s the one who will be coming home within the hour from soccer practice demanding a time check on when her dinner will be ready because she is absolutely starving! It’s a lot of pressure for one single working mother to take.

  So to relax and regroup, I made myself a great Lemon Drop Martini, which I tried for the first time with my friends the other day after work at the Drinks Like A Fish bar right here in town, and let me tell you, I ran right out and bought a martini shaker and glasses because this is my new favorite beverage. I’ll share the recipe with you later on.

  Anyway, as I was still trying to come up with a dinner idea for my two hungry teens and enjoying my second martini (and let me say once again these are really wonderful drinks!), I happened to hear on my police scanner that four visitors from “out of state” were in distress and very sick at the Jordan Pond House, our lovely tea and popover restaurant in the heart of Acadia National Park. They had made their way there after coming out of the woods where they had been picking and eating wild mushrooms. Who on earth from “away” would actually come here and try to eat wild mushrooms unless they knew something about them?

  I must admit I should have felt sorry for them, but it gave me a good chuckle for the night as I sipped on my Lemon Drop. Oh, and in case you were wondering, all of them survived, but won’t be straying too far from their RV toilet anytime soon.

  It struck me that for my first recipe this week, I have a great crab stuffed mushroom appetizer recipe to share with you! The perfect starter for any New England dinner party. And many thanks to the four people from away for helping me come up with this idea for my first recipe column! So enjoy your Lemon Drop Martini with this tasty appetizer. And remember, don’t go looking for your mushrooms out in the woods. It’s easier and safer to just pick some up at our local supermarket.

  Lemon Drop Martini

  Three parts vodka to one part simple syrup (equal amounts of sugar and water dissolved together by simmering briefly) and one part lemon juice; fresh is best but not necessary. Simmer lemon rind in with the simple syrup, or use ginger or whatever to add flavor. So if you use 1 cup of vodka, you would add cup of lemon juice and cup simple syrup (I always go a bit lighter on the simple syrup because I like a tart flavor).

  Maine Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

  8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

  1 small onion, minced

  1 clove garlic, minced

  2 pounds large mushrooms, stems removed and chopped (buy them from your local store)

  ¼ cup dry sherry

  ½ stack Ritz crackers, crushed

  1 Tablespoon minced parsley

  ½ pound fresh Maine crabmeat

  Freshly ground pepper and salt to taste

  Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

  Heat oven to 350.

  Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and chopped mushroom stems. Sauté until the onions are transparent. Add the sherry and cook for 2 minutes more. Remove from the heat and add the cracker crumbs and parsley. Fold in the crabmeat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mound the crabmeat mixture onto each mushroom cap and top with a bit of Parmesan cheese. Bake until the cheese turns golden and the mushrooms are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.

  Chapter 5

  Sal Moretti was never one to admit he was wrong. He would probably rather have a wisdom tooth extracted. Twice. But when the paper hit the stands and appeared online with Hayley’s first column, the avalanche of e-mails, letters, and phone calls from new fans of Hayley Powell was just too much to ignore. People liked Hayley talking about her dog Leroy. Hearing about the tourists who ate the poisoned mushrooms was a kick. And so typical of tourists. And more than a few ran out to the Shop ’n Save to load up on the ingredients so they could make that cool tasty refreshing Lemon Drop Martini. It was also reported that the produce section ran out of mushrooms because too many shoppers wanted to try out Hayley’s Maine Crab Stuffed Mushrooms recipe.

  “Fine. You were right. People like that crap,” Sal said, taking a big bite of a poppy seed bagel smeared with cream cheese and washing it down with a cup of black coffee.

  Hayley stood in his office doorway, trying to act nonchalant, but inside feeling euphoric. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Don’t get too cocky, and I’m telling you right now, they can give you a Pulitzer Prize for all I care, I’m not paying you a cent over fifty dollars per column,” Sal said, wiping some spilled cream cheese off his blue shirt with a napkin.

  “Absolutely. Understood.”

  “Now get out of my office and get to work on your next column.”

  Hayley returned to her desk and sat down. The sales department (which was basically one person, Eddie Farley, who sat in the back and watched Fox News all day on his portable TV that he kept hidden in a desk drawer) e-mailed Hayley to let her know the paper was on track to enjoy a fifteen percent sales boost that week. And he was convinced it was because word was spreading about Hayley’s entertaining musings.

  Hayley glanced out the window to see Bruce Linney pull up in front of the building. She’d heard on the police scanner that there was a break-in at Razor Rick’s Barber Shop the night before, so Bruce had been out most of the night following up leads and interviewing the cops. He looked beat, especially since he had been out fishing with Sal late and then worked all night.

  She didn’t expect him to be in a good mood, but he was more distracted and short-tempered than usual.

  “Morning, Bruce,” Hayley chirped, keeping things light and pleasant.

  He grunted his reply, and marched into the back toward the desk he shared with the arts and leisure editor, a kid who was barely out of high school and only did the job part time when she was home from college. There was even less arts and leisure to cover in Bar Harbor than crime, especially with the busy summer season winding down.

  Eddie, who never liked Bruce and let him know it at last year’s Christmas party after too much bourbon-spiked eggnog, was itching to rib him about Hayley’s successful first column. Hayley winced as she heard Eddie shuffle over to Bruce, who was at the coffee machine pouring himself a cup.

  “Looks like we have a new star here at the Island Times,” Eddie said.

  “Don’t start with me, okay? I’ve been up all night,” Bruce growled.

  “I saw Hattie Jenkins this morning. She was with that group of seniors who wear the red hats and hike around town before dawn.”

  “So?”

  “Even she said she loved Hayley’s column,” Eddie said, nudging Bruce. “Big dog lover, I guess. Plus, I hear Hattie likes to tip a few while watching Diane Sawyer, so she probably loved that Lemon Drop Martini recipe, too.”

  “Are you going to bore me all day talking about Hayley’s column or are you going to go out and sell some ad space before this whole paper goes under?”

  “Sounds to me like somebody’s jealous.”

  Hayley couldn’t take anymore. She jumped to her feet, and called out to Sal, “I’m going to go withdraw some petty cash at the bank. Be back in five.”

  And she was out the door.

  Hayley couldn’t help but be happy about people actually reading, let alone liking, her column, but she certainly didn’t want to upset the reporters in the office. She decided to downplay it, and just get through the day doing her real job, serving as the paper’s office manager. She didn’t really need to drive to the bank. It was only a few blocks away. But it was sweltering a
nd humid, and her hair was already starting to frizz like a Chia Pet, according to her son.

  Was Bruce really jealous? The idea made her chuckle. He had been a journalism major at the University of Maine in Orono. He had worked for a major Bangor paper before moving back to the island and taking over the crime beat for Sal. How could he possibly be threatened by her? And why was she wasting her time thinking about Bruce now anyway? She should be enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame. Not focusing on some old high school fling who didn’t really like her anyway. No, she was going to forget about Bruce.

  And it was a good thing, too, because as she raced into the bank someone else immediately became the focus of her attention. Someone who looked a lot more put out with her than Bruce.

  Karen Applebaum.

  Karen was the cooking columnist for the Times’ rival paper, the Bar Harbor Herald. Karen was very prim and proper, always dressed to the nines, and had the hint of a British accent, even though she was born and raised in town, and didn’t even have a passport. Karen fancied herself a local institution, running sewing circles and scrapbook clubs, and went all out when it came to bake sales and fundraisers. She was in her early fifties and knew everything that went on in town. But the one thing that got by her until today was that the Times was going to introduce a new food and wine columnist.

  Hayley could see the storm clouds gathering.

  Karen had enjoyed little competition from Hattie Jenkins, who she laughed at for peddling her tired and tasteless green bean casserole and ambrosia salad staples. In fact, Karen was instrumental in getting Hattie bounced from the Herald for being out of step with the times, and then she wasted no time in offering herself up as a replacement. There was never any love lost between the two.

  When word got out that Hattie was retiring, Karen just assumed the Times would let the column die a quick, deserved death. And then she would be the premier voice when it came to cooking and entertaining and arts and crafts. So it came as a rather rude awakening when Hayley blew onto the scene so quickly and stole her thunder.