by Thom Whalen
* * *
“What’s that?” I examined the boxy, stainless steel thing from a safe distance.
Mrs. Everett looked as pleased as a cat with canary feathers in its mustache. “It’s a funnel cake fryer. I found it at an auction over it Binghamton last weekend. Less than a hundred dollars and it was all mine.”
“What’s a funnel cake?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you never had funnel cake. Didn’t you ever go to the state fair?”
“Sure. But I never saw anything called a funnel cake.”
“Then you didn’t look very hard.”
“I didn’t know that I was supposed to look for funnel cakes. I was too busy looking for the rides with the shortest lines.”
“Rides, phooey. A state fair is supposed to be calf judging and quilt competitions. And fun food like funnel cakes. A funnel cake is like a donut but bigger and better. You use a thing like a pitcher with a funnel on it to pour a stream of batter into hot oil. It looks like a cake of giant dough worms when it’s cooked.”
“Sounds appetizing.”
“It’s delicious,” she said, either missing my sarcastic tone or ignoring it. “But it’s got to be fresh. That’s what makes them so good. They get made right in front of you.”
“Are you going to have a booth at the state fair in the fall?”
“No. We’re going to make funnel cakes right here, all year round. Won’t that be great?”
“What about the pies and cakes that we already have?”
“We’ll have those, too. But now we’ll have funnel cakes for people who want something different.”
“A pile of dough worms.”
“Right. With powdered sugar or jam on it.”
“Where are we going to put it?”
“I thought that you could figure out a place. It needs gas so it should probably go near the stove or deep fryer. We don’t want to have to pay George Feely to run the gas all over the place.”
“No, we wouldn’t want that.” I looked at the kitchen. It was already packed with assorted pieces of equipment. “I guess you could put it over by the door.”
“No. It’s hot oil. You can’t put it out where people will bump into it. Maybe we could put it were the fry table is.”
“Then where would we bag the fries and rings? And chicken?”
She was silent for a minute then said. “I know, we could put it in the back by the prep table. If we move the table closer to the double bain-marie then we’d have lots of room. In fact, we could put the steamer and the double bain on the end of the prep table and get rid of that little table altogether. That would work.”
It would work but I didn’t like the idea. We’d have less room for prep on the prep table and I’d have to walk all the way around to the far end of the kitchen every time someone wanted one of those funnel cakes. It was also going to make more work for the cooks. The pies and cakes came from the bakery directly to the glass case in the front. They were the waitresses’ job. This was going to be the cooks’. “What do you think Randal is going to do? He doesn’t like changes in the kitchen.”
“Do you think Randal’s ever going to be back here? He’s in jail for murder. It’s going to take a miracle to get him out of there.”
“He’s innocent. We’re going to get him out. They can’t send an innocent man to prison for the rest of his life.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “You believe that?”
I didn’t know whether she was asking if I believed in his innocence or in the infallibility of justice, but my answer was, “Yes.” As long as everyone did his best, justice had to prevail. I’d watched a lot of movies in my young life and that was how it always worked.
She patted my arm. “You are a wonderful boy.” Then she looked at the funnel cake fryer. “You get Gil to help you move the prep table and put the steamer and bain-marie on it after we close tonight. You can put the small table out back and I’ll have Feely move it somewhere with his truck when he comes to do the gas.”
“I’ll get Gil to help after he cleans the hood filters tonight,” I said.
Our conversation ended when Gwen called the order for Mrs. Craughton and Barkley. Lunch was beginning.