Part 13 (1/2)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk cup chunky peanut b.u.t.ter 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 stick margarine
3 cups rolled quick oats
Mix the sugar, cocoa, and milk together in a heavy pot. Boil for one minute. Stir in the peanut b.u.t.ter, vanilla, and margarine. Remove from heat and add the rolled oats, mixing well. Using a teaspoon, drop the still-warm mixture by the spoonful onto waxed paper.
When cool, peel off the waxed paper and enjoy.
16.
It got a little crowded in the kitchen around six p.m. Since Billy Dee Grizzle had a stew to make, he'd got there first and had appropriated the left front burner of our six-burner, inst.i.tutional stove. Billy had started browning his meat around five, and by six his stew was well underway, filling the kitchen with a heady, but not altogether disagreeable odor.
Delbert James was the next cook on the scene. His macaroni-hamburger ca.s.serole required some stove-top cooking in its initial stages, but was eventually transferred to the oven to bake. The cheese-topped concoction was already merrily bubbling and browning away in the oven when Jeanette and Lydia showed up at the same time.
”What the h.e.l.l is that stench?” demanded Jeanette. ”This room is fouled with the odor of simmering flesh.”
”It smells delicious to me,” said Lydia firmly. ”Just how the h.e.l.l am I supposed to cook with that stuff stinking up the joint?”
”No need to,” said Billy Dee warmly, ”there's plenty in this pot to go around. Just put up your dogs and relax for a spell. Let us men do the cooking.”
”Like h.e.l.l I will.”
Normally I didn't tell my guests how to talk, but this was Mama's kitchen, and poor Mama had already done enough turning over for the day. If someone didn't make Jeanette put a lid on it, Mama would soon be spinning so fast she might start generating electricity.
”I don't allow swearing on these premises, Ms. Parker,” I said as graciously as I could.
Jeanette's face turned as red as her hair, but she shut up for a minute. I wish Lydia had.
”What's in your pot, Mr. Grizzle?” she asked politely. Billy lifted the lid and deeply inhaled the escaping steam. ”Venison stew, ma'am.”
”Deer meat?”
”That, and a few onions, carrots, and spuds.”
”Bambi?” Jeanette almost shrieked. ”You're cooking Bambi?”
”I knew a Bambi once,” said Billy Dee pleasantly. ”Things were definitely cooking with her.”
”That's disgusting, and so is your stew. I thought you'd given up hunting, Mr. Grizzle. After what you did to your daughter.”
A muscle in Billy's left cheek twitched slightly, but other than that, he managed to keep his cool. ”I have given up hunting, Ms. Parker. This is just something I sc.r.a.ped up off the road.”
Jeanette looked as if she were about ready to toss her cookies. Instead, she tossed her flaming red hair out of her eyes, stomped over to the fridge, and demanded to see what vegetables I'd come up with. Humbly I showed her.
”You call that bok choy? That's as limp as Delbert James's wrist.”
”Hey, I heard that,” Delbert called from his position by the stove. Surprisingly, he didn't seem at all miffed. If anything, he sounded amused. I, for one, was not amused. It meant that Susannah had got her information right, and that Billy Dee probably did have a girlfriend. Not that it concerned me, of course.
”And are those supposed to be Chinese pea pods? I've seen pureed vegetables crisper than these!” shouted Jeanette.
”Children, children,” said Lydia gently. She turned to me. 'Would you happen to have any clarified b.u.t.ter, Miss Yoder? I need it for the curry.”
I confessed that all my b.u.t.ter was blurry. ”Can you make your curry without b.u.t.ter? Then maybe everyone will eat it.”
Lydia smiled patiently. ”But the curry contains yogurt. If they won't eat b.u.t.ter, they certainly won't eat yogurt.”
”Keeping animals penned up is a form of slavery, and forcibly taking milk from them is a form of abuse,” Jeanette b.u.t.ted in, ”possibly even s.e.xual abuse. And besides which, dairy products clog one's arteries, not to mention, milk is a leading cause of flatulence.”
”Do you have any olive oil then?” asked Lydia graciously. How I admired that woman!
”Yes, I do,” I said happily. I normally don't stock the stuff, but this bottle was left behind by a guest, an Italian count, who had a fetish for anything extra virgin. The two-liter bottle he left behind was hardly compensation for all the times he chased me around the inn. Had he not been an octogenarian, or at least a little cuter, he might have caught me. ”Good. Olive oil will do just fine,” the saintly woman said.
That settled, we all set back to work. In a few minutes we were joined by Joel and Garrett. Then by a disgruntled Linda.
”There isn't any dandelion vinegar in the cellar, Ms. Yoder. Just millions and millions of horrible spiders. You must call an exterminator!”
I could see that she was shaken, and her face was the color of a peeled leek bulb, but I hadn't heard any screams. ”Are you sure you went all the way to the back, to those shelves behind the furnace?”
”Ms. Yoder, even Indiana Jones couldn't do that! The place is crawling With those things. I insist that you call an exterminator.”
Those were pretty strong words coming from a mere snippet of a kid, if you ask me. ”Ms. McMahon, I am shocked at how you talk. And I thought you reverenced life! Killing spiders, indeed. What, pray tell, is worse? To kill a nasty old cow for food, or to slaughter an entire community of innocent insects?”
”Spiders are not insects! And they aren't innocent. They're horrible!”
”Have you ever been bitten by one?”
”No.”
”Mugged, raped, or otherwise accosted?”
”Very funny,” said Jeanette. That woman b.u.t.ts into more things than a drunken billy goat. ”Leave the poor kid alone. She's absolutely right. This place is a dump. What a dump!”
”Bette Davis you're not,” said Delbert gaily.
”But dumpy's another thing.” I think I said that.
”What?”
”If you don't have any basmati rice, then ordinary long grain will do,” said the ever vigilant and cooperative Lydia.