I glared at the impudent girl. "How does this relate to you, my dear?"
"Well, maybe it doesn't but fair is fair."
"She's right," Ms. Holt said, and I could hear her words icing over. If only Susannah had shown up to distract her.
"And not only that," the audacious urchin said, egged on by Ms. Holt's approval, "but your cook shouldn't be serving the judges anything else she cooks until it's her turn in the contest. And y'all know what else? She should only be allowed two tries on her day."
I snorted. "That's ridiculous."
"That makes sense to me." Ms. Holt dabbed at the corners of her mouth with just the tip of her linen napkin.
"Me too," Gladys mumbled.
"Count me in," Art said, and gave his gal pal a big smile.
I looked to Alma for support, but she was conscientiously studying a framed quilt on the wall opposite her. It was time to appeal to the powers that were.
With the comely Mr. Anderson absent, I had no choice then but to take it straight to the top. Surely the CEO of the E.C.D. could talk some sense into his mutinous mob. I turned to my right.
"Mr. Mitchell?"
His blue eyes twinkled. "Maybe we should take a vote, Miss Yoder?"
There was a clatter from the kitchen, and more buzz than you get from a hive in a clover pathch.
I tapped my water glass with my bread knife. "Order!" I called. "Order!"
Everyone turned my way, including Mr. Mitchell.
"This is my inn," I said. "I get to decide who cooks for me, and who doesn't."
At that the kitchen door flew open, and Freni, face flushed and arms flailing, flounced into the room.
"You can't fire me, Magdalena. I quit!"
My stomach churned. Freni has quite her job as cook more times than the Democrats have raised taxes, and twice as many times as the Republicans have been caught raiding the cookie jar. She means it when she says those two awful words, and invariably I have to do something as demeaning as stand on my head in a snowdrift just to get her to recant.
"See what you've done?" I wailed to the group. "Now who's going to cook for us?"
Freni threw her shoulders back. "Yah, who is going to cook?"
Several pairs of eyes fixed on me.
"No way, Jose," I said. "I couldn't cook if my life depended on it."
Freni nodded vigorously. "Magdalena can't boil water, without burning it."
Marge Benedict, who had heretofore remained silent, actually raised a bony hand before speaking.
"Miss Yoder, perhaps we judges could take turns."
The twinkle left Mr. Mitchell's eyes faster than you-know-who fell asleep after you-know-what. He stood up."
"Well, I see no reason why Mrs. Hostetler shouldn't continue to perform her regular duties here at the inn, provided she doesn't serve us any more of this delicious bread pudding."
Freni smiled smugly, her mission accomplished.
There were, of course, some muttered protests, but they went either unheard or ignored.
Monday was supposed to be a settling-in day for the contestants. Theoretically they were supposed to familiarize themselves with the kitchen and check the supplies of ingredients they had brought with them. It was expected that many ingredients had to be purchased fresh, and a sort of field trip into nearby Bedford had been planned for after lunch.
Hernia, you see, has a population of only fifteen hundred and thirty-two, and that includes the two New York retirees who moved here last summer. Yoder's Corner Market on Main and Elm is our only local source of food. Sam Yoder - and yes, he is a cousin - relies heavily on the American canning industry, and fresh produce is as foreign to his coolers as Japanese squid. The last time I shopped at Sam's, I saw a head of lettuce that had been there for three months. I know, because I gouged it with my thumbnail the day it came in, just to see how fast it would be bought. Sam once hung on to a cauliflower for six months before taking it home to his wife.
At any rate, I was to be the official tour guide on the field trip. At the appointed hour I was ready and willing to do my part, dressed for the trip into the big city (Bedford has 3,743 residents, after all) when the hounds of hell were released on my peaceful inn. Armageddon had come to Hernia. I have never heard suck a ruckus in my life. The clatter of swords against shields and anguished cries was deafening.
That final battle between good and evil was being fought in my kitchen, and I rushed to catch a glimpse. I am a believer after all, and have no fear of death or what comes after. Although, confidentially, I am not very fond of pain and would prefer to die in my sleep.
Just as I reached the kitchen door, it flew open, narrowly missing my prominent proboscis.
"Hallelujah!" I cried, quite prepared to meet my Maker.
Unfortunately, it was not my Maker I was seeing face-to-face. To the contrary, I had to look down considerably to see that face, and when I did my heart sank. No matter what those liberal theologians say, the face of God does not resemble Freni Hostetler.
"It's only you!" I wailed, when I could catch my breath.
Freni took a step forward and the door swung shut, hitting her ample derriere. The short, but somewhat unbalanced woman took an unintentional step forward.
"Des macht mich bees!"
"You're mad? I was headed for my mansion in the sky, until you came barreling through that door."
"Gut Himmel, Magdalena! Make sense for a change."
"Me? What on earth is going on in there? I thought it was the end of the world."
"Ach, it's only a little disagreement. It will pass."
My hair would have stood on end had I not been wearing it in a rather tight bun.
"A disagreement with who?"
"Ach, that English woman who wears dead animals."
The Amish refer to outsiders as English, regardless of their ethnic or national origin. Even we Mennonites, who are closely allied with the Amish, are sometimes referred to in this way.
I stormed into the kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn everywhere. Drawers of ladles, spoons, and the kitchen implements had been dumped on the floor. It was the culinary equivalent of Susannah's bedroom. Standing there in the middle of it all, looking cool as a cucumber on ice, was Ms. Kimberly McManus Holt.
"Goodness gracious me!" I railed. My faith forbids me to swear, or I might have said a few choice words I've heard my sister use - words that she learned from that Presbyterian ex-husband, of course.
Ms. Holt actually smiled. She was wearing a leopard print pantsuit with what looked like a real fur collar. She looked disgustingly elegant.
"Your cook has quite a temper," she said.
I counted to ten, prayed, and bit my tongue. And then just to be on the safe side, I said the alphabet backward.
"Freni is a pacifist," I lisped. "Both Amish and Mennonites have a four-hundred-year tradition of turning the other cheek. I'm sure she wouldn't have lost her temper unless she was thoroughly provoked."
"I only asked her for a little more shelf space. Quite honestly, I was very polite about it. Suddenly she just lost control and - " she turned slowly in a semicircle, gesturing at the shambles that had been my kitchen - "there you have it."
"Well, I'm sure - "
I felt a sharp poke in the back of my ribs. "Ask her about the list," Freni hissed.
"The list?"
"Oh, that!" The leopard lady reached into a spotted pocket and withdrew a small notebook. "I was just inquiring about the whereabouts of some basic kitchen equipment. You know, electric can opener, Cuisinart, metric scale, that kind of thing."
Freni flapped furiously. "When I told her we didn't have those things, Magdalena, she said this was the most primitive kitchen she had ever seen. She said she'd seen more sophisticated kitchens on a safari."
My dander rose, despite the strictures of my bun. "Primitive? You called my kitchen primitive? I'll have you know, Ms. Holt, that - "
The door to the kitchen slammed open and Susannah swirled onto the scene. "Oh, Mags, I can't believe it! It's just awful!"
"Not now, dear," I said through clenched teeth, "I'm in the middle of something important."
"But, Mags - "
"Unless," I hissed, "it's a matter of life and death, your business can wait until later."
"But it is a matter of life and death," Susannah cried. "Mr. Anderson is dead!"
-5-
FRENI HOSTETLER'S PRIZE-WINNING SLOW-BAKED BREAD PUDDING
1 load (lb.) day-old bread, crust removed, and broken into pieces
" lb. seedless raisins
1 cup brown sugar
3 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
" teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
" teaspoon salt.
Butter to grease pan or dish
Preheat oven to 325 degrees (slow oven). Generously grease two-quart glass dish or 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Mix bread pieces with raisins in pan or dish. Pat lightly to compact. Sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg over bread. Whisk together milk, salt, and vanilla and pour evenly over mixture. Set pan or baking dish in a roaster containing hot water. The water should come within a half inch of the top of the bread pudding pan. Put roaster in oven. Bake for two hours, gently turning pudding over several times as milk rises to the top and crust forms. Best served warm with fresh cream or milk. Also good with whipped cream or caramel syrup topping.
Serves 8.
Warning: the smell of this baking might drive you crazy with hunger!
-6-
I cringed. "Dead?"
As much as I hate to admit it, there have been previous deaths at my inn. Ancestors have died here, of course - the most recent being Grandmother Yoder, whose ghost I have seen from time to time. Alas, there have been other deaths as well. One or two have even been officially classified as murders.
But lest you panic and cancel your reservations, allow me to assure you that death is everywhere on this planet. It's just that now it tends to be concentrated in hospitals and on the streets, but thee was a time, not too long distant, when folks at home dropped like flies. And I'm not talking about just the Black Plague, either. My point is that an occasional demise adds a certain psychich patina to an establishment, and should be celebrated. Too many deaths, however, can be problematic.
"Yes, dead," Susannah wailed.
"Ach, here we go again," Freni said, throwing up her stubby arms.
"Maybe it's murder," Ms. Holt said.
I ignored her. "Susannah, are you sure?"
"Positive!"
My sister has been known to dramatize at times. "Start at the beginning, dear," I said kindly.
"I knocked on his door and it just swung open. Then I saw him, lying on the floor, as dead as a doornail."
"That's a clich‚, dear. Now tell me, what makes you think he's dead? Did you take his pulse?"
She recoiled in horror. "Are you crazy? Me, touch a dead man?"
"Well - "
"He's white as a sheet, Mags, and I don't think he's breathing."
That sounded just like Jimmy Kurtz, one of the few boys I dated in high school. To my knowledge, he was still ostensibly alive. But Mr. Anderson was a paying customer, and an important executive. I wasn't about to take my chances with a lawsuit.
Perhaps I sounded calm to you, buy my heart was pounding like a madman on a xylophone. Even the soles of my feet were quivering.
"Freni, you call 911 in Bedford. Susannah, you sit down and catch your breath. And you," I said to Ms. Holt, "clean up this mess in the kitchen."
"Why, I never!" she said, but she did.
Mr. Anderson was the color of boiled rice. I am relieved to report that he was indeed still breathing - Susannah tends to exaggerate, as I said - since I have never been too fond of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It was me who was having trouble breathing. My newly installed elevator is not as reliable ass I had hoped, and I can no longer take my impossibly steep stairs two at a time without it showing.
At any rate, although Mr. Anderson had a pulse, he was only semiconscious, and incapable of communicating beyond the occasional unsolicited moan. But Bedford 911 was on the ball, and Mr. Anderson was whisked away to the hospital in less time than it takes to bake an angel food cake. In the meantime, all my guests were milling about, like ants when you've brushed away the crumbs - that is, all my guests except for the twinkling Mr. Mitchell. He and his rental car were missing.
