Hungry Spirits [Spirits 04] (6 page)

“
First of all, we need to crush our bread,” said I, as if I knew what I was talking about. “The easiest way to do that is to put the stale bread between two pieces of paper and crush it with a rolling pin.” Aunt Vi had taught me as much.

“
But first,” I said, remembering perhaps the most important part of the entire operation, “I need to light the oven. A moderate oven will be best for these croquettes.” Not that I knew this from personal experience. Vi had told me so. I was
so
glad I’d remembered to light the oven, I nearly giggled, but restrained myself.

Since we were all still in the kitchen, we took turns placing our chunks and slices of hard bread on pieces of paper on the wooden cutting board, covering them with another piece of paper and smashing them into crumbs. This was the first time it occurred to me that cooking might well be a good way to relieve the strains of life. There’s something about pounding something into submission that’s vaguely satisfying.

After all the crumbs were crumbed, I said, “And now we need to measure our cold chicken. We’ll each need approximately three cups’ worth.”

I was so glad Flossie had chopped the stupid chicken! The first time Vi had shown me her chopping technique, she worked so quickly I couldn’t even see the butcher knife or what she was doing with it. So she slowed down, and I managed to get a handle on the technique. Not a good handle, mind you, but a handle. Still, I was intensely glad that I didn’t have to try to chop anything that day.

Thanks to Flossie, in no time at all, I had the required three cups of chopped chicken prepared and in my mixing bowl.

Lest you think the hard part of this recipe was over, let me tell you that the
really
difficult part was yet to come: when we mixed our chopped chicken, bread crumbs, eggs, salt and pepper together and tried to fashion the mixture into little volcanoes. Vi told me that if the mixture didn’t stick together at first, just add a little water, but I didn’t want to do that since it smacked, to my mind, of incompetence; and I didn’t want my students to grasp my own personal ineptitude. I mean, how would you like it if you learned your algebra teacher had failed a class in basic mathematics? Would such information inspire confidence in his or her ability as an instructor? I think not.

As my students chopped and stirred, I noticed that the student who had run out on the class last Saturday had come back, although she seemed to be trying to hide. I couldn’t remember her name, drat it, and decided to ask Flossie to make name tags or little paper tents for the students’ desks for our next session.

After everyone had their chicken and crumbs in their mixing bowls, I carried a carton containing eighteen eggs and my own mixing bowl back to the head of the class. It then occurred to me that I could learn everyone’s name when I passed out the required two eggs each to my students. Thus it was then I discovered my frightened student, who had placed herself in the back of the class behind the largest woman, was named Gertrude, not a name I personally favor, but certainly not awful enough to induce a person to hide from the world. Odd.

However, there was no time to worry about another person’s idiosyncrasies at that point in time. I had to demonstrate—I, Daisy Gumm Majesty, who was the least talented cook in the entire universe—how to shape chicken croquettes into neat little conical shapes.

“
Now, ladies, what we need to do is beat our eggs very well.”

“
How well?” a student asked. She would.

But I had an answer for her. Aunt Vi had given it to me, bless her heart. “Beat them until they’re light and frothy,” I said with authority. As if I knew a light-and-frothy egg from a penguin.

Beating-egg noises ensued.

After a minute or two, I asked, “Is everyone ready?”

Nods.

“
Very well. What we need to do now is mix our eggs with our chicken and bread crumbs. Be sure to season the mixture with salt and pepper.” Vi always said “salt and pepper to taste,” but I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I didn’t add that part. “If you like, you can add a little powdered mustard, although I prefer to save the mustard for ham croquettes. Chicken is a milder meat, so the mustard might be overpowering.” And if you think I made that up on my own, you haven’t grasped the extent of my ineptitude yet. A few muttered comments from the ladies seemed to agree with Vi’s opinion on the mustard issue, which pleased me.

They followed my instructions. If I’d had more confidence in my ability to teach the stupid class, this blind obedience might have given me a sense of power, but it didn’t. I was still too shaky to don the mantle of power. Heck, even competence was an elusive trait at that moment in time.

“
And now, ladies, we need to shape our croquettes into little cones and place them flat side down on our buttered baking tin.” I picked up a glob of the mixture and began shaping, praying like mad that the stupid stuff wouldn’t crumble to bits as soon as I put it on my buttered baking pan. As I prodded and shaped my chicken, I said, “When you make these at home, you may decide to fry them in hot fat rather than bake them. That’s perfectly all right. Since there are so many of us and only one stove, we’re going to bake ours today.”

Murmurs from the class told me they thought my reasoning was sound. Only it wasn’t my reasoning. It was, as ever, Vi’s.

My first croquette didn’t fall apart. Gathering courage from this auspicious beginning, I began shaping another one as I chatted to the class. “Croquettes are a great way to use dried bread, and you don’t even need to add meat to them. Plain croquettes made only with bread and eggs make a tasty side dish. Or they can be served for breakfast as a cheap-and-easy dish.” I’d learned this little tidbit from the cook booklet. “You can also make ham croquettes, if you like. Croquettes, aside, if your bread is too old to be eaten fresh with butter, you can crush it into crumbs and create bread dumplings for stews or soups.” Another clue from the booklet. The Fleischmann Company gave all sorts of nifty tips in their tiny recipe collection.

A second perfectly sound croquette appeared! Firm and solid and looking amazingly like a dunce cap—which I decided not to take personally—it joined its fellow on my buttered baking tin, and I began to truly relax for the first time since class began.

Some of the students finished shaping their croquettes before I did, but that didn’t discourage me. After all, they only had to shape their glop into volcanoes; I had to talk whilst doing same.

“
And now, ladies, let’s take our tins to the oven. Then we can all wash our hands.”

They laughed, as well they might. I don’t know how Vi does it. Personally, I don’t enjoy having chicken-and-bread goo on my hands. It feels sticky, dirty and awful.

The rest of the class went well. As our croquettes baked—mercifully, they didn’t take long—the class and I discussed uses for dry bread once more, and I made the mistake of asking if anyone had a special recipe from the booklet she’d like us to attempt in an upcoming class.

One of the ladies raised her hand. I think it was Merlinda, but I’m not sure. Smiling, even though I’d already recognized my error, I said, “Yes?”

“
The recipe on the front cover looks good. How about teaching us how to make that one?”

Ah. The pea castle. The one recipe in the entire booklet that scared me more than any other. Even croquettes didn’t seem as daunting as that stupid little bread castle brimming over with green peas. “Perhaps we will in another week or so.” I smiled winningly again and hoped the class would forget I ever said that. Then, in order to divert the class’s attention from my last, idiotic question, I asked, “Can anyone think of other uses for stale bread that we haven’t covered here?”

Thank God they knew more about cooking than I did! We discussed French toast, Welsh rarebit, and toasted sandwiches using older bread, and one of the ladies even mentioned croutons. Croutons? I didn’t even know what a crouton was until one of my students—I think she was Belgian, or maybe French—enlightened me. Oh, boy. And I was the teacher. It was almost enough to make one melancholy.

Fortunately, our croquettes were done about that time, so I didn’t have to endure any more blows to my confidence. We all traipsed back to the kitchen, removed our croquettes from the oven, carried them back to our desks, and took small bites. They were actually quite tasty. Astonishing.

The class dispersed, taking paper bags full of their baked croquettes with them, and I finally let out a sigh of relief. Not only had I got through another class, but nobody in the person of Sam Rotondo or my husband interrupted us that day.

Flopping down on my desk chair, I gazed at my croquettes with befuddlement. I’d actually created those little volcano-shaped things with my own two hands. And they were edible. It nearly boggled my mind. Flossie found me there, musing about the mysteries of life, after she’d seen the students off to their various domiciles. Which reminded me of something I’d been meaning to ask her.

After enduring several minutes of Flossie’s gushing gratitude—she couldn’t be made to understand that I was a total fake—I said, “Say, Flossie, do you know that woman, Gertrude?”

“
Gertrude Minneke? Of course. She moved out here after coming to grief in New Jersey. I guess her family fell on hard times. Her folks died in the influenza, she kind of hit the skids, and she and her brother decided to move West hoping they could turn their lives around. The Salvation Army in some city in New Jersey helped them out. Why?”

“
I only wondered why she seems so scared all the time. She actually ran out on the class last week.”

Flossie’s pretty eyes opened wide. “Scared? Do you think she’s frightened?”

“
She sure looks like it. Today she was hiding behind that large woman—what’s her name? Maria?—and she tried to hide from me when we went to the kitchen.”

“
Hmm. I didn’t notice. Perhaps she felt embarrassed because she bowed out of the class so suddenly last week.”

“
I’m surprised she came back again, if she’s so frightened.”

“
Oh, I don’t think she’s really scared. Only embarrassed. You see, she told me later, the next day, that she’d begun feeling ill, so she left.”

“
Ill? I hope it wasn’t anything we cooked.”

Flossie thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. It would be just my luck to sicken an entire class of eager ladies who were trying their very best to create new lives for themselves. After she got over her fit of amusement, Flossie said, “Oh, Daisy, you’re such a character.”

I was, was I? Well, we’d see.

She then said, “No, it wasn’t the delicious macaroni dish. She said she just thought she’d better leave, but she didn’t want to disrupt the class, so she didn’t tell anyone what was going on with her.”

“
Ah. I see.” Flossie’s explanation made sense, I guess.

“
These croquettes are wonderful, Daisy,” Flossie went on. “You’re so good to do this for us. I’m hoping I’ll learn enough about teaching from you that I’ll be able to teach another class if we decide to do this again.”

“
I’m sure you’ll do a
much
better job than I’m doing, Flossie. I honestly don’t know how to cook. If it weren’t for my Aunt Vi, I’d never have been able to do it.”

“
Nonsense. You’re a wonderful cook, Daisy.”

Oh, brother. But I’d never yet been able to convince Flossie of any of my many failings. For some reason, the woman insisted on thinking the best of me in spite of myself. I decided to drop that subject in favor of something else that interested me. “Say, Flossie, exactly what does this sponsorship by the Salvation Army entail? I mean, what do the people who partake of it have to do?”

“
Oh my, it’s a wonderful program, Daisy. Johnny is so pleased with it. It was all his idea.”

It pleased me to see how happy Flossie was with Johnny. And vice versa, too. They made a lovely couple. I liked to think that Billy and I would have been so happy had the blasted Kaiser not butted in and ruined everything.

“
What happens is this,” Flossie said. “We get applications from various parts of the country. You know, from other churches. We take as many individuals as we can, but our church can really only support ten at a time.”

“
Ten? But there are only nine students.”

“
Yes, but we’re also sponsoring Gertrude’s brother, Eugene.”

“
Ah. Yes, I remember you told me she’s here with her brother. I see. I wonder why she seems so nervous all the time.”

“
I don’t know. Maybe she’s just worried that she won’t be able to learn what we’re teaching.”

I could appreciate that, since my feelings were approximately the same. “If she’s so nervous about it, I wonder why she came back today then.”

“
Oh, she has to. You either have to participate in all the benefits of the program, or you have to drop out of it. Since both she and her brother are involved, she probably doesn’t dare
not
come back, even if she’s as nervous as you say. I don’t see it myself, but you’re standing in front of the class so you’d have a better view. You see, the Salvation Army finds housing for all the participants. Most of the women stay here, actually. We have a building where we can house people. The apartments are small, but they’re serviceable. The Salvation Army also finds them jobs and offers them classes in the skills necessary to build a life. Eugene, for instance, works as a busboy at two local restaurants. He’s also learning how to be an automobile mechanic, which pays much better than restaurant work.”