Killer Confections8 Delectable Mysteries(541)

“I think there’s some dandelion vinegar in the cellar,” I said. “On a shelf, way in the back corner. There’s a flashlight by the cellar door you can use.”

Sometimes when I’m nasty like that, I wonder if I’m adopted. Neither Mama nor Papa would have, for even a second, considered sending an arachnophobiac down into a cellar swarming with spiders. But so help me, some people deserve what they get.

Jeanette had already volunteered to make a vegetarian stir-fried dish, providing, of course, I could come up with some fresh, crisp vegetables. With my fingers crossed, I assured her I had.

That left only Delbert, Susannah, and me. I, however, didn’t plan to make anything, because I would have more than my hands full supervising everybody else in my kitchen. Besides which, I’d already cooked breakfast, packed lunches, washed dishes, been shot at, shopped, matched wits with a witless lawman, shoveled offal, and watched Billy Dee butcher a battered buck. There’s only so much a body can do in one day. Fortunately, Joel had volunteered to make two dishes, so mine wouldn’t even be missed.

Delbert James, as it turned out, was just as generous. He graciously offered to cook two dishes as well, but I reluctantly turned him down. While I knew I would love his macaroni and ground-beef casserole, I wasn’t too sure I could handle the tripe and suet pudding he proposed, even though he offered to go into town himself to pick up the ingredients. Delbert James, I was forced to conclude, had humbler origins than one might normally expect of a Congressman’s aide.

As for Susannah, her concept of nutrition is taken straight from the Freni Hostetler School of Cooking. If it tastes good, eat it. Unfortunately, her boiled cookies were the only thing nobody got to sample that night.





Chapter 15: Susannah Yoder Entwhistle’s Boiled Cookie Recipe





Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 cup milk

½ cup chunky peanut butter

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 butter, 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.





Chapter 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, institutional 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 casserole 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 hell 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 hell 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 hell 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 scraped up off the road.”