The Moon Garden Cookbook - Laurel Winter, ebook
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LAUREL WINTER - The Moon Garden CookbookSUSAN'S SPOON MOVED more slowly as she stirred the sour cream into the ChickenPaprika. When her eye had fallen on the recipe in her Fanny Farmer cookbook,Chicken Paprika had seemed an archetypal meal: savory, meaty, spiced toperfection. Now, although the scent hadn't changed, the hands of the red-framedclock above the stove reminded her that it was almost time to serve dinner. Nomore chopping of tomato and onion. No more lazy spoon spirals. No more fall ofspices. She would have to arrange her creation on a bed of wide noodles on awhite oval platter her grandmother had given her, and place it in the center ofthe scraped, marker-stained, fake-wood Formica table and subject it to theopinions of her family.She sighed and turned off the gas flame. Please, she thought to herself, wipingfragrant steam and an anticipatory tear or two from her forehead and cheeks,just let them be polite about it for once -- without any reminding. Tonightespecially would be nice, because her PMS was at its peak."Dinner," she called toward the family room, where Bob and the kids werewatching a "Scarecrow & Mrs. King" rerun.Her wish was not granted. "What is that?" screeched Amy. "I wouldn't eat that ifyou gave me a hundred dollars."Darryl's "Major gross!" was no less emphatic.Tommy settled for "Yuck.""We don't say that," hissed Susan. "We say, 'I don't care for it,' or 'No, thankyou,' or, 'Gee, Mom, I'm not very hungry." She punctuated her sentences byjabbing the serving spoon into the food on the platter and slopping it onto herplate. Drops of paprika-tinged sauce spattered her shirt.She passed the platter toward Bob, who gave a weak grin and dished himself abouta quarter cup. "Thanks, honey," he said. "Looks interesting." He nibbled somefrom the end of his fork. "Only problem is, I had a late lunch, and . . . .""Can I make myself a peanut butter sandwich?" asked Tommy. Amy poked him -- toolate -- with a skinny elbow.Susan's anger simmered, bubbled, steamed."Leave the table," said Susan, her voice low and deadly. "All of you. I'm tiredof your complaints. I'm tired of fixing macaroni and cheese and frozen fishsticks and corn dogs. Just go to McDonald's or something."She could have been a cobra surveying petrified chickens. No one moved. "Get outof here," she shrieked, pounding her fist on the table and knocking over herwater glass.They scrammed. Before Susan's spilled water could reach the edge of the tableand trickle into her lap, the only evidence of family was the sound of the carleaving the driveway.She didn't even put the encrusted pan in the sink to soak. Tears ran down hercheeks and into her mouth, tainting each swallow with salt water. When shecouldn't stand another bite -- or another look at her family's four gleamingplates staring at her like eyes, she pushed her chair back and headed somewhere,anywhere, banging the door behind her.The May air made her hug herself. She strode down the sidewalk, turning left andright at random, crossing in the middle of the block, cutting through alleys. Bythe time her walk had mellowed into a stroll, she was a goodly ways from home inGod knew what direction. The exertion made the temperature perfect. If she justlet her feet move, she could pretend that she didn't have PMS and a family ofpicky eaters --rude, picky eaters -- and dirty dishes waiting.She walked past a garage sale.A garage sale? On a Tuesday evening? Even though Susan didn't "do" garage sales-- she detested them, really -- she reversed direction.The narrow, cracked driveway led to a sagging detached single garage almostburied in morning glories, Boston ivy, and two or three other types of vinesthat Susan didn't recognize. In an ancient lawn chair with half the webbingdrooping underneath sat a woman with steel-gray hair that looked as if it weretrying to fly away, despite the fact that there was no wind.Susan tried to adopt the casual "look things over and ignore the fact thatyou're standing in the midst of a stranger's possessions" attitude of garagesale patrons everywhere. She failed miserably. "Hello," she said to the woman."Why are you having a garage sale in the evening? On Tuesday?"The woman looked up from the solitaire game she had laid out on a rickety TVtray. "Can't stand to get up early," she said. "Just having my breakfast now."Susan gulped. Also on the TV tray was a mug of beer with an egg floating in it."Oh," she said.The woman eyed her. "Can't stand crowds, either. That's why I never hold mysales on weekends." She took a long swig of beer; the egg slid down her throat."Ah," she said. "You've got a dab of paprika sauce right by your mouth."Susan automatically put her tongue out and started swiping it around."Other side," said the woman. "Lower. Got it." She bent back to her solitaire,leaving Susan to wonder how someone could have distinguished paprika sauce atfive paces in the graying light of the May evening."I'll just look around," she said. The woman grunted.The garage was filled with cracked ice cube trays, handleless shovels, cupsfilled with old toothbrushes, half a telephone, Yale locks with broken keysprotruding, and left shoes. Of the few garage sales Susan had actually attended,this one had the highest percentage of trash and the lowest percentage oftreasures. And everything was drastically overpriced.A flamingo pink wastebasket with a great rift down one side was marked fivedollars. A sweater that must have nourished generations of moths hung on a rustyhanger: five dollars. Practically everything was five dollars. Susan shook herhead. She was about to leave, when she saw, in the dimmest corner of the garage,a rack of books.She squinted at them, trying to make out their titles. "Do you have a light?"she called.The old woman rose from the tattered webbing of her lawn chair and beganrummaging in a cardboard box. "Here," she said, holding out a dented metalflashlight.Susan hurried toward her. "Thank you," she said."Five dollars," said the woman, clutching the flashlight to her flat bosom."I don't want to buy it; I just --" Susan raised her eyebrows and begansearching her pockets. Lint in the left. In the right, way down at the bottom,was a scrunched, washed, faded five-dollar bill. "Here," she said.The woman snatched the money and handed her the flashlight. It gave off alopsided, watery circle of light. She made her way back to the books.A hardback edition of Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Three Harlequin romances. Volume Mfrom the Encyclopedia Americana. A novelization of The Rocky Horror PictureShow. Journal of a Plague Year. Bring 'Em Back Alive Frank Buck and The BestBaby Name Book. A scorched copy of Fahrenheit 451. And a thin gray volume withspidery silver letters on the spine. Susan picked it up. The Moon GardenCookbook, she read. Shivers ran down her spine. She looked for a price. Nothing.She grabbed Finnegans Wake off the shelf. None of the books appeared to bemarked.Susan shoved the Joyce back. "Excuse me," she said, picking her way safelythrough the junk with the help of her "new" flashlight, the cookbook in herother hand. "How much is this book?""Book?" The woman raised her head. "What book? Ah." She smiled fondly at Susan."That's not for sale.""But," Susan sputtered, "but it was in the garage. It was with the other stuff."She felt a little ridiculous, arguing about something she hadn't even reallylooked at yet, but she wanted that book.The woman slapped a red jack down on a black king. "Not for sale," she repeated.It was all too much for Susan's PMS. She started sniffling, then sobbing, thenoutright bawling in the woman's garage. A few minutes into the wailing, thewoman looked up again. "All right," she said. "You can have it. Five dollars."Susan's pockets were empty. Her mind raced. Could she run home and get themoney? Hell, she didn't even know where she was. It could take her an hour toget home, and by then the old woman would have reconsidered and locked herselfin the house with The Moon Garden Cookbook. "You can have this back," she said,planting the flashlight in the middle of the solitaire game. She clasped thebook in both hands, half-expecting the woman to protest."Fine," the woman said. "Need this more now anyway." She aimed the weak light ather cards with one hand and put a two of spades on a seven of diamonds.Susan wandered off into the twilight, wiping the ravages of her weeping from herface, and wondering how long it would take her to find her way home to face thatfamily and those dishes.About two hours.By the time she reached her block, the moon was a lopsided ball in the sky,lighting her path well enough that she tripped on uneven sidewalk cracks onlyoccasionally. The pseudo-Victorian carriage lantern blazed beside the door totheir house.Susan hid her purchase under her sauce-blotched shirt, took a deep breath, andwent in.For once the TV wasn't on. The kids were sitting around the table, doing theirhomework or coloring. They looked up warily when she came in, and gave her asubdued chorus of, "Sorry, Mom." She nodded and went into the kitchen.The place was their idea of spotless: all dishes done, but the drain rackprecariously overfilled, and counters given a lick and half a promise. They'deven washed the monstrous Chicken Paprika pan. "Thanks, guys," she called, eyesblurring again. "I think I'm going to bed now."Sniffling, she headed for the stairway. Bob was reading the paper ...
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