The Calamity Café (22 page)

I
t was a beautiful day—the last day of June, in fact—when we had the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Down South Café. Aunt Bess was there in a yellow dress and a big blue hat. I wasn't sure if she thought she was going to the café's grand opening or to the Kentucky Derby, but she'd said she wanted to match the decor.

Mom was there. She wore the same outfit that Jackie, Roger, Homer, the café staff, and I wore—blue jeans with a Down South Café T-shirt. The construction crew had taken their lunch break during the ceremony. Sarah's boyfriend had even skipped class so he could be at the grand opening with her. Billy brought his wife. Pete and Chris Anne stopped by. Dilly and several of the regulars from Lou's Joint had come by to help us celebrate.

We'd invited everyone we could think of, including the media. Ms. Peggy was there to personally do a front-page write-up on the café. Her photographer was snapping
pictures left and right, and I was afraid we might all go blind from the flash. And there was a news crew from the local television station.

I was glad to see Sheriff Billings put in an appearance. And, of course, I was glad that Ryan was with him.

I gave a brief speech before cutting the yellow ribbon in front of the door of the café. I told guests about Nana and how much I appreciated her love, kindness, and generosity, and I got choked up. I thanked Mom, Aunt Bess, Roger, Jackie, and Sarah for their support, and I shed a tear or two. And I told Homer, the café staff, and the construction crew how grateful I was for their hard work. And then I welcomed everyone to the Down South Café before I really began crying in earnest.

Jackie, Mom, and I had set out a buffet along the counter so the guests could help themselves to lunch. I made sure the dishes were both familiar and diverse. We served potato salad, baked tomatoes with hazelnut bread crumbs, macaroni salad, roasted portobellos, beef and vegetable kebabs, fried chicken, biscuits, garlic herb bread twists, three-bean salad, mocha cake, and caramel apple pie. Our beverages were sweet tea, coffee, water, and pomegranate punch.

I proudly watched everyone go through the line. I felt someone beside me, and I turned to see Ryan there.

I smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, returning my smile. “The place looks fantastic.”

“Thank you. We—especially Roger and his crew—put a lot of work into it.”

“Don't downplay your role. I was here on more than one occasion when you were covered in dust or paint or—”

“Panic.” I laughed. “And you even saw me with giant hair. You're right. I did my part in making all this come together.”

“And in crime solving.”

I was glad he didn't say the actual words “solving Lou Lou's murder” out loud. I doubted anyone was paying attention to us, but I certainly didn't want to run the risk of reminding people of what was bound to be right beneath the surface anyway.

“Sheriff Billings would probably hire you on if you're interested,” Ryan continued with a grin.

“I think I've got plenty to keep me busy right here.”

He took a small clear bag out of his shirt pocket. Inside was the necklace Nana had given me and that I'd lost in Lou Lou's office so long ago. “As promised.”

My eyes welled with tears for the umpteenth time. “Thank you.”

Ryan took the necklace from the bag and held it up. “May I?”

I turned and held up my hair so he could fasten the necklace around my neck. I could practically feel Nana smiling down at me, proud of what I'd been able to
accomplish.

When Amy shudders suddenly at the funeral home, she thinks,
Somebody just walked over my grave
. This saying originated in the eighteenth century from an English folk legend that stated an unexpected cold sensation was brought about when someone walked over the place where one was eventually to be
buried.

Grandmother's Meat Loaf

Yield: 8 servings

1½ pounds ground beef

2 eggs

2 cups bread crumbs

¾ cup diced onions

1 tablespoon salt

⅛ teaspoon pepper

½ cup cracker crumbs

1 cup tomato juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix all ingredients except tomato juice well. Add tomato juice gradually, making mixture solid enough to handle. Form into a loaf. Bake in a loaf pan for 45 minutes.

Granny's Oatmeal Pie

(Contributed by Suzie Welker)

Yield: 10–12 servings

1 pie crust (Directions for pie crust below.)

4 large brown eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (You can take cinnamon sticks and grind them yourself for a better-tasting pie.)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup light corn syrup (Do not use dark.)

¼ cup softened butter (I use only butter, never margarine. Soften by leaving out of fridge about an hour; do not put into mixture hot/boiling, as this will cook the eggs, creating a bad-tasting pie.)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal, uncooked

Preheat oven to 350 for metal pan or 325 for glass.

Beat eggs until frothy. Sift sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl. The sifting mixes the dry ingredients together for a better blend. Add eggs to the dry mixture. Stir well. Mix corn syrup, butter, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add to the first mixture. Slowly mix in oatmeal. Stir 2–3 minutes to ensure even distribution of oatmeal.

Pour into pie crust and bake for 45 minutes.

(Optional diced apples, raisins, or cranberries can be added for additional flavor. If adding apples, use 1 cup, diced very small; 1½ cups if using cranberries or raisins. I prefer the golden raisins but any can be used.)

PIE CRUST

1¼ cups all-purpose flour (Do not use self-rising.)

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter cut into small squares (cold, not warm/softened)

¼ cup cold water

Mix flour and salt then sift. Using a pastry cutter (a pastry cutter is best, but you can use your hands), cut in the butter until the dough resembles coarse crumbles. Slowly add ¼ cup water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Roll into a ball and chill in freezer for 1 hour. After 1 hour, take out and roll out using a heavy rolling pin. Place in metal or glass pie dish, then crimp edges with fingers or mash down with a small fork.

Baked Cinnamon and Sugar Doughnuts

(Contributed by Jessica Potts of http://ahappyfooddance.com/)

Yield: 12–15 regular-sized doughnuts or about 30 minidoughnuts

DOUGHNUTS

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1 egg

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

5 tablespoons butter, softened

½ cup sugar

TOPPING

½ cup butter, melted

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly oil a doughnut pan.

In a medium bowl, combine baking powder, salt, and flour. Set aside.

In another bowl, add egg, milk, and vanilla and beat mixture lightly. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Add the wet ingredients in two parts, alternating with the dry ingredients, and finish by beating until everything is just combined.

Transfer the dough to a piping bag or a large plastic baggie with the tip cut off. Pipe into the doughnut pan, filling only halfway full.

Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack, allowing to cool just enough to handle.

While the doughnuts are baking, melt the ½ cup butter. In another bowl mix the cinnamon and sugar together for the topping,

To cover the doughnuts, dip each doughnut in the butter and then roll in the cinnamon-and-sugar mixture.

Country Ham with Redeye Gravy

(Contributed by Robin Coxon)

Yield: 2 servings

2 slices country ham (¼ inch thick)

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup strong brewed black coffee

⅓ cup water

In a large cast-iron skillet, fry the ham in butter over medium heat until lightly browned. Remove ham to a platter. Add the coffee and water to the skillet. Boil until reduced by about half, scraping up browned bits in the bottom of the pan. Pour gravy over the ham and serve with grits, biscuits, and eggs.

Preacher Cookies

Yield: 18–36 cookies, depending on size

2 cups sugar

1 stick butter

½ cup cream

2½ cups quick oatmeal

¾ cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

For chocolate cookies, add one tablespoon of cocoa.

Mix and boil for 1½ minutes. Spread into greased pan. Refrigerate.

Jeanne Robertson's 7-Up Pound Cake

(Contributed by humorist Jeanne Robertson— http://www.jeannerobertson.com)

Can be frozen until someone you know is sick . . . or has “passed.” Jeanne's secret notes in italics.

2 sticks margarine

¼ cup shortening

3 cups sugar

1½ teaspoons lemon extract
(Give or take a little.)

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
(Sometimes Jeanne pours in more.)

5 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour—measure before sifting

7 ounces 7-Up
(Jeanne uses Diet 7-Up to cut calories.)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cream margarine, shortening, and sugar.
(Put under kitchen light until soft. Beat with a mixer.)

Add lemon and vanilla extracts.
(Add now so you won't forget. Cake tastes funny without 'em. Beat some more.)

Add eggs one at a time.
(I throw all of them in at the same time. First, take off shells.)

Alternate adding flour and 7-Up, beating after each addition. Finish with 7-Up.
(I don't alternate. Dump it all in. Go for it! Turn mixer to highest level. Stand back. Add
more 7-Up if it looks dry. Sprinkle in more flour if it looks too moist. This is not rocket science.)

Spray 10-inch tube pan with Baker's Joy.
(No need to flour. Important! Be generous. Trust me. Or split the batter and use two 8-inch tube pans. This will give you two cakes. Math.)

Cook at 300 degrees for one hour or until it “tests done.”
(To test, poke a knife or broom straw in and out of cake until nothing sticks. Note: It takes longer to cook one big cake than two smaller ones. Higher math. Think about it. Adapt.)

Take whatever you cook out of the oven—let it sit for 30 minutes before flipping over on a plate.
(Flip the cake. Not you. Waiting a lot longer will require a chiseling step. It gets ugly.)

Do you have a recipe you'd like to submit for an upcoming book? Email the author ([email protected]) for more
information.

Love Gayle Leeson's Down South Café mysteries? Read on for a sample of the first book in Amanda Lee's Embroidery Mystery series!

The Quick and the Thread

is available from Obsidian wherever books are
sold.

J
ust after crossing over . . . under . . . through . . . the covered bridge, I could see it. Barely. I could make out the top of it, and that was enough at the moment to make me set aside the troubling grammatical conundrum of whether one passes over, under, or through a covered bridge.

“There it is,” I told Angus, an Irish wolfhound who was riding shotgun. “There's our sign!”

He woofed, which could mean anything from “I gotta pee” to “Yay!” I went with “Yay!”

“Me, too! I'm so excited.”

I was closer to the store now and could really see the sign. I pointed. “See, Angus?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Our sign.”

THE SEVEN-YEAR STITCH.

I had named the shop the Seven-Year Stitch for three reasons. One, it's an embroidery specialty shop. Two, I'm
a huge fan of classic movies. And three, it actually took me seven years to turn my dream of owning an embroidery shop into a reality.

Once upon a time, in a funky-cool land called San Francisco, I was an accountant. Not a funky-cool job, believe me, especially for a funky-cool girl like me, Marcy Singer. I had a corner cubicle near a window. You'd think the window would be a good thing, but it looked out upon a vacant building that grew more dilapidated by the day. Maybe by the hour. It was majorly depressing. One year, a coworker gave me a cactus for my birthday. I set it in that window, and it died. I told you it was depressing.

Still, my job wasn't that bad. I can't say I truly enjoyed it, but I am good with numbers and the work was tolerable. Then I got the call from Sadie. Not
a
call, mind you;
the
call.

“Hey, Marce. Are you sitting down?” Sadie had said.

“Sadie, I'm always sitting down. I keep a stationary bike frame and pedal it under my desk so my leg muscles won't atrophy.”

“Good. The hardware store next to me just went out of business.”

“And this is good because you hate the hardware guy?”

She'd given me an exasperated huff. “No, silly. It's good because the space is for lease. I've already called the landlord, and he's giving you the opportunity to snatch it up before anyone else does.”

Sadie is an entrepreneur. She and her husband, Blake, own MacKenzies' Mochas, a charming coffee shop on the Oregon coast. She thinks everyone—or, at least,
Marcy Singer—should also own a charming shop on the Oregon coast.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I'd said. “You expect me to come up there to Quaint City, Oregon—”

“Tallulah Falls, thank you very much.”

“—and set up shop? Just like that?”

“Yes! It's not like you're happy there or like you're on some big five-year career plan.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“And you've not had a boyfriend or even a date for more than a year now. I could still strangle David when I think of how he broke your heart.”

“Once again, thank you for the painful reminder.”

“So what's keeping you there? This is your chance to open up the embroidery shop you used to talk about all the time in college.”

“But what do I know about actually running a business?”

Sadie had huffed. “You can't tell me you've been keeping companies' books all these years without having picked up some pointers about how to—and how not to—run a business.”

“You've got a point there. But what about Angus?”

“Marce, he will
love
it here! He can come to work with you every day, run up and down the beach. . . . Isn't that better than the situation he has now?”

I swallowed a lump of guilt the size of my fist.

“You're right, Sadie,” I'd admitted. “A change will do us both good.”

That had been three months ago. Now I was a resident of Tallulah Falls, Oregon, and today was the grand opening of the Seven-Year Stitch.

A cool, salty breeze off the ocean ruffled my hair as I hopped out of the bright red Jeep I'd bought to traipse up and down the coast.

Angus followed me out of the Jeep and trotted beside me up the river-rock steps to the walk that connected all the shops on this side of the street. The shops on the other side of the street were set up in a similar manner, with river-rock steps leading up to walks containing bits of shells and colorful rocks for aesthetic appeal. A narrow, two-lane road divided the shops, and black wrought-iron lampposts and benches added to the inviting community feel. A large clock tower sat in the middle of the town square, pulling everything together and somehow reminding us all of the preciousness of time. Tallulah Falls billed itself as the friendliest town on the Oregon coast, and so far, I had no reason to doubt that claim.

I unlocked the door and flipped the
CLOSED
sign to
OPEN
before turning to survey the shop. It was as if I were seeing it for the first time. And, in a way, I was. I'd been here until nearly midnight last night, putting the finishing touches on everything. This was my first look at the finished project. Like all my finished projects, I tried to view it objectively. But, like all my finished projects, I looked upon this one as a cherished child.

The floor was black-and-white tile, laid out like a gleaming chessboard. All my wood accents were maple. On the floor to my left, I had maple bins holding cross-stitch threads and yarns. When a customer first came in the door, she would see the cross-stitch threads. They started in white and went through shades of ecru, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray, and black. The yarns were organized the same way on the opposite
side. Perle flosses, embroidery hoops, needles, and cross-stitch kits hung on maple-trimmed corkboard over the bins. On the other side of the corkboard—the side with the yarn—there were knitting needles, crochet hooks, tapestry needles, and needlepoint kits.

The walls were covered by shelves where I displayed pattern books, dolls with dresses I'd designed and embroidered, and framed samplers. I had some dolls for those who liked to sew and embroider outfits (like me), as well as for those who enjoy knitting and crocheting doll clothes.

Standing near the cash register was my life-size mannequin, who bore a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, especially since I put a short curly blond wig on her and did her makeup. I even gave her a mole . . . er, beauty mark. I called her Jill. I was going to name her after Marilyn's character in
The Seven Year Itch
, but she didn't have a name. Can you believe that—a main character with no name? She was simply billed as “The Girl.”

To the right of the door was the sitting area. As much as I loved to play with the amazing materials displayed all over the store, the sitting area was my favorite place in the shop. Two navy overstuffed sofas faced each other across an oval maple coffee table. The table sat on a navy, red, and white braided rug. There were red club chairs with matching ottomans near either end of the coffee table, and candlewick pillows with lace borders scattered over both the sofas. I made those, too—the pillows, not the sofas.

The bell over the door jingled, and I turned to see Sadie walking in with a travel coffee mug.

I smiled. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It is, if you think it's a nonfat vanilla latte with a hint of cinnamon.” She handed me the mug. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Thanks. You're the best.” The steaming mug felt good in my hands. I looked back over the store. “It looks good, doesn't it?”

“It looks fantastic. You've outdone yourself.” She cocked her head. “Is that what you're wearing tonight?”

Happily married for the past five years, Sadie was always eager to play matchmaker for me. I hid a smile and held the hem of my vintage tee as if it were a dress. “You don't think Snoopy's Joe Cool is appropriate for the grand opening party?”

Sadie closed her eyes.

“I have a supercute dress for tonight,” I said with a laugh, “and Mr. O'Ruff will be sporting a black tie for the momentous event.”

Angus wagged his tail at the sound of his surname.

“Marce, you and that
pony
.” Sadie scratched Angus behind the ears.

“He's a proud boy. Aren't you, Angus?”

Angus barked his agreement, and Sadie chuckled.

“I'm proud, too . . . of both of you.” She grinned. “I'd better get back over to Blake. I'll be back to check on you again in a while.”

Though we're the same age and had been roommates in college, Sadie clucked over me like a mother hen. It was sweet, but I could do without the fix-ups. Some of these guys she'd tried to foist on me . . . I have no idea where she got them—mainly because I was afraid to ask.

I went over to the counter and placed my big yellow
purse and floral tote bag on the bottom shelf before finally taking a sip of my latte.

“That's yummy, Angus. It's nice to have a friend who owns a coffee shop, isn't it?”

Angus lay down on the large bed I'd put behind the counter for him.

“That's a good idea,” I told him. “Rest up. We've got a big day and an even bigger night ahead of
us.”