Chapter Thirteen

Jane printed out the recipes we need from her computer file,” Alice said as a sleepy-eyed Louise joined her in the kitchen early Friday morning. “Look them over and decide what you want to do.”

“Other than go back to bed? How does Jane get up this early every day without completely wilting by noon?” Louise yawned and walked over to the printouts of their breakfast menu.

“It’s nice that she has all her favorites on the computer, although I think that sometimes she cooks by pure instinct. One of the cooks at the hospital does that. She adds a little of this and a little of that, but the results are exceptionally good for large-scale cooking. I asked her for a recipe once, and she described what she does. There’s no way I could duplicate it.”

“We’d better get serious.” Louise yawned again and measured out spoonfuls of aromatic coffee. “Let me think. How many people do we have to serve?”

“Seven, two per room plus one child. The Browns have their daughter with them.”

“She looks to be around seven or eight. Do you think she’ll eat what the adults do?”

“If not, we can always offer cereal or toast and jam.” Alice opened the fridge and started assembling the ingredients on the counter.

“Oh dear,” Louise said as she read through the recipes. “I’ve never made eggs Benedict. Do you think we can do this?”

“We told Jane we would.”

“Maybe we should have asked what she was planning to serve. Do you know how to make the Hollandaise sauce? I always thought that was especially tricky.”

“If you can teach a teenager to drive, this should be a snap for you. Now, the way I read this, we need to poach two eggs for each serving. That’s fourteen eggs on seven split English muffins. The Browns will be down first. They asked for breakfast at seven so they can get on the road. The rest requested seven thirty. That means we can practice on the Browns and their daughter. We should have it down pat by the time the others come.”

“Do you want to make the sauce or poach the eggs?” Louise asked, looking with trepidation at the growing assortment of ingredients. “I wouldn’t mind slicing the Canadian bacon. It has to be thin. Eliot always liked his meat that way. He could make a turkey slice so thin you could see through it. I’m afraid he spoiled me. He liked to cook, and I was always more than willing to encourage him.”

“He was a wonderful man,” Alice agreed, sounding a trifle impatient, “but we have so much to do that I hardly know where to start.”

“You had a good idea. We’ll divide the jobs,” Louise said, glancing at the clock. “I hope none of the guests comes down early.”

“You can have your choice. The Canadian bacon came in a package already sliced, and the muffins are split, so that’s taken care of. I have water heating for tea for those who want it. It will take awhile to make melon balls for the fruit course, but that’s kind of fun.”

“What does this mean, ‘garnish the eggs Benedict with black olive cutouts.’ Do we have to make fancy shapes with olives?”

“Maybe just little rings. Do you want to do eggs or sauce?”

“Eggs,” Louise said, “if you don’t mind. It’s too early to even think about Hollandaise sauce. I’m sure it will be a disaster if I make it.”

“Then I’ll start the sauce, and you can butter the English muffins and work on the melon balls until it’s time to poach the eggs. I think if you start about five minutes before the guests are due, it will time out right. We can finish up the main course while they eat their melon cups.”

Alice turned her attention to the recipe for Hollandaise. It looked simple enough, perhaps deceptively so, but at least the finished sauce could be kept over warm water in the double boiler until it was time to serve it. She tackled the first step, separating egg yolks from the whites.

“Do you think it matters if I break the yolk and get a little white in the sauce?” she asked Louise, who was busy scooping out melon balls.

Alice had to take a moment to rinse egg from her hands. Jane never seemed to get messy fingers when she separated eggs.

“It probably would matter to Jane. If the recipe says yolks only, that’s what she would use. Oh, and we forgot that one of us has to set the table.”

“I’ll have time after I finish the sauce.” Alice mixed the bright yellow egg yolks with a little water, hoping she’d estimated right because there wasn’t time to measure every little ingredient. Then she began energetically beating them with a wire whisk over low heat on the stove. “The recipe says to add salt and lemon juice to taste. Should I actually taste it, do you think?”

She was talking more to herself than to Louise, which was just fine because her sister was intent on forming

perfect little balls of green honeydew melon and orange cantaloupe.

“Oh dear! I should have read more carefully and finished melting the butter before I started. I would never make that kind of mistake with medicine at the hospital. Reading the directions is one of the cardinal rules of nursing.” Alice pulled the pan away from the heat.

“I don’t see why it should make that much difference,” Louise said, reassuring her and also confirming that she was listening.

“Maybe I should have made it in the blender.”

“I’m pretty sure Jane always uses the hand whisk. Do you think I should mix the melon balls in a big bowl, then spoon them into the dishes, or just put them in as I go?”

“I really don’t think it matters.”

Alice didn’t intend to snap at her sister, but the butter was quickly turning brown at the edges in a pan on the back burner while she stirred the egg yolks and water. Discolored butter was totally unacceptable for a gourmet sauce. She rescued it with one hand, but not before she noticed that the egg mixture was forming lumps. After pulling both pans away from the heat, she had to take another portion of butter and melt it in the microwave. This necessitated covering the glass cup with plastic wrap. She was beginning to worry that the egg mixture was sitting too long and would be ruined.

Finally she had the butter at a perfect consistency, smooth and beautifully yellow. She put the saucepan with the yolks back on the stovetop and slowly added melted butter, whisking vigorously as she did.

“Something is wrong,” she said after the last of the butter was thoroughly blended.

“I’m sure it will be all right.” Louise finished the last melon ball and started clearing away the rinds. “Do you think I should put the melon cups in the dining room or the fridge?”

“I guess it’s better to keep them cold, but I have a real problem with this sauce. Look how thin it is, thin and lumpy at the same time.”

“What does the recipe say?” Louise walked over and began reading. “Maybe you put the butter in too quickly.”

“I don’t see how I could have. Maybe it was the delay. This doesn’t look anything like Jane’s Hollandaise.”

“Have you added the lemon juice?”

“No, will you pour it in while I keep whisking?”

“Do you think I should measure? I don’t have a clue whether to add a tablespoon or half a cup.” She picked up a bottle of commercially squeezed lemon juice and stared at it dolefully.

“Just dribble in a little!”

“Well, all right.” Louise shook the bottle over the pan, but only a few drops came out. “It’s empty.”

“There must be another. Jane said she had all the ingredients.”

Alice watched with increasing dismay as Louise searched in the considerable depths of the large fridge and came up empty-handed.

“That’s the only bottle of ready-squeezed, but I found a couple of fresh lemons.”

“This isn’t looking good. Hurry and cut one. You’ll have to squeeze it into the sauce while I keep whisking.”

Louise flicked seeds out of one lemon half and held it over the sauce. She repeated with the second half, but this time a seed flew into the mix.

“It’s as thin as milk. We can’t use it this way.” Alice hated letting Jane down by serving something substandard, but time was racing by.

“It’s almost time to start poaching eggs,” Louise reminded her unnecessarily.

“I can strain it to get out the lumps and the lemon seed. The recipe does say I can put another egg yolk in a separate bowl and blend in the runny sauce if it needs to be thicker. I’ll have to try it. We simply can’t serve this.”

“Speaking of guests, I think I hear someone on the stairs.”

“Oh, I hope it’s not the Browns looking for breakfast. They’re not supposed to come down for at least ten more minutes.” “I’ll take a look.” Louise hurried out of the kitchen even though Alice urged her to stay and help.

It seemed to take her sister an awfully long time to determine whether the first guests were ready for breakfast. When she returned, she was flushed and agitated.

“It is the Browns. They’ve already brought their luggage down. They’re in a big rush and absolutely itching for us to bring out breakfast. You’ll have to poach their eggs and toast the muffins. I’ll serve the melon balls and coffee and get the table set. Oh, and their daughter will eat whatever we serve. Her mother says she’s not a finicky eater.”

Alice poured the Hollandaise into the top of a double boiler. It didn’t look like any she’d seen Jane serve, but it was too late to redo it. She turned her attention to the large skillet her sister used to poach eggs. Quickly filling it with hot water from the tap, she glanced at the recipe and saw that it was supposed to heat to 185 degrees. Jane had a thermometer somewhere, but she didn’t have time to search for it. She read further and decided she would have to judge the temperature by the formation of tiny bubbles just below the surface of the water. There was no reason why that wouldn’t be accurate enough. People had been poaching eggs for ages without benefit of modern kitchen gadgets.

Louise raced to the fridge to get a glass of milk for the girl. “They’re gobbling up the melon balls as if they haven’t eaten for a week. Mrs. Brown has a rather sharp tongue. I know I should be a good hostess, but no one has ever complained about our promptness. Are the eggs Benedict nearly ready?”

“You’ll have to explain that they have to be poached at the last minute. Since they came down earlier than they said, they’ll just have to wait.”

“Oh dear,” Louise said. “I don’t think I can put it quite that way. Can you believe, that little girl found a seed in one of the watermelon balls and flipped it across the table. Her parents didn’t seem to care.”

“Remind yourself of all the wonderful, appreciative guests we’ve had,” Alice said sympathetically. “I’ll hurry as fast as I can.”

She put the muffin halves in the toaster oven and hurried to prepare the eggs she needed to poach. Cracking them into a cup one at a time was slow business, but she had to be sure the yolks didn’t break. The water was about right, she hoped. She slid the first egg into the hot water and watched with dismay as the white separated into stringy fragments. After scooping out and discarding the first one, she tried again. It stayed together but not in the nice round shape she’d come to expect from Jane.

Consulting the recipe between frantic attempts to poach the eggs, she confirmed the order of the ingredients: two muffin halves per plate, a slice of Canadian bacon and an egg on each slice and top with Hollandaise. She’d completely forgotten about the black olives for garnishing. She was tempted to leave them off, but Jane always emphasized how important presentation was. With one eye on the bubbling water in the skillet, she found a jar of pitted black olives in the fridge.

“The girl won’t stay in her seat,” Louise reported as she returned to the kitchen. “She’s going through all the drawers in the buffet, and her parents just sit and complain about the slow service. I won’t be happy if our table linens get messed up. Please tell me I can feed them now.”

“In a minute,” Alice said. “Get the Hollandaise and spoon some over each egg. I don’t know what to do about the black olives.”

“There’s no time to slice them. I’ll just dump a few on top of the eggs.”

The sauce still looked watery to Alice, but Louise put some on each serving and hurried to deliver it.

“Brown, remember that name,” she said, returning to the kitchen with clenched teeth. “That man is smoking and using one of our china saucers as an ashtray. We’ve never banned anyone from rebooking, but we’ve never had anyone who had so little regard for our home. The child threw olives on the floor, and now she’s refusing to eat what I served. Her parents just ignore her antics, and they act like we’ve served them poison instead of eggs Benedict. They wanted pancakes.”

“They picked a fine time to make a special request.” Alice stared at her less-than-perfect sauce and appreciated Jane more than ever. “I guess you’ll have to take some cereal for the daughter. We can’t send a child off hungry.”

Louise went back to the dining room with cereal; she returned in a few moments.

“She won’t eat this cereal. It has to be purple and red and yellow and green with funny shapes. Her mother is peeved because we don’t have any.”

“Let me handle this,” Alice said resolutely. “We get children like this once in a while at the hospital, although at least there they have the excuse of being sick or hurt.”

She walked into the dining room with measured steps, reminding herself that honey catches more flies than vinegar.

“I understand that you don’t like our breakfast,” she said to the pudgy girl with yellow pigtails and a scowl on her face.

Mrs. Brown, a thin, wiry woman with dark circles under her eyes and black dyed hair cut in spiky bangs, glared at Alice. Mr. Brown, balding and paunchy in a Chicago Cubs T-shirt two sizes too small, ignored her and sopped up the last of his sauce with a piece of muffin.

Judging by his clean plate, he hadn’t minded their fare all that much. His wife was still picking at her second egg.

“I hate your breakfast!” the girl said.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Why don’t you tell me your name and come into the kitchen? I’m sure we can find something you would like to eat.”

“My name is Heather,” she said, clutching the edges of the upholstered chair seat.

The child hadn’t expected to be separated from her parents. She wasn’t at all sure she liked the idea.

“We gotta get on the road,” her father said. “I’m not stopping for snacks, so you’d better eat what I paid for here.” He dropped his cigarette butt into the coffee at the bottom of a cup.

Alice had to fight the urge to tell him that all of Grace Chapel Inn was designated as a no-smoking facility. Even if the sisters had been willing to tolerate the habit, the fire inspector had banned it because they were operating in an old wooden structure. There was nothing to gain, however, by speaking out at this time. She could only hope he’d respected the warning posted in every guest room. She would have to check his room as soon as they left and give it a thorough airing if he’d broken the rule there too.

The last thing she wanted to do was hold up the departure of the Browns, so she quickly guided the girl toward the kitchen with a hand on her shoulder.

Louise had read her mind and toasted two slices of white bread. She was spreading it with peanut butter when the girl, less brazen without her parents’ backup, came into the kitchen.

“There, Mrs. Smith has made some nice toast for you, Heather. That’s the only thing we’re going to offer, so maybe you should eat it like a nice girl.”

The child gave them a look meant to intimidate, then sat down at the kitchen table in front of an empty teacup and saucer.

“I don’t drink tea.” She pushed away the cup, making the cup rattle on the saucer.

“Of course you don’t, but at Grace Chapel Inn we think all our guests should use pretty dishes. There’s no rule that says you can’t use a teacup for other drinks. Would you like orange juice or milk?”

“I want double-berry energy drink.”

“That’s not on our menu. Milk goes best with peanut butter, I think.”

Alice put the plate of toast in front of her and poured milk into the tea cup, then sat down across from her with a cup of tea for herself.

“My mother used to have tea parties for us. She told us to hold our cup like this with our pinkie sticking out.” Alice wiggled her little finger in an exaggerated motion. “Can you do that?” “That’s silly,” Heather said, but she picked up the cup and tried to hold it the same way.

They giggled at each other, and Heather began taking ladylike bites of her toast.

Alice talked to her about games she liked to play and things she’d seen on their trip.

“My daddy doesn’t like to waste time getting places,” she said solemnly. “I wish we could stop along the road so I can look for stones for my collection.”

“The roadside is a dangerous place to look, but I think I can help your collection. Finish your toast, and I’ll be right back.”

Jane had recently spread several bags’ worth of river stones to set off some bushes along the garden fence. It couldn’t hurt to give a few to Heather to entertain her in the car. Alice picked up a dozen or so pretty ones and hurried back to the kitchen.

“You can take these with you as souvenirs of Acorn Hill,” she said, “but first I’ll rinse them in the sink. Come see how they look when they’re wet. The water always brings out pretty colors.”

Together they admired the smooth, glistening stones. Then she let Heather dry them on a paper towel.

“Heather! Your father wants to leave right now. If you haven’t finished breakfast by now, it’s too late.” Mrs. Brown came into the kitchen with a scowl on her face.

“Look at what I have!” her daughter said excitedly.

“Oh, not more stones. Don’t you have enough already?”

“These are special. They’re souvenirs of Acorn Hill.”

“Well, hurry up and don’t bother your father about them.”

“I’m glad I got to meet you, Heather,” Alice said, solemnly shaking the little girl’s hand and giving her the stones in a plastic bag.

“Thank you.” She grasped the bag as her mother hustled her off without a word to Alice or Louise.

“Thankfully we don’t have guests like those parents every day,” Louise said with a sigh.

“Poor Heather,” Alice said sympathetically. “At least she’s spunky. I hope she’ll grow up to be nicer than her mother and father.”

“I hope Jane doesn’t miss her stones,” Louise said with a laugh. “She does take her gardening seriously.”

“They went for a good cause. No one loves a cause more than Jane.”

“Oh dear, look at the time. The rest of the guests should be here in fifteen minutes. I do hope they’re not early.”

“The Hollandaise isn’t right.” Alice stirred what was left in top of the double boiler. “I don’t think the warm water under it is enough to keep sauce at the right temperature. I have to make a new batch. You’ll have to poach the eggs.” “I have to clear the table and put on a new cloth. We’ve never had guests make such a mess before. I don’t want the others to come into the dining room and see it.”

“Yes, you’d better do that first.” She reached into the fridge and brought out the second and last carton of eggs, gasping when she opened it. “Oh no, this isn’t full. Look, only three eggs left. Louise, I don’t have enough to make another batch of sauce.”

“Do you have enough to poach?”

“Yes, but I can’t bear to serve this wretched runny sauce to guests. What should I do?”

“Menu change!” Louise said decisively. “One thing I can make for sure is a pancake. You clean up the dining room. I’ll mix up some batter and see what Jane has to embellish them. I think she has some blueberries in the freezer.”

“She was saving some real maple syrup for something else, but this is an emergency.”

“Plump berries will make even my pancakes look festive,” Louise called out as Alice hurried to the dining room.

By the time she finished laying out a fresh tablecloth, the rest of the guests were drifting down for breakfast. Fortunately the two couples traveling together to a conference in Philadelphia were pleasant people who wanted a leisurely breakfast with time to chat. Alice served the melon balls and filled their coffee cups, then went to see whether she could help her sister.

“I fried the Canadian bacon as a side dish,” Louise said. “It got a little too well-done while I was turning pancakes.”

She looked comical in a big white chef’s apron with a dish towel tied around her head as a kerchief, but Alice’s smile quickly died when she looked in the frying pan on the stove.

“It’s burned.”

“Only around the edges. I thought you could trim it.”

“If I do, there won’t be anything left.”

“Then see what else you can find. Pancakes cry out for some protein on the side.”

“Pancakes cry out? They’re turning out okay, aren’t they?” Alice asked with a trace of panic in her voice.

“Yes, I’m putting them in the oven to keep warm. They’re not round like Jane’s, but the blueberries should be enough compensation—I hope. Those guests are booked here on their way home too. I would hate to tell Jane that my cooking made them cancel.”

“We’ll hope they have a sweet tooth. I’m counting on the maple syrup.”

Alice found a lone package of commercially frozen sausage bites in the freezer and hurriedly microwaved them.

“There aren’t enough,” Louise said frowning. “Three tiny sausages on each plate are going to look lost.” “We’ll serve family style. Put them in a small dish, and maybe not all of the guests will want sausages.”

“Then family style it is, but my pancakes always stick together on a platter when they’re warm.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

“Let’s try telling the truth.”

Their guests seemed to enjoy Alice’s story of kitchen woe, and they graciously assured the sisters that the pancakes, misshapen though they were, were as delicious as they were filling. They checked out with smiles, promising to return and sample one of the inn’s famous breakfasts prepared by Chef Jane, and Louise deducted the price of the morning’s breakfast from their bill.

“We don’t praise Jane enough,” Louise said as they collapsed at the kitchen table for cold cereal and juice before they tackled the chaos in the kitchen.

“Not nearly enough.”