HUNTER LAKE 16/100
Mabel left, texting her “Mr.” Mayor on the phone. “Sir we need to talk.”
“Yes, Mrs. Mayor.”
“Be there, we need to talk.”
Her cleated heels clicked their way out the front door, as she bustled her way through the door, her voice drifted back into the Café. “You won’t believe this, you better get the city council to approve our caterers, or we’ll get stuck.” The door slammed on her last word as her muffled voice changed from its usual ebullient nature to a driven growl.
Dottie shook her head as she moved back to the kitchen, and direct dialed. “Sally, we need to talk.”
She balanced the phone on her shoulder as she moved, started to set up for the afternoon.
“We’ve got a chance to cater The Gala.”
“No, Mabel just wanted me to do the cookies, a total diss.”
“Come on over, we’ll put it together.”
Dottie moved back into the storage room and started to pull out cookbooks.
Sally pulled open the back door to the kitchen with her arms full of paper bags.
The door opened again and Alma walked in with armloads of lettuce, and radishes, and some green onions.
“Let’s get to work.” Dottie arranged three areas for her friends and started to divide up some of the recipes.
“Some canapés?” said Sally, her long orange skirt with purple paisley designs toned down by a deep purple hued top, that clung to her petite body, ruched at the waist and draped over her shoulders.
Dottie pulled out a bottle of chardonnay from the cupboard, “first, a toast to all of us.”
Magically 3 small wine glasses appeared sparkling, and she poured out the wine. “To us.”
“This is going to be great.”
The kitchen became divided between three tables, the first was set up with hand ground red berry wheat flour, sugar in the raw, some baking soda and eggs, dried apples were chopped up in one of the bowels. “I’d like to put together some apple tarts from the Harlson’s you gifted me last fall.”
“Of course.”
They started to mix a pate sucre, of the Parisian variety and set it into the refrigerator as they took out the other local ingredients. Five lettuce leaves were carefully rinsed and patted dry, then mushrooms chopped thinly into vertical pieces, green onions sliced and slivered, walnuts from Henry’s friend in Washington were sorted and coarsely chopped. Sally heated the oil in the black frying pain until it swirled and created a slight haze and dropped in the onions and mushroom until the mushrooms were slightly browned then tossed in the walnuts and folded them over. After about 3 minutes she transferred them onto a white plate and waited. She cracked some black pepper over the top and then cracked some sea salt on top. Then spooned them into the waiting lettuce leaves and rolled one over carefully after folding one side in.
“Try this.” She walked over to Dottie who leaned forward to take the food directly from Sally’s hands.
“Don’t bite me.” A gentle laugh erupted from Dottie.
“As long as this food doesn’t come back to bite me!”
All three circled around and hugged each other. “This is the best.”
“Now on to the fish canapés.”
They cut the fish into one inch squares and set them in a bed of fine rice flour, then pepper them with black pepper.
The focaccia dough was rolled out into a long triangle and they started to cut it into squares. “Wait, let’s partially bake it first.”
“Dottie you are so right, we don’t want the edges to shrink if we do it right we can crimp the edges right before rebaking them!!!!”
“What should we call it then?”
“Dottie’s canapé crackers with locally grown flour!”
“I love it.”
“Hey, we’re making it in an approved kitchen, so maybe we should package them and put them on line!”
“The way Mabel is running this town, it’s our only hope!”
“Three cheers for that!” and they raised another glass of wine.
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