The Mitford Bedside Companion Page 6

  “Touch, Lord, the hands and heart and spirit of Marion, who prepared this food for us when she might have done something more important.

  “Bless this good man for looking out for us, and waiting up for us, and gathering the workers who labored to make this a bright and shining home.

  “Lord, we could be here all morning only thanking You, but we intend to press forward and enjoy the pleasures of this glorious feast which You have, by Your grace, put before us. We thank You again for Your goodness and mercy, and for tending to the needs of those less fortunate, in Jesus’ name.”

  A New Song, Ch. 5

  FATHER TIM DUCKED to the refrigerator and pulled out the platter of chicken and the bowls of potato salad and cranberry sauce, and displayed them proudly. “And there’s fresh corn to boot. Puny cut it off the cob and creamed it, it’s sweet as sugar. Let me heat you a bowlful.”

  “That’d be good,” said the old man. “I hate t’ trouble you.”

  “No trouble at all!” In truth, he was thrilled to do something for somebody after weeks of being as useless as moss on a stump.

  He poured a hearty portion of corn into a bowl, assembled a few leftover biscuits, and zapped the whole caboodle in the microwave.

  As he served two plates and got out the flatware, he eyed the old man from the corner of his eye. Something was wrong. “Uncle Billy, you’re not your old self. I’m going to ask a blessing on our supper, then I’d like you to tell me what’s what.

  “Father, thank You for sending this dear friend to our table, it’s an honor to have his company. Lord, we ask You for Bill Watson’s strength: strength of spirit, strength of mind, strength of purpose, strength of body. May You shower him with Your mighty, yet tender grace, and give him hope and health all the days of his long and obedient life. We pray You’d heap yet another blessing on Puny for preparing what You’ve faithfully provided, and ask, also, that You make us ever mindful of the needs of others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

  “A-men!”

  In This Mountain, Ch. 14

  “AND IN THIS mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow….”

  In his blessing of the meal, Father Talbot quoted from the prophet Isaiah, then invited all to break bread together.

  “Did you bring your brownies?” Amy Larkin asked Harley, who was ahead of her in the queue to the food table.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told the eleven-year-old. “Right over yonder.”

  “I brought pimiento cheese sandwiches.” Her eyes shone. “No crusts.”

  “Where’re they at?”

  “Right next to the potato salad in the red bowl,” she said. “On the left.”

  He nodded, respectful. “I’ll make sure to have one.”

  Amy Larkin reminded him of Lace when she was still a little squirt, running to his trailer with a book under her arm. He hated she had grown up and gone off to school, but he knew it was for the best.

  He fixed his gaze on Cynthia’s lemon squares on the dessert table. He had set his mouth for a lemon square, and hoped he could get to the familiar blue and white platter before it was too late.

  In This Mountain, Ch. 22

  Hometown Appetites: Gathering Around the Table

  “Igain ten pounds just reading a Mitford book!” someone writes to say.

  Why is there so much food in the Mitford books?

  First, food is a great way of communicating. When I write about Dooley loving fried baloney sandwiches, you can connect with that. When I write about Puny baking corn bread and Louella frying chicken, most of you can connect with that. (Hardly anyone, of course, connects with Percy Mosely’s gizzard special in In This Mountain, but that’s another story.)

  Food is something we all understand; it’s a common language. And it’s one more way readers are encouraged to feel at home in Mitford.

  There’s a deeper reason, however, why food is endlessly referenced in the Mitford books.

  When I began writing the series, I had stepped out on faith and left a successful writing career in advertising. In order to put food on the table, I freelanced in my old profession while trying to learn how to write a book.

  Indeed, my first novel is loaded with food references largely because my cupboards were bare, and I was writing hungry. No self-pity here, however. I could wear my size tens!

  This is when I learned to make soup from chicken bones, which is explained as follows. It has a sort of World War II spirit, which some of you will recognize from personal experience.

  After you’ve enjoyed several meals from what was originally roasted chicken, sauté some chopped onion in a little olive oil, add the remains of the chicken, bones and all (that’s where much of the flavor still resides), pour in two or three cups of water, and start simmering. Add salt and pepper, a handful of rice or pasta, some leftover canned peas, a carrot if you have it, a few garlic cloves. As it simmers some more, it will begin to smell marvelous. You will feel happy. You will feel expectant. You will feel rich!

  I learned a lot of other things about making “something out of nothing” as I wrote the first three books, including how to cut open a presumably empty toothpaste tube and find that it isn’t empty at all. And trust me, in the absence of Chanel’s costly Serum Extreme, Vase-line works just fine as a night cream.

  What I learned mostly, however, is that God is faithful. He really does love us. And here’s what some may have trouble believing:

  He really does want the best for His children.

  If you’re on a painful journey through the valley, ask Him to walk through it with you. Make some chicken soup from chicken bones, and give thanks. And when you finally get to the mountaintop, give thanks for the valley you’ve just been through. Because you will almost certainly go there again. And again, it will be hard.

  But it will be good.

  IN THE LITTLE village of less than a thousand, everyone’s dinner—party or otherwise—began at The Local, unless they wanted to make the fifteen-mile drive to Food Value. Of course, they could go out on the highway to Cloer’s Market, but Hattie Cloer was so well-known for telling customers her aches and pains that hardly anyone ever did that.

  “See this right here?” she might say, pointing to her shoulder. “Last night somethin’ come up there big as a grapefruit. I said, ‘Clyde, put your hand right here and feel that. What do you think it is?’

  “And Clyde said, ‘Why, law, that feels like some kind of a golf ball or somethin’ in there,’ and don’t you know, Darlene took to barkin’, and that thing took to hurtin’, and I never laid my head on th’ pillow ’til way up in the mornin’. Wouldn’t you like a pound or two of these nice snap beans?”

  Worse than that, according to some, was Darlene, Hattie’s Chihuahua, who lay on a sack by the cash register. Every time Hattie rang up a sale, the dog growled and snapped at the customer.

  Avis Packard once said that Hattie Cloer had sent more business to The Local than any advertising he’d ever run in the paper.

  Two weeks after his first jog up to Church Hill, Father Tim made an early Saturday call at The Local.

  Since Barnabas was running with him these days, he found it convenient that The Local had an old bike rack near the front door, where his dog could be tied on a short leash.

  He was still out of breath, and Barnabas was panting with some exhaustion himself. The route had by now fallen into place. They ran through Baxter Park and up to Church Hill, then along the quiet road by Miss Sadie’s apple orchards, past the Presbyterian church, three times around the parking lot, down Lilac Road to Main Street, and then to Wisteria Lane, where they turned toward home.

  “Two miles, right on the money,” he discovered with immense satisfaction.

  * * *

  “We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.”—Clementine Paddlefo
rd

  * * *

  “Mornin’, Father,” said Avis, who was sitting at the cash register. “How does joggin’ compare to workin’ up a sermon?”

  “Well, Avis, I can’t see as there’s much difference. I dread both, but once I get started, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.”

  “We got those fine-lookin’ brown eggs you like. And Luther Lovell’s boys delivered the nicest bunch of broilers you ever seen. You ought to look at those, and check that pretty batch of calf liver while you’re at it.”

  One thing Father Tim liked about Avis Packard was the way he got excited about his groceries. He could rhapsodize about the first fresh strawberries from the valley in a way that made him a veritable Wordsworth of garden fare. “We got a special today on tenderloin that’s so true to the meanin’ of th’ name, you can cut it with a fork.”

  “Well, now, I’m not shopping, Avis. I’m looking.”

  “What’re you lookin’ for?” Avis cocked his head to one side like he always did when he asked a question.

  “Ideas. You see, I’ve decided to give a dinner party.”

  “You don’t mean it!”

  “Oh, I do. But the thing is, I don’t know what to cook.”

  “Well, sir, that’s a problem, all right. I’ll be thinkin’ about it while you look around,” Avis assured him.

  A little line was forming at the cash register, so the rector moved away, greeting shoppers as he went.

  At the produce bins, he admitted he was feeling slightly nervous over his idea. First of all, he didn’t even have a guest list.

  Of course, he was going to ask Emma, and yes, Miss Sadie. He thought she would make a splendid contribution. Besides, he had heard she once went to school in Paris, and he wanted to know more about it.

  Hal and Marge, of course. No doubt about that.

  Hoppy Harper, now there was a thought, his wife gone and no one to look after him but that old housekeeper. That made six, including himself.

  Six. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of another soul that would fit in just right with that particular group.

  Perhaps he should invite Winnie Ivey, since she was always feeding everybody else. Maybe he would do that.

  Avis came down the aisle with a gleam in his eye. “I turned the register over to my boy. I want to help you get your party goin’. What do you think about beef stroganoff, a salad with bibb lettuce, chickory, slices of navel orange and spring onions, and new potatoes roasted with fresh rosemary? ’Course, I’d put a nice bottle of cabernet behind that. 1982.”

  He sat with Barnabas one evening with a lapful of cookbooks. As much as he appreciated Avis Packard’s menu planning, beef stroganoff seemed too ordinary. He wanted something that spoke of spring, that made people feel there was a celebration going on, and that would fill them up without being too heavy.

  “This is a lot of work,” he confided to Barnabas, who appeared to understand, “and I haven’t even started yet.”

  He wondered why he had waited so long to entertain. It was clear to him that he had gotten completely out of the notion, although once he had loved doing it. He’d had the bishop and his wife for tea three times and twice for dinner, the vestry had come for a light supper on at least four occasions, and, once, he had the courage to give a luncheon for the members of the Altar Guild, who had such a good time they didn’t leave until four o’clock.

  Not that he was a great cook, of course. Still, he wasn’t half bad at barbecued short ribs, an occasional sirloin tip roast that would melt in your mouth, if he did say so himself, and, in the summer, Silver Queen corn, cooked in milk for precisely sixty seconds. Of course, there was always the economical Rector’s Meat Loaf, as he’d come to call it, which he usually made at least once a week.

  He’d even been known to bake his own bread, but the interest these days somehow eluded him. Gardening had taken over. And where once he had sat and read cookbooks, he now read catalogs from Wayside Gardens and White Flower Farm, not to mention Jackson and Perkins.

  “And another thing,” he said to Barnabas, who raised one ear in response, “is the cost. Do you realize what entertaining costs these days?”

  Barnabas yawned.

  “Lamb, I think it should be lamb,” he mused to himself after going to bed. And he didn’t think it should take the form of anything nouvelle.

  The thought came to him as he laid his head on the pillow. Company Stew! It was an old recipe, nearly forgotten, but one that had always brought raves.

  He got out of bed and put on his faded burgundy dressing gown. Noticing that the clock said eleven, he slipped his feet into the chewed leather slippers and went downstairs to look for the recipe.

  The search revealed how vagrant his closets had become, so he began rearranging the one in the hall, which, very likely, his guests might see.

  When he finished, he was surprised to find that it was two o’clock in the morning, and he’d collected a boxful of odds and ends for the “Bane and Blessing” sale.

  It was rather a free feeling, he noticed, prowling about the house at such an odd hour. To explore this strange freedom even further, he went into the kitchen, made himself a meat loaf sandwich with no mayonnaise, and sat at the table reading Bon Appétit, which he had bought for ideas and inspiration.

  “No wonder I haven’t done this sort of thing in years,” he muttered. “It’s too demanding.”

  On Friday, he left the office early, stopped by The Local, and went home to change into an old T-shirt and khaki pants.

  He would get the bath out of the way straight off, he thought, then begin the stew around three, open the wine to breathe at six, and have everything in good order for his guests at seven.

  When he opened the door to the garage, Barnabas leaped into the hallway, skidded nearly the length of it on a small Oriental rug, then dashed into the kitchen and hurled himself onto the bar stool, where he began to lick a vinyl place mat on the counter.

  The rector put Barnabas on his longest leash. Not only would this give him freedom to thrash about in the bath, it would keep him from bounding into the street if the new setup alarmed him.

  Unfortunately, this would prove to be the worst idea he’d had in a very long time.

  He was pleased with his location of the tub. The little clearing was shielded from the street by the laurels, and afforded him plenty of elbow room. As soon as Barnabas was bathed, he thought, he’d rub him down with a towel, then lead him into the garage, where he could finish drying off and make himself presentable.

  Attaching the looped end of the leash to a laurel branch high over his head, he encouraged Barnabas to get into the water, which he’d liberally sudsed with Joy.

  Instead, Barnabas hurled himself into the tub with a mighty leap.

  Just as quickly as he went in, he came out, diving between the rector’s legs. He circled his right leg and plunged back into the water, soaking his master from head to foot.

  Then, he leaped out of the tub, raced again between Father Tim’s legs, joyfully dashed around his left ankle, and headed for a laurel bush.

  It seemed to the rector that it all happened within a matter of seconds. And while his memory searched wildly for a Scripture, nothing came forth.

  Barnabas circled the bush at a dead heat, catching the leash in the crotch of a lower limb, and was brought to an abrupt halt.

  The tautly drawn leash had run out. Barnabas was trapped on the bush. And each of the rector’s ankles was tightly bound.

  Shaken, Father Tim observed this set of circumstances from a sitting position, and in the most complete state of shock he could remember.

  Miraculously, he was still wearing his glasses.

  Barnabas was now lying down, though the leash was caught so tightly in the tree that he could not lower his head. He stared at Father Tim, obviously suffering the misery of remorse. Then, his contrition being so deep that he could not bear to look his master in the eye, he appeared to fall into a deep sleep.

 
; The rector began spontaneously to preach one of the most electrifying sermons of his career.

  His deep memory bank of holy Scripture came flooding back, and the power of his impassioned exhortation made the hair fairly bristle on the black dog’s neck. In fact, Barnabas opened his eyes and listened intently to every word.

  When his oration ended, the rector felt sufficiently relieved to try and figure out what to do.

  He could see it now. His guests ringing the doorbell, finally coming inside, searching the house, calling out the back door, and then spying him in this miserable condition, while the stew pot sat cold on the stove.

  No wonder so many people these days had heart fibrillations, high blood pressure, and a thousand other stress-related diseases. No doubt all these people were dog owners.

  Lord, be Thou my helper, he prayed.

  “Father Tim! Is that you back there?”

  Avis Packard came crashing through the laurel hedge, looked down at his good customer, and said, without blinking, “I let you get away without your butter. Do you want me to put it in the refrigerator or just leave it right here?”

  The Company Stew, which had simmered with the peel of an orange and a red onion stuck with cloves, was a rousing success. In fact, he was so delighted with the whole affair that he relented and let Barnabas into the study after dinner.

  Marge helped serve coffee and triple-layer cake from the old high-boy, as the scent of roses drifted through the open windows.

  Barnabas, meanwhile, was a model of decorum and lay next to his master’s wing chair, occasionally wagging his tail.

  “You must have quoted this dog the whole book of Deuteronomy,” said Emma, who still refused to call him by name.

  “This dog,” he said crisply, “is grounded.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Hal. “I guess that means no TV for a week?”