by Wild Jinx
“Are you two married?”
“No!” they both said, as if she’d asked them if they were two-headed aliens. Talk about!
Tee-John, laughing, leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Maybe you have two more candidates for the thunderbolt.”
Tante Lulu brightened. “Does you two have hope chests?”
Gaping at her, and she wasn’t even in her usual outrageous attire, Aaron shook his head and said, “Are you crazy?”
Everyone around them answered for her, “Yes!”
Tante Lulu just smiled and said, “Does anyone hear thunder?”
TANTE LULU’S PEACHY PRALINE COBBLER CAKE
The cake:
white cake mix
3 whole eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
The streusel:
½ cup brown sugar (more or less, depending on taste)
2 pkgs (1.23 oz each) peaches-and-cream instant oatmeal
3 oz pecan pralines, chopped (reserve 2 tbsp for garnish)
¼ cup (½ stick) butter, melted
Fruit:
1 medium peach, sliced thin, or 1 small can peaches, thoroughly drained
The frosting:
1 cup milk
4 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup Crisco (half butter, if desired)
2 cups granulated sugar
pinch of salt
2 tsp vanilla
The cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make cake batter and put into two round, greased and floured, cake pans. Mix streusel, and sprinkle over top of both cakes. Bake 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cakes cool.
The frosting: Cook milk and cornstarch until thick, stirring often. Cool. Cream all remaining ingredients, adding the cornstarch mixture gradually. It should be fluffy and not overly sweet.
Place one of the cooled layers, streusel side up, on a cake platter. Frost, topping with half the sliced peaches. Cover with the second cake, streusel side up. Frost top and sides. Garnish with sliced peaches in a pinwheel pattern, finishing with sprinkle of remaining chopped pralines.
Note:
• This is a very rich cake because of the streusel and instant oatmeal. If using plain oatmeal, the amount of brown sugar can be altered, to taste.
• Peach juice, if available, can be substituted for some or all of the water in the cake.
• Any white frosting can be used, keeping in mind how sweet the cake already is. A Crisco frosting will be less sweet.
• Of course the white cake can be made from scratch.
Last bit of instructions from Tante Lulu: “Set out a pitcher of iced sweet tea, chère. Invite over your friends and family. Then, Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll!”
Dear Reader:
Well, finally, that Cajun rogue Tee-John LeDeux got his own story. Hope it was wild enough for you.
And Tante Lulu certainly was in her usual rare form, if I do say so myself. I love the one description of her in this book: Grandma Moses with cleavage! Yep, that says it all.
You will notice that I have left the door open for several other books. Angel Sabato and Grace O’Brien, for example. Or the twins from Alaska: Aaron and Daniel LeDeux. Whatever future books may be on the horizon, please know this: Tante Lulu will never die in any of my books. And besides, she still has a few more hope chests to make and St. Jude statues to pass out.
I have said it before and will say it again, I love the Cajun country: its beauty, its music, its language, its food, and its culture. With that in mind, after hundreds of requests, I have included Tante Lulu’s recipe for Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake in this book, and there will be more free Cajun recipes on my Web site. In fact, send me some of your favorites to share.
I try to be as accurate as possible in my books, but sometimes it’s the little facts that we mess up on. Yes, I now know that you don’t peel okra. Yes, I now know that John Deere tractors are only ever green and yellow. And, holy crawfish, who knew there were no big rocks in southern Louisiana? You readers sure do keep me on my toes, and I love you for it.
There really are numerous Web sites on the Internet dealing with pirates, as mentioned in this book. The one I especially like is www.talklikeapirate.com, from which I have shamelessly borrowed humor—with attribution, of course.
Please visit my Web site for lots of free goodies: original novellas, genealogy charts, books, videos, recipes, and promotional materials. As always, I thank you for your support and wish you smiles in your reading.
Sandra Hill
www.sandrahill.net
email: [email protected]
About the Author
Sandra Hill is the best-selling author of more than twenty novels and the recipient of numerous awards.
Readers love the trademark humor in her books, whether the heroes are Vikings, Cajuns, Navy SEALs, or treasure hunters, and they tell her so often, sometimes with letters that are laugh-out-loud funny. In addition, her fans feel as if they know the characters in her books on a personal basis, especially the outrageous Tante Lulu.
At home in central Pennsylvania with her husband, four sons, and a dog the size of a horse, Sandra is always looking for new sources of humor. It’s not hard to find.
Two of her sons have Domino’s Pizza franchises, and one of the two plays in poker competitions. They swear they are going to write a humor book entitled The Pizza Guys’ Guide to Poker.
Her husband, a stockbroker, is very supportive of her work. He tells everyone he is a cover model. In fact, he made that claim one time when she did a radio interview and swears the traffic around their home was heavy for a while as people tried to get a gander at the handsome model. Then there was the time he made a blow-up of one of her early clinch covers with a hunk and a half-naked woman and hung it in his office. He put a placard under it saying, “She lost her shirt in the stock market . . . but does she look like she cares?”
So be careful if you run into Sandra. What you say or do may end up in a book. If you want to take the chance, you can contact her through her Web site at www.sandrahill.net.
It’s a celebration for all seasons with
Sandra Hill’s
JINX XMAS!
As a special thank-you for your support over the years, Sandra Hill has written this novella for you. It’s available exclusively on her Web site, www.sandrahill.net, whereyou can download it for free.
JOIN THE JINX GANG AND THE LEDEUX CLAN FOR A CAJUN GOOD TIME!
