by Joanne Fluke
“You certainly were! Now I know that I need to stop baking anything with fruit in the morning. You did it again.”
“Oh,” Hannah said, waking up enough to sit up and rub her eyes, but she still felt a bit out of touch with reality. “I remember now. What did you bake today? It smells scrumptious.”
“Orange Marmalade Muffins. You still had that big jar of marmalade in your pantry. I made three batches so we can take some with us to our booth at the convention.”
“Just smelling them makes me hungry,” Hannah told her. “I’ll take a quick shower, get dressed as fast as I can, and come out to the kitchen to taste one.”
“Do you want me to bring you a wake-up cup of coffee?”
“No thanks. I can wait. The shower will wake me up.”
“Just as a precaution, please remember not to tip your head up toward the bathroom ceiling.”
“Why?”
“Because if you fall asleep in the shower that way, you’ll probably drown!”
Hannah was true to her word. She showered and dressed as fast as she could, and she was in the kitchen only a few minutes past the ten-minute mark. She started to walk toward the coffeepot, but Michelle waved her down into a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’ll get it,” she said. “I can see you’re ambulatory, but I don’t think you’re ready to carry a hot cup of coffee quite yet.”
Hannah sank down in the chair at the Formica-topped table that was soon to become an antique, along with the matching chairs and the apple-shaped clock that hung on the wall. “Thanks,” she said, when Michelle set the coffee mug in front of her. “Muffins?”
“Coming right up,” Michelle reassured her. She tipped two muffins out of the tin, put them on a plate, and carried it to the table. “I haven’t had one yet, either,” she said, fetching another cup of coffee and sitting down across from Hannah.
Hannah peeled off the cupcake paper and split the muffin in half. The warm orange marmalade was pooled in the center, and she breathed deeply. “I love oranges,” she said, biting into the muffin without benefit of butter.
“What do you think?” Michelle asked her.
“I think these are winners.” She took another bite and looked thoughtful. “Is that oatmeal I taste?”
“Yes. These are Orange Marmalade Filled Oatmeal Muffins. I thought the orange and the oatmeal would be a good combination.”
“You thought right.” Hannah reached for the dish of salted butter on the table and buttered the other half of her muffin. Then she took another bite and smiled. “They’re great with salted butter, too.”
“Let it cool and see how that tastes,” Michelle advised.
Hannah shook her head. “Not on a bet! They’re too good warm. I’ll let my second one cool . . . if I can wait that long.”
Just then, the phone rang, and since Michelle was closer, she reached up to the wall phone and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?” she answered.
There was a moment of silence while Michelle listened to the caller, and then she stretched out the cord and handed the receiver to Hannah. “It’s Sue from Doctor Bob’s office.”
“Hi, Sue,” Hannah greeted her. “Are you calling with the results of Moishe’s tests?”
“Yes, I am.”
“But it’s more than an hour before you open. Are you at the office already?”
“No, we’re having our first cup of coffee, but I knew you’d be up and Bob wanted me to call. He says that Moishe is a very healthy kitty. All his levels are perfect and there’s no sign of any infection or disease. Moishe’s even lost a little weight, and Bob says to tell you that you must be doing something right with his diet.”
“But why is Moishe so tired all the time?” Hannah asked her.
“Bob wants me to remind you that Moishe is getting older and he’ll be sleeping more now. There’s another thing, too. Cats tend to nap when they’re bored. There’s also another possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“Moishe is staying awake because something has engaged his interest during the day while you’re gone and that makes him tired and want a nap.”
“Like what?”
“Perhaps a mouse somewhere in your condo, or a bug he wants to catch, or even something he sees outside the window. Bob suggests that you leave the television or radio on for him to keep him company while you’re at work.”
“I already do that, Sue.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Cats go through phases, just like people do. Their sleep habits aren’t always the same. Moishe may be prowling around at night because he hears something moving in the walls, or a noise in the attic, or something happening in another unit. Bob ran every test in the book on him. If there were anything wrong with Moishe, he would have found it.”
“Thanks, Sue. That’s a big relief. See you soon.” Hannah handed the receiver to Michelle to hang up. “Moishe’s fine,” she reported. “Sue said there’s nothing wrong with him.”
Hannah had no sooner picked up her muffin again when there was a knock on the door. The two sisters exchanged glances, and then both of them laughed.
“Mike?” Michelle guessed.
“Probably. It sounded like his knock. I guess his food-dar is working early this morning.”
Michelle got to her feet and hurried to the door. “Hi, Mike,” she said, pulling it open.
“You didn’t look through the peephole,” Mike said, frowning slightly. “Always look through the peephole to make sure you know who’s knocking.”
“I knew,” Michelle told him. “Both of us knew. Come in and have a muffin, Mike. Hannah’s in the kitchen.”
Mike looked as if he wanted to give her a short lecture about taking precautions before opening the outside door, but the lure of muffins was too great. He just said, “Well, please be more careful in the future,” and went to join Hannah at the table.
“What are those?” he asked, watching as Hannah put the last bite of muffin in her mouth.
“Orange Marmalade Filled Oatmeal Muffins.”
“I don’t know if I like orange marmalade, or not.”
“You’ll like it in these muffins,” Hannah promised, getting up to pour him a mug of coffee. She took two more muffins out of the pan, wrapped them in a napkin, and delivered the coffee and the muffins to Mike. “Try them,” she advised. “You’ll like them.”
“They smell great, but I tried one of those little packets of orange marmalade on some toast when I went out for breakfast at the Corner Tavern, and I didn’t like it.”
“This is different.”
“How is it different?”
“It’s different because you’re going to love it. All you have to do is take a bite and you’ll see.”
“Okay, if you say so.” Mike bit into the muffins, and a surprised expression crossed his face. “It’s good!”
Michelle came into the kitchen just in time to hear Mike’s comment. “Of course it’s good. I made them. Where’s Lonnie? I thought you two were working together today.”
“We are. He’s going to meet . . .” Mike stopped speaking as there was another knock at the door. “. . . me here,” he finished the sentence. “That’s probably him now.” As Michelle turned to go to the door, he called after her, “Look through the peephole or Lonnie will give you an even longer lecture than the one that I gave Hannah.”
ORANGE MARMALADE FILLED OATMEAL MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
(That’s four hundred degrees F., not a misprint.)
1 and ⅓ cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
¾ cup rolled oats (not instant – I used Quaker’s Quick 1-Minute)
⅓ cup white (granulated) sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 large egg, beaten (just whip it up in a glass with a fork)
¾ cup whole milk
¼ cup vegetable oil (I used Wesson Vegetable Oil)
<
br /> 6 Tablespoons orange marmalade
Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin by spraying the cups with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, or lining them with cupcake papers.
Place the flour in a large bowl.
Add the rolled oats and mix them into the flour with a fork from your silverware drawer.
Add the white sugar and mix it in thoroughly.
Use the fork to mix in the salt and the baking powder.
In another bowl, combine beaten egg, whole milk, and vegetable oil. Mix them together thoroughly. (I used a whisk to do this.)
Add the wet ingredients (egg, milk, vegetable oil) in the second bowl to the dry ingredients (flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder) in the first bowl.
Stir until the dry ingredients are moistened. Don’t over-stir! This will make the muffins tough!
Drop 1 Tablespoon of batter into each muffin cup and spread it out with a rubber spatula to cover the bottom of the cup.
Drop ½ Tablespoon of orange marmalade on top of the batter. Try to drop it in the center of the cup so that it is surrounded by the batter you spread on the bottom.
When you have done this in every muffin cup, fill each cup with batter, distributing it as evenly as you can. (Lisa and I do this with a scooper down at The Cookie Jar.)
Gently run the blade of a table knife around the edge of the batter in each muffin cup to seal the orange marmalade in the center of the muffin. There may be some leakage, but as long as you used cupcake papers, you will be able to get the muffins out of the tin.
Bake your Orange Marmalade Filled Oatmeal Muffins at 400 degrees F. for approximately 20 minutes or until they are a nice golden shade of brown on top.
These muffins are best served warm. You can also bake them, store them, and reheat them in the microwave to warm them later.
Make sure you have plenty of softened, salted butter for those who want it and lots of coffee or cold milk.
Yield: 12 delicious muffins. If you invite Mike for breakfast, you’d better mix up 2 batches!
Chapter Twenty-six
Twenty minutes later, after the consumption of a total of a dozen muffins by Michelle, Hannah, Mike, and Lonnie, the two sisters were in their respective cars on their way to The Cookie Jar to pack up the cookies and cookie bars they’d baked for Sally’s Holiday Gift Convention.
“Looks like Lisa’s here already,” Hannah said, gesturing toward the sporty red car that Lisa’s husband, Herb, had given her the previous year as a surprise Christmas gift.
“Marge and Aunt Nancy are here early, too,” Michelle told her. “I went around the block and I noticed that their cars were parked in front. I wonder what time they all got here.”
Hannah unlocked the back kitchen door, and the two sisters stepped into the warmth. Once they’d hung their parkas on hooks by the back door and walked into the main part of the kitchen, they stopped and stared in disbelief.
“Good heavens!” Hannah breathed, staring at the racks of cookies and cookie bars that filled the two bakers racks. Additional baked goods were spread over every flat surface in the kitchen and, as they watched, Marge and Lisa carried racks of cooled cookies into the coffee shop.
“Hi, girls!” Aunt Nancy greeted them.
“Hello, Aunt Nancy,” Hannah managed to say, and then she pointed to the filled bakers racks. “What’s all this?”
“The cookies and cookie bars you’re going to take to the convention hall.”
“But . . . what time did you get here?” Michelle asked.
“We all met in the kitchen at three-thirty. We talked about it on the phone last night and we decided to give you two a good send-off. You’ll be working hard all day, and since you had some dough mixed up, we decided to bake it for you.”
Hannah looked at the bakers racks again. “But it looks like you baked a lot more than we mixed up before we left last night.”
Aunt Nancy laughed. “Of course we did! There were a couple of recipes we wanted to bake and one new recipe we needed to try.”
“Which recipe is new?” Michelle asked.
“We’re calling it Chocolate Caramel Bar Cookies, and it’s based on my friend Lyn Jackson’s Salted Caramel Bar Cookies. We got the idea the last time we made Lyn’s recipe and Lisa was unwrapping the caramels. She said there used to be a couple of chocolate caramels in with the rest of the plain caramels and her mother saved those for her.”
“So you decided to make up a recipe with chocolate caramels?” Hannah asked the obvious question.
“Yes. All three of us worked on it, and that’s why we wanted to try it this morning. Will you test it for us to see if you like it?”
“Of course!” Michelle said quickly.
Hannah nodded. “We’ve already had breakfast so one of the new bars can be dessert.”
Aunt Nancy laughed. “Dessert for breakfast. I like the concept. Go pour yourselves some coffee and get one for me, too. I’ll see if our new bar cookies are cool enough to cut.”
Michelle and Hannah seated themselves at the work station with fresh cups of coffee for themselves and one with cream and sugar for Aunt Nancy. A few moments later, Aunt Nancy walked over with a plate of bar cookies.
“Here they are,” she said. “Please take one and taste it. We want to know if you think we should add them to the coffee shop menu.”
Hannah took one bite and nodded. “Please add them,” she said, and then, rather than go into detail, she took another bite.
“I agree,” Michelle said.
Aunt Nancy took a bar cookie from the plate she’d filled and tried it herself. “Me, too!” she said with a smile. “The customers will love these.”
“Are they difficult to make?” Hannah asked her.
“Not at all. As a matter of fact, you save a little time because you don’t need to unwrap as many caramels. On the first batch, we used caramel ice cream topping mixed with a six-ounce by weight bag of chocolate chips. And on the second try, we used thirty-five caramels instead of the fifty in the original recipe, the same amount of chocolate chips, and a quarter cup of whipping cream. Both ways worked just fine.”
“Then you didn’t have to look for actual chocolate caramels?” Hannah asked.
“No. And both ways work and save time, too. We don’t think it gets any better than that.”
* * *
After they each had another Chocolate Caramel Bar Cookie apiece, Aunt Nancy helped Hannah and Michelle pack up the cookie truck. They had decided to leave half of the new cookie bars at The Cookie Jar so that Lisa, Aunt Nancy, and Marge could try them out on the customers. Hannah and Michelle took the other half with them and headed off to the Lake Eden Inn.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” Michelle said as they turned off on the road that led around Eden Lake. “Just look at the sun glinting off the snow.”
“Michelle, it’s a yard light. It’s winter. The sun’s not up yet.”
“Oh. I think I might need more sleep. But look at the yard light glistening on the branches of the pine trees. I wonder if that’s where they got the inspiration for tinsel.”
“Dad told me that, way back in Great-Grandma Elsa’s day, tinsel was actually made from shiny lead. They used to call them icicles.”
“Why did they stop making them out of lead?” Michelle asked her.
“I’m not completely sure, but I’ll bet it had something to do with lead poisoning, or maybe the fact that people were supposed to save scrap metal for the war effort.”
“I remember Great-Grandma Elsa telling us about the old rusty tractor that they hauled out from behind the barn and gave to a scrap metal drive.”
“Yes, farm equipment was heavy, and there were shortages of metal to make tanks, and ships, and all sorts of things. Some people even removed non-essential parts from their cars and donated those.”
“Like what?”
“Bumpers and in some cases, even fenders. People went through their homes to donate anything made out of metal, and some families tore down wroug
ht iron fences and donated those. Most families had someone close to them fighting in the war, a neighbor, a son, a nephew or cousin. Scrap drives became very important to them because everybody wanted to help the soldiers.”
“Were there scrap drives for other things besides metal?”
“Oh, yes. There were scrap drives for rubber, too. Big trucks came to collect old tires because they could be recycled and used on troop trucks and Jeeps. New tires were in very short supply here at home, and people did all sorts of things to patch them up and use them longer. Paper was another thing that was in short supply, and schools held paper drives to collect old magazines, newspapers, and anything made out of paper. There were drives for anything that was in short supply, and everything that could be recycled was recycled.”
Michelle looked thoughtful. “We’re doing that again now. We separate glass, and metal, and paper in our trash so that it can be recycled. We have a special can for recyclables at the house in St. Paul.”
“And we have a separate Dumpster in the garage at the condo,” Hannah told her. “We started that a couple of months ago. It’s the blue Dumpster.”
“I saw that and I was going to ask you about it. I figured it wasn’t for regular trash.”
“We’re here!” Hannah said as they pulled up by the back door to the convention center. “Sally said we can use this spot to unload.”
“Great! Back in, Hannah, but leave enough room for you to open the back and stand there. If you hand things up to me, it’ll go a lot faster.”
“Now it’ll go twice as fast,” a male voice shouted out, and Hannah and Michelle turned to see Loren standing on the loading dock.
