by Ann Walsh
“Never overcook biscuits,” Mrs. J. used to tell me every time I made them. “They’ll dry right out, taste like cardboard.”
Reluctantly, I left Robin and pulled the baking trays out of the oven. I put the biscuits on racks to cool, and started the dishes. Robin had stopped crying, I could feel him watching me.
“I remember sitting right here, eating gingerbread, watching Gran wash up. She wouldn’t eat until she’d washed all the cooking stuff and put everything away.”
“A good cook always cleans up after herself,” I said, and in spite of myself I smiled, a small smile. “She taught me that.”
I covered the biscuits with a clean tea towel, got out the teapot and an assortment of teas and checked to make sure there was enough milk for Robin’s family when they came over this afternoon.
At the front door, I pulled off the orange slippers and put them in the basket. Robin took them out again and handed them to me. “Please keep them. You always wear them when you’re here. You put them on the day I met you, when I brought you here to help with Gran’s tea party. I don’t want them donated to a thrift store.”
Before I could answer, he was out the door, not looking back. He replaced the spare house key under the third step and called, “See you in the car,” his voice rough again. I pulled on my boots and my backpack and had begun to close the front door, when I remembered the garbage. I slipped off my boots again and went back to the kitchen. The bag of garbage wasn’t very full. I grabbed it and started to tie it up when I saw what was on top. An empty bottle of Mrs. J.’s pain pills.
“Darrah? Will you bring the garbage? I forgot it,” Robin called from the front hall.
This belongs in the recycling, I thought, and slipped the empty pill bottle into my jacket pocket. I’ll recycle it at home.
“I’ve got it, Robin. I’ll be right there.”
Dinner was quiet, no one knew what to say to me. I kept hoping Robin would call, and maybe come over, but I knew he couldn’t. He needed to be with his family. Mom and Dad asked me if I wanted to see a grief counsellor. I said I didn’t know, maybe.
I went to bed early, exhausted, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t cry anymore, I didn’t want to cry anymore. I wanted to sleep. I heard the rest of the family say their goodnights, and Mom came into my room and gently stroked my hair before pulling the covers up and tiptoeing out. I pretended I was asleep, and then tried, again, to really sleep.
Finally, at about two in the morning, I gave up. I took the orange slippers out of my backpack, put them on, and went downstairs. I’d make a cup of chamomile tea; maybe that would help me sleep.
I stood in my own kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, looking down at my feet in the orange slippers, and I remembered the pill bottle. It was still in my jacket pocket, hanging in the front hall.
I got it, brought it back to the kitchen, and made a pot of tea. Then I looked carefully at the bottle. It had her name, Mrs. J. Johnson, then the date the prescription had been filled, December 24, and the instructions, “Take one or two every four hours as needed for pain, maximum eight a day.” Mrs. J. had died the night of December 26th, or early in the morning on the 27th, the day after Boxing Day, three days after the prescription had been filled. Three times eight is twenty-four. I looked at the prescription label again. The bottle had held sixty.
I put the bottle on the kitchen table, and poured myself a mug of tea, thinking. That was too many pills for her to take. Maybe she gave some to Mr. Allen? He suffered from arthritis pain. But why didn’t she give him the whole bottle? Why take the pills out?
Maybe she got rid of the pills, flushed them down the toilet. Maybe they were in the bottom of the garbage and I hadn’t seen them. But why would she do that? She would need more pills the next day and the next. Unless . . .
Unless she took them on purpose.
No. She wouldn’t have. Would she? How could she do that? That’s not fair to Robin and his family. That’s not fair to me.
The tears started again. I gulped down a mouthful of tea. It was hot and burned my mouth. I threw the mug across the room, watched as it shattered against the fridge, almost in slow motion. Chamomile tea dripped down the refrigerator door and onto the floor; part of the broken mug rocked slowly back and forth, slower, slower, and then it stopped. But no one heard the smash; my parents didn’t come downstairs to see what was going on.
That’s what happens when you die, I thought, still looking at the broken mug. You get slower and slower and then you stop.
Why was I so angry with Mrs. J? She did what she thought was the right thing—the right thing for her. She was strong and brave, but the pain must have been too much. I remembered how at first she just took one pill, then she started asking me for two at a time.
I missed her, I wanted her alive again. I was sad for Robin and sad for me—that I could understand. But why was I angry?
Because it wasn’t right. Killing people, even yourself, is wrong.
An image of a circle popped into my mind. Mrs. Barrett was facilitating again, I was sitting beside her, wearing the orange slippers, Robin across the room and Mrs. J. on the other side of Mrs. Barrett. There were others there, Mrs. J.’s family, faceless bodies.
“I will remind you that we are not here to judge Janie Johnson’s character,” said the imaginary Mrs. Barrett, reading from her imaginary script. “We are here to learn how others have been affected by her actions. Mrs. Johnson, please tell us what you did on that night.”
Then the circle vanished. But not before my imaginary Mrs. J. glared at us all and said, “Mind your own business, all of you. Especially you, girl.”
It was her business, not mine. It was her pain, her suffering, her life. Didn’t she have the right to choose to end her own life when and how she wanted? To end the pain? To die with dignity when and where she wanted?
Her family was with her for Christmas, she died in her own home, not in that “warehouse” she had to move to. All good things.
I would miss her, and her family would miss her, but it was her choice.
The prescription label peeled off the bottle easily. I wadded it up into a sticky mass, wrapped it in Kleenex and buried it in the bottom of our almost-full garbage, under crumpled metallic wrapping paper and tangled shiny ribbons. The now unidentifiable empty bottle went back into my jacket pocket, to be tossed into recycling somewhere else, not here where Mom might see it and ask questions.
Then I mopped up the kitchen floor, wiped down the spatters on the fridge and put the broken pieces of the mug in the garbage. I poured out the rest of the tea, put the tea leaves in the compost bucket and rinsed and dried the teapot. Then I hung up the tea towel. The kitchen was tidy again.
“A good cook always cleans up after herself, right Mrs. J?”
Slowly, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. This time I knew I could sleep.
My Recipes
I made notes and changed some of the words from the General Rules in the Foods, Nutrition and Home Management book. They were really old fashioned. Also, all of Mrs. J.’s recipes and the ones in her book were in cups and teaspoons, not metric, so I didn’t try to change them over. But I looked up some common measurements in metric, and put them on a recipe card. In case I want to make something from a metric cookbook. — DP
CHANGING MEASUREMENTS TO METRIC:
¼ teaspoon (tsp) = 1.25 ml (milliliter)
½ tsp = 2.5 ml
1 tsp = 5 ml
1 tablespoon (tbsp) = 15 ml
¼ cup = 60 ml
1/3 cup = 75 ml
½ cup = 125 ml
1 cup = 250 ml
4 cups = 1 liter
Baking Powder Biscuits
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2-4 tablespoons fat (margarine, lard or butter)
2/3 cup milk or water
• Turn on oven to right temperature (425 degrees for biscuits) and grease baking pans.
• Put shortening in with flour mixture,
cut with a knife and work with tips of fingers until mixture is the texture of raw oatmeal (no big lumps).
• Add milk gradually with as little mixing as possible.
• Put dough on a lightly floured board (or a clean counter) then knead it. (Not too long, just until it is all mixed together). Roll out until ¾ of an inch thick.
• Cut with floured biscuit cutter (or a glass the size you want the biscuits to be).
• Bake for 15–20 minutes until doubled in size and golden brown on top.
• For cheese biscuits, add 2/3 of a cup of grated cheese to the dry ingredients and reduce the fat to 1 tablespoon.
Barbecued Chicken Rice Soup
1 left-over barbecued takeout chicken (what remains from the previous meal)
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 cup of chopped onions
1 cup or more of other vegetables: celery, green peas, beans, red or green peppers, anything you like
½ cup of rice
a bit of oil (small spoonful)
pepper
salt
hot sauce (few drops)
• Pull off as much chicken meat as you can from the left-over chicken; chop and put in a bowl to add later. Put the rest of the chicken (mostly bones) in a big pot of cold water, bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let it cook slowly, without boiling over, for about an hour.
• Once the stock is ready (it smells good and the bones pull apart easily) remove chicken bones. Let them cool, pull off any more bits of meat you can find and add to the other chicken meat in the bowl. Throw the bones away.
• Chop onion, put in frying pan with teaspoon of oil. Cook for a few minutes until golden coloured, but not burned.
• Add rice, vegetables and chicken to hot stock. Cook for about half an hour until rice is done. Taste, then put in salt, pepper and a few drops of hot sauce if you want it spicy.
Spaghetti Sauce
(Mrs. J. just told me what to do, she didn’t have a recipe written down)
1 pound of lean hamburger
1 onion, diced
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon parsley
1 big can of tomato sauce
a few drops of hot sauce
a small bit of black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped, if you like garlic
Optional vegetables: 2 big mushrooms, washed, diced; green or red peppers, diced; black olives, sliced
(You can buy spaghetti sauce already seasoned, called “Italian” or “spiced,” or you can add your own seasonings. You don’t need to add extra salt, most canned and ready-made foods are already salted quite enough, Mrs. J. says.)
• Brown hamburger in a frying pan until no pink shows. Break it into little chunks while it’s browning. Add onion, carrot and garlic—if you are using garlic. Brown for another 10 minutes, making sure it doesn’t burn.
• Pour can of tomato sauce into a medium sized saucepan. Add everything from frying pan and oregano and parsley. Carefully bring it to a boil, then turn it down and let it simmer for about half an hour, stirring once in a while.
COOKING THE SPAGHETTI
• Fill the biggest pot you can find ¾ full of water. On high heat, bring it to a bubbling boil. Break dry spaghetti in half first, if you don’t like long strings of pasta. Add to boiling water. Watch carefully, turn down heat or it will boil over. Read directions on spaghetti box for how much spaghetti to use and how long to cook it. Don’t cook too long or it turns mushy. Pour cooked spaghetti into a colander or strainer over the sink and don’t let it get cold.
Wacky Cake
1½ cups white flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa (the real cocoa, not hot chocolate mix)
1/3 cup (or 5 tablespoons) melted shortening , butter or oil (margarine is okay, but don’t use the diet stuff)
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup boiling water
• Put dry ingredients in a 9x9 baking pan (a square baking pan, not too big).
• Make three holes in the mixture. Pour oil, vinegar and vanilla in separate holes.
• Pour boiling water over all. Mix with fork. DO NOT BEAT.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Leave in pan and frost while still warm.
WACKY CAKE FROSTING
½ cup sugar
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1½ teaspoons flour
½ cup shredded coconut (optional)
½ cup chopped nuts
½ teaspoon vanilla
(I bet ½ cup of chocolate chips would be nice instead of coconut.)
• Combine all ingredients, except vanilla, and cook on medium heat until thick, stir constantly. Add vanilla. Mix well. Spread on warm cake. (You have to keep stirring or it will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.)
Christmas Apple Cider
1 litre apple juice
1 orange unpeeled, washed and quartered or cut in eighths
8 whole cloves (stick one or two into each orange section)
1 whole nutmeg (it’s a round spice that looks a bit like a walnut but you can’t break it open, you have to use a grater to get bits off, or use or a sprinkle of ground nutmeg if you don’t have the whole nutmegs)
2 cinnamon sticks
• Put everything in a pot and let simmer for 20 minutes.
• Throw out cinnamon sticks, whole nutmeg and orange pieces and serve hot. (You can eat the oranges, but be careful of the cloves, they’re hard and don’t taste that great if you bite into the whole ones.)
Yule Log
PART 1
1½ cups whole Brazil nuts
1½ cups shelled walnut halves
1 cup pitted dates
1 cup candied peel
½ cup drained green maraschino cherries (whole)
½ cup drained red maraschino cherries (whole)
½ cup seedless raisins
PART 2
¾ cup flour
¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
PART 3
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
• Grease sides of bread pan with butter.
• Line with parchment (baking) paper.
• Place part 1 in a large bowl. Sift part 2 over part 1, mix well.
• Beat eggs until fluffy. Add vanilla.
• Pour part 3 into parts 1 and 2. Mix well. (Everyone in the house at the time you make this has to stir the mixture, for good luck.)
• Bake at 300 degrees for 1½ to 2 hours
• Cool on a wire rack. Don’t take paper off.
• When cool, wrap well in foil and keep in the refrigerator. (Don’t forget to take the baking paper off before you slice it.)
Church Window Cookies
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
¼ cup margarine
3 cups multi-coloured tiny marshmallows
¾ cup chopped nuts
• Melt chocolate and margarine together (in microwave on low heat, cover and watch it carefully. It should be melted but not too hot).
• Put in bowl with nuts and marshmallows, stir well.
• On waxed paper (it can make a mess of the counter if you don’t use wax paper) make dough into “logs” the size you want your cookies.
• Wrap in plastic wrap, then in tinfoil and put in fridge.
• When firm, slice into thin slices and serve.
Fried Rice
(from a recipe on the internet)
1 or 2 green onions
2 large eggs
pepper to taste (a shake or two)
4 tablespoons vegetable oil for stir-frying
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4 cups cooked rice
1 to 2 tablespoons light soy sauce or oyster sauce
• Wash and finely chop the green onion —both the white and green parts. Lightly beat the eggs with the pepper. (You don’t need salt, there’s lots in the soy sauce.)
• Heat a wok or frying pan and add 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil is hot, add the eggs. Cook, stirring, until they are lightly scrambled but not too dry. Remove the eggs and clean out the pan.
• Add 2 tablespoons oil. Add the rice. Stir-fry for a few minutes, using chopsticks or a wooden spoon to break it apart. Stir in the soy or oyster sauce. (Forget the oyster sauce; yuck!)
• When the rice is heated through, put the scrambled egg back into the pan. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the green onion. Serve hot.
Chinese Stir-Fried Vegetables
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 slice fresh ginger, chopped into very small bits
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup water
¼ cup soy sauce
1 cup broccoli, chopped
1 green or red pepper, seeded and chopped
½ cup sliced water chestnuts (they come in a can)
½ cup fresh bean sprouts (rinse well and let drain)
½ cup sliced fresh mushrooms (rinse and dry with paper towel to get any bits of dirt off before you slice them)
optional: some chopped bok choy or other Chinese greens (use mainly the white part with just a bit of the green leafy part)
• Heat the oil in a large frying pan. (On medium high heat, not the highest temperature.) Fry the ginger and garlic for 2 to 3 minutes.
• Carefully add the water, soy sauce and broccoli, fry for 5 to 7 minutes, then add the remaining ingredients.
Hoisin Sauce Chicken Thighs
• Choose some chicken thighs, about two or three for each person.
• Put in a casserole dish, not a deep one, the pieces shouldn’t touch.
• Bake at 350 degrees for half an hour.
• Carefully lift out of oven, tilt casserole, spoon out any fat.
