A Catered Murder (26 page)

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Authors: Isis Crawford

BOOK: A Catered Murder
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Libby opened her mouth and closed it again.
Finally she said, “Okay, but I'm not promising anything.”
“You don't have to,” Bernie told her. “I'll do all the work for you.”
“That's what I'm afraid of,” Libby told her as she went to put on some new clothes.
Recipes
My friend Amy has made this appetizer for a number of years. The nice things about it is it's quick and easy to prepare. It can be made ahead of time and looks great on the plate. And don't be put off by the word caviar. Red caviar is cheap and can be found on most better supermarket shelves.
Caviar Mousse
6 oz. red caviar
¼ cup chopped parsley
1 tablespoon grated onion
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 pint sour cream
¼ cup heavy cream
1 envelope gelatin
cup water
freshly ground pepper to taste
In a large bowl combine caviar, parsley, onion, lemon rind. Stir the sour cream into this mixture. In a separate bowl whip the heavy cream. Sprinkle gelatin over the water in a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the gelatin is completely dissolved. This takes only a minute or two. Stir gelatin into the caviar and sour cream mixture. Fold in whipped cream and add pepper to taste. Spoon into individual molds or one large soufflé dish. Chill until set. Unmold onto platter and serve surrounded by crackers.
The recipes that follow are from my friend Linda Nielsen, who is a great instinctive cook, as her grateful friends will attest to. She's one of those people who can take odds and ends and combine them into something wonderful.
All these recipes are designed to serve eight. Have fun with them and don't feel you have to follow them exactly, except for the devil's food cake and the finger bone cookies, that is. Here not following the recipes as they are written is a bad idea because unlike cooking, baking is an exact art.
 
 
This is a nice old-fashioned recipe, something your mother might have made, that works well in the summer as an appetizer and looks pretty on a buffet table. It's a great potluck dish because you can make it in the morning in ten minutes, stick it in the fridge, and bring it to the party later in the day.
Tomato Aspic
4 cups tomato juice, either canned or homemade
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons plain gelatin
½ cup cold water
Soak 2 tablespoons gelatin in cold water.
Add lemon juice to tomato juice.
Heat juice but do not allow it to boil.
Stir in gelatin. Stir until it dissolves.
Pour into heart- or ring-shaped mold.
Put into refrigerator and chill until firm.
Unmold and serve on white platter decorated with lettuce leaves.
If so moved you can add ½ cup sour cream and/or chopped green olives or finely chopped celery to the mixture after the gelatin dissolves.
This salad fits nicely into any meal scheme. It works as part of a dinner or, if served with fruit and bread, as a light lunch. You can use regular navel oranges, but the blood oranges have a red color and slightly tarter taste that make them worth looking for.
Mesclun Salad with Goat Cheese, Blood Oranges, and Toasted Almonds in a Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
½ to ¾ cup blanched slivered or halved almonds
8 cups mesclun lettuce
5 blood oranges
1 log domestic or imported goat cheese, chilled
Toast half a cup (or more if you want) of slivered or halved almonds in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, being careful not to burn them. When they are a nice brown, put them on a paper towel or brown paper bag to drain and put aside.
 
Next wash two bags of mixed baby greens or, preferably, get eight cups worth of mixed baby lettuces (mesclun) at a supermarket with a good produce section, pat dry, tear into bite-sized pieces, and put aside.
 
Chill log of goat cheese (either domestic or foreign) to make it easier to slice and cut into eight rounds and put aside.
 
Section five oranges, either regular or blood, and put aside.
 
Make dressing:
In a cup or a bottle put in one teaspoon Dijon mustard, one peeled garlic clove, whisk in four parts good olive oil, then slowly add in three parts balsamic vinegar.
 
Arrange lettuce on plates, put goat cheese on top, arrange orange slices next to them, drizzle dressing over all, scatter with almonds, and enjoy.
A meat thermometer really helps with this one. If you don't already have one, buy it now. It's a good investment.
Midnight Beef (Black Pepper-coated Beef Tenderloin)
3 lbs beef tenderloin
½ to ¾ cup black peppercorns
1½ tablespoons rosemary
preferably fresh oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard.
For this recipe count on
pound meat per serving per person.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
Form the meat into a roll and tie with string or have your butcher do this for you.
Crush peppercorns with a bottle or rolling pin or bottom of a heavy pot.
Finely chop up rosemary.
Mix with peppercorns.
Paint or rub oil into meat.
Coat with Dijon mustard.
Roll meat in pepper and herb mixture.
Place on rack in roasting pan and put in the oven.
Reduce heat to 350 degrees and roast until desired level of doneness.
Test with meat thermometer. For rare the thermometer will read 125 degrees, for medium 130, and for well done 145 degrees.
Let rest for ten minutes, then carve into slices.
Au Gratin Potatoes
About 5 lbs thinly sliced potatoes
2 large thinly sliced onions
1½-2 cups grated sharp cheddar or imported Swiss
1 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper
A 9- by 13-inch baking dish
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter baking dish.
Put in layer of thinly sliced potatoes, then the thinly sliced onions.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then sprinkle on cheese. Continue this way until you have three more layers ending with cheese.
Pour in one cup of chicken stock.
Cover pan with foil, bake one hour.
Uncover pan bake another ½ hour.
Finger Bone Cookies (Kranserkaker)
2 hardboiled cooked egg yolks mashed
2 raw egg yolks
½ lb (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
½ cup sugar
3½ cups flour
Powdered sugar
Maraschino cherries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine mashed egg yolks and raw egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Add butter and sugar and mix well. Add flour and mix using your hands. (The mixture will be quite firm.)
Take a tablespoon of dough and roll it in your hands to form a narrow roll (the finger). If you want you can put a small piece of maraschino cherry on one end to make the fingernail.
Place on buttered cookie sheet. When finished forming cookies bake them in oven for fifteen minutes or until they are light brown.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Store in covered container when cool.
Sprinkle with fresh powdered sugar just before serving (if you want to).
Devil's Food Cake
1½sticks butter
2½ cups sugar
1½ teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
3 cups cake flour
1½teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1½ cups ice water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter three 8-inch layer pans or a 9- by 13-inch pan.
 
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until light and fluffy.
Stir in cooled chocolate. (If it isn't cooled, the cake will be heavy.)
Sift together cake flour, baking soda and salt.
Add above to batter alternately with ice water (i.e., one cup flour, stir,
cup ice water, stir, etc.) until everything is combined. Do not overmix.
Put batter in pan or pans, place in oven, bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the cake has pulled away from the sides and your finger doesn't leave a dent in the center of the cake. Cool.
Chocolate Mocha Frosting
½ cup soft butter
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cognac
1 teaspoon instant espresso or coffee powder
Cream butter until fluffy.
Beat in cooled melted chocolate, egg yolk, vanilla, cognac and coffee powder.
 
This can be used immediately or refrigerated, in which case it will need to be brought back to room temperature.
 
To compose: spread icing on cake and place in fridge until serving time. Enjoy!
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
the next delicious Libby and Bernie mystery
A CATERED WEDDING
coming next month in hardcover!
Prologue
L
eeza Sharp inclined her head over the roses the butler had just handed her and inhaled. Not very strongly scented, she decided as she kicked the door shut behind her with the heel of her foot. She strode across the room, pulling the clear wrapping paper and bow off the dozen long-stemmed white roses as she went. She deposited the paper in the trash can, laid the flowers down on the table by the window, and inspected them.
A frown crossed her brow. “Hmm,” she said as she reached into the top of the dresser drawer and took out a ruler.
She tapped it against her teeth before lowering it and carefully placing the stem of one of the flowers against the measuring stick. The stem was eleven inches, an inch too short. She'd been right.
Stems of traditional long stemmed roses were supposed to be exactly twelve inches—no more and no less. Leeza gathered up the flowers, wincing as a thorn pricked her. Those should have been removed as well she thought as she threw the flowers in the trash. Altogether an inferior product. This was her big day and she had no use for something that wasn't perfect.
Leeza sucked the side of her finger for a moment. Then, when it had stopped hurting, she reknotted the sash on her white-silk, hand-embroidered robe, took a sip of tea out of the Limoges cup, and nibbled on a piece of brioche. She could hear the rain drumming on the drainpipe as she carefully replaced the cup on the saucer, wiped her hands on the linen napkin, and strolled across her bedroom to stand by the windows.
Even the rain didn't upset her. She wouldn't let it or anything else dent her composure. In three hours her bridesmaids would be descending on her and everything would start. These were the last private hours she would have as Miss Leeza Sharp and she intended to enjoy every single second of them.
From the window she could just see the top of the large tent the workmen had erected yesterday afternoon. Originally she'd pictured the material as sky blue silk with a sprinkling of stars, possibly with a cascade of cobalt crystal beads decorating the entranceway.
She'd wanted her wedding to have an exotic Arabian Nights feel to it. She'd even planned to have Oriental carpets and rose petals scattered over the floor; actually she was still going to do that even though she'd had to rethink the tent.
According to Wedding Planner Number One there'd been a problem with the silk pulling at the seams, something about the tension of the fabric, something the wedding planner hadn't noticed until the last minute, although for the life of her Leeza couldn't imagine why the planner hadn't checked on it before—after all she was being paid to take care of the details. And this had happened one week before the wedding!
Ohmygod
. Leeza put her hand to her heart. Just thinking about the tent fiasco—even now—gave her
agita.
And the wedding planner actually had had the nerve to suggest using tape—tape!—to reinforce the seams. This was the planner's idea of problem solving? The whole idea of the tent, of her vision would have been lost.
The planner had been totally useless. The woman hadn't even been able to get an assurance from the editor that the announcement of the wedding would run in the Sunday
New York Times.
It had taken the PR person Leeza had hired to do that.
Thank heavens for the caterers. At least they had come through. Leeza hadn't known where to turn about the tent. She'd been in absolute tears when Libby Simmons had approached her and told her she thought she could find a local company to make the tent for her. Of course it had been extremely expensive. Four people had worked three twelve-hour days to sew it, but getting one of those ready-made ones from a rental company was unthinkable for her wedding.
Yes, she knew that those places stocked a multitude of styles these days, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that she wanted a tent that had been made especially for her, for this day. She wanted . . . what had the other Simmons girl called it? . . . A talisman? No. A memento.
Originally Leeza had been upset about the color options available to her. Nothing that she saw captured her attention, but the other sister, Bernie, had assured her that the cream with the very thin pale, yellow stripes running through the material, would look smashing when it was made up. Leeza hadn't really believed her but, because of the time constraints involved in weather-coating the material, she'd finally acquiesced.
But now looking at the tent Leeza decided that Bernie had been right. As she'd promised, the material had held up well. She rather liked the effect of the white against the green of the willows lining the creek. The tent looked like something that would house a medieval gathering and as far as Leeza was concerned it looked festive even in this weather. So did the white rose bushes she'd had planted specially for her wedding day, white being her signature color. The only thing missing were the pennants, but hopefully it would stop raining by twelve so they could be put up before the reception.
Leeza was glad she hadn't acceded to Libby Simmons's initial suggestion to relocate the reception to the house. They were having the ceremony there and that was enough. As she'd explained to her, yes, she knew outdoor wedding receptions were risky, but she'd had her heart set on an outdoor celebration by the water ever since she could remember, and to Libby's credit she had understood. Of course, if Libby hadn't she wouldn't have gotten the job. So what if the weather made the logistics a little more difficult. After all, facilitating her desires was what the Simmons girls were getting paid for.
And at this point they certainly had come through. In fact, they were the only people who had. Wedding Planner Number Two—or was it Wedding Planner Number One? Leeza was beginning to get them mixed up—they'd both looked the same to her with their Palm Pilots and titanium covered Macs and their black suits and pulled-back blond hair—anyway, one of them had suggested another caterer but Eunice and Gertrude Walker, her mother's old friends, had insisted that she try the Simmons girls—and they'd been right. For once.
The sample meal Bernie and Libby had cooked her had been wonderful, especially the béarnaise sauce for the filet mignon, and she couldn't quibble with the menu—simple, elegant, and drop-dead expensive. Bernie, the better dressed sister, had understood exactly what she'd wanted to give her guests—a unique experience that they would talk about for the rest of their lives. Which was why each detail, no matter how small, counted.
Individually the details were nothing, but together they made up the totality of experience she wanted to convey. Leeza had even thought about releasing monarch butterflies after the ceremony as a symbol of her and Jura's union. One of her friends had told her she'd heard from her friend out in L.A. that that's what all the Hollywood people were doing.
She'd almost ordered them—one hundred butterflies for a little under eight hundred dollars—but Bernie had pointed out that it would be very depressing if the release went wrong, and you had butterflies dying all over the place. Which was certainly true.
For a while she'd toyed with releasing a flock of white doves, but she really didn't like birds—they crapped all over everything—and so she'd dropped that idea as well. Especially since Jura's brother Joe had started talking about marching down the aisle with one of his falcons sitting on his shoulder. Falcons! How ridiculous was that, Leeza thought as she inspected her nails.
She still liked the deep burgundy she'd chosen. It was a nice foil for the gleam of her nine-carat diamond engagement ring. She'd gotten a manicure and pedicure yesterday afternoon but she had a manicurist on standby just in case she or one of her bridesmaids needed a touch-up.
After all this was her day and she didn't want it to be ruined by something like a chipped nail. Jura hadn't even complained about the cost of that. Actually he hadn't complained about any of the bills. He'd just written the checks, which was one of things she loved about him. Okay. It was the only thing she loved about him.
He certainly left her cold in the sex department. Even with Viagra. Just because he could get it up didn't mean he knew what to do with it. He hadn't heard about G-spots let alone erogenous zones and had no desire to learn about them, but, hey, she could get sex anytime she wanted. She had that base covered.
As she saw it, the advantage of marrying an older, rich man was that he would do anything to keep her happy. Well, almost anything. Like this wedding. If it had been up to his brothers, she and Jura would be getting married by a justice of the peace and having coffee and cake afterwards or some sort of Estonian food—whatever that was. Leeza snorted at the ridiculousness of the idea. Why were some rich people so cheap? Before she came along Jura, Ditas, and Joe used to do their shopping at Sam's Club which was absurd considering what they sold. But not anymore.
Take the salmon they were serving. It was all wild, all troll-(meaning line) caught, not netted, because as Bernie had explained to her netting bruised the fish. And it was all from the Copper River in Alaska. Bernie had explained that this salmon was the best in the world although for the life of her Leeza couldn't remember exactly why.
She thought it had something to do with the Copper River being so long that the salmon were fatter when they started their journey upstream, but she wasn't sure. The real point though was that they weren't serving any of that farm–raised trash which, Bernie had carefully explained to Jura when he had questioned the expense, didn't taste as good. And, of course, it was bad for the environment.
The asparagus they were using were all grown right here on Jura's estate, as were the strawberries, both wild and domestic. And Leeza wasn't even going to mention the ice sculptures or the bowls of beluga caviar they were serving. Personally she really didn't like the stuff, but everyone else did.
If her mother could see her now, Leeza thought she'd be so proud of her. Not for nothing had she scrubbed out other people's toilets so Leeza could have braces and a nose job and good clothes. Leeza could still see her mom beaming when she'd been crowned Miss Butternut Squash. What would she think of her wedding dress? Leeza went over and ran her finger down the boned bodice.
Now some people might think twenty-five thousand dollars was too much to spend on a dress, but not Leeza. It was clear to her that if you were going to get married on an estate to someone who was worth easily one hundred million, then twenty-five thousand for a dress was nothing percentage wise. And if she did say so herself the white satin and handmade French lace were perfection, as was the veil shot through with real gold and seed pearls.
Leeza studied her reflection in the mirror—not bad for a girl from Missouri—not bad at all. All that work and plastic surgery had paid off: she was marrying rich, which in her humble opinion was what it was all about. In her humble opinion, anyone who said money didn't matter was a fool.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nine o'clock. Where the hell were the Simmons girls anyway? Even though they had brought the tables down last night they still had to set them up. Leeza gently tapped the nails on her left hand on her cheek. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she should talk to Jura about getting some of his security people to guard the tent before everyone arrived—after all the caterers
were
using thousands of dollars worth of gold rimmed Lenox bone china and Waterford crystal, not to mention the Tiffany silver.
But then guards would look so out of place, and Jura did have them at the gate. He'd added another two, so there would be five altogether checking invitations. No one who wasn't invited would be getting in. Absolutely no one. She didn't mind being gossiped about, but she wanted to control who gossiped about her and where. That's why she'd hired her own public relations person, another thing Jura's brothers couldn't understand.
“A needless expense,” both Ditas and Joe had said.
Well, it was too bad that they couldn't understand the importance of being media savvy, but there it was.
No point in thinking about the disagreement—well really more of an argument—they'd had, Leeza told herself. She'd won it like she'd won all the others. What was so bad about wanting everything to be perfect she wanted to know? And speaking of perfect, the hair stylist and her make-up person should be here in another three hours. But what would happen if the plane couldn't land? What would happen if the flight was delayed at LAX? If the limo that was supposed to bring them out from JFK had a flat tire? A wave of panic ran through Leeza.
She should have used someone from the city, but these people were absolute geniuses. Everyone said so. That's why they did all the Hollywood stars. Leeza took a deep breath and calmed herself. No. She'd done the right thing getting them, which was a feat in itself. These people were the best in their field and as her mother liked to say, “you could never have too much of a good thing.” Then after the stylist and the make-up artist were done, the dresser would help her maid of honor and bridesmaid into their dresses and everyone would pose for photos.
As she was thinking about the color eye shadow she'd picked out and whether she should change it to something a little bronzier she walked over to the table and reread the wedding announcement that was running in today's
Times.
The paper was creased from being handled but that was all right. She'd made the maid go out and buy three extra copies, which she intended to have laminated. Leeza's lips moved as she read the announcement. Not that she needed to. She could have recited it by heart at this point. It read:

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