The Body in the Gazebo (25 page)

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Dr. Robert DeMartino, Jean Fogelberg, Nicholas Hein, Amalie Kass, Kathy and Peter Winham, Valerie Wolzien, and the Poison Lady, Luci Zahray, for help from their various areas of expertise. Also many thanks to my agent, Faith Hamlin, and to my editor, Wendy Lee.

The idea for this book originated during a glorious week on Martha’s Vineyard with my friends of over forty years, Kate Danforth, Mimi Garrett, Virginia Pick, and Margaret Stuart. Always, my thanks to them.

EXCERPTS FROM
Have Faith
in Your Kitchen

By Faith Sibley Fairchild with Katherine
Hall Page

Borscht

1 small red bell pepper, diced

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large red onion, sliced

3 cups peeled and cubed beets (approx. 3
large beets)

Juice from ½ lemon

2 ½ quarts stock or water

2 bay leaves

½ teaspoon thyme

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Sour cream

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot.
Add the onion slices and diced pepper. Sauté, stirring over medium heat, just
until the onions start to give off some liquid. Add the rest of the ingredients
except the sour cream. Bring to a boil and then turn to a simmer. Cook until the
beets are tender.

Place in a blender or food processor, or use an
immersion blender to process until the soup is smooth, but still has some heft
to it.

Serves 4–6.

This is an easy summer or winter soup
recipe. It is best made a day ahead. Serve it cold in the summer and hot in the
winter topped with sour cream. To make the spiderweb garnish, pipe concentric
circles of sour cream on the top of each portion. Drag the tip of a sharply
pointed knife through the circles to create the effect.

Baked Chicken with Red
Wine, Sage, and Root Vegetables

2 ½ pounds chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ pound parsnips

½ pound carrots

1 large yellow onion

2 tablespoons fresh sage

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 cup dry red wine

Faith’s family likes dark meat, so she
uses four whole chicken legs.

Preheat the oven to 350˚.

Rinse the chicken and pat it dry with a paper
towel.

Drizzle the oil in a casserole large enough to hold
the chicken and vegetables. Faith prefers the oval ones from France, but Pyrex
is just fine, too.

Place the chicken pieces in the casserole.

Peel the parsnips, scrub (or peel) the carrots, and
cut both into chunks, about an inch long.

Peel the onion and cut it into eighths.

Arrange the assorted vegetables around the
chicken.

Strip the leaves off the sage stems. Roll them into
a small cigar shape and slice into thin strips (a chiffonade). Sprinkle on top
of the chicken and vegetables along with the salt and pepper.

Pour the wine evenly over the casserole.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1
hour.

Uncover, baste with a bulb baster or a spoon, and
bake for another 45 minutes, basting occasionally. The chicken should be nicely
browned. Let the dish rest for 5 minutes.

Serves 4 amply. Be sure to spoon some of the liquid
on top of the chicken and vegetables when serving.

What is nice about this dish is that it omits
browning the chicken, which you would do in a more traditional coq au vin. It
takes less time to prepare and Faith created it as a heart-wise version for her
husband. She uses a salt substitute and takes the skin off the chicken unless
she’s making it for company. You can vary the vegetables—turnips are good also.
She serves it with the following:

Sautéed New Potatoes
with Sage

Small red potatoes

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh sage

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

While the chicken is baking, start the
potatoes.

Faith figures 3 potatoes per person.

Wash the potatoes, cut them in half, and steam them
until you can pierce them with a sharp fork.

Set aside.

About 15 minutes before the chicken is ready, sauté
the potatoes in the butter and oil. Unfortunately, a butter substitute does not
work with this dish. Once the potatoes start to brown sprinkle them with the
sage and add salt and pepper to taste.

The potatoes will be done at the same time as the
chicken and should be slightly crispy.

Faith makes this basic recipe often to
accompany meat, poultry, or fish, varying the seasoning. Rosemary is one of her
favorites.

Fruit Breakfast
Puffs

4–5 tablespoons unsalted butter,
melted

4 peach halves, fresh or canned, or
pears, strawberries, or other fruit

4 large eggs

¾ cup flour

¼ cup white sugar

¾ cup milk (whole, 2%, or 1%)

3 tablespoons fresh orange juice

Preheat the oven to 400˚.

Cover the bottom of 4 large (approximately 4 inches
in diameter) ovenproof ramekins with 3–4 tablespoons of the melted butter.

Place the peach, or other fruit, on top and set
aside.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl and add the flour,
sugar, milk, and orange juice, blending well.

Add the reserved tablespoon of melted butter and
mix well again.

Divide the batter evenly among the ramekins and
bake on a baking sheet for about 20 minutes or until puffed and golden. Serve
immediately.

This is a very pretty presentation. The
batter puffs up nicely, almost like a popover.

Faith adapted this recipe from a breakfast
puff she had at the very charming Englishman’s Bed and Breakfast in Cherryfield,
Maine. Many thanks to the hosts, Kathy and Peter Winham.

Ursula’s Rum
Cake

2 ½ cups sifted all-purpose
flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room
temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Finely grated zest of 2 oranges

1 cup chopped walnuts

Glaze
ingredients:

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from
lemon grated for zest)

½ cup fresh orange juice (from oranges
grated for zest)

1 cup sugar

5 tablespoons dark rum

Preheat the oven to 350˚. Grease and
flour an 8-cup kugelhopf or bundt pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking
soda, and salt, and set aside.

Beat the butter in an electric mixer until soft.
Add the sugar and beat to mix. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each
addition. On low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients in three additions,
alternating with buttermilk, scraping bowl as necessary.

Remove from the mixer and stir in the zest and
nuts.

Pour into the prepared pan, smooth top, and place
in the hot oven. Bake for 55–60 minutes, until top springs back when pressed
lightly.

Remove from the oven and set on a rack.

Immediately prepare the glaze.

Place the juices and sugar in a saucepan over
moderate heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar is dissolved and the
mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat, add the rum, and stir.

Pierce the top of the cake with a cake tester.
Spoon the hot glaze over the hot cake (still in the pan), spooning a little at a
time. When you notice glaze oozing around the edge of the cake pan, use a metal
spatula or knife to ease the edge of the cake away from the pan, allowing the
glaze to run down the sides. Continue this until all the glaze is absorbed. It
will be absorbed, believe me.

Let the cake stand for 10 to 15 minutes, until the
bottom of the pan is cool enough to touch. Then cover the cake with a plate,
hold the plate tightly in place against the cake pan, and flip over the cake and
pan. Remove the cake pan from the cake. Let stand for at least two hours until
cool and cover with plastic wrap. Can stand overnight before serving.

Truth be told, this extraordinary recipe
is not Ursula Lyman Rowe’s, but Valerie Wolzien’s—the author of many of Faith
and my favorite books: the Susan Henshaw mystery series and the one featuring
Josie Pigeon. Slice a large piece of cake and settle down with, say,
Murder at the PTA Luncheon
or
This Old Murder
or
Death in Duplicate
,
or . . .

Author’s
Note

“Life, within doors,
has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned
breakfast table.”

I
came
across this quotation from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The House
of the Seven Gables
during the dead of last winter, a very cold, long
one. Visions not of sugarplums but of eggs Benedict, sour cream waffles, bagels
and lox, streaky bacon, beignets, and café au lait immediately danced in my
head. Breakfast is my favorite meal.

The word “breakfast,” from the Middle English,
means just that—breaking the fast engendered by a night’s sleep. However, our
ancestors all over the globe ate a much heartier breakfast than we normally do,
as a necessity for the hard day’s physical labor that followed.

In the present day, those of us who eat at home do
so lightly, and well over sixty percent of us grab ’n’ go—a doughnut and coffee
or some other combination from a drive-thru before physically, but not
psychologically, less strenuous work.

Even before Kellogg’s, grains have always played a
prominent role in breakfast composition and remnants have been found at
Neolithic sites. In the United States, the Pilgrims started the day with
maize—another one of those life-saving gifts from the Native Americans—grinding
the kernels and mixing them with water to form “mush.” It was not what the early
colonists had been used to—wheat breads, coffee or tea with milk—but when they
added maple syrup (tapping the trees was another skill they picked up), the
concoction was quite palatable. They drank hard cider or ale to wash it down.
This did not mean they went about their labors pie-eyed—although I’m sure there
were exceptions passed out under the haystacks. These fermented beverages were
safer to drink than many water supplies throughout this period and earlier world
history.

The Victorians’ mid- to late-nineteenth-century
menus were a breakfast lover’s dream. Excessive in all things comestible, they
did not stint at the morning meal, and although Nellie Grant’s 1874 wedding
repast marked a special occasion, it was typical of upper-class breakfast fare:
Soft-Shelled Crabs on Toast, Chicken Croquettes with Green Peas, Lamb Cutlets
with Tartare Sauce, Aspic of Beef Tongue, Woodcock and Snipe on Toast, Salad
with Mayonnaise, Strawberries with Cream, Orange Baskets Garnished with
Strawberries, Charlotte Russe, Nesselrode Pudding, Blancmange, Ice Cream
Garnished with Preserved Fruits, Water Ices, Wedding Cake, Small Fancy Cakes,
Roman Punch (a rum concoction), Chocolate, and Coffee.

In the South and some Mid-Atlantic states, Hunt
Breakfasts, which originated in Britain, were sumptuous affairs with staples
similar to what was still found some years later at the Edwardian breakfast
sideboard, resplendent with silver chafing dishes: Scrambled Eggs in Cream,
Country Sausage with Fried Apple Rings, Creamed Sweetbreads and Oysters,
Capitolade of Chicken (a kind of hash), Kidney Stew, Bacon and Fried Tomato
Slices, Waffles, Hominy Pudding, Broiled Salt Roe Herring, Baked Country Ham,
Spoon Bread, Beaten Biscuits, Buttermilk Biscuits, Jellies, Apple Butter, Honey,
Damson Plum Preserves, and Coffee plus Bourbon and Branch, no doubt in stirrup
cups. Reading over this list transports me to breakfasts I’ve had in the
South—nothing better in the morning than grits and eggs, a real biscuit, and a
thick slice of country ham with redeye gravy.

These two menus are from the pages of
The American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of
American Eating & Drinking
(1964). If one turns up in a book
sale, grab it. Not just fascinating reading, and some very interesting recipes,
but a feast for the eyes, as well.

Hawthorne’s quotation prompted me to think about my
favorite breakfasts, starting in childhood. My father came from the generation
of men who quite literally could not boil water. Somewhere along the way he
learned to make pancakes, although I believe Aunt Jemima may have helped him
out. He made them in shapes, some of which required a bit of imagination to
define, but we loved them. My mother sent us off to school each weekday morning
with a good breakfast under our belts—Cream of Wheat, Wheatina (not a general
favorite), Quaker oatmeal, sometimes eggs and bacon, but always freshly squeezed
orange juice. Frozen OJ had become available after World War II, but Mom didn’t
believe in it (or Tang or Pop-Tarts, introduced in the 1960s, which of course
made them immediately desirable and exotic).

I grew up in the trading-stamp era and after a
certain amount accumulated, we would each get a turn to select something from
the S&H Green Stamps catalog, that Book of Wonders. My brother picked a
waffle iron, and waffles with fruit and other toppings began to appear at
weekend breakfasts. He later chose an ice-cream maker, the kind that used rock
salt. It was wooden and you had to turn a crank, producing the best ice cream
I’ve ever had, thereby showing not only an early appreciation for good food on
his part, but also the recognition that if you wanted tasty things to eat, the
best way was to learn how to do it yourself. I’ve always been grateful to him
for this nugget of culinary wisdom. Meanwhile I was trying to amass a set of
matching luggage. I got as far as a Black Watch plaid overnight bag and a
cosmetics case.

My mother came from a Norwegian-American family.
Breakfast in Norwegian is
frokost,
“early meal,” and
a meal it is. A number of years ago I was with my mother and my aunt in a hotel
on the West Coast of Norway at breakfast time. A tour leader was looking for
someone who spoke French to help explain the offerings to two sisters from
Brittany. I was happy to oblige (they hadn’t thought it necessary to know
English, the language of the tour, as they would just be looking at scenery). I
walked them past the vast array—herring in a number of sauces;
leverpostei,
a kind of liver pâté, I explained; smoked
salmon; smoked eel;
gravlaks,
fresh cured salmon;
shrimp in cream sauce; cold sliced venison; lingonberry sauce; sliced tomatoes;
cucumber salad; a medley of cold and hot cereals; fresh fruit;
wienerbrød
(Danish pastries); a variety of breads;
Ry-Krisp and other crackers; cheeses: Jarlsberg,
gjetost
(a sweet brown goat cheese, an acquired taste), my personal
favorite,
nøkkelost;
and mounds of boiled eggs, to
name some of the offerings. The women were aghast, searching in vain for a
croissant or even a small toasted piece of a baguette. “
Le
petit déjeuner norvégien, c’est bizarre,
” one said. Fortunately there
was plenty of good strong coffee, the national drink after aquavit.

I long for these Norwegian breakfasts, but Kviknes
Hotel in Balestrand is far away. We duplicate the spread on Christmas morning,
but there’s no fjord out the window.

I’m also extremely fond of a traditional British
fry-up as served in Bloomsbury’s Gower Street House Bed and Breakfasts in
London. I also recently had the pleasure of a number of proper English
breakfasts in Bristol at Crimefest, the annual international crime fiction
convention “Where the Pen Is Bloodier than the Sword.” The incomparable Colin
Dexter was the guest of honor. Bristol is noted for its sausages, a delicious
bonus to a wonderful four days. My French ladies would look just as askance at
the British breakfasts—plates filled with fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried
eggs with fried bread swimming in baked beans, accompanied by streaky bacon,
sausages, maybe a kipper, toast, lashings of butter, jam, and strong tea.
Mueseli made an appearance at roughly the same time as crunchy granola in the
U.S. and appears to be here to stay. I skip it, not only because I don’t have
room to eat it, but also because it puts a damper on all that joyful artery
clogging.

This is not an activity I espouse on a regular
basis, but sometimes the craving for a certain kind of breakfast is
irresistible. In Maine, I head for the Harbor Café in Stonington and order two
eggs over easy with hash browns, wheat toast (more a concession to taste than
health), sausage links, and a bottomless mug of coffee. At the end of the meal,
I always save a toast triangle, which I spread with one of those Kraft marmalade
packets as a kind of dessert. My favorite marmalades have been produced by
Keiller in Dundee, Scotland, since the 1790s. Legend has it that the spread was
invented by Mary, Queen of Scots’, French cook. I’m particularly partial to
Keiller’s Three Fruits variety.

Diner breakfasts are wonderful and cannot be
replaced by Egg McMuffins. You are never going to hear “Adam and Eve on a raft
with some joe” in a fast food chain.

So many of the breakfast foods we love were brought
to this country by immigrants. Doughnuts came with the Dutch, “Oily Cakes,”
which are also ancestors of fried dough, that staple of amusement parks and
fairs. Doughnuts became a national favorite with the invention of the doughnut
machine in the 1930s, a fact that makes me think of the beloved classic
children’s book by Robert McCloskey,
Homer Price
.
Homer’s uncle has a diner and a doughnut machine that under Homer’s hands
becomes unstoppable, spewing out the toothsome confections much to the
townspeople’s delight and later consternation

German immigrants brought us sticky buns; the
French,
pain perdu
—French toast—and croissants.
Eastern European Jews gave us bagels and blintzes, congee and dim sum are from
Asia, and huevos rancheros from Mexico. All now are breakfast staples.

My breakfast musings also took me back to A. A.
Milne’s poem “The King’s Breakfast.” Frederic G. Melcher, co-editor of
Publishers Weekly
and originator of the Newbery and
Caldecott medals for children’s literature, was a member of my church in
Montclair, New Jersey. He used to come and read poetry to the Sunday school
classes and this was one of his favorites. I can still hear his voice as the
poor king, “ ‘Nobody,’ / He whimpered, / ‘Could call me / A fussy man; / I only
want / A little bit / Of butter for / My bread!’ ” And isn’t this just what we
all want?

Breakfast in the twenty-first century is very much
a social ritual. Retirees meet for breakfast, as do young mothers with strollers
in tow; job seekers network at breakfast; the Scouts, fire and police
departments, and all sorts of organizations, raise funds at pancake breakfasts.
Brunch provides a special occasion to visit with friends and family. And
brunch’s basic eggs Benedict has been transformed into a multitude of versions,
replacing the ham or bacon with smoked salmon, various kinds of sausage patties,
duck, and even avocado slices. Eggs Sardou, created at the legendary New Orleans
restaurant Antoine’s, tops the English muffin with an artichoke bottom and
anchovy fillets, and covers the poached egg with a hollandaise that includes
bits of chopped ham and slices of truffle. Variations on this recipe omit the
anchovies, ham, and truffles, substituting creamed or steamed spinach. There are
several widely differing accounts of the origin of eggs Benedict, but my
favorite credits a Mrs. LeGrand Benedict of New York City, who, during the
1860s, asked Chef Charles Ranhofer at Delmonico’s to devise something new for
her to eat at lunch. Obviously a woman after my own heart.

Breakfast for lunch, breakfast for dinner, and
above all breakfast in the morning.