Goddess of Spring Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing about baking.”
    At her feet, the half-sleeping old English bulldog snorted as if in agreement with her.
    â€œDon’t be rude, Edith Anne,” Lina scolded the dog halfheartedly. “You know considerably more about eating than you know about baking.”
    Edith sighed contentedly as Lina scratched her behind her right ear. With the hand that wasn’t busy, Lina picked up the first book. It was a thick tomb entitled Discovering Historical Italy. She let it fall open and began reading a long, complex paragraph about the proper preparation of veal. She blanched and snapped the book shut. Veal was a popular dish in Italy, but to her veal meant baby cows. Mush-brained, adorable, wide-eyed baby cows.
    â€œPerhaps it’s not possible to rise to a very difficult occasion without the proper preparation.” She said to the now snoring Bulldog. “In baking or otherwise.” She closed the book, setting it gently back on the table a little like it was a bomb that might very well explode if not treated carefully.
    â€œI think this particular preparation calls for a nice glass of Italian red,” she told Patchy Poo the Pud Santoro. He glanced at her through slitted eyes and yawned.
    â€œYou two are no help at all.”
    Shaking her head, Lina walked away from the table and headed directly to her wine closet. In her opinion, a Monte Antico Rosso Sangiovese was the perfect preparation tool for any difficult situation—baking or otherwise.
    â€œMaybe I can serve enough wonderful Italian wine with my new menu that my customers will get too soused to pay much attention to what they eat.” She spoke over her shoulder to her animals as she poured herself a ruby-colored glass of wine, but she didn’t need a non-response from her pets to know that her last statement was ridiculous. Then she’d be running a bar and not a bakery, which would give Anton an apoplectic fit. Lina straightened her spine, snagged a bag of double-dipped chocolate-covered peanuts, the perfect accompaniment for the Sangiovese, and marched back into her living room. Planting herself on the couch, she opened her notebook and chose the next book in the pile, Cooking With Italy.
    The dog and cat lifted their heads and gave her identically quizzical looks.
    â€œLet the games begin,” she told them grimly.
    THREE hours later she had finished combing through nine of the ten books, and she had a list of four possible main course recipes: chicken picatta, puttanesca on spaghetti, eggplant parmigiana, and a lovely aioli platter, complete with artichokes, olives, tomatoes, poached salmon and carpaccio.
    Lina felt a little thrill of accomplishment as she looked over her list. She was actually enjoying herself. Delving through the musty old books had become an exercise in Italian history and culture—two things that had been a constant part of her upbringing.
    Only one more cookbook was left. Lina picked up the slim hard-back. She had purposefully saved this one for last. In the bookstore she had been intrigued by the cover, which was a deep, royal blue etched with a gold embossed design. The title, The Italian Goddess Cookbook, rested over the golden illustration of a stern looking goddess who sat on a massive throne. She was dressed in a long robe and her hair was wrapped around the crown of her head in intricate braids. In one hand she held a scepter topped with a ripe ear of corn, in the other she held a flaming torch. Underneath the illustration the words, Recipes and Spells for the Goddess in Every Woman, flowed in beautiful gold script. The author’s name, Filomena, was branded into the cover underneath the embossed print.
    â€œJust one more recipe. Help me to find just one more, and I’ll call it a night,” Lina said as she ran her fingers over the raised embossing.
    Her fingertips tingled.
    Lina rested the book on her lap and rubbed her hands together. She must be getting tired. She glanced