The City Baker's Guide to Country Living Read Online Free PDF Page B

fastest.”
    Sarah, the young waitress I had met on the day of my interview, came into the kitchen.
    â€œHey, I was hoping it was you,” she said warmly as she pulled off a red down jacket. “Margaret interviewed a few others, but I knew she liked you best. Hey, Tom,” she added.
    â€œHow could you tell? Did she scowl at the others longer?”
    Tom stood and zipped his jacket, his mission apparently completed for the day. “See you girls soon,” he said, tipping his baseball hat as he walked toward the front.
    â€œNo, she pretty much scowls at everyone the same amount.” Sarah gathered her long blond hair and pulled it back into a high, tight ponytail. “It was funny. That afternoon you were here, after she and Dotty had tasted your pie and she’d driven Dotty back to her house, I found her alone in the kitchen eating another piece. She never does that.”
    â€œEats seconds?”
    â€œEats desserts. She can’t stand them.” Sarah buttoned up her black vest and pinned a bright orange shellacked maple leaf the size of my fist onto her lapel. “So I knew you must have gotten the job.”
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    While the bread dough rose I worked on my desserts for the dinner guests: a flourless chocolate torte that was more confection than cake; grape-nut custard with vanilla bean and freshly grated nutmeg; lemon mousse made with lemon curd lightened by billowy piles of whipped egg whites and cream, topped with crème chantilly and a candied ginger lace cookie; and, of course, an apple pie. I wanted to see if I could catch Margaret in the act.
    The kitchen was eerily quiet. Sarah explained that since the inn served only a continental breakfast and no lunch, the dinner crew didn’t trickle in till three p.m., an hour after I was scheduled to leave. I hadn’t realized how much I liked the chaotic bustle of a busy kitchen until I spent hours with no one to talk to at the Sugar Maple. Margaret surprised me by not showing up until I was scrubbing dried chocolate off the enamel tabletop and waiting for my last loaves of bread to come out of the oven. I had had nightmarish visions of her sitting in that rocking chair every day, watching me work—like the play
No Exit
, but with cookie dough—but even that would have been better thanspending the day alone. With a sharp nod of her head she walked past me and into the little office, closing the door behind her. I wrote out the evening’s dessert menu on a guest check pad, then yanked at the strings of my apron.
    â€œSo, was everything to your liking?”
    I jumped. Margaret had suddenly appeared before me, arms folded in front of her chest.
    â€œYes, of course. Kitchens are all basically the same,” I said, eyeing the books holding up my table. “Still getting used to the ovens and stuff, but breakfast went out on time. Here’s what I made for dessert.” I slid the list across the enamel. Margaret scanned the paper, then tucked the pad into a pocket of her cardigan. It was dark gray this time, with pearl buttons. I swear, she must have robbed a Talbots. “The dairy deliveryman came by with a shipment and was looking for his check, but I couldn’t find one.”
    â€œTom Carrigan knows very well I pay him at the end of the month. Check, indeed.” Margaret frowned and began to wipe at a bit of flour that I had missed on the table. “You didn’t give him anything to eat, did you?”
    I folded my apron and placed it on the table. “Just a muffin.”
    â€œThat man’s going to go blind from diabetes.” She shook her head. “Sniffing around like a stray dog looking for scraps.”
    â€œWell,” I said, pulling the elastic out of my hair, “I made some sketches of how I’d like the desserts to be plated.”
    â€œI think Alfred can manage on his own.”
    I had yet to meet the elusive Chef Alfred, who had