The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery Read Online Free PDF

affection for the girl.
    Janie had been such a companionable help all summer long, just as her twin brother, Jason, had been up at Stanley Parker’s greenhouse. Working part-time for Genia was Janie’s summer job; working up at the Castle was Jason’s, though he also helped out here in the little herb garden. Their mother might wring her hands over them, but to their great-aunt they were perfect teenagers. Gazing fondly at Janie, Genia was reminded of a time long ago when she had picked up her own little son at his grandparents’ house where he had behaved like the little angel he never was at home with his parents. “Why,” his mother had asked him, “don’t you ever misbehave at Grandma and Grandpa’s house?” In his little-boy voice, Benjie had replied, “Because I want them to think well of me.” Genia and Lew had laughed till they cried over that one, at his precocious grammar, at the refreshing candor of what he’d said. Now, all these years later, she suspected that might be the reason Janie and Jason never gave her a moment’s trouble.
    “Ready to stuff the apples, Janie?”
    “Sure, but is this gravy supposed to boil like this?”
    Genia hurried over to examine what was actually a creamy base for lobster bisque. It was to be the entrée of the tasting party that she and Stanley were hosting this evening for six, maybe seven people, if Janie and Jason’s father showed up. Flecks of bright green tarragon—its secret ingredient—floated on top. She was relieved to see that the mixture wasn’t actually boiling: One tiny bubble worked its way up but gave up the struggle before bursting and dissolving back into the sauce.
    “No, you don’t ever want to boil a cream sauce, love, or the milk will curdle. Turn it way down to the lowest setting for now, and then we’ll add the lobster just before we serve it.”
    Earlier that day, grandniece and great-aunt had cored Rhode Island greening apples and then prepared a filling of cloves, nuts, and raisins that Janie had soaked in a fine brandy that Jason had brought over from Stanley Parker’s exemplary cellar. Genia had shown Janie how to make a light pastry in which to wrap the stuffed apples and from which they also cut tiny starfish to put on top.
    As the two settled at the center island to work, Genia said, “We need to give this dessert a name for the cookbook. What should we call it?”
    “It doesn’t have a name?”
    “Well, I call them yummy.”
    Janie grinned over at her, and Genia’s heart lifted again. It was so nice to see her smile. When she wasn’t helping Genia, the girl often went around looking glum or outright crying over a million different things ranging from her mother’s failings to a slight from one of her friends, to the plight of the rain forest in South America. Genia didn’t mean to disparage Janie’s concerns by thinking of them like that; she just knew that for Janie there were no small upsets. Everything from curdled cream sauce to war elicited a deeply felt response.
    “How about ‘Apples in Jackets’?”
    “Perfect!” Genia cried. “They’re a kind of dress-up dessert.”
    Typically, Janie’s idea was quick and clever.
    The girl was smart as a whip, her great-aunt thought, and despite her appearance made the kind of grades in school that used to be associated only with girls who wore glasses. And the child was sensitive, too, to her brother’s greater struggle with academics. “It’s not Jason’s fault he had dyslexia,” Janie often said. “It’s just because he’s the boy, and they get it a lot more often than girls do. I’m just lucky, that’s all.” Genia thought that if Janie could have done so, she would have “split” her grade point average with her twin, evening life out between them.
    “I’ll credit you in the back of the book,” Genia told her.
    “I’ll get my name in a book?”
    “You bet.”
    “Wow. My name in a book! Can you put in Jason’s, too?”
    “I’ll find a way.”