Read Online Prime Cut by Diane Mott Davidson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Diane Mott Davidson
Tags: Fiction, General, Humorous stories, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, Women Detectives, Cooking, Murder, Colorado, Caterers and Catering, Cookery, Bear; Goldy (Fictitious Character), Women in the Food Industry
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Furman County fourth graders into the Homestead kitchen to make a cider version of the moist coffee cake.
"The other cookbook they found is a 1903 edition of The White House Cookbook. So we need to find a 1910 volume called The Practical Cook Book by one Elizabeth Hiller, valued in the range of sixty bucks. The fourth book is something called the Watkins Cookbook, from 1936. Worth fifty dollars." He handed me a plate of muffins. "Watkins Cookbook? That's not something Sherlock Holmes's sidekick put together in his spare time, is it?"
"No," I replied, "it's not an English cookbook. And the sidekick was Watson, remember? Thanks for the treat." I bit into the hot, sweet muffin and remembered the humble red spiral-bound volume with its battered cover and spattered pages. "The Watkins man came out to Western ranches once a year in his horse and buggy. After the invention of cars, he drove a Model T truck. He brought peppermint, vanilla, liniment, whatever ranch folks needed, including simple recipe-books put out by the Watkins company, based in Minnesota, but with a reach all across the West. Everybody loved to see the Watkins man come," I said with a smile. "And every rural household had a Watkins Cookbook."
"Aha! I'm so glad you worked in that museum, Miss G. I never know when I'm going to learn something." He paused. "Anyway, I'm off the Eliot case. I told them my wife's friend was arrested, so if they've got anything, to let me know. How's that?"
"Thank you. For everything. And especially for not staying mad at me."
"You need to stop worrying, Miss G." He pondered the gap above our kitchen sink. Just as he'd done at the cabin, Gerald Eliot had glued plywood over the plaster crevice. He'd certainly never be back to repair the damage. "Think Arch would like to join me for a trip to the hardware store? Better yet, would you like to join me?"
I took another bite of muffin. Was I in the mood to look at galvanized nails after I'd just seen a corpse defiled by them? No. I urged Tom to go and take Arch with him. They could do some male bonding. Tom grinned.
Arch, wearing a faded yellow T-shirt and a pair of too-large red Cornell sweatpants - gifts from Julian - warned that they might be out for a while. He needed to be dropped at the Druckmans' house so he and Todd could finish their conversation on the subject of sending encrypted messages.
"Can you tell me what these messages are?" I asked mildly. "Or would that destroy the reason for the encryption?"
Arch opened a new bag of kibble for his bloodhound. "It's no big deal," he replied in a bored tone. "But if you want to come outside while I feed Jake, I'll tell you." I poured Arch a glass of o.j. and followed him through the back door to the deck area designated for his dog. I tried not to glance up at our roof, where the remains of Arch's ham radio-his attempt to communicate long-distance with Julian in the Navajo language - lay like the spokes of an abandoned umbrella. Arch had been fascinated with learning the language because Navajo radiomen had foiled Axis cryptanalysts in World War II. But Julian had only succeeded in teaching Arch Ya'atey - hello - when a fierce windstorm had split the radio antenna in two.
Now Arch scooped nuggets into Jake's bowl and began explaining the latest reasons for his interest in encryption. Jake kept his eyes on his food bowl. "School starts in a couple of weeks. Todd and I are wondering which eighth-grade girls will be available to be girl-friends, and which ones will just make fun of us."
"The girls have high-tech equipment on their phones?"
"Nothing would surprise me, Mom." From the deck railing, Scout - a cream-and-chocolate stray cat we'd adopted several years ago - kept a watchful eye on Jake and the speed with which he was emptying his bowl. Arch ignored the animals, drank the juice I'd brought him, and checked his appearance in the reflection in
"The other cookbook they found is a 1903 edition of The White House Cookbook. So we need to find a 1910 volume called The Practical Cook Book by one Elizabeth Hiller, valued in the range of sixty bucks. The fourth book is something called the Watkins Cookbook, from 1936. Worth fifty dollars." He handed me a plate of muffins. "Watkins Cookbook? That's not something Sherlock Holmes's sidekick put together in his spare time, is it?"
"No," I replied, "it's not an English cookbook. And the sidekick was Watson, remember? Thanks for the treat." I bit into the hot, sweet muffin and remembered the humble red spiral-bound volume with its battered cover and spattered pages. "The Watkins man came out to Western ranches once a year in his horse and buggy. After the invention of cars, he drove a Model T truck. He brought peppermint, vanilla, liniment, whatever ranch folks needed, including simple recipe-books put out by the Watkins company, based in Minnesota, but with a reach all across the West. Everybody loved to see the Watkins man come," I said with a smile. "And every rural household had a Watkins Cookbook."
"Aha! I'm so glad you worked in that museum, Miss G. I never know when I'm going to learn something." He paused. "Anyway, I'm off the Eliot case. I told them my wife's friend was arrested, so if they've got anything, to let me know. How's that?"
"Thank you. For everything. And especially for not staying mad at me."
"You need to stop worrying, Miss G." He pondered the gap above our kitchen sink. Just as he'd done at the cabin, Gerald Eliot had glued plywood over the plaster crevice. He'd certainly never be back to repair the damage. "Think Arch would like to join me for a trip to the hardware store? Better yet, would you like to join me?"
I took another bite of muffin. Was I in the mood to look at galvanized nails after I'd just seen a corpse defiled by them? No. I urged Tom to go and take Arch with him. They could do some male bonding. Tom grinned.
Arch, wearing a faded yellow T-shirt and a pair of too-large red Cornell sweatpants - gifts from Julian - warned that they might be out for a while. He needed to be dropped at the Druckmans' house so he and Todd could finish their conversation on the subject of sending encrypted messages.
"Can you tell me what these messages are?" I asked mildly. "Or would that destroy the reason for the encryption?"
Arch opened a new bag of kibble for his bloodhound. "It's no big deal," he replied in a bored tone. "But if you want to come outside while I feed Jake, I'll tell you." I poured Arch a glass of o.j. and followed him through the back door to the deck area designated for his dog. I tried not to glance up at our roof, where the remains of Arch's ham radio-his attempt to communicate long-distance with Julian in the Navajo language - lay like the spokes of an abandoned umbrella. Arch had been fascinated with learning the language because Navajo radiomen had foiled Axis cryptanalysts in World War II. But Julian had only succeeded in teaching Arch Ya'atey - hello - when a fierce windstorm had split the radio antenna in two.
Now Arch scooped nuggets into Jake's bowl and began explaining the latest reasons for his interest in encryption. Jake kept his eyes on his food bowl. "School starts in a couple of weeks. Todd and I are wondering which eighth-grade girls will be available to be girl-friends, and which ones will just make fun of us."
"The girls have high-tech equipment on their phones?"
"Nothing would surprise me, Mom." From the deck railing, Scout - a cream-and-chocolate stray cat we'd adopted several years ago - kept a watchful eye on Jake and the speed with which he was emptying his bowl. Arch ignored the animals, drank the juice I'd brought him, and checked his appearance in the reflection in
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