Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
 
A Halloween Dessert by Anthony V. ToscanoI found the book lying on the counter after I'd closed up shop for the day. At first, I thought I mighthave left it there out of pure carelessness. Or maybe a customer had spilled it from the crate of tatteredvolumes she'd brought to me for selling or for trading.TOY WITH COOKING read the title in bright orange, foil-embossed capital letters. Nothing else onthe cover, just a plain white background. No bar-code or other indication of price, no publisher's logo,not even an author's name.I own a used-book store called Yellowed Pages. It's situated on a backstreet of the small rural town of Railford, Pennsylvania. I manage to attract a few patrons each day only because the surroundingneighborhoods are populated, for the most part, by old, retired people who still read the paper versionsof books because they can't afford to buy computers and don't feel as if enough of life is left to them towarrant learning new technologies anyway. They're probably right. What little is left of my hair is gray,my stomach is pudgy, and my testicles hang low, so I figure I know how it feels to grow old.I have no use for putting cookbooks on my shop's mahogany shelves. Sure enough, cookbooks are rightup there with romance novels and New Age nonsense when it comes to sales at the warehouse chainstores and supermarkets; but I'm not in business to earn all that much money or to sell food. I openedmy place after spending twenty-five years as a real estate trader. I saved just about enough to providefor me, Ruthie, Tad and Melissa, until the two kids leave home and either Ruthie or me dies.I'm no literary scholar, that's for sure, but I'm more of a collector of rare-edition tales of thesupernatural than a book salesman. I don't read these books much, but I enjoy the way they look andfeel when you hold onto them. Give me Arthur Machen, L.P. Hartley, Robert Aickman and AlgernonBlackwood. Maybe some of Edith Wharton's weirder stories. Certainly M.R. James and LeFanu.But collections of recipes? Not unless we're talking about poisons undetectable during the nineteenthcentury.So maybe it was the book's odd cover, maybe I chuckled when I read the title, or maybe I just felt tiredat the end of a rainy day in late October. For whatever reason, I flipped through the book, and truth being stranger than fiction, I saw that the pages were blank. I fanned the paper sheets backward andforward a few more times, until I discovered one page that at first seemed to fade in and out with printed letters, and then cleared up enough to reveal a recipe for Pumpkin Buttermilk Pudding. Iskimmed the directions, but the sun was going down fast, it was beginning to sprinkle raindropsoutside, and the light inside my shop was growing dim. So I tossed TOY WITH COOKING into myleather satchel and carried it home.I like the rain, and I stopped driving cars when I left the workaday world. Yellowed Pages is only a few blocks away from my house.I curled myself into my hooded overcoat, lifted my satchel, listened to the bell above the doorjamb jingle as I locked up, and I walked home at a slow pace.Maple trees, elms and oaks were fast losing their foliage to the season and the storm. Rainwater ran fasttoward curbside gutter grills, leaving behind the crenulated imprints of leaves on the sidewalk. I breathed in deep the aroma of what smelled to me like a mellow blend of fresh fertilizer and sex. I don'tknow why I always associate the two, but I do, and I can live with that.I pushed aside my carnal fantasies when I approached my front porch. No use frustrating myself withdreams of days gone by forever. I could see by the light that bled through the turned-down windowshades that someone was home. The smoke that wafted from the chimney told me that at least Ruthie
 
was inside; we wouldn't allow Tad or Melissa to light a fire in the hearth, no matter how grown up they both thought they were."Hello, I'm home," I said."So what else is new?" yelled Ruthie from the kitchen."Is that onions you're frying?""Burgers again for dinner," she said. "I'm tired of burgers, but on the money you earn, we can't affordmuch more than ground chuck and orange cheese these days.""Business will pick up soon, what with the holiday coming on. Wait and see. The old ladies and gentsget themselves in the mood for ghost stories this time of year.""You're dripping rain all over the floor, John. Get changed. Melissa's going to a friend's house to work on a science project, but you know how Tad is. He's hungry. Again."I changed into my sweats and then knocked on the bathroom door."You still in there, Sweetie?" I said."Daaad! Can't a girl get any privacy around here?" said Melissa. "Go away. You'll know I'm out of herewhen I'm out."She was out of there just in the nick of time, because I was almost ready to piss through an openwindow when I heard the bathroom door creak on its hinges.Melissa ran in one direction, and I ran in the opposite one. That's pretty much the way things became between the two of us soon after she got her period and began to grow breasts. Real life isn't like TV.Real life on occasion smells bad. Dads like me make awkward remarks sometimes, just because wehave to pee and can't afford to think about being polite.I walked back into the kitchen, feeling somewhat relieved of the day's burdens, but in some wayswishing I were back inside my shop. Tad was already chomping down into a hamburger. Tad's upper  body is so much longer than the part of him that reaches from his waist to the bottoms of his feet thathe gives the impression of a limp rubber band when he's tucked in at the table. His face is a map of pusand pimples, and he mumbles more than he talks.Ruthie dished me up a pile of food. The three of us sat in silence under the warm, glowing overheadlamp, and we fast got down to business and ate our meal."Got a lot of homework," said Tad after he'd cleaned his plate of every last crumb and kicked back hischair. His words sounded more like "gottalolahumwerk," but Ruthie and I understood him.Ruthie leaned against the sink washing dishes. I stared at her wide behind, until I got to feelingdepressed again."I'm tired, John. And look here, you left your briefcase beside the refrigerator, right where I can tripover it."I got up from the kitchen table, nudged my way around her and grabbed the bag's leather handles.When I sat back down, I slipped my hand inside the satchel and touched the book. I pulled it out andstared at the cover. Looking back now, I guess it was the bright orange lettering, all mixed up with thesound of pattering raindrops on the windows and thoughts of the holiday season that intrigued me. Butas I reread the title, TOY WITH COOKING, and listened to Ruthie complain, on an impulse I told her that I'd make something for dessert the next day."You're shittin' me," she said.
 
"No, Ruthie. You told me you're tired, and it's about time I contributed, and I think I have a perfectrecipe right here inside this book.""So what's it gonna be, then?""My surprise."Surprise for me, too, I thought to myself. I hadn't cooked anything in years, and I never was much of a pudding maker. But what the hell.I helped Ruthie by drying the dishes, and then we retired for the night, as the saying goes.There's an invisible barrier that divides my side of the bed from Ruthie's. I'm not sure when we beganto build it. But we're kind of old now, and I suspect you just sort of settle in to things. The few times wedo make love -- and I wouldn't really call it making love come to think about it -- are after we've beento a neighbor's house to watch a game and drink a bit too much wine from a jug."You feel like it?" I asked her."Maybe. Why not? But remember, I have a long day tomorrow. I have an appointment with mygynecologist."Sweet Jesus, I thought. No wonder I can't find truth in romance novels. Next morning was a Friday. Tad and Melissa had already left for school, and Ruthie was out of thehouse before I opened my eyes to the sight of black clouds hanging so close to the bedroom windowthat I felt like I was inside one of them. So I got out of bed and prepared myself to go shopping for some ingredients before I walked over to the book shop.Eggs, buttermilk, unsalted butter, flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, pumpkin pureeand whipped cream. I found most of the stuff on my own, but for the buttermilk and the pumpkin pureeI had to ask a guy who wore a manager's badge, and he had to ask one of the female employees."Wife gonna make you a Halloween pie?" asked the young girl who pointed out the cans of pumpkin.She looked to be not too much more than Melissa's age, but she smiled where Melissa frowned."Actually, I'm making a pudding tonight." I said."Wow." She stretched out the 'ow' part. "Wish my man would take his eyes off the football game longenough to cook for me. Lucky wife you have."You're too young to understand that marriage has nothing to do with luck, I thought. But to her I justgrinned.When I walked out of Granger's Giant Foods, the rain was really pouring down. Like I said, I enjoy therain, but I quick figured that no one would likely be out in that weather looking to buy rare editions, soI decided not to open Yellowed Pages that day, but instead to head straight home and begin my cookingadventure.I opened "TOY WITH COOKING" and searched through the blank pages until the recipe came intogradual focus on page 427. I put a heavy glass ash tray on one side of the book and an iron trivet on theother to keep it spread open.1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Click and turn the knob. No problem.2. Whisk four eggs in a large bowl. Oh, Ruthie? Where the hell did you put the, what's it called, awhisk? Okay, that looks like a whisk. Got it.3. Whisk in -- again the damned whisk -- 2 1/2 cups buttermilk, 1/2 stick melted butter. Oh, yeah, meltthe butter first. Don't burn it. I remember now. Whisk, whisk. Looking good so far.
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more