Read Heavenly Pleasures Online
Authors: Kerry Greenwood
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths
Heavenly Pleasures (23 page)
Letty White came in at this point, to be loaded with leftovers and smothered with good cheer. It was generally felt that if it hadn’t been for her devoted care we might all be seriously dead, and we were very pleased to see her. With her came Mistress Dread, who had been detained at her dungeon, and three nerds, who dived on the food as if they hadn’t breakfasted on tacos a mere four hours ago.
Now we were all here excepting Mrs Pemberthy, who was staying in bed. I raised my voice for silence. ‘We’ve covered all the events of the last few days,’ I said. ‘And we are all friends here. Will you please, Ben, tell us where the disks are?’
‘There are no disks,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘But if some of my guests would care to look at the table, they may find something interesting there.’
We all looked. Remains of sumptuous Greek feast, which was still being mopped up by appreciative latecomers, yes. Plates, cups and glasses, yes. Horrible sculpture, yes. No disks.
Then the three nerds, Daniel and Kepler began to laugh. They laughed quite a lot. The rest of us were as mystified as ever. I jabbed Daniel in the side.
‘Explain!’ I said.
‘There,’ he pointed. All I could see was an ugly sculpture made of flat lead and plastic slugs. Grey ones. Wait a moment. I had seen something like that before.
‘Thumb drives,’ giggled Rat, or possibly Taz. Gully was the one with the long stringy feral hair. ‘The whole thing’s made of thumb drives. Except for the fish. The fish is extra.’
‘Which go in a laptop,’ I said. ‘What a very pretty idea. Very Edgar Allen Poe.’
‘I was lucky that they didn’t send anyone who knew about computers,’ Ben said. ‘But I didn’t think they would. Everyone knows about computer disks. Not everyone knows about thumb drives.’
‘Hidden in plain sight,’ said Letty White. ‘And the real ones are now somewhere very safe.’
‘Until Tuesday,’ said Ben.
The chocolate grog was a rich, velvety chocolate drink with—brandy, perhaps?—in it, topped with nutmeg and whipped cream. Perfect for a cold night and a celebration. And the end of a story, for goodnight and sweet dreams. For all of us.
R
EC
IPES
Chocolate is not as tricky as it sounds, as long as you remember that it has to be melted either over boiling water or in a microwave, where it rather eerily melts but keeps its shape, like a Pompeiian citizen, so has to be stirred. Couverture is too delicate for cooking. Cadbury make a very good baking cocoa, and I prefer Plaistowe’s bittersweet chocolate for melting. It’s reliable and it doesn’t cost the earth.
274
CHOCOLATE ORGASM MUFFINS
Be careful eating these. Straight out of the oven the melted chocolate can burn your tongue, like the hot jam in a doughnut. Refresh them when cold with 20 seconds in the microwave.
For the muffins
2 cups self-raising flour 1/4 cup cocoa 1/2 cup brown sugar 125g melted butter 2 eggs 1 cup milk
For the filling
200g bittersweet chocolate 1/2 cup thickened cream
Preheat the oven to 200°C and grease two 6-cup muffin trays.
Make the filling by melting the chocolate and cream together, either 2 minutes in a microwave or just stir it in a saucepan on the stove until it melts and combines. Set it aside.
For the muffins, mix the flour, cocoa and brown sugar together in a large bowl.
Using a separate bowl, mix together the butter, eggs and milk. Pour the egg mixture into the flour and slap it about a bit.
Using a metal spoon, put a glob of muffin mix into the tins, filling them less than halfway. Then put a glob of filling into each tin, then top with the rest of the muffin mix. You now have muffins with a spoonful of chocolate sauce in the middle of each one. Do this quickly, or they will still taste nice but they won’t rise.
Shove into the oven and bake for about 12 minutes ( you should know how your oven works). They are cooked when they spring back when poked.
CHOCOLATE GROG
Beware of this—it is utterly delicious and very alcoholic. It is Cocoa for Grown Ups. Thinking about it will put you over .05. But it warms the cockles and all other places. This is a serve for two.
500ml milk 75g bittersweet chocolate (or you can use couverture for this) pinch each of allspice and ginger 1 tablespoon honey 75ml rum 200ml brandy 1 cinnamon stick nutmeg to sprinkle whipped cream to top
Put all the non-alcoholic ingredients together, heat and stir. When it is a little too hot to drink (but don’t let it boil), add the alcohol and a cinnamon stick. Serve topped with nutmeg and whipped cream. You won’t regret it. Until, perhaps, tomorrow.
FRENCH ONION SOUP
6 big onions 2 tablespoons sugar olive oil chicken stock (you can also just use water) baguette gruyère cheese cognac
Slice the onions, sprinkle the sugar over them and fry them in a little olive oil until the sugar metls and they caramelise (about 15 minutes, depending on the onions). Keep stirring. These are stirring times. When they are golden brown but before they burn, pour in the chicken stock and cook the soup until everything is transparent and delicious. If, as happened to me the other day, the onions caramelised but stayed obstinately clear, use Parisian essence to colour the soup and don’t tell anyone (it will be our secret).
Slice the baguette and lay rounds of it on an oven tray, and bake it in a slow oven until it is very dry but not brown. Then lay one piece of toast on the bottom of a bowl, top it with grated cheese, pour over soup and add, at the last minute, a teaspoon of cognac.
A superb winter dish and now there is no excuse for saying there is nothing to eat if there are onions in the house.
NOTE
S
The best chess book I have ever found is
The Chess Mind
, a Penguin handbook by Gerald Abrahams. His explanations are wonderful.
Do email me on [email protected] if you would like to do so. If I have made minor and foolish errors, forgive me—and don’t tell me in reproachful detail. That sort of thing really ruins my day.
Enjoy your meal.
278
Earthly Delights
Kerry Greenwood
‘
Earthly Delights
is a pleasure to read—witty, surprising, an
d opinionated … There is corruption and violence … but there is also redemption, and compassion, and friendship, and courage, and humour. And good food. And lots of cats. If any of these appeal to you,
Earthly Delights
probably will, too.’ —
Western Australian
Baking is an alchemical process for Corinna Chapman. At four am she starts work at Earthly Delights, her bakery in Calico Alley.
But one morning Corinna receives a threatening note saying ‘The wages of sin is death’ and finds a syringe in her cat’s paw. A blue-faced junkie has collapsed in the dark alley and a mysterious man with beautiful eyes appears with a plan for Corinna and her bread. Then it is Goths, dead drug addicts, witchcraft, a homeless boy and a missing girl and it seems she will never get those muffins cooked in time.
With flair, chutzpah and a talent for kneading, Corinna Chapman will find out who exactly is threatening her life
and
bake some beautiful bread.
The first book in a crime series featuring Corinna Chapman, baker and amateur sleuth, filled with gastronomical delights, humour and unexpected twists. From Kerry Greenwood, the bestselling author of the Phryne Fisher mysteries.
ISBN 1 74114 236 9