Recipes for Love and Murder , livre ebook

Canongate Books - Sally Andrew

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226 pages

English

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'Vivid, amusing and immensely enjoyable . . . A triumph' Alexander McCall SmithMeet Tannie Maria: the loveable writer of recipes in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. One Sunday morning, as Maria stirs apricot jam, she hears her editor Harriet on the stoep. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver a whole basketful of challenges and the first ingredient in two new recipes - recipes for love and murder. A delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart and friendship, join Tannie Maria in her first investigation. Consider your appetite whetted for a whole new series of mysteries . . .

Sujets

Love

Love (disambiguation)

Informations

Publié par	Canongate Books
Date de parution	24 septembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781782116479
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Published in Great Britain in 2015 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE www.canongate.tv
This digital edition first published in 2015 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Sally Andrew, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The recipes contained in this book are for entertainment purposes only. The author and publisher make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the recipes contained here for any purpose.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78211 645 5 Export ISBN 978 1 78211 646 2 eISBN 978 1 78211 647 9
Typeset in Sabon LT Std by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire
This book is dedicated to my amazing parents, Bosky and Paul Andrew
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
Tannie Maria’s Recipes
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER ONE
Isn’t life funny? You know, how one thing leads to another in a way you just don’t expect.
That Sunday morning, I was in my kitchen stirring my apricot jam in the cast-iron pot. It was another dry summer’s day in the Klein Karoo, and I was glad for the breeze coming in the window.
‘You smell lovely,’ I told the appelkooskonfyt.
When I call it apricot ‘jam’ it sounds like something in a tin from the Spar, but when it’s konfyt, you know it’s made in a kitchen. My mother was Afrikaans and my father was English and the languages are mixed up inside me. I taste in Afrikaans and argue in English, but if I swear I go back to Afrikaans again.
The apricot konfyt was just coming right, getting thick and clear, when I heard the car. I added some apricot kernels and a stick of cinnamon to the jam; I did not know that the car was bringing the first ingredient in a recipe for love and murder.
But maybe life is like a river that can’t be stopped, always winding towards or away from death and love. Back and forth. Still, even though life moves like that river, lots of people go their whole lives without swimming. I thought I was one of those people.
The Karoo is one of the quietest places in South Africa, so you can hear an engine a long way off. I turned off the gas flame and put the lid on the pot. I still had time to wash my hands, take off my blue apron, check my hair in the mirror and put on the kettle.
Then I heard a screech of brakes and a bump and I guessed it was Hattie. She’s a terrible driver. I peeked out and saw her white Toyota Etios snuggled up to a eucalyptus tree in my driveway. I was glad to see she had missed my old Nissan bakkie. I took out the melktert from the fridge. Harriet Christie is my friend and the editor of the Klein Karoo Gazette where I write my recipe page. I am not a journalist; I am just a tannie who likes to cook a lot and write a little. My father was a journalist and my ma a great cook. They did not have a lot in common, so in a funny way I like to think I bring them together with my recipe page.
Hattie was in her fancy church clothes, a pinkish skirt and jacket. Her high heels wobbled a bit on the peach pips in my walkway, but when she stayed on the paving stones she was okay. I still feel a bit ashamed when I see people coming straight from church, because I haven’t been since my husband Fanie died. All those years sitting nice and pretty next to him on those wooden pews and listening to the preacher going on and on and then driving home and Fanie still dondering me, kind of put me off church. Being beaten like that put me off believing in anything much. God, faith, love went out the window in my years with Fanie.
I’ve left the windows open since then, but they haven’t come back in.
So there was Hattie, at my door. She didn’t have to knock because it’s always open. I love the fresh air, the smell of the veld with its wild bushes and dry earth, and the little sounds my chickens make when they scratch in the compost heap.
‘Come in, come in, my skat,’ I said to her.
A lot of the Afrikaans ladies stopped being my friends when I left the Dutch Reformed Church, but Hattie is English and goes to St Luke’s. There are more than forty churches in Ladismith. At St Luke’s coloureds and whites sit side by side quite happily. Hattie and I are both fifty-something but otherwise we are different in many ways. Hattie is long and thin with a neat blonde hairstyle and a pish-posh English way about her. I’m short and soft (a bit too soft in the wrong places) with short brown curls and untidy Afrikaans. She has eyes that are blue like a swimming pool, and mine are pond-green. Her favourite shoes are polished, with heels, but I prefer my veldskoene. Hattie doesn’t bother much with food (though she does like my milk tart); while for me cooking and eating are two of the best reasons to be alive. My mother gave me a love of cooking, but it was only when I discovered what bad company my husband was that I realised what good company food can be. Some might think food is too important to me, but let them think that. Without food, I would be very lonely. In fact, without food, I would be dead. Hattie is good company too, and we are always happy to see each other. You know how it is – some people you can just be yourself with.
‘Good morning, Tannie Maria,’ she said.
I liked the way she sometimes called me Tannie, Auntie (even though she says it in her English way, as if it rhymes with ‘nanny’, when in fact it rhymes with ‘honey’). She leaned down to kiss my cheek, but she missed and kissed the dry Karoo air instead.
‘Coffee?’ I said. Then I looked at the clock. The English don’t like coffee after eleven o’clock. ‘Tea?’
‘That would be super,’ said Hattie, clapping her hands in that Mary Poppins way of hers.
But she wasn’t looking so super herself. Her frown was wrinkled like the leaves on a gwarrie tree.
‘Are you okay, skat?’ I said, as I prepared the tea tray. ‘You look worried.’
‘I do love your house,’ she said, patting my wooden kitchen table. ‘All the Oregon and the thick mud walls. It’s so . . . authentic.’
When Fanie died, I sold the house we had in town and got this one out here in the veld.
‘It’s a nice old farmhouse,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter, Hats?’
She sucked in her cheeks, like the words were falling back down her throat too fast.
‘Let’s sit on the stoep,’ I said, carrying the tray to the table and chairs outside.
From my stoep you can see the garden with its lawn and vegetables and all the different trees. And then on the other side of my low wooden fence is the long dirt road leading up to my house, and the dry veld with its bushes and old gwarrie trees. The nearest house, is a few kilometres away, hidden behind a koppie, but the trees make good neighbours.
Hattie smoothed her skirt under her as she sat down. I tried to catch her eye, but her gaze jumped all over the garden, like she was watching a bird flying about. One of my rust-brown hens came out from where she was resting under a geranium bush and helped herself to the buffet on the compost heap. But this wasn’t the bird Hattie was watching. Hers flew from the lemon tree to the vegetable patch then hopped from the lizard-tail bush to the honeybells and back again. I heard birds calling all around us, but could see nothing where she was looking.
‘Can you see something there in the veld plants?’ I asked.
‘Heavens above, it’s warm,’ she said.
She took an envelope from her pocket and fanned her face with it.
‘Let me give you some milk tart.’
I cut slices and put them on our plates.
‘It’s just got to rain soon,’ she said.
Now she was following the invisible bird as if it was jumping all over the table. I pushed the plate towards her.
‘It’s your favourite,’ I said.
I could tell Hattie had more to say than the weather report. Her face was red, as if there was a hot thing in her mouth, but the corners of her lips were tight where she was holding it in.
Hattie was not one to be shy to speak, so I did not try and rush her. I poured our tea and looked out at the dry veld. It had been a long time since the rain. Across the veld were those low hills of