She left out an important ingredient to keep the recipe special—something of Mom’s that was hers and hers alone. She had the feeling Tammy had done the same thing with the clam chowder.
This was something they found to argue about, each accusing the other of transcribing recipes wrong on purpose. As it turned out, neither of them was wrong about the other.
“I had a feeling something like this would happen,” Martha told me when I arrived. Terry had called me out because of odd things that had been going on around the house, but Martha was upset with both of them. “Tell them I’m very disappointed they couldn’t share. And tell them I’m not leaving until they do share.”
Fortunately, maturity did finally kick in, and they agreed again to share.
“Prove it,” Martha demanded. “Tell Tammy to tell her what she did with that clam chowder recipe.”
Tammy ’fessed up immediately and told her sister about the missing ingredient, then Terry admitted her own guilt in copying down recipes incorrectly.
“Well now, just to be sure,” I said. “Why doesn’t Mom give me the recipe so we can check it?”
Martha thought that was a great idea, so she did and the recipe was a match for the corrected recipe Tammy had just given Terry.
New England Clam Chowder
2 slices salt pork, diced
1 large onion, minced
2½ cups water
3 large potatoes, diced
1 quart milk
1 quart clams, picked over and chopped fine, with their juice
3 tablespoons butter
Ground black pepper to taste
Crackers
Fry salt pork in large saucepan; add onions and sauté until they begin to brown. Add water and potatoes; bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Add milk and again bring to a boil. Scald clams with their juice, combine with potato mixture, add butter and pepper, and serve immediately, pouring over the crackers or serving them separately.
MISS ELLIE’S OXTAIL SOUP
THE SOUND WAS COMING FROM SAM’S ROOM. A soft whirring, like an electric train that had been left on and now was looping endlessly on its track. Sam certainly had a hard time remembering to put his toys away, but Mary gave her seven-year-old boy a pass. He had leukemia, and though it was in remission he was still sickly, and she didn’t figure a nagging mother would do much to help, when all was said and done. But this was different. It was three o’clock in the morning and it seemed like a bit of nagging wouldn’t hurt compared to Sam staying up all hours playing with his trains.
Mary cracked the door to her son’s room and looked in. Sure enough, his train was looping on its track, but there were no lights on, except the nightlight that was always on, and Sam was huddled in his bed.
“Sam?” she whispered. “Sam, honey, are you up playing with your trains?”
“No,” he replied feebly. “It’s Adam. He’s keeping me awake again.”
A chill always worked its way up Mary’s spine at the mention of Adam, but she was long past being scared. “Go away, Adam,” she said firmly to the room. “Leave him alone. He needs sleep.”
The train stopped. She waited for the follow-up—maybe a stuffed animal would come flying through the air at her, or maybe Adam would kick a ball across the room—but nothing happened.
“I mean it, Adam,” Mary added, then she moved over and tucked Sam back in, kissing him lightly on the forehead. “I’ll call Mary Ann tomorrow.”
“The ghostbuster?” he asked with wide eyes. Mary nodded and smiled at her son.
In the morning, though, it never seemed as bad, and Mary forgot about calling until that afternoon when she set about making a cake. First the electric mixer died, then the electric stove just wouldn’t turn on. But when the radio came on by itself and the mixing bowl moved a fraction of an inch, she remembered and she called.
When I got there I saw the boy first. He looked mischievous but not mean. Then I saw the old lady in the kitchen. She looked bossy, to put it nicely, and she was, too. Neither ghost was related to anyone in the family. Adam, the boy, had followed Sam home the last time he’d left the hospital, and the woman—Miss Ellie, Adam called her—had followed Adam.
“He was up to no good,” she explained regarding why she’d followed Adam, but she wouldn’t say why she was earthbound—she wasn’t much for small talk. Adam didn’t really know what had happened to him, either. All he could remember was that his dad had had a car wreck, then suddenly everyone was gone. I wanted to find out more, but Miss Ellie kept interrupting.
“That boy would be feeling better if she’d cook right!” she was squawking.
“Who? Adam?” I checked.
“No! The sick one. He’d feel better if his mother would cook from scratch! She uses canned soups for everything!”
“Sam loves soup,” Mary explained when I relayed the message. “Sometimes we get takeout soup—he just loves the oxtail soup we get from the soup shop down the road—but we do also go through a lot of cans of soup. We can’t eat takeout every day.”
“Well, she doesn’t like that,” I said. “She says she’s been trying to stop you cooking from cans.” Mary nodded with understanding. “She also says she has a recipe for oxtail soup that’s better than penicillin.”
“Really?” Mary gasped. “Sam loves oxtail soup! Will she give me the recipe?”
Miss Ellie was only too happy to oblige. And whether it was the ghosts finally being away from him or the soup, Sam did start to get his energy back, and Miss Ellie’s oxtail soup quickly became his favorite meal.
Miss Ellie’s Oxtail Soup
3 tablespoons bacon fat or lard
1 carrot, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 oxtails, cut into pieces and rolled in flour
2 quarts cold water
2 stalks celery
2 sprigs parsley
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons barley
1 tablespoon flour
Salt, pepper, and cayenne
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup sherry (optional)
Melt fat and fry in it carrot, onion, and oxtails. When meat is brown add water and celery, parsley, and bay leaf tied together. Bring to a boil, shake in barley, and simmer about 3 hours, seasoning when about half-done and skimming occasionally. Remove large bones, celery, parsley, and bay leaves, but return meat from bones to soup. Add Worcestershire sauce and sherry (if desired), and serve very hot.
SWEDISH PEA SOUP
WHETHER THEY PUT IT ON THEMSELVES or not, young brides always feel pressure to please their in-laws, and Nancy was no different. She was also quite sure she wasn’t being overly sensitive. She’d was a New York City girl, born and raised, and her husband was Swedish. Needless to say, there was some culture clash, but the one thing she hadn’t expected was that some people in Sweden still “promised” their children to wed the children of other families. Not arranged marriages, exactly, more like an anticipation or an expectation. Jon, her husband, had been so promised, a small thing he had failed to mention when they met at a youth hostel.
“It’s ridiculous anyway,” he said dismissively when it came up later. “Nobody really follows that stuff anymore.”
Still,