My Gold Standard Co-Crime Sideline

Many members of the crime-writing community have other sidelines in which they excel. One famous guy grew orchids. Another explored Egyptian antiquities, some excel in the law, politics, music or art.

At least one member of our illustrious CWC Team has become a world class authority on South America and Africa! I'm dying to hear if she plans a motorized trip to Mars!

I often howl at the antics about cooking on Jungle Red Writers—so today I'm sharing with you readers my own culinary experiences.

Pardon my lack of self-effacement in this post, but I couldn't wait any longer to share with you one aspect of my S.C.S.( Superb Culinary Skills!) in … The Gold Standard Cake!

Please don't feel diminished by my superior skills in the art of cake-baking. Feel free to copy my secrets here and share with your significant others, aunts, cousins, office colleagues and neighbors—the knowledge I am about to impart on this page!

You will need a 14 K. gold Mark Cross pen to make your personal copy.

The Gold Standard Jiffy Cake

At your local grocery, buy one box of Jiffy Golden Cake Mix. ( Cost = 95 cents.) www.jiffymix.com Sold by the Chelsea Milling Company, Box 460, Chelsea, MI, 48118-0460. "Quality Value Since 1930."

Dump the contents into a shiny steel bowl. ( Any old bowl will do...) Add one egg, slightly beaten, 1/2 cup of warm tap water, stir for 30 seconds. Then beat by hand for 3-4 minutes. ( About 300 strokes ) Grease cake pan with good quality olive oil or butter. ( Real butter, not Margarine.) Pour batter in pan. Bake in 350* oven for about a tad over 20 minutes.

When the cake is done, feel it with your finger or a cool table knife, then let it cool a bit. Cut yourself a generous slice, get a stiff drink and go watch TV, while you gloat over your labors over the hot stove!

If you so desire, you can add any of the following to the pre-cooked batter: canned peaches, pears or mild fruit; sweet-oriented spices, a big swig of bourbon, Scotch, or Cointreau, nuts, raisins, prunes, chocolate chips, etc.

Whatever strikes your fancy!

When you go to the TV, it is best if you watch a program with my arch-rival Martha Stewart. Today I did this and turned to Madame herself on Ch. 13!

Lo, she was making a gourmet layer cake! Decorated with meringue frosting—would you believe! All the while telling ME the difference between Swiss meringue and Italian meringue. (Lordy, I barely know what an American meringue is!!!)

She looked right at moi and said she was making an "Absolutely divine wedding cake..." in her words... "Very simply." !!! (Ms. S., you and I have vastly different definitions of Simply)

I finished off the crumbs on my paper plate and muttered, "Lady, if you saw THIS, you'd faint right through the screen of my TV!"

So, I rushed back to the kitchen and got another piece of my glorious Jiffy cake!

P.S. No, I've not yet been invited to bake on Ch. 13…or any other food channel… But, hope springs eternal... any day now…

P.P.S. BTW, word has spread of my culinary skills … I've heard from the Princess of Wales, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Jaime Dimon ( who is my neighbor - one block and $39 million away from my building!!!), Jill Biden and Kim Jong-un … to send them my Jiffy Recipe!!!

Oh, yes, Ari Emmanuel of Wm Morris Endeavor has suggested I do a mystery novel based on poisoning by Jiffy Cake... and Grand Central Publishing wants me to create a tear-out folder for all their crime novels for 2015 with my Jiffy Ideas… and the current pub of Fanny Farmer is now coming out with 1,000 and One Delightful Frosting recipes for my Jiffy Cake!

So, there's light at the end of the tunnel, gang.

Here's a Toast to Jiffy Cake!!!

Thelma J. Straw, Culinary Genius in Manhattan

( That's all, folks… aw, shucks...)

Martha Burned my Turkey

To be clear about this, I roast a turkey very seldom. They are heavy great birds, and I am no spring chicken anymore, to be slinging heavy great birds around the kitchen. Still, the idea of placing a perfectly roasted turkey before my adoring relatives continues to grip me from time to time. I fell for it again this year.

You must understand that I don't particularly like turkey. Harold positively detests it, preferring ham, which I hardly ever cook for him anymore since I'm persuaded that the nitrites will make him sick. But, a fresh turkey, carefully prepared, without that rancid turkey fat taste that one gets from a turkey that was frozen several years ago! That might be fit to eat. So, feeling the turkey itch again, and having invited all my local relatives to Thanksgiving dinner, I turned to the kitchen shelf Harold built some years ago to hold our recipe books, now groaning under the huge collection. Among the magazines I found a copy of the November 2005 issue of Martha Stewart Living, subtitled Thanksgiving 101, with ravishing pictures of pies on the cover. Martha would tell me how to do a turkey.

And so I embarked upon the Martha Stewart turkey adventure.

It began with brining the turkey. Eighteen pounds was about right for eight or nine people, she said. I pre-ordered a fresh Butterball from the Giant. It was quite reasonably priced, I thought, considering that fresh turkeys were scarce this year, according to rumor. Then I prepared the brine according to Martha's recipe. You would think, brine, that's salt water, right? But Martha's brine called for way more sugar than salt, as well as peppercorns, herbs, and a whole lot of chopped vegetables. I think I spent a couple of hours chopping vegetables. You bring the "brine" to a boil and let it cool completely.

Completely, she said. But how cool is that, really? The turkey has to sit in the brine for 24 hours. The clock was ticking. While the "brine" was still lukewarm I unwrapped my Butterball, rinsed it, and patted it dry. The packaging material claimed that the bird had been brined already, but I told myself that their brine could have been nothing like Martha's. I was sure, for instance, that they hadn't put in chopped leeks. I would brine the turkey again. If a little is good a lot is better, my father used to say.

The following morning found me wrestling the bird onto the rack for stuffing and roasting. "Tuck the wings under the body," Martha advised, but this was easier said than done; the turkey seemed to be suffering rigor mortis, and the wings refused to do anything other than stick out awkwardly on either side of the huge puffy breast. Never mind. Once I had draped it all with butter-and-wine-soaked cheesecloth, as Martha recommended, all would be well. But I found that the old package of cheesecloth I was counting on had been used for a nest by little bugs. I threw it out. No cheesecloth, then. I did what my mother had always done, which was to smear butter all over the turkey skin and put it in the oven like that. Naked.

Martha said, begin by roasting the turkey at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. I set the timer and settled down for some much-needed rest with a good Georgette Heyer regency novel, Lady of Quality, whose plot, truth be told, is pretty much like that of Sprig Muslin, but hey. A great read. I was so absorbed in it that I didn't notice the black smoke rolling out of the kitchen door.

When the timer went off I went back into the thick air of the kitchen and opened the oven door, only to see the ends of the turkey's wings burnt off and the skin all blackened and scorched. Horrors. And three more hours before the inside would be cooked.

"Martha!" I cried. "What have you done?" In a panic I turned the oven down to 325, rather than the 350 she recommended, and basted the scorched bird ineffectually. "Nuts to you then," I muttered. After that I ignored all Martha's advice and used my own judgment. Later I turned the oven back up to 350 and basted the turkey some more. When the meat thermometer said it was done I got Harold to take it out of the oven.

I put the turkey platter on the table with the blackest parts away from the family. They were happy with it; they all said they liked their turkey well-cooked. When I had a bite I was happy with it, myself. It didn't taste like turkey. The meat was moist and in fact quite delicious, and tasted enough like ham to please even Harold. But the poor bird looked as if it had been though a terrible fire. I didn't have the heart to put the garnishes around it that Martha had suggested, the crabapples (go find crabapples these days, I was going to use kumquats) or the sage leaves. I'm sorry I didn't think to take a picture of it for you before we ate it all up.

You'll be happy to know that turkey stuffing makes a very tasty breakfast.

© 2013 Kate Gallison