Killer Pancake

LETTUCE CUPS

? cup pine nuts

1 pound ground turkey

1 teaspoon cornstarch

7 ounces hoisin sauce

2? cups cooked wild rice

8 iceberg lettuce leavesPreheat the oven to 400°. On a rimmed cookie sheet, toast the pine nuts for 5 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside.In a large skillet, saute the ground turkey over medium-high heat, stirring, until it changes color and is cooked through. Drain well and return to the pan. Stir in the cornstarch and hoisin sauce. Heat and stir over medium heat until bubbly. Add the pine nuts and the rice and stir until heated through.Spoon ? cup of the hot turkey mixture onto each lettuce leaf.Serves 8 as an appetizer

GRAND MARNIER

CRANBERRY MUFFINS

1? cups orange juice

? cup Grand Marnier liqueur

? cup canola oil

2 cups chopped cranberries

2? cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

? cups sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1? teaspoon salt

1? tablespoons chopped orange zest

4 egg whitesPreheat the oven to 400°. Combine the orange juice, the Grand Marnier, and the oil; set aside while you prepare the batter. In a large bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest. In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Combine the juice mixture with the beaten egg whites. Add the egg mixture and the cranberries to the flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Using a ?-cup measure, divide the batter among 24 muffin cups that have been fitted with paper liners. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and puffed.Makes 24

“And this is Claire,” added Julian, blushing. Blushing, I imagined, with lust.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, and meant it Claire had been the one who had recommended me to the Mignon folks as their banquet caterer. Even though the food preparation for the event had been a mixed blessing, I very much wanted Julian to be happy. My young friend had made several false starts in the social-life department, including one with a Mignon sales associate who lived down the street. But now he had settled on Claire. Actually, he had not so much settled as fallen for her, the way a Rocky Mountain skier can plummet into an oncoming avalanche and try to swim with the wave. And I had enjoyed watching this loveswept delirium. Despite Julian’s planned departure this fall for Cornell, I fantasized about becoming the catering-trainer-landlady-of-the-groom after he got his degree. To my amazement, I had become something of a marriage booster. Maybe I’d even cater their reception.

“Pleased t’meet you,” Claire said demurely. The Australian accent hung heavily over her high, babyish voice, a voice that did not go with her sophisticated image.

While Julian and Claire conversed in low tones, I whisked together the sherry and miso for the grilled vegetable dressing. Sometimes you can put unusual ingredients together, and they work. That was certainly true for me. At age thirty-two, I had remarried just over two months ago. My new relationship was as good as my first marriage—begun at age nineteen and ended at twenty-seven—had been dreadful. So I’d decided the first time around had been an aberration. Marriage was great, I’d proclaimed. Just like stopping smoking, everyone should do it. This analogy had not gone over in a big way with my new husband, Tom Schulz. In fact, while he was trying to refurbish my hopeless garden, Tom wore a custom-made T-shirt that read: BETTER THAN A CIGARETTE.

I set aside the salad and smiled. Now that Tom and I were wed and Julian and Claire were enjoying each other’s company, the idea of romantic harmony sweeping our little household was extremely appealing. Certainly more attractive than an endless buffet table of food without fat….

“I need to talk to you about parking,” Claire announced loudly and without preamble. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me.

“Parking?” I echoed. I heaved a vat of chilled asparagus soup out of the walk-in refrigerator. “I’ll be parking by the nightclub.”

“The nightclub?” Julian sounded confused. While he was good with the cooking for these affairs, and he was a whiz in the classroom, the logistic details of catered events frequently escaped him.

I said, “This luncheon buffet is at the Hot Tin Roof Club.” Julian frowned, still not understanding. I explained, “It’s unusual to have a nightclub in a mall, but that was the only bid the mall owners got for the old Xerxes’ Magic Shop. Anyway, the Hot Tin Roof Club is geared to upper-crust single types. Since it’s not nighttime,” I continued with unswerving logic as I turned to Claire, “there shouldn’t be a parking problem.”

“Sorry.” Claire’s frowning lips were colored a purplish-tan. I wondered what color the Mignon folks had christened it: Passion Plum? or Torrid Tan? “Expecting a bit of trouble, I’m afraid.”

“A bit of trouble?” I shifted the vat uncomfortably. “Parking trouble? Or some other kind of trouble? And who exactly is doing the expecting?”

Claire closed her eyes. Her lids were shaded in a pure powdery wave of purple and brown. I was in awe. One moment she looked and sounded like a girl, the next she was a sensuous woman. “Right. See this color?” She pointed.

“Yes.” I shot a glance at Julian. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. The connection between parking problems and eyeshadow eluded him too.

Claire opened her eyes wide. Her irises were dark violet. I wondered how many males besides Julian had gotten lost in their mesmerizing depths. “Right. According to the most recent Beastly Bulletin, Mignon Cosmetics blinded albino rabbits testing Sensual Midnight eyeshadow.”

“Beastly Bulletin?” I said faintly.

“Animal rights newsletter,” Claire announced crisply. “So the way we heard it, the BB folks have organized a task force. They’re starting a protest against Mignon.” She shrugged. A shiver went down her exposed shoulders and through her short-skirted black sheath, the kind of dress not usually seen at luncheons, the kind of dress I haven’t had the figure for since I was sixteen. “Word from store security is, they might be causing problems at the banquet. Sorry ’bout that,” she added with a nod at all the vegetables.

“Causing problems? Demonstrators? Because of albino rabbits?” I was still trying to get my footing in the cosmetics universe. “These people are protesting at today’s banquet?”

“Yeh, we think so. Their campaign’s called Spare the Hares.” As this came out speh the hehs, it took me a few beats to translate. “Yesterday,” she went on, “the animal rights people were outside the department store. Demonstrating. Y’know, Prince & Grogan carries Mignon exclusively in the Denver area. So we’re the target.” We’h the ta-get. “The demonstrators even had a picket line. Today we heard they might be made up as freaks. They could be swinging rabbit carcasses at each person who comes in—”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” I shrieked. I banged the vat down on the counter. “I give to the Sierra Club! I give to the National Wildlife Federation! I don’t even wear eyeshadow! Can’t I get some kind of safe passage or something?”

“Y’don’t know the kind of person y’dealin’ with here,” Claire observed. Her slender body slid over in the