“Great.” I glanced around to check Julian’s preparations, resolved to get going cooking. But how on earth could I do that? This was no longer a kitchen; this was a ruin littered with bowls, pans, and foodstuffs. Only half of the upper cabinets remained. The back wall was now utterly gone. Tom had widened the gap over the sink. The place looked like a solarium in ruins. “Lord,” I murmured. “If the health inspector shows up, I’ll be deader than week-old aspic.”

Big Bucks Bread Puddings with Hard Sauce

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

? cup Demerara sugar (sometimes sold as raw sugar or Hawaiian washed sugar) or granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk

? cup whipping cream

? teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 slices white bread, torn up (9? ounces)

? cup raisins

Hard Sauce (recipe follows)

12 fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Butter a 12-cup nonstick muffin tin. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Cream the butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until well combined.

Beat in the eggs, then beat in the milk and cream. Stir in the nutmeg and vanilla. Thoroughly stir in the bread pieces. The mixture will look like mush. Stir in the raisins.

Using a ?-cup measure, ladle out a full scoop of batter into each muffin cup. Bake 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and, using a non-stick coated spoon, quickly stir each cup of half-risen batter to break up the crust on the sides. Return to the oven for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the puddings are set and browned.

Quickly unmold the puddings on a wire rack and set upright like cupcakes to cool slightly. (The puddings can be served hot, warm, or at room temperature.) Top each pudding with a scoop of Hard Sauce. Using a toothpick, insert the stem of a mint sprig into the top of each scoop of Hard Sauce.

Makes 12 servings

Hard Sauce

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

? cup whipping cream (more, if necessary)

2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

? teaspoon rum extract

Beat together the butter and whipping cream until thoroughly combined. Add the confectioners’ sugar slowly and beat until thoroughly blended. Stir in the rum extract. If the mixture is too stiff, add a little more cream. To serve with bread puddings, chill the mixture until it is easily scooped out. Using a small ice-cream scoop, measure out even scoops of the chilled sauce onto a plate covered with wax paper. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the scoops until ready to serve.

Any leftover Hard Sauce can be thinned with cream and used to frost cookies or cake.

“No, you’ll just punt,” Julian replied cheerfully. “You want to start on the rest of the appetizers or do you want me to?”

“I’ll do it. I just need some caffeine first.”

“The next batch of puddings will be out in twenty minutes.” He removed the plastic bag of escolar fillets from the walk-in. “I’ll fix you some French-press coffee while you look up exactly how many folks we’re serving today. I still can’t get into your computer. You need to give me your password.” He set water on to boil and ground coffee beans. “By the way, you were right about more than three people coming to the tasting. Sylvia Bevans told me she’d be there, plus a couple of extra women from Mercifull Migrations might show up. Hanna and Leah. How come Leah Smythe and Weezie Smythe Harrington are so involved in everything in this town?”

“Oh, Julian, they’re old-timers. Their grandfather, Charlie Smythe, was one of Aspen Meadow’s original settlers, and he left his son Vic land-rich. Vic passed the land to his family, and that’s why the daughters are so involved in mountain land preservation.”

“Well,” he said defiantly, “I don’t really care who comes, as long as they vote for our food.” Clearly, he did not want to talk about Weezie Smythe Harrington, the widow of his biological father, Brian Harrington. Julian was no relation, blood or otherwise, to Weezie Harrington, and he avoided my eyes as he poured boiling water over coffee grounds in the press, then set the timer for four minutes.

I said, “I don’t need to check the computer. We’ll probably have six total, up from the original three.” Julian nodded. “Oh, and we’ll be doing Weezie’s birthday-party tomorrow night. You can skip it if you want.”

“No, I’ll do it. So it’s Marla, Weezie, and who else again?”

“Edna Hardcastle. We’re doing her daughter’s wedding reception on Saturday. If we can snag the Soiree assignment, by the time of Andre’s funeral on Thursday,” I concluded, “we’ll be back in business.” Although how we would prepare the food, I thought, looking around at my mutilated kitchen, the Lord only knew …

“He’ll be there today, won’t he?” Julian asked darkly as he poured me a richly aromatic cup of coffee.

I was startled, thinking he’d read my thoughts. “Who?”

“Litchfield.”

“Oh. Yes. And before you ask, I don’t know what his menu will be.”

We set to work in earnest. The dinner was advertised as a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate champagne dinner for thirty. The relatively intimate number of diners was all the historical society could fit into the Homestead dining room. County law forbidding liquor on government property had been waived for the one evening. Thankfully, the champagne and other wines would be supplied gratis by a member of the historical society. Expensive buffets could quickly turn into pig troughs, so I was glad the historical society wanted a seated dinner and large—but controlled —portions. Even better, the society was paying the winning caterer seventy dollars a plate. With any luck, if I won the tasting today, I could buy supplies, amply remunerate Julian, and still clear forty bucks per person to make the first payment on Arch’s tuition. Just in case The Jerk or his lawyer-accountant forgot.

I savored the coffee and studied the menu Julian and I had decided on. We had enough for eight tasters, following Andre’s cardinal rule to bring enough for your planned group plus two. For appetizers we were serving Julia Child’s stuffed mushrooms, artichoke hearts roasted with a mayonnaise-Parmesan mixture, and hot herbed shrimp wrapped in crisp bacon strips. These would all go beautifully with champagne. The main course consisted of a choice of the grilled escolar, polenta, and salsa, or pork tenderloin with Cumberland sauce, and Yukon gold potatoes mashed with cream and roasted garlic. Both meat offerings would be served with baked garden tomatoes stuffed with asparagus and buttered bread crumbs, Caesar salad, and rolls. This would be followed by the white chocolate-dipped truffles and/or Julian’s Big Bucks Bread Puddings, served with Vienna Roast coffee. Sounded like a winner to me.

Julian had made the salsa along with the polenta and stuffed a dozen mushrooms the evening before. I snipped bacon strips into quarters and slid them into the hot oven. For the tomatoes, I lightly steamed the asparagus and started buttering bread crumbs. Once I’d stuffed eight tomatoes, I whipped together an eggless Caesar dressing and washed and dried all the greens. By the time Tom came down an hour later, Julian and I had finished the preparation and were packed and ready to boogie.

“Please don’t do any more tearing apart,” I begged Tom, who wore old work clothes. “And please, please clean up what you’ve done.”

Tom hugged me. “Just go win your party.”

Main Street was thick with the last wave of summer tourists. Shoppers rushed into boutiques selling candles embedded with aspen leaves, wooden lamps carved into the shapes of giant squirrels, and wind chimes purportedly fashioned of genuine Colorado silver. A queue of men waited for the first beer of the day outside the Grizzly Saloon. Julian sat beside me, his face intent with worry. I hooked a left onto Homestead Drive and gunned the engine.

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