Susan Wiggs - The Beekeeper's Ball

#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs returns to sun-drenched Bella Vista, where the land’s bounty yields a rich harvest…and family secrets that have long been buried.

Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef who grew up in the sleepy Sonoma town of Archangel, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking school—a unique place for other dreamers to come and learn the culinary arts. Bella Vista’s rambling mission-style hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel’s project…and the perfect place for her to forget the past.

But Isabel’s carefully ordered plans begin to go awry when swaggering, war-torn journalist Cormac O’Neill arrives to dig up old history. He’s always been better at exposing the lives of others than showing his own closely guarded heart, but the pleasures of small-town life and the searing sensuality of Isabel’s kitchen coax him into revealing a few truths of his own.

The dreamy sweetness of summer is the perfect time of year for a grand family wedding and the enchanting Beekeeper’s Ball, bringing emotions to a head in a story where the past and present collide to create an unexpected new future.

From “one of the best observers of stories of the heart” (Salem Statesman-Journal), The Beekeeper’s Ball is an exquisite and richly imagined novel of the secrets that keep us from finding our way, the ties binding us to family and home, and the indelible imprint love can make on the human heart.

The Beekeeper’s Ball

Susan Wiggs

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For two beautiful ladies named Clara Louise—my mother and my granddaughter.

Contents

Cover

Title Page The Beekeeper’s Ball Susan Wiggs www.mirabooks.co.uk

Part One PART ONE A honeybee that is engaged in foraging for nectar will rarely sting, except when startled or stepped on. If a bee senses a threat or is alerted by attack pheromones, it will aggressively seek out and sting. The worker bee’s stinger is barbed, and when it lodges in the victim’s skin, it tears loose from the bee’s abdomen, causing its death within moments. However, the queen’s stinger is not barbed. The queen can sting repeatedly without dying.

Bee Sting Cake

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Part Two

Summer Fruit with Honey Dressing

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Part Three

Honey Lavender Lemonade

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Part Four

Piernik

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Part Five

Honey Butter Fried Chicken

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Six

Hummingbird Cake

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part Seven

Vincotto

Chapter Seventeen

Part Eight

The Bella Vista Signature Cocktail

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract

Copyright

PART ONE

A honeybee that is engaged in foraging for nectar will rarely sting, except when startled or stepped on. If a bee senses a threat or is alerted by attack pheromones, it will aggressively seek out and sting. The worker bee’s stinger is barbed, and when it lodges in the victim’s skin, it tears loose from the bee’s abdomen, causing its death within moments.

However, the queen’s stinger is not barbed.

The queen can sting repeatedly without dying.

Bee Sting Cake

The traditional Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake) is a complicated production of brioche dough and pastry cream, topped with a crunchy caramel made of almonds, honey and butter. This simplified version is every bit as delicious, particularly with your morning coffee.

DOUGH

2¼ cups flour

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons honey

1½ teaspoons instant yeast

¾ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

¼ cup warm water or milk

Combine all of the dough ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir to create a sticky, elastic ball. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled board and knead for 5 to 7 minutes until smooth. If your mixer has a dough hook, use that for 4 to 7 minutes at medium speed. Place the dough in a bowl oiled with melted butter, turn to grease all sides, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and let it rise for about an hour, until it looks soft and puffy.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled board, fold it over (you might hear a sigh of escaping gas), then roll into a ball. Place the dough in a buttered 10-inch springform pan. You can also use a 13 by 9-inch cake pan. Don’t worry if the dough shrinks away from the edge of the pan. Allow it to rest so the gluten will relax, making the dough easier to work with. After about 30 minutes, gently stretch and pat the dough out to the edges of the pan.

While the dough is resting, make the topping.

HONEY-ALMOND-CARAMEL TOPPING

6 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1½ cups sliced almonds

a pinch of salt

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the sugar, honey and cream. Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes to achieve a golden syrup. Stir in the almonds, let the mixture cool slightly, then spread gently over the cake dough.

Bake the cake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, until the almond crust has a deep golden color and the cake tests done with a toothpick. Set on a rack to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, prepare the pastry cream.

PASTRY CREAM

1 cup minus 2 tablespoons heavy cream,

whipped to soft peaks

2 cups vanilla custard or vanilla pudding.

Use homemade, store-bought, or pudding from a mix,

depending on your level of skill and commitment.

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon Bärenjäger or other honey liqueur

Serve the cake in wedges or squares, with a side of pastry cream and a dram of Medovina, coffee or tea. Medovina is mead, a sweet wine made from honey. It’s the oldest known alcoholic beverage.

[Source: Adapted from a traditional recipe]

Chapter One

The first rule of beekeeping, and the one Isabel swore she would never break, was to remain calm. As she regarded the massive swarm of honeybees clinging to a Ligustrum branch, she feared she might go back on her word.

She was new to beekeeping, but that was no excuse. She thought she was ready to capture her first swarm. She’d read all the beekeeping books in the Archangel town library. She’d watched a dozen online videos. But none of the books and videos had mentioned that the humming of ten thousand bees would be the creepiest sound she’d ever heard. It reminded her of the flying monkey music in The Wizard of Oz.

“Don’t think about flying monkeys,” she muttered under her breath. And that, of course, guaranteed she would think of nothing else.

It took every fiber of power and control in her body to keep from fleeing to the nearest irrigation ditch, screaming at the top of her lungs.

The morning had started out with such promise. She’d leaped out of bed at daybreak to greet yet another perfect Sonoma day. A few subtle threads of coastal mist slipped through the inland valleys and highlands, softening the green and gold hills like a bridal veil. Isabel had hurriedly donned shorts and a T-shirt, then taken Charlie for his morning walk past the apple and walnut trees, inhaling the air scented with lavender and sun-warmed grass. Paradise on earth.