Diane Davidson - Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

And so on to the other characters and recipes.

Regarding the Jerk: Doctor John Richard Korman strode into my mind with all his arrogance, money, good looks, and apparent invulnerability intact. He is not based on any one man. He is every egotistical clergyman, nasty boss, spiteful boyfriend, arrogant doctor, cruel professor, malevolent friend, wicked husband, etc., that any one of us could ever have—all rolled into a tall, blond, glib, athletic, powerful, much-admired man—the übermensch we love to hate.

(Just please don’t send me any more mail asking me to kill him. My agent won’t let me. After hearing this, one Colorado librarian suggested, “Well, could you maim him?”)

Regarding Arch: My husband and I have three sons, all of whom have provided “Arch material” over the years. Still, not one of our sons wears glasses; they wouldn’t be caught dead in Arch-style clothes; they find his various science, art, and literary projects bizarre. Arch is just Arch.

Regarding Tom: Women frequently ask me, “Where did you get him?” No matter what my response, the follow-up question is: “Do you know any single men who are like Tom?” No, sorry, I don’t. Like Arch, Tom is a composite. He is a good, kind, knowledgeable man—in those ways, he is very similiar to my husband (who is not the Jerk … please don’t ask him anymore, it upsets him). Tom also possesses a single-minded dedication to law enforcement, like the wonderfully helpful Sergeant Richard Millsapps of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. Most importantly, though, Tom—with his charisma, his caring, his love of cooking, and his great affection for Goldy—just knocked on the door of my mind when I was structuring the first crime scene in Catering to Nobody. When I opened the door to Tom, he strode in and took charge.

Marla, Goldy’s best friend and the other ex-wife of the Jerk, did not knock on my mental entryway. She blasted through it, her ample brown hair twinkling with preciousgem barrettes, her equally ample body swathed in expensive seasonal clothes, her voice exuberant as she delivered gossip, opinions, and advice. She flopped onto an instantly imagined kitchen chair, snagged a handful of cookies, and informed me she was rich as blazes. Moreover, she announced, she was here to stay.

The only other ongoing series character, Julian Teller, is introduced in the book that followed Catering to Nobody, Dying For Chocolate. Unlike Goldy, Marla, Tom, and Arch, I had no idea Julian Teller would be such a strong presence in the life of Goldy’s extended family. But when I sent Julian off to college, I received such a barrage of complaining letters, I brought him back. Julian, like the others, is here to stay.

Regarding the recipes: People often ask me where I “get” them. The answer is, from tasting, experimenting, trials, and many, many errors. Most of the recipes are ones I’ve worked on, reworked, and experimented with since my husband and I were married in 1969. At that time, I had to start from scratch, since I had no idea of how to cook or even how to learn to cook I put our first steak into the oven at 350°—for an hour. That was what you did with everything else, I figured, so why not? And bless my husband—he proclaimed the resultant leather delicious. (I do much better now.)

With the other recipes in Goldy’s books, I sometimes will taste a dish at a restaurant, or some delicacy made by my phenomenally talented catering mentor, John William Schenk, and then try repeatedly to replicate it. This works until the family cries, “Enough!” (They finally announced, when I’d served them weeks of variations on “Julian’s Cheese Manicotti”—from Dying for Chocolate —“No more manicotti! Ever!”)

My sisters, Lucy Mott Faison and Sally Mott Freeman, and my brother, Bill Mott, Jr., have given me wonderful ideas and done much low-altitude testing and tasting, for which I am deeply grateful. Lucy has produced an endless stream of Goldy’s cookies, cakes, and muffins, and given all of them to her neighbors, her friends, and her son Will’s teachers at the Gilman School in Baltimore. In Bethesda, Maryland, Sally—herself a superb cook; some day I hope to learn to make her incredible chutney—and her sons Christopher and Bobby have been my unflagging publicists. (Some Episcopalians are good at publicity, after all!) And Billy, a tireless vice-president at Goldman Sachs, has not only given me numerous insights into the business world, he is also a fabulous cook who helps his wife, Cathie, cook for their children Torry, Gracie, Billy, and Olivia. It was Billy who came up with the terrific idea to grill “Snow-boarder’s Pork Tenderloin” (from Tough Cookie ). (It’s great, try it!) Needless to say, I am deeply grateful to my siblings, their spouses, and all their wonderful children.

Finally, I wish to all you readers, that you enjoy Bantam’s new paperback edition of Catering to Nobody. Since (again, unexpectedly) the recipes emerged as one of readers’ favorite aspects of the Goldy books, four new ones appear here. I have extensively revamped the honey-spice cookie, renamed it Honey-I’m-Home Ginger Snaps, and placed the recipes in a new format. I hope you enjoy them all, and will fix them for someone you love.

Good reading, and bon appétit!

DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON,

October 2001

COLD BUFFET FOR FORTY

Poached salmon

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Mayonnaise mixed with wild Maine blueberries

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Asparagus vinaigrette with minced tomatoes

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Wild rice salad

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Herb rolls and honey muffins

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Strawberry shortcake buffet

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Vouvray, lemonade, coffee and tea

CHAPTER 1

Catering a wake was not my idea of fun.

First of all, there was the short notice. A person died. Three days later there was a funeral. In this case the body had been discovered on a Monday, autopsy Tuesday, funeral Saturday, seven days after the presumed day of death. In Colorado we didn’t call the buffet after the funeral a wake. But whether you called it a reception or coming over for a bite to eat afterward, it still meant food for forty mourners.

I dumped a mound of risen dough as soft as flesh onto the oak countertop. Eating, I reflected, was a way of denying death.

I had known her. I did not want to think about it now. My fingers modeled soft dough around dill sprigs, then dropped the little rolls onto a baking sheet, where they looked like rows of miniature green-and-white sofa pillows. This was the last two dozen. I rubbed bits of yeasty mixture off my hands and let cold water gush over them.

A professional caterer has to keep her mind on the job, not the reason for the job. October was generally a slow month for parties in Aspen Meadow. Despite the fact that Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! provided the town’s only professional food service, making a living here was always a precarious enterprise. Like it or not, I needed the income from this postfuneral meal.

Still. I would rather have had Laura Smiley alive. She had been Arch’s fifth-grade teacher last year. She also had taught him third, when he was recovering from the divorce. They had become special friends, had worked on games and outdoor projects. They had written letters over the summers. I could picture Laura Smiley with my son, her arm around his slender shoulders, her cascade of brown-blond curls just touching the top of his head.

Psychologists and social workers had come into the elementary school to work with the students after the news of Ms. Smiley’s death broke on Monday. Arch had not spoken much about it. I did not know what the counselors had said to him, nor he to them. All during the week he had come home from school, taken snack food into his room, and closed the door. Sometimes I could hear him on the phone, acting as dungeon master or playing television trivia games. Perhaps losing Ms. Smiley was not much on his mind. It was hard to tell.