The Amish Christmas Kitchen by Kelly Long

Author:Kelly Long
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Katie lifted the lid of the Dutch oven and dipped her spoon into the sauce. A chasm grew in the pit of her stomach. Ach, du lieva, the sauce was too runny. Fifteen minutes to go, and the sauce was too runny.

She couldn’t ruin the venison. She just couldn’t. Adam had proudly brought her almost five pounds of it, and asked her to cook it for his siblings tonight. What would he say if the venison didn’t turn out? Would he be mad or just disappointed? Would he decide he didn’t want to marry her?

Titus leaned his head closer to the stove so he could get a good look at her face. “Are you okay?”

“The sauce is runny,” she said.

He sniffed the air. “It smells wonderful-gute. Venison is just about my favorite food ever.”

Katie grinned. Everything she cooked seemed to be Titus’s favorite food ever. She marveled that he was so easy to please and that he always seemed to make her feel better, no matter how bad things got. When a cake fell or her cookies burned, he would smile at her and tell her things were going to be okay. Sometimes he’d read her a poem or offer to wash the dishes or show her a new trick his goats had learned. Titus never failed to make her smile.

“Do you need help?” Anna said, as she sat at the table and folded napkins. “Tomato paste is a gute thickener.”

Dear, sweet Anna. She would have done anything for Katie, and Katie wouldn’t have hurt her feelings for the world, but she couldn’t let Anna near Adam’s venison. Anna had a gift for making everything she touched taste worse.

With shaking breath, she slid the lid back on the Dutch oven and tried not to panic. She knew how to thicken a sauce. It wasn’t that hard, and she had plenty of time. “Denki, Anna,” Katie said, “but I think I can fix it with a little cornstarch. It should taste just fine.” Though Katie would barely be able to eat, she certainly hoped everyone else would enjoy it.

Anna creased a napkin between her fingers. “I’ve never been able to get the lumps out when I use cornstarch.”

Jah. Only last week, Anna had made gravy with lumps of cornstarch as big as quarters. At least Adam hadn’t eaten with them that night, and Katie didn’t mind the lumps. Anna had made them with lots of love.

Katie spooned a tablespoon of cornstarch into a mason jar. Titus, who seemed to know exactly what she needed more often than she understood, lifted the lid of the Dutch oven for her. She ladled a cup or two of the runny sauce into the mason jar, tightened the lid, and shook it vigorously.

Titus grinned at her again. “You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever seen.”

She felt her cheeks get warm. “Only if this works.”

“It will work. You know everything there is to know about cooking.”

“Almost as much as my Annie-banannie knows,” Felty said. “Annie is the best cook in the whole world.

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