There's No WiFi on the Prairie by Nicholas O. Time

Author:Nicholas O. Time
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Spotlight

Now that I have my plan for how I can convince the Pedersen family to move to California, it’s time for me to put it into action.

“Wish me luck, Cow,” I say, as I scoop up Hans and Jens once again and take them into the house. It’s all hands on deck now, as the biscuits are rising in the oven and Mrs. Pedersen and Martha are preparing some sort of stinky bean soup on top of the cookstove. My mom makes us rice and beans all the time, which I think taste awful, but something tells me this is a meal they have pretty regularly around here, so I say, “Wow, that smells delicious,” as I come into the house.

Martha beams. “My mom is a wonderful cook,” she says proudly. “She can pull together a dinner out of practically nothing. And she even knows tricks for baking bread when we have no yeast, and how to season certain things with just leaves and grass.”

I think of my own mother with the box of spaghetti and the jar of sauce. No, cooking is not her specialty, but she does heal animals for a living, and she’s great at helping with homework. Plus, she’s very funny.

Inga comes in carrying a pail of fresh milk from the cow. I’m reminded how glad I am that I was able to return her so they have milk.

“Ava, do you think you could help Martha churn some butter?” Mrs. Pedersen asks me tentatively, as if she’s worried I’ll ruin that, too.

I decide I can’t risk messing up more of their precious stock of food, so I’m honest. “Well, Mrs. Pedersen, our family has just arrived here from back East, where we lived in, uh, town, and so I’m not very good at that yet. But maybe Martha can show me? I’m a pretty quick learner.”

Martha agrees, and takes me in the corner with the pail of milk. She strains it and then pours the creamy milk into a large jug. Immediately she begins beating it with a wooden spoon, for what seems like ages, and the milk somehow manages to separate into buttermilk and some other kind of milky liquid with little pieces of actual solid butter in it. She pours that through a sieve and then stows the buttermilk in a cool dark corner and places the butter solids onto a plate and salts it.

Meanwhile, Inga has been setting the table, and Mrs. Pedersen has taken the biscuits from the oven and is now doling out the soup into small bowls.

I can’t believe how much work went into just making the bread and butter, things that sit in my pantry and fridge and I grab every single day without thinking about it. And this is just one of three meals they have to make every day! How do they have time to do anything else?

“You all have worked so hard on this meal,” I say, without meaning to. It just kind of spills out. “I can’t believe it.

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