As Good Cooks Go, She Went

by "Milverton's Housemaid"
and "what a noble mind is here o'erthrown"

"She's got a fever, poor thing, and coughing terribly. I'll keep her here, then, and the doctor'll come by tomorrow morning, Miss Russell. Don't worry about her, she'll be fine." And with that, Mrs Morrow rang off. I put the telephone receiver down; it seemed as heavy as my heart. Mrs Hudson sick, and laid up at her friend Ethel Morrow's house; Holmes holed up in his study with Mycroft, a fellow named Bertie Flume, and some electrical device that emitted ominous crackles and sparks. Pipe and cigar smoke roiled out from under the door; they would not be disturbed, and I had brought luncheon on a tray, knocked and left it outside the door, then tea, then coffee.

It was inevitable, I thought, that they would be in need of more substantial fare by dinnertime. Gloomily I walked round the kitchen, opening and shutting the pantry doors, looking in the coolers and the icebox, perusing the shelves. "Well, Sir Marmalade," I said to the fat orange cat trailing after me in the hopes of a treat, "Mrs Hudson's unwilling cooking-school pupil must now take the practical examination. I shall prepare dinner and it will be edible, but more than that I cannot promise. Grilled chops, two veg and mash, and some tinned peaches for dessert." And grimly I set about finding pots and pans, muttering to myself. I was anything but hungry.

I took a package wrapped in butcher's paper from the icebox and opened it. There, arranged with precision in a white enamelled butcher's tray, were eight veal chops. There on the range was the grilling-pan, here, the chops: now what? Did one sprinkle them with rosemary? Roll them in flour? Dip them in egg, then breadcrumbs? Lay them in a dressing of wine and oil? Must the grill be hot before the meat is put on it, or does the meat go into the cold pan, which is then heated? My head was as empty of culinary knowledge as the saucepan before me, in which I was to cook potatoes, if ever I could find where Mrs Hudson secreted them. I looked again in the icebox in the hopes of finding something previously prepared and only wanting heating. I took out a green glass box; when I opened it, I found a number of fillets of flounder, cold, flabby and as unpleasant as a limp handshake. I replaced the lid and put the fish back into the icebox, fighting waves of nausea.

I found the potatoes in the potato-bin, next to a smaller bin containing onions. A large basket on the kitchen table held an artistic arrangement of carrots, turnips, scallions, and a bunch of spinach in a small vase of water, looking like an odd green bouquet. A glass bowl of green peas in pod stood next to it. In my peregrinations, I found salt, pepper, butter and a jar of Mrs Hudson's mustard pickle. I ranged all this in front of me on the kitchen table, tied Mrs Hudson's apron twice around my waist, and commending myself to the God of Moses, who did not allow the wanderers in the desert to starve, I contemplated preparation of our dinner. Manna, I reflected, would be a welcome addition. I wondered if Fortnum & Mason's delivered manna - they certainly offered everything else.

Baffled though I was, I knew that all was not lost. In this house was a sacred text that contained all knowledge necessary for salvation: It would answer all my questions, resolve all my difficulties, and enable me to transcend the limitations of my nature.

It was of course, Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. But there was a difficulty: Mrs. Beeton was in the study. I had taken it there the previous afternoon to cite something she had to say about spring lamb in a short piece I was preparing on the Twenty-Third Psalm for our village church magazine, at the earnest request of the vicar.

The book was in the study. HOLMES was in the study. How could I extract the precious volume without making him aware that I was resorting to the aid of England's domestic divinity, after I had assured him, with a proud and careless laugh worthy of the Divine Sarah, that OF COURSE I knew what I was doing?

This would require a Plan.

Should I knock once, bustle into the study ["I've just come to pick up the tray, Holmes, don't trouble yourself"] seize the book and tray and bustle out again? Should I not knock, carefully open the door and tiptoe in, look about with my characteristic absentmindedness, take a book or two off the shelves, including Mrs Beeton, then tiptoe out again, seemingly abstracted?

I peered out of the kitchen window hoping to gain inspiration from the beautifully ordered herb garden, rescued last week by Will and Mrs Hudson from the tunnellings of a particularly industrious mole. Patrick had taken him - or possibly her - away in a small wicker basket; he was nourishing a small grove of a new strain of peach trees, and apparently moles eat the larvae of insects that attack them; so I guess I must consider the wretched creature staff now.

We had also found a young Tiggy, which we had left in place in hopes it would decimate our own population of harmful insects. For one mad moment I considered serving it up a la Apicius, baked, skinned, dipped in honey and rolled in sesame seeds. How ironic that an Oxford graduate (and pupil of Mrs Hudson) in the twentieth century knew how to prepare a dish from classical antiquity but not how to cook a chop properly.

Oh, well, it would only have been a single hors d'oeuvre for Mycroft.

Which was worse: to brave the study, retrieve Mrs Beeton and suffer Holmes' arched eyebrows and supercilious smirk, then attempt to puzzle through the good lady's instructions for novice cooks, or to attack the job head-on, success or failure, inedible shoe-leather and veg unknown on this Earth?

I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. I stared at the chops, glaring back at me in their fleshy arrogance. I berated myself for following Mrs Hudson through her cooking lesson with bored obedience but little attention. The cat wound himself around my ankles, and absently I bent down to pat his broad, furry head. "O Cat," I said, "what a life you lead! If we are reincarnated, I should like to return as a house-cat, petted and cosseted, and never called upon to cook a meal! He squinched his eyes closed and purred blissfully, secure in the knowledge that his dinner would be provided for him - on genuine (if badly chipped) Wedgwood - and he would not even have to prepare a pie made of mouse, like Tabitha Twitchett in one of the little Beatrix Potter books that delighted my childhood.

I stood up, drew a great breath and looked around me at the now-disorderly kitchen, and wandered disconsolately into the parlor just as the clock struck six. A chill wind rattled the windows of the cottage; I put another stout log on the fire.

Then the wisdom that my mother must surely have passed on to me smote me squarely in the head. I went into the hallway, lifted the telephone receiver and asked to be connected to The Monk's Tun, where I was greeted by the proprietress, Tilly Whiteneck, with her usual brisk courtesy.

"Good evening, Tilly," I said, and an exchange of compliments ensued, for we were friends and allies of old. "We are closeted with some colleagues, working on a difficult experiment, and will need to have our dinner brought over. Will you send us enough for (I recalculated for Mycroft's appetite) five people?"

"You should roust 'em out o' there for some fresh air, Miss Mary," Mrs Whiteneck replied tartly. "But if they will not budge, Miss, I can send up a nice bit of cold game pie for starters. Will Brown Windsor do for soup?"

"I think I can manage the soup," I replied, remembering the tins of consommé that were the last lone survivor of the hamper we'd picked up at Fortnum's on our last London foray.

"I've a splendid crown roast of beef I can let you have. It was meant for a party of commercial travellers, but one of them tried to molest young Katie when she went to turn down the beds, and she had to thwack him with the warming pan, so let 'em eat cold ham, say I. There're potatoes, carrots and onions roasted in with it, and my own Yorkshire pudding that Mr. Mycroft Holmes allus says he can't get enough of. And what do you say to the last of the fresh new peas, cooked gently on a bed of shredded lettuce with a little chopped onion and a lump of butter?"

"I say that it sounds absolutely heavenly!" For the first time that day, my mouth was actually watering. Mycroft wasn't the only votary who worshiped at the shrine of Mrs Whiteneck's Yorkshire pud, which was so light that one always expected it to float right off the table and was tempted to stake it to the plate with the fruit knife like some sort of vampiric pastry.

We settled on apple tart for afters, with a choice of custard or some nice sharp Cheddar with it. I thanked the good woman, cleared the kitchen, and set the dining table neatly with the best china and silver to pay proper tribute to the meal. I chose a solid red Bordeaux to go with the beef and set a bottle of sweet Sauternes to chill to accompany the tart, silently praising the shade of my mother for teaching me a valuable lesson: in a pinch, the best thing you can make for dinner is a call to a restaurant.