Pancakes & Pandemonium - Culinary Competition Mystery #6

Chapter 19

(Amy)

Amy opened her eyes. She blinked a few times. Instead of the leg of the coffee table, a view she'd gotten used to after days of sleeping in the middle of the living room floor, the world was made of gray...fur. She exhaled to try to loosen some of the dog hair that was stuck to her lips and rolled onto her back. Sometime during the night, Pogo had decided that half of her pillow made a fine bed for him. She wondered how much dog hair she had inhaled in her sleep. The brash pup was one of the loves of her life, but sometimes his displays of affection didn't work out quite so well for her.

She arched her back and tilted her head backward on the sliver of pillow that was still hers until she was looking upside down at the light on the foyer's ceiling. The bulb wasn't lit, even though the switch was flipped on. Carla had called to say that her electricity had come back on, but the power obviously hadn't been restored everywhere yet. Surely the topic at Riverbend would be who had electricity and who was still without it. Hopefully, the need to make hot meals would end soon. Not because Amy didn't want to help anymore but because that would mean power had been restored to everybody in town.

The frame of her mother's bed squeaked. She was awake early. Daylight had just barely begun to filter into the room. The sun wasn't even up yet. Amy released her modified version of a yoga fish pose and watched as her mother climbed out of bed. That was the first time since she'd begun staying with them that she'd woken up before anybody else had arisen for the day. Even Pogo was slumbering through the surprise departure.

Amy sat up as soon as her mother disappeared down the hallway. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew that she was definitely hungry. Oatmeal was on the agenda for breakfast again, this time made with some shelf-stable almond milk she had found in the pantry, slivered almonds, and golden raisins. As she pulled her heavy U of M sweatshirt on over her flannel pajama top, she thought that soaking the raisins in rum would be a nice way to add some pizazz to the porridge. Except there was no rum, that she knew of, in the house. There was a chance that her mother had smuggled in replacements for the alcohol that Alex had relocated to his office.

Thuds and bangs echoed through the house. Not only was her mother up and about at an unusually early hour, it sounded as though she was doing some sort of physical labor. There was nothing like starting out the day with a big dose of weirdness. Pogo yawned then gave her a look of utter annoyance. It was too early for him too. He stretched out all the way across her pillow and closed his eyes.

In the kitchen, Amy tried not to be jealous of Carla as she pulled on a coat over top of her two layers of clothing. But she was. No doubt about it, she was envious. Even if the gas lines hadn't been repaired yet, which they weren't, if the electricity was on—like it was at Carla's house—she could use an electric griddle or the single-burner hot plate that she had won in a cookie-recipe contest a few years earlier. Either option would be better than trudging outside to the backyard grill, again, to make breakfast.

Her breath made puffs of white vapor in front of her as she crossed the deck with a pan filled with oatmeal, raisins, and almond milk. She'd add the rest of the ingredients after the oats were plump and tender. A dash of almond extract would also be a good way to amp up the flavor. There were more thumps coming from the house. What was her mother doing—remodeling the guest bedroom?

While the saucepan began to heat, Amy went back inside and filled the largest soup pot she owned with water and brought that out to the grill. It only took a few minutes for the quick-cooking oatmeal to turn into a warm, comforting breakfast. There were steel-cut oats in the pantry, which would've made a heartier meal, but Amy had decided to sacrifice texture for speed. When it wasn't easy to warm up, not getting cold in the first place was important. Although lugging out the huge pot of water to heat for showers and coffee had certainly helped generate her own internal heat.