Recipes for Love and Murder Read online

  ‘Eat some melktert, Hats,’ I said. ‘It’s a good one.’

  She picked up her fork and I helped myself to another slice. I didn’t want to suffer either. I had no reason to feel lonely. I was sitting on my stoep with a lovely view of the veld, a good friend and some first-class milk tart.

  ‘How about,’ I said, ‘I read people’s letters and give them a recipe that will help them?’

  Hattie finished her mouthful before she spoke.

  ‘You’d need to give them some advice.’

  ‘Food advice,’ I said.

  ‘They’ll be writing in with their problems.’

  ‘Different recipes for different problems.’

  Hattie stabbed the air with her fork, and said, ‘Food as medicine for the body and heart.’

  ‘Ja, exactly.’

  ‘You’ll have to give some advice, but a recipe could be part of it.’

  ‘Tannie Maria’s Love Advice and Recipe Column.’

  Hattie smiled and her face was her own again.

  ‘Goodness gracious, Tannie Maria. I don’t see why not.’

  Then she used the fork to polish off her melktert.

  CHAPTER THREE

  So it was on the stoep with Hattie that we decided on Tannie Maria’s Love Advice and Recipe Column. The column was very popular. A lot of people from all over the Klein Karoo wrote to me. The letters I wrote back gave me the recipes for this book: recipes for love and murder. So here I am, writing a recipe book after all. Not the kind I thought I’d write, but anyway.

  One thing led to another in ways I did not expect. But let me not tell the story all upside-down, I just want to give you a taste . . .

  The main recipe in this book is the recipe for murder. The love recipe is more complicated, but in a funny way it came out of this murder recipe:

  RECIPE FOR MURDER

  1 stocky man who abuses his wife

  1 small tender wife

  1 medium-sized tough woman in love with the wife

  1 double-barrelled shotgun

  1 small Karoo town marinated in secrets

  3 bottles of Klipdrift brandy

  3 little ducks

  1 bottle of pomegranate juice

  1 handful of chilli peppers

  1 mild gardener

  1 fire poker

  1 red-hot New Yorker

  7 Seventh-day Adventists (prepared for The End of the World)

  1 hard-boiled investigative journalist

  1 soft amateur detective

  2 cool policemen

  1 lamb

  1 handful of red herrings and suspects mixed together

  Pinch of greed

  Throw all the ingredients into a big pot and simmer slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon for a few years. Add the ducks, chillies and brandy towards the end and turn up the heat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Just one week after I sat on the stoep with Harriet, the letters started coming in. I remember Hattie holding them up like a card trick, as she stood in the doorway of the office of the Klein Karoo Gazette. She must have heard me arriving in my bakkie and was waiting for me as I walked down the pathway.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Tannie Maria! Your first letters!’ she called.

  She was wearing a butter-yellow dress and her hair was golden in the sunlight. It was hot, so I walked slowly down the path of flat stones, between the pots of aloes and succulents. The small office is tucked away behind the Ladismith Art Gallery & Nursery in Eland Street.

  ‘The vetplantjies are flowering,’ I said.

  The little fat plants had pink flowers that gleamed silver where they caught the light.

  ‘They arrived yesterday. There are three of them,’ she said, handing me the letters.

  The Gazette office has fresh white walls, Oregon floorboards and a high ceiling. On the outer wall is one of those big round air vents with beautiful patterns that they call ‘Ladismith Eyes’. The office used to be a bedroom in what was one of the original old Ladismith houses. There’s only room for three wooden desks, a sink and a little fridge, but this is enough for Jessie, Hattie and me. There are other freelance journalists from small towns all over the Klein Karoo, but they send their work to Hattie by email.

  On the ceiling a big fan was going round and round, but I don’t know if it helped make the room any cooler.

  ‘Jislaaik,’ I said. ‘You could make rusks without an oven on a day like this.’

  I put a tin of freshly baked beskuit on my desk. Jessie looked up from her computer and grinned at me and the rusk tin.

  ‘Tannie M,’ she said.

  Jessie Mostert was the young Gazette journalist. She was a coloured girl who got a bursary to study at Grahamstown and then came back to work in her home town. Her mother was a nursing sister at the Ladismith hospital.

  Jessie wore pale jeans, a belt with lots of pouches on it and a black vest. She had thick dark hair tied in a ponytail, and tattoos of geckos on her brown upper arms. Next to the computer on her desk were her scooter helmet and denim jacket. Jessie loved her little red scooter.

  Hattie put the letters on my desk, next to the beskuit and the kettle. I worked only part-time and was happy to share my desk with the full-time tea stuff. I put on the kettle, and got some cups from the small sink.

  Hattie sat down at her desk and paged through her notes.

  ‘Jess,’ she said. ‘I need you to cover the NGK church fête on Saturday.’

  ‘Ag, no, Hattie. Another fête. I’m an investigative journalist, you know.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the girl with the gecko tattoo.’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Jessie said, smiling.

  I looked at the three letters sitting on my desk, like unopened presents. I left them there while I made coffee for us all.

  ‘I want you to take some photos of the new work done by the patchwork group – they will have their own stall at the fête,’ said Hattie.

  ‘Oh, not the lappiesgroep again. I did a whole feature on them and the Afrikaanse Taal- en Kultuurvereniging last month.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jessie darling, I’m sure something interesting will come up,’ said Hattie, scribbling on a pad. I didn’t think she’d seen Jessie rolling her eyes, but then she said: ‘Or else you can always find work on a more exciting paper. In Cape Town maybe.’

  ‘Ag, no, Hattie, you know I love it here. I just need . . . ’

  ‘Jessie, I’m truly delighted you decided to stay here. But you are a very bright girl, and sometimes I think this town and paper are too small for you.’

  ‘I love this town,’ said Jessie. ‘My family and friends are here. I just think there are big stories, even in a small town.’

  I put a cup of coffee on each of their desks, and offered the tin of rusks. Hattie never has one before lunch, but Jessie’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the golden crunchy beskuit and she forgot about her argument.

  ‘Take two,’ I said.

  When she reached into the tin it looked like the gecko tattoos were climbing up her arm. I smiled at her. I like a girl with a good appetite.

  ‘Lekker,’ she said, and her hip burst into song.

  Girl on fire! it sang.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, opening one of her pouches. ‘That’s my phone.’

  The song got louder as she walked towards the doorway and answered it.

  ‘Hello . . . Reghardt?’

  She went out into the garden and her voice became quiet and I couldn’t hear her or her fire song any more. I sat down at my desk, and dipped my beskuit into my coffee. It had sunflower seeds in it, which gave it that roasted nutty flavour. I looked again at the envelopes.

  The top letter was pink and addressed to Tannie Maria. The ‘i’s were dotted with little round circles. I took a sip of my coffee, then I opened the letter. By the time I’d finished reading, I was so shocked I stopped eating.

  This is what it said:

  Dear Tannie Maria,

  It feels like my life is over and I am not even thirteen. If I don’t
kill myself, my mother will. But she doesn’t know yet. I have had sex three times, but I only swallowed once. Am I pregnant? I haven’t had my period for ages.

  He is fifteen. His skin is black and smooth and his smile is white, and he said he loved me. We used to meet under the kareeboom and then go to the shed and play Ice Cream. He said I taste like the sweet mangoes that grow on the streets where he comes from. He tastes like chocolate and nuts and ice cream. These are things I used to love to eat. I tried to stop the visits to the shed, but then I saw him there in the shade of the tree, and got hungry for him.

  I fanned myself with her pink envelope and carried on reading.

  When I told him I might be pregnant, he said we mustn’t meet again. I go past the tree after school but he’s never there.

  I have been so worried that I can’t eat. My mother says I am wasting away. I know I’m going to hell, which is why I haven’t killed myself.

  Can you help me?

  Desperate

  I put down the letter and shook my head. Magtig! What a tragedy . . .

  A young girl who can’t eat.

  We had to get her interested in food again. I needed a recipe with chocolate and nuts. And ice cream. With something healthy in it.

  I would of course tell her that you can’t get pregnant from oral sex. And in case she really was not able to talk to her mother, I would give her the number for the family planning clinic in Ladismith. But if I could just come up with an irresistible recipe for her, it might save everyone a lot of trouble.

  Bananas, I thought. They are very healthy, and would help her get strong again. How about frozen bananas, dipped in melted dark chocolate and rolled in nuts. I wrote out a recipe for her with dark chocolate and toasted hazelnuts. That should help her get over him. And in case the boyfriend read the paper, I put in a recipe for mango sorbet too. Mangoes were in season, and the good ones tasted like honey and sunshine.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sjoe, but it was hot and those cold recipes looked good. But there were still two unopened letters on my table. The letters did not call as loud as the frozen bananas.

  ‘I’m going to work from home,’ I told Hattie. ‘I need to test some recipes.’

  ‘Mhmm,’ she said.

  She had a pencil in her mouth and was frowning as she worked.

  ‘Hattie, what time is Saturday’s fête?’ asked Jessie.

  Jessie was at her desk, taking a little notebook out of one of her pouches.

  ‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Hattie, pressing buttons on her computer. ‘Hmm? Two p.m.’

  I stood up, the letters in my hand.

  ‘It’s important the recipes are good.’ I said. ‘Irresistible.’

  Hattie looked up from her work.

  ‘Maria, darling. Go.’

  My little bakkie was parked a few trees away from the office, beside Jessie’s red scooter. We tried to stay a bit of a distance from Hattie’s Toyota Etios; I already had one ding she had made on the door of my van. My Nissan 1400 bakkie was pale blue – like the Karoo sky early in the morning. With a canopy that was white like those small puffy clouds. Though the canopy was usually more dusty than the clouds. I’d left all the windows open, and it was in the shade of a jacaranda tree, but it was still baking hot in there. It really was a day for ice cream.

  I popped in at the Spar to pick up the ingredients. It was a quiet time of day so I was lucky to get out of there with only chatting to three people. Not that I mind chatting. It’s just that those sweet cool dishes were calling to me quite loudly, so I couldn’t listen properly.

  I could smell the ripe mangoes as I drove past the farmlands, through the open veld and between the low brown hills. I turned into the dirt road that goes towards my house, drove past the eucalyptus trees and parked in my driveway, next to the lavender. Two brown chickens were lying in the shade of the geranium bush; they didn’t get up to say hello.

  I went into the kitchen and plonked my grocery bag on the big wooden table, then straightaway peeled six bananas and put them in a Tupperware in the freezer. Then I chopped four mangoes and put them in the freezer too. I stood over the sink to eat the flesh off the mango skins and suck their sticky pips clean. It was a messy business.

  Then I crushed the hazelnuts with my wooden pestle and mortar and lightly toasted them in a pan. I tasted them while they were warm. I broke the chocolate up and put it in a double boiler. I would do the melting when the bananas were frozen. I tasted the dark chocolate. I ate some together with the nuts just to check the combination. Then I prepared some more nuts and chocolate to make up for all the testing. It would take a couple of hours for the bananas and mangoes to freeze. How was I going to wait that long? My letters. I had brought back my two letters from work.

  I decided to take them outside so I could focus without distractions. I sat on the shady stoep and opened one. It was from a little girl who liked a boy and didn’t know how to make friends with him. I gave her a nice easy fridge fudge recipe. Little boys never say no to fudge.

  The next letter I opened said: Oh hell, I’m such a total idiot. Please tear up that last letter. If my husband ever sees or hears about it . . . I’m a fool. Please don’t publish it. Destroy it. I beg you.

  What last letter? What was she afraid of? I looked at the postmark on the envelope. Ladismith. The date was two days ago. I phoned the Gazette, and got Jessie.

  ‘Hey, Tannie M,’ she said.

  ‘Did I leave a letter on my desk?’ I asked.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll check.’

  I looked at the kitchen clock while Jessie was gone. Not even an hour had passed since I’d put the bananas in the freezer.

  ‘No, nothing. But mail did arrive after you left. And there’s a letter for you.’

  ‘White envelope,’ I said. ‘Postmark Ladismith, sent two or three days ago?’

  ‘Mmm . . . ’ she said. ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’m making some choc-nut frozen bananas,’ I said. ‘If you want to pop over sometime . . . ’

  ‘Why don’t I shoot across in my lunch break? I’ll bring your letter.’

  ‘Just right,’ I said.

  I didn’t have a good feeling about the husband in the woman’s letter. It gave me an uncomfortable worry in my belly. I decided to put something sweet in my stomach instead. The banana wasn’t frozen yet, but it tasted good with the nuts and chocolate. I needed to test the recipe properly – with frozen banana and melted chocolate – so I stopped at just one banana.

  To get myself out of the kitchen I put on my veldskoene, old clothes and straw hat and went into the vegetable garden. I had two pairs of veldskoene: one light khaki, which was smarter, and the other dark brown, which was better for gardening. It was like a roasting oven outside but there was a part of the garden that was in the shade of the lemon tree, and I kneeled down there and started pulling out weeds.

  There were some snails on my lettuce and I chucked them onto the compost heap where the chickens would find them.

  I was lucky I had good borehole water. It had been too long without rain. The Karoo sun tries to suck all the moisture out of the plants and people. But we knyp it in, holding on. The little vygies and other succulents do the best job of holding onto it. I put olive oil on my skin at night so I don’t turn into dried biltong. But I don’t use it when I go outside or else the sun would fry me into a Tannie Maria vetkoek.

  After a while the sun was too much. I stood up and brushed the soil off my knees and washed my hands under the garden tap. I took my hat off and splashed my face with cool water and wiped it with my handkerchief. Then I went inside and put the chocolate on the double boiler to melt and took the mangoes out of the freezer. They were frozen, but not rock hard, which is just perfect. I whizzed them in the blender, then put this nice sorbet in the Tupperware and popped it back in the freezer.

  I heard Jessie’s scooter coming so I took the bananas out of the freezer and the melted chocolate off the stove. I used my little braai tongs to dip the frozen bananas into
the bowl of dark chocolate and then roll them in the plate of toasted nuts.

  Jessie grinned as she came in the kitchen.

  ‘Wow, Tannie M, something smells lekker. Jislaaik, what is that?’

  She put her helmet and denim jacket on a kitchen chair and looked at the chocolate-nut bananas that I was putting onto wax paper. When I had done five bananas I popped them in the freezer.

  ‘First, our starters,’ I said, and dished us two bowls of mango sorbet.

  ‘Ooh, this is awesome, Tannie. What’s in it?’

  ‘Mangoes.’

  ‘Ja, but what else?’

  ‘Just mangoes.’

  ‘No. Really?’

  ‘Ja. The Zill ones are the best, but they aren’t in season yet. These Tommy Atkins are very nice too. Oh, and a bit of lime juice on top, to give it that tang.’

  ‘Wow. Amazing.’

  I put our empty bowls in the sink, and got us two plates for the main course. Jessie adjusted her belt.

  ‘What is all that stuff on your belt, Jessie?’ I asked, as I dished the bananas onto our plates.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, patting the different pouches that hung across her hips. ‘Camera, phone, notebooks, knife, torch, pepper spray. That kind of stuff.’ She was looking now at the chocolate banana. ‘That looks, um, delicious.’

  ‘They do look a bit funny like that,’ I said. ‘Not quite right.’

  ‘Do we eat them with our fingers?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’ve never done this before. Here’s a knife and fork . . . Wait a minute. Cream. That’s what they need.’ I put a big dollop of whipped cream on our plates. ‘There, that looks better.’

  We started with a knife and fork but ended up using our fingers because they were too delicious to waste time fiddling.

  One of the best things about Jessie is that she appreciates food. She has a sensible body with padding in the right places.

  We didn’t talk as we ate, but Jessie closed her eyes and moaned a bit.

  ‘Jislaaik,’ she said, when she had finished, ‘that is the best banana I’ve had in my whole damn life.’

  I smiled and dished up her pudding. Another frozen choc-nut banana and cream. I gave myself one too, to keep her company. I wished that I could send Jessie’s sensibleness to the girl I was sending this recipe to.