What's Cooking

- Hey, horny girl. You there?

- Porkypie? Where are you?

- At the library. Where are you?

- Stuck at home. Mom’s got me typing recipes. She wants to publish a book. I can’t get loose right now.

- A cookbook?

- What else? Breakfast foods for vegetarians. You know, the stuff we serve at the Bighorn.

- Are you on the menu?

- You want me for breakfast?

- And lunch and dinner. I got your tip right here.

- You’re making me hungry for pig in a blanket.

- What’s that?

- Well … first you need a sausage. A big, thick sausage.

- Got that and then some.

- It has to be firm. A limp, mealy sausage won’t cut it. If it stands straight up in your hand, you’ve got a goodie.

- Oh, I’ve got a goodie, all right.

- Then you make the batter. You need flour, baking powder, and baking soda. I could go for a soda. Plenty of sugar. Give me sugar. Salt, too. I like it salty. Butter so it’s all lubed up. Then you add the buttermilk so it creams real nice.

- Oh yeah. I’m digging this.

- You mix it all together. You beat the batter until it’s nice and stiff.

- Beat until stiff. Got it.

- Then the sausage goes into the batter. You want a good, thick coating. Ram it into that batter. Make that batter scream.

- I love screaming batter.

- Then you slide it into a hot oven. Let that sausage sit and bake. You may have to slide it in and out of the oven until it sits just right. Sometimes it comes

- It comes?

- With gravy. Sausage gravy. All thick and creamy white. All over the sausage and all over the blanket. I love the taste of gravy.

- I’m coming right over. Is your mom home?

- I think she’s in the kitchen. She

She was standing right beside Mary and the computer. She pinned her daughter’s hand to the keyboard before Mary could exit the personal chat room. That’s not exactly the recipe for gooseberry flapjacks, is it? Mary read on her mother’s lips.

Elly activated the speaker that Mary never used. “Porker? Is that you?”

“Uhhhhh … M-m-m-m-Miss Elly?”

“In the flesh, young man. I see you’re looking to get some take out.”

“Uh uh uh uh uh uh – ”

“Oh, stop. I know all about spring and young men’s fancies and all that romantic tripe. Which is why I’m giving you fair warning. You step so much as one pig bristle over the line with my little lamb and I’ll make cutlets out of you. Got it?”

“Y-y-y-yes, ma’am.”

Mary signed “Mom!” Somehow her fingers stretched it out to six syllables.

“As for you, young lady, that’s all the unsupervised computer time you get for the rest of the week. How are those recipes coming along?”

Mary sullenly called up the abandoned files. Elly nodded. “Whoa. You’re really whipping through them. Why don’t you take a break? Away from the computer. Get some fresh air.” She shut down the system before Mary could protest.

Mary trudged outside, into the cheerful but Porkerless sunshine. She plopped down under a tree and set her back to the trunk. She spotted her mother watching from the kitchen. After a while Elly returned to whatever experimental recipe currently held her attention.

When she was certain she was no longer under surveillance, Mary pulled out her cell phone. Nobody, not even her brothers, knew she had a cell, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Naturally she couldn’t take regular calls. But the text function worked just fine.

- Porkypie? R U there?

- Took U long enuff. Want to see my recipe for stirred and spicy eggs?

# # #

Because being hearing- or speech-impaired is no reason to miss out on the fun.