Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(51)
“Really, Mam?”
“Yes, it was. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And I was so in love,” she sighed.
Date pudding was the best thing ever. Once you started eating it, you couldn’t stop until you were quite miserable. That was true. First you baked a rich, moist cake filled with dates and walnuts. Then you cooked a sauce with butter and brown sugar and chilled it in the refrigerator overnight. The next day you assembled this sticky, sweet cake in layers with the sauce and whipped cream.
Next, you crumbled the cake in the bottom of the clear, glass trifle bowl. Then you carefully spooned the rich, brown sauce over it, spreading it evenly. This was followed by a generous layer of sweet whipped cream. Then the layers were repeated.
Some people used Cool Whip, which was all right, but Mam insisted on the real thing. Whipped cream was just better.
Sadie thought about her own eck—that highly-honored corner table where the bride and groom sat after they were married in the three-hour service beforehand. It was a wondrous thing, that eck.
The designated corner was the place where long tables, set hastily against two walls, met. The bride and groom sat on folding chairs with the two couples who were members of the bridal party. The bride’s best table linens were used on the eck, as were her china, stemware, and silverware. These were gifts from the groom while they were dating. It was all color-coordinated, and each bride dreamed of her own eck as her teenage years went by.
Sadie was no different than any other young Amish girl. She thought about marriage, her wedding day, the guests, and the food, much the same as everyone else. There simply was no one for her to marry.
A career was out of the question. Being raised in an Amish home, she had only one choice, really. Well, no, two: to marry or not to marry. But being a wife and mother was the highest honor and the one goal in every young girl’s life. If you didn’t marry, you could teach school or get a job cooking or cleaning or working in a store or maybe caring for someone who was sick or disabled.
Sadie sighed as she dropped the small bits of celery and onion into a bowl.
“Here, Mam. This is ready for the stuffing,” she said.
With the girls’ help, the stuffing was made and put in the oven, and the potatoes were peeled and put on the gas burner to boil. Rebekah bent over to retrieve a head of cabbage from the crisper drawer in the refrigerator while Sadie sat tapping her fingers on the wooden table top, absentmindedly humming the same Christmas tune over and over.
“Stop that, Sadie. You’re driving me nuts!” Leah warned.
“Testy, testy,” Rebekah said.
“Hey, what am I supposed to do? I have to sit here or get around on crutches, which isn’t real easy in a kitchen filled with three other people.”
“You could get your wheelchair and set the table,” Mam said.
So Sadie did. That wasn’t easy either.
Someone had to get the plates from the hutch cupboard. Then she had to balance them on her lap as she wheeled into the dining area. She opened the oak chest containing the silverware that Dat had given Mam before they were married. She laid each piece carefully side by side on the tablecloth beside the china plates. The whole task took about twice as long as normal, leaving Sadie in no mood to seriously pitch in and help with the rest of Christmas dinner.
By eleven, the table was set with Mam’s best tablecloth and her Christmas china, which had an outline of gold along the plates’ rims with a circle of holly berries surrounding the center. They used the green stemware Mam had purchased at the Dollar General. It was exactly one dollar for one pretty glass tumbler. It was all very pretty and so grand and Christmasy, with the red and green napkins completing the picture.
The whole house smelled of the salty ham cooking in its own juices in the agate roaster in the oven of the gas stove. They mashed the potatoes with the hand-masher. Rebekah and Leah added lots of butter and salt, and then took turns pouring in hot milk until the potatoes reached the proper consistency.
Mam made the rich gravy with broth from the ham, adding a mixture of flour, cornstarch, and water. She whisked in the white liquid carefully until the gravy was thick and bubbly.
They took the pan of stuffing out of the oven and spooned it into a serving dish. The edges were brown, crisp, and salty with bits of onion and celery clinging to the sides. There was a dish of corn, yellow and succulent, with a square of butter melting so fast that no one was really sure it was there in the first place. They had grated the cabbage on a hand-held grater and mixed it with Miracle Whip, salt, sugar, and vinegar. They placed bits of red and green peppers on top for Christmas. A Tupperware container of fruit salad held maraschino cherries and kiwis, mixed in just for their colors.
The layered jello, called Christmas Salad, was made with lime green jello on the bottom, a mixture of cream cheese, milk, and Knox gelatin in the middle, and red jello on the top. It was the most perfect thing on the table—all red, green, and white and cut in shimmering squares. It looked so festive sitting on a small dish beside the green glasses.
Rebekah had baked a Christmas cake made of apples, nuts, raisins, and dates. The heavy cake, so rich and moist with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting, stood on Mam’s cake stand with the heavy glass cover.
Mam had not baked the usual pecan pies, which no one seemed to notice, and certainly no one commented on if they did. She was doing as well as she could. Sadie knew she was using up all her reserve energy and determination to keep going, joining the Christmas spirit for Reuben’s and Anna’s sakes.