Raspberry Danish Murder (Hannah Swensen #22)(88)

Aunt Nancy laughed. “Dessert for breakfast. I like the concept. Go pour yourselves some coffee and get one for me, too. I’ll see if our new bar cookies are cool enough to cut.”

Michelle and Hannah seated themselves at the work station with fresh cups of coffee for themselves and one with cream and sugar for Aunt Nancy. A few moments later, Aunt Nancy walked over with a plate of bar cookies.

“Here they are,” she said. “Please take one and taste it. We want to know if you think we should add them to the coffee shop menu.”

Hannah took one bite and nodded. “Please add them,” she said, and then, rather than go into detail, she took another bite.

“I agree,” Michelle said.

Aunt Nancy took a bar cookie from the plate she’d filled and tried it herself. “Me, too!” she said with a smile. “The customers will love these.”

“Are they difficult to make?” Hannah asked her.

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, you save a little time because you don’t need to unwrap as many caramels. On the first batch, we used caramel ice cream topping mixed with a six-ounce by weight bag of chocolate chips. And on the second try, we used thirty-five caramels instead of the fifty in the original recipe, the same amount of chocolate chips, and a quarter cup of whipping cream. Both ways worked just fine.”

“Then you didn’t have to look for actual chocolate caramels?” Hannah asked.

“No. And both ways work and save time, too. We don’t think it gets any better than that.”

*

After they each had another Chocolate Caramel Bar Cookie apiece, Aunt Nancy helped Hannah and Michelle pack up the cookie truck. They had decided to leave half of the new cookie bars at The Cookie Jar so that Lisa, Aunt Nancy, and Marge could try them out on the customers. Hannah and Michelle took the other half with them and headed off to the Lake Eden Inn.

“It’s a beautiful morning,” Michelle said as they turned off on the road that led around Eden Lake. “Just look at the sun glinting off the snow.”

“Michelle, it’s a yard light. It’s winter. The sun’s not up yet.”

“Oh. I think I might need more sleep. But look at the yard light glistening on the branches of the pine trees. I wonder if that’s where they got the inspiration for tinsel.”

“Dad told me that, way back in Great-Grandma Elsa’s day, tinsel was actually made from shiny lead. They used to call them icicles.”

“Why did they stop making them out of lead?” Michelle asked her.

“I’m not completely sure, but I’ll bet it had something to do with lead poisoning, or maybe the fact that people were supposed to save scrap metal for the war effort.”

“I remember Great-Grandma Elsa telling us about the old rusty tractor that they hauled out from behind the barn and gave to a scrap metal drive.”

“Yes, farm equipment was heavy, and there were shortages of metal to make tanks, and ships, and all sorts of things. Some people even removed non-essential parts from their cars and donated those.”

“Like what?”

“Bumpers and in some cases, even fenders. People went through their homes to donate anything made out of metal, and some families tore down wrought iron fences and donated those. Most families had someone close to them fighting in the war, a neighbor, a son, a nephew or cousin. Scrap drives became very important to them because everybody wanted to help the soldiers.”

“Were there scrap drives for other things besides metal?”

“Oh, yes. There were scrap drives for rubber, too. Big trucks came to collect old tires because they could be recycled and used on troop trucks and Jeeps. New tires were in very short supply here at home, and people did all sorts of things to patch them up and use them longer. Paper was another thing that was in short supply, and schools held paper drives to collect old magazines, newspapers, and anything made out of paper. There were drives for anything that was in short supply, and everything that could be recycled was recycled.”

Michelle looked thoughtful. “We’re doing that again now. We separate glass, and metal, and paper in our trash so that it can be recycled. We have a special can for recyclables at the house in St. Paul.”

“And we have a separate Dumpster in the garage at the condo,” Hannah told her. “We started that a couple of months ago. It’s the blue Dumpster.”

“I saw that and I was going to ask you about it. I figured it wasn’t for regular trash.”

“We’re here!” Hannah said as they pulled up by the back door to the convention center. “Sally said we can use this spot to unload.”

“Great! Back in, Hannah, but leave enough room for you to open the back and stand there. If you hand things up to me, it’ll go a lot faster.”

“Now it’ll go twice as fast,” a male voice shouted out, and Hannah and Michelle turned to see Loren standing on the loading dock.

“Hi, Loren,” Hannah said as she backed up the truck and got out. “Are you sure you have time to help us?”

“I’ve got time. Just hand things up to me. I brought a cart and we can push it to your booth.”

The loading dock wasn’t that high, and it was a simple matter to hand things up to Loren so he could stack them on the cart. When they were through, Michelle went with Loren to help him unload at their booth, and Hannah moved the cookie truck to their designated parking spot.