Occupation: Cook to the Gilvers of Gilverton

It’s not like the old days when I was a kitchenmaid. It’s not even like the old days when I was a young cook with my own kitchenmaid. There’s no getting up at 5 to clear, clean, set and re-light the range for breakfast now. With this new gas oven that can put a flame under the porridge pot at the touch of a match, I’m lolling in bed till almost seven unless there’s a big luncheon looming.

So a holiday like today is less of a treat, in some ways. I do my best to mark it for the family. The raspberries are glorious this summer and I send a dish of them into the breakfast room along with a jug of good yellow cream from the Mains. I mean them both to garnish the porridge of course, but when Becky clears and brings it all back down, all of the cream and rasps are gone, the sugar basin is gey near empty, and the tureen is as full as it was an hour ago. Mrs Gilver has had pudding for breakfast.

As many years as I cook food for that woman I will never understand her. My porridge is thick enough to stand a spoon in, same as my pea broth, same as my mutton stew, and yet Mrs Gilver can resist it. All in the name of keeping herself slender, I suppose. Well, rather her than me. If God had meant women our age to be thin he wouldn’t have made suet so tasty.

I challenge the mistress to resist the picnic I’ve concocted for our ladies’ outing this bright August Bank Holiday afternoon coming. Of course, we’re not really on an outing, all palsy-walsy together; things are less stiff than they used to be but there are limits. It’s only just that Becky, Miss Grant, and I were headed to Dundee anyway, to the Dudhope Park deckchairs and a listen to whoever was playing in the bandstand, and the mistress by sheer coincidence was summoned to Dudhope Park to have a quiet word in the ear of the Punch and Judy man, for some business of her own. I don’t mind. A puppet show or a military march is all one to me. It’s the sit down I’m needing.

So I’ll make some nice savoury pies small enough to hold in the hand, full of good pork and stiff hoof jelly. They can be greasy, I’ll admit, but the brown paper bags soak most of it up and there’s nothing in grease to hurt you. To wash them down, I think flasks of strong tea, once I’ve swished the flasks out with bicarb and rice. It was coffee in there last, for the last big fishing party of the salmon season. Nasty stuff, coffee.

Mr Gilver always stops the fishing parties far too early to my mind, for a salmon is a boon to a plain cook. Ten minutes of gutting, scaling and boning and you can feed a party of ten, then make sandwiches for the morrow’s tea.

But who listens to me? Come the Glorious Twelfth it’ll be grouse, grouse, grouse and I’ll be working my fingers to the bone plucking the scootery wee things, trying to get a spoonful of stuffing into them and then watching over them like a nursery maid. All for three bites in each. They don’t even make good stock.

After pies and tea in the afternoon no one will be looking for a big dinner. I’ll do a plain cheese souffle with some watercress, a bit of beef fillet, a Sussex pond pudding – but serve it with cream instead of custard since it’s summer, and then maybe some liver mousse on melba toast for a savoury.

That should do.

Not that I want to hear of my mistress rummaging in her biscuit jar in the night because I put her on short rations. I’ll send in some gratin dauphinoise with the beef. And mashed Swedish turnip. And Brussels sprouts. Or I could simmer the beef in gravy and add a pastry top. That’s what I’ll do. And a jug of custard after all, besides the cream. That will see them through till morning.

The Mirror Dance, A Dandy Gilver Mystery #15
Genre: Historical
Release: December 2021
Purchase Link

Something sinister is afoot in the streets of Dundee, when a puppeteer is found murdered behind his striped Punch and Judy stand, as children sit cross-legged drinking ginger beer. At once, Dandy Gilver’s seemingly-innocuous investigation into plagiarism takes a darker turn. The gruesome death seems to be inextricably bound to the gloomy offices of Doig’s Publishers, its secrets hidden in the real stories behind their girls’ magazines The Rosie Cheek and The Freckle.

On meeting a mysterious professor from St Andrews, Dandy and her faithful colleague Alex Osbourne are flung into the worlds of academia, the theatre and publishing. Nothing is quite as it seems, and behind the cheerful facades of puppets and comic books, is a troubled history has begun to repeat itself.

About the author
National-bestselling and multi-award-winning author, Catriona McPherson (she/her), was born in Scotland and lived there until immigrating to the US in 2010. 

She writes historical detective stories set in the old country in the 1930s, featuring gently-born lady sleuth, Dandy Gilver. Book 15, The Mirror Dance, was released in November. After eight years in the new country, she kicked off the comic Last Ditch Motel series, which takes a wry but affectionate look at California life from the POV of a displaced Scot (where do we get our ideas, eh?). Book 4, Scot Mist, is coming in January. She also writes a strand of contemporary psychological thrillers. The latest of these is A Gingerbread House, which Kirkus called “a disturbing tale of madness and fortitude”.

Catriona is a member of MWA, CWA, Society of Authors, and a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.

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Catriona has generously offered to give away one print copy of The Mirror Dance. To enter, please leave a comment below. One entry per person and the giveaway is limited to U.S. residents only. Giveaway ends December 8, 2021. Good luck everyone!

All comments are welcomed.