CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The big day finally arrived. The first meeting of the Sunnybrook Pudding Club would begin at six that evening.
And by five, as I finished setting up the venue with Ellie, Maddy and Katja, I was a bag of nerves. I kept laughing at the silliest things, which probably meant my mood was bordering on hysteria, and one burning question seemed to have taken up residence in my head.
Why on earth did I agree to do this?
But it was a little too late for having doubts, I reflected, as the first car drew up and its occupants – a group of ladies from the local Women’s Institute – arrived in the café on a cloud of perfume and good cheer.
Soon, we were welcoming more WI members, some of whom I already knew because Loli had been a member for years. They all wanted to know how she was doing and had the hospital found a kidney donor yet. A few asked me if I’d thought about being tested myself, and they seemed to understand perfectly when I told them Loli was refusing to risk my health.
I knew Loli was upset that she couldn’t be here tonight. She said she didn’t see why she couldn’t be released from hospital for just a few hours but I quashed that notion immediately by promising to set up my laptop in a prime position so that she could watch everything from her hospital bed.
At the start, every time the bell jingled, I glanced up in an agony of suspense, wondering if Jensen was about to walk through the door. Ellie was preparing food for us to eat in the kitchen after we’d served the guests, but my insides were in such uproar, I was certain I wouldn’t be able to eat a thing.
But then after a while, I was so busy welcoming guests and chatting to people I knew – including Maya and Marguerite – I calmed down a bit. I kept telling myself that of course Jensen wasn’t coming. I’d been a fool to think that he might. He probably hadn’t even seen the posters. After that, I almost forgot to check the door every time it opened. Almost.
When everyone was gathered, Ellie made a lovely speech welcoming everyone to the very first meeting of the Sunnybrook Pudding Club, then we served wine and other drinks before taking orders for food: Asian-style noodles with prawns or roasted aubergine and tomato curry, both served with jasmine rice. We’d deliberately kept the menu fairly light, so that everyone would have room to sample the puddings later.
As the plates were cleared and the wine drunk, I felt a mix of emotions. Delight that people seemed to be enjoying themselves and were already showing an interest in our boxed puddings on display. But fear as well, because it was creeping ever nearer the time when I’d have to stand up and speak to everyone. Ellie had counted heads and a total of thirty-seven people had come along to this opening night, which she was really pleased about.
‘I honestly thought that if we got twenty people, we’d be doing well. Especially for the first night,’ she murmured to me as we stood chatting behind the counter, ready to serve more drinks when requested. ‘But this is amazing. Just as well we made more food than we thought we’d need.’
‘We’ll be eating roasted aubergine and tomato curry all week.’
She chuckled. ‘Agreed.’
‘I can’t quite believe it, though. The number of people here. I know quite a few of them from the farmers’ market.’
‘Yes, of course. They already know how fabulous your puddings are. So why wouldn’t they come along tonight for more of the same!’ She smiled. ‘I have a feeling the word will spread after tonight, so we might be even busier next week.’
My knees felt quite weak at the thought. But then I spotted Fen and recalled what she advised me to do, to cope with the nerves. She was sitting at a table with some of the other Little Duck Pond Café girls, looking as if she was thoroughly enjoying her night off mothering duties, having left the twins in the capable hands of husband Rob. She’d said I should look at her when I was delivering my speech... pretend we were having a chat, just the two of us. I needed to remember that.
She looked over at me at that moment and gave me a secret little wink and a thumbs-up. Feeling instantly better, I smiled and waved. So what if I stumbled over a word or two? It was human to make mistakes, she’d reminded me. (Having said that, I’d made damn certain I didn’t have a ‘ticking clock’ in this particular talk!)
And then finally, it was my turn.
Ellie and I ushered everyone through to the function room at the rear of the café, which was all set out theatre-style for my pudding demonstration, while Maddy and Katja got to work clearing the tables in the café and setting out spoons, bowls and napkins for the pudding tasting later.
‘So... welcome everyone!’ I smiled around and caught Fen’s eye, pleased to see that she was sitting in the centre of the back row, which would make it easy to have her as my focal point when I looked out at the audience. A few stragglers had arrived halfway through the meal, full of apologies for having been held up in traffic, so we now had an audience of more than forty.
I took a deep breath, relaxed my shoulders and launched into the talk I’d rehearsed so many times at home. I talked about ‘pudding’ and its origins, and how in the early days, a pudding wasn’t the sweet ending to a meal, like we knew it today. It was a savoury course; a filling stuffed into a skin like sausage or haggis.
‘But don’t worry. I won’t be asking you to sample haggis with your custard. It’s going to be sweet treats all the way tonight!’
Everyone chuckled at this, which gave me confidence I was on the right track. And when I introduced Millicent’s notebook, I could see people were as fascinated as I was by this astonishing piece of wartime history. And I was glad I’d thought to produce photocopied excerpts from it, which they could take home to read at their leisure.
I’d decided to make Spotted Dick first of all, and I’d weighed out all my ingredients beforehand to make the sweet dough filled with currants. The demonstration went smoothly and the audience asked the occasional question as I worked, which was all nicely relaxed. Some of the women recalled their mothers, grandmothers and even their great-grandmothers making this very pudding using the limited ingredients that were available because of rationing.
I’d already prepared the caramelised apples for the Apple Charlotte but I demonstrated how to line the pudding basin with slices of bread dipped in melted butter, then fill the casing with the apple mixture, before covering with the remaining buttery bread and baking in the oven. Finally, I moved on to a recipe that used shredded suet – the popular Jam Roly-Poly pudding.
Earlier that day, I’d made all the puddings we’d be serving at the tasting, and they were now warming in the kitchen oven. I’d also made a fruit jelly in Marguerite’s lovely pudding mould and I thanked her for lending it to me.
I’d been so nervous beforehand but the audience – nicely relaxed and obviously enjoying themselves – really put me at my ease, and the rest of the demonstration went off without a hitch, although there were a lot of nervous chuckles at the Beetroot Pudding I showed them, with its rather startling colour. But as they left the room to enjoy the tasting in the café, everyone agreed it was just as well they’d left plenty of room for pudding!
The evening seemed to be going well. But still there was no sign of Jensen.
I told myself it was just as well he hadn’t turned up. With Jensen in the audience, watching my every move, I’d have been even more nervous than I already was. Far better that he wasn’t here.
Before the evening ended, I mentioned that the next session would be ‘steamed pudding week’ and I hoped they might all return for that.
‘I was wondering... what are your favourite steamed puddings, everyone?’ I smiled around. ‘Any requests for next week’s demonstration?’
The suggestions came in thick and fast, with sticky toffee pudding, golden syrup sponge and chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce being the most popular. The boxed puddings I’d brought along to the meeting had sold out earlier in the evening, so I promised to bring more to the following session.
As we waved everyone off into the night, Maya came over and offered me a lift home, and even Marguerite congratulated me on a lovely evening, which really was the icing on the pudding! I’d never have imagined on past experience that my former boss could be so gracious and... well, kind.
Having dreaded the evening so much, I found I was actually looking forward to the following session. I had a whole week to get organised and the fact that I’d be making everyone’s favourite puddings would surely give me a head start in getting the audience on my side.
But as I packed up quickly, ready to join Maya and Marguerite in the car park, a dark cloud seemed to settle overhead.
Where are you, Jenson?