Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

"He's working on it, Andy." Qwilleran was thinking about the cat's frenzy during the fireworks... his trashing of the dark red mums... his ominous howl at one particular moment. Were his psychic senses registering a gunshot on Main Street?

Now Lenny Inchpot was in danger. He was Lois's youngest. She'd crack up if anything happened to him.

Qwilleran checked his green pledge cards for the bike-a-thon and found only two. There had been three of them - for Gary, Wilfred and Lenny - on the telephone desk under the brass paperweight. The missing card was Lenny's. A search turned it up in the foyer - on the floor - well chewed. Neither cat was in sight.

Saturday was the day of the Pasty Bake-off. As Qwilleran fed the cats that morning, he said, "You guys have it made. You don't have to judge contests, go on the auction block, or write a thousand words twice a week when there's nothing to write about!"

At one-thirty he reported to the exhibit hall at the fairgrounds, the site of the Food Fair and Pasty Bake-off. At the door, he identified himself as a judge and was directed to a room at the rear; the directions could hardly be heard above the din of amplified music and reverberating voices in the great hall. Local cooks were exhibiting and selling homemade baked goods, preserves, and canned garden produce. Some of the items had already been honored with blue ribbons. Fairgoers wandered through the maze of edibles, stunned into silence by the ear-piercing music.

The judges' chamber was a bleak, ill-furnished cubicle, but Mildred Riker's greetings and light-hearted banter warmed the environment. She welcomed Qwilleran with a hug and a judge's badge. "Qwill, it's good of you to donate so much of your valuable time to Explo!" she shouted above the recorded noise.

"Think nothing of it," he said loudly. "I'm a food freak. But couldn't we turn down the volume, or disconnect the speaker, or shoot the disc jockey?"

Without another word, Mildred hurried from the room; the music faded to a whimper; and she returned with a triumphant smile.

"Now," Qwilleran began, "tell me how many hundred pasties I have to sample today."

"I hate to disappoint you," she said cheerfully, "but the preliminaries have narrowed the field down to fifteen. First the crust judges eliminated about a third of the entries. I feel sorry for the cooks who got up at four o'clock this morning to bake, and were scratched in the first heat. The next group of judges checked ingredients and correct prep of the filling. No ground meat! No disallowed vegetables! We'll do the final testing for flavor and texture."

"How many judges have been nibbling at the fifteen pasties before we get them?" he asked.

Before she could reply, a tall, gangling youth shuffled into the room. He threw his arms wide and announced, "Guess what! You got me instead of chef-baby."

"Derek! What happened to Sigmund?" Mildred cried in disappointment and some annoyance. Derek, after all, was only a waiter.

"He slipped on a sun-dried tomato and sprained his ankle. The sous-chef had to take over lunch, and the prep cooks are working on dinner already, so you're stuck with everybody's favorite wait-person."

"Well, I'm sure you're a connoisseur of anything edible," she said dryly. "Let's all sit down at the table and discuss the procedure. First I'll read some guidelines. The purpose of the competition is to preserve and encourage a cultural tradition, thus forging a spiritual link with the past and celebrating an eating experience that is unique to this region of the United States."

"Who wrote that?" Derek asked. "I don't even know what it means."

"Never mind. Just taste the pasties," she said sharply.

She went on: "Entries are limited to twelve inches in length, with traditional crust and ingredients."

"What about turnips?" Qwilleran asked. "I hear the anti- turnip activists are quite vocal."

"We're awarding two blue ribbons - for pasties with and without."

"I must confess: I hate turnips" he said. "And parsnips. Always have."

"Taste objectively," Mildred advised. "A great pasty transcends its ingredients. It's an art, requiring not only culinary skill but an act of will!"

"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Derek said impatiently. "I'm starved, and I've got a four-o'clock shift."

Mildred opened the door and gave the signal, whereupon the no-turnip pasties were brought into the room. Reduced by the preliminaries to half their size, they were cut into bite-sized chunks and served to the judges, whose comments were brief and emphatic: "Too much onion... Rather dry... Good balance... Flat; needs seasoning... Too much potato... Excellent flavor." After some retasting, Number 87 was named winner in the no-turnip category.

Next came a tray of pasties identified with a T for turnip. One in particular was praised by the two male judges, but Mildred tasted it and said indignantly, "This is turkey! Dark meat of turkey! It's disqualified. How did it slip past the other judges?"