The Books of Cooks
Welcome all, and thank you for coming to peruse my humble little collection of recipes. Please, help yourself to some fresh cookies as you read. All of these are old, family traditions for some family, if not my own. Take your time, look them over, and really find what speaks to you. Bear in mind, when working from older recipes some ingredients might not be easily available anymore. A substitution here or there is just fine, so long as you honor the spirit of the recipe. I’ve tested them all, and each one works fine, even if you might need a dash of extra elbow-grease to help it come together.
Red Biscuits
I still remember the summer when I first took a crack at this old recipe. Barely more than a sapling myself, I’d only just begun perusing the faded tomes buried behind the false wall in our basement, making sense of the strangely textured pages.
In truth, I likely never would have found the gumption to try one, if not for our landlord. He was a cruel cheat of a man, sweat always dripping from his heavy jowls no matter the season, and was raising our rent year after year. Finally, one day when he came hollering for more money than he knew we had, I challenged him to a contest. Like many from our region, he was held together by hubris masquerading as pride, and an inherited biscuit recipe formed a central pillar supporting that delusion. Or maybe he just saw the chance to crush a child’s hopes and couldn’t resist.
While I wasn’t able find many of the original ingredients, biscuits really come down to a few core elements. If you’re willing to put in the extra work, harvesting the lard, grinding up that sharp white material into meal, balancing the flavors to counter the extra-iron, then you’ll create something truly unforgettable.
No one ever did find out what happened to that landlord. Some folks came by looking, though not too hard, but when they questioned us I just offered up a biscuit. One bite, and all their interest was forgotten. At most, they were curious about the red hue, but even that faded quickly, just like the recipe promised it would.
2 Cups MISSING – Flour will do in a pinch
1.25 Tbs Baking Powder
.5 Tsp vanilla
2 oz of MISSING
MISSING 10oz
.5 cups lard from MISSING – shortening will work
Combine, cut into ½ inch thick rounds, and bake at 450 until golden on top and all screaming has stopped.
Peaceful Pie
Some years after the landlord incident, I’d moved far from home and was living on my own, a first taste of life in the big city. Well, we thought of it as big at the time, all things in scale. I’d long since lost my squeamishness where recipes were concerned, not only had I read all the books, I was able to memorize several of my more frequent dishes. There were older ones I hadn’t fully translated yet however, which was what brought me to the city.
When I first told the professor of my finds, he was incredulous, but willing to believe. That made him a great deal more open-minded than anyone else I’d consulted with, so after a few more letters I made my great trek away from home. Aside from my recipes, I took little more than a few sets of clothes and a handful of dollars saved up from selling my dishes, and my services.
I still remember the way his face lit up when it fell upon the first tome, one of the less ancient ones at that. Shock, joy, interest… and greed. I had eaten more than enough meals sprinkled with wisdom by them to recognize the dark inclinations in his heart. When he requested to keep the book overnight, offering far too many assurances that nothing would happen, it was obvious where things would lead.
The trick to peaceful pie is that while many of the old plants might not be available, it’s the spirit of what they represent that matters. After a few bites, the professor didn’t care about the books anymore, or my secrets, his research, anything really. He was a man perfectly at peace, content, happy. Even as he sat in the chair, friends and loved ones begging for him to eat, drink, do something, he was utterly, totally, serene until the end.
Filling should consist of 2 parts MISSING, 1 part Hemlock, 1 part freshly killed MISSING, and the MISSING of a young chicken. Dice all the ingredients finely and combine. Allow to rest for one full night under the open moon.
Spoon filling into crust, bake at 375 for 60 minutes, or until the steam is no longer trying to escape the oven.
Eternal Cookies
These were one of the final recipes I learned, buried in the most complicated section of the most obscure book in my collection. It took me decades to run down enough specialists and linguists to successfully translate everything, the world was a very different place pre-internet. By the time I was at last reading a finished version, it was a pair of deeply wrinkled hands holding the pages. Which was what made these such a wonderful find.
They don’t create more life, sadly. It seems that surpasses what even the greatest of chefs can manage. Rather, they shift the allocation, if you will. Every bite moves years from the diner to the one who baked them, trading the sublime joy of a perfect moment on the tongue for a few paltry years off the end of your life. A fine bargain, the chance to experience taste beyond mortal understanding is something few will ever receive.
What’s that? You don’t think it would be worth the trade? Oh my. Well, I do wish you’d said that at the start of all this, before you ate quite so many cookies.
2 cups flour
1 cup MISSING
1 tsp salt
Burn the hair of three MISSING and collect the ashes
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs from a MISSING – Chicken eggs collected under a blue moon will work
12 ounces of crushed chocolate chunks
Combine ingredients, let rest until the bowl shatters, then quickly scoop into balls and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Rotate pan, knock down any cookies attempting to get up, and cook for another 5. Cool before serving.