Cooks Overboard by Joanne Pence Read Free Book Online Page B

again.
    “Hmm?” He kept reading. He was getting close to the end. Maybe she shouldn’t bother him?
    She stretched out on the chaise longue once more. “Am I disturbing you?”
    “Not at all.” He kept reading. Obviously, he’d given her an honest answer.
    “Have you given any thought to what you’ll do after leaving the police force?”
    “Not yet. Something will turn up. Maybe I’ll join the merchant marines and ship out. I could learn to enjoy a life at sea.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    He didn’t say yes…or no. “If nothing else,” he added, “I could always apply for a private eye license.”
    “Hmm.” Somehow he didn’t seem like the Magnum, P.I. type. He was more NYPD Blue material.
    “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my own career as well,” she said after a while. The umbrella creaked and inched downward. She looked up. It stopped moving.
    “Oh?” At least he didn’t say, “What career?”
    “I know a lot about cooking…” The umbrella creaked again.
    “Yes…”
    “I thought it was time to put that knowledge to good use. I should write a cookbook.” The umbrella suddenly tilted so far to one side she was completely in the sun.
    “That sounds like a good idea,” he said without looking up.
    “The problem is,” she said, getting up once more to lift the umbrella back into place, “what kind of cookbook? I mean, there are all kinds out there now. Ethnic cookbooks, special diet cookbooks, single-food cookbooks—you can even get books on ways to cook parsley if you look hard enough. I mean, who cares? It’s not anything to build a meal around.”
    He put down his book. “I guess not.”
    She twisted the umbrella, tugging on and tightening any screws and handles she could find, until she was sure it wouldn’t move again. “I need a different angle.” She flung herself back on the chaise longue. “Not food, not ethnic, not low calorie, low fat or any other diet-related book. Something new, something different—something that’ll make people throw down their money! But what?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She frowned at him.
    “What about,” he began, racking his brain in the face of her unhappiness, “a cookbook for people who don’t cook, like me? A no-cooking cookbook?”
    She heaved a big sigh—both because she was glad to have fixed the umbrella and because of the weightiness of her career problems. “I doubt many people who don’t cook will want to buy a cookbook reminding them of that fact.”
    “You may be right,” he admitted.
    “I’m afraid so. But that’s not a bad approach—a style-of-cooking cookbook. Let’s see. Microwave ovens already have plenty of cookbooks. Same with crockpots. Toaster ovens? Not very interesting recipes. On the other hand, I haven’t seen many cookbooks on using a convection oven.”
    “I’ve never heard of a convection oven.”
    “They’re quite popular.”
    “If you say so.”
    The umbrella suddenly flopped so far over, it was almost upside down. Angie jumped to her feet. She was going to tie the blasted thing in place—if she could find something to tie it with. “Maybe that’s why there aren’t a lot of cookbooks about using them. Or maybe it’s easy to just adjust a regular recipe, so no one needs aspecial cookbook. What we need is something simple, but not too simple.”
    “Er…right. You’ll come up with a good idea, I’m sure. Give it time.” He picked up his book again.
    A small chest with some ropes and tools was fixed to a nearby bulkhead. She rummaged through it and found exactly what she needed—a roll of nylon line, almost like that used on a fishing pole. Nellie and Marvy Marv put down their magazines and watched her.
    “A new kind of oven,” she called to Paavo as she pulled the line from the chest. “A new kind of heat. You know, they’re doing all this stuff to save on fossil fuel, but what’s the best kind of heat to cook with? Gas. But gas is a depletable substance. That means we’ve