husband.
“In the garden,” Michelle told her. “He’s out there with the champagne bucket and he told me that he was going to pop the cork the minute he sees you.”
“How lovely!” Delores said, a pleased smile spreading over her face. “I’m going out to have a glass of champagne with my husband. Take your time and freshen up, Lynne. Hannah will show you which bathroom to use. Then I want all of you to come out to the garden to join us.”
“Mother?” Michelle called her back as Delores was about to go through the kitchen doorway. “I almost forgot. Doc told me that he put two interns and his best nurses on tonight so that he wouldn’t have to go back to the hospital until tomorrow morning.”
This news brought an even wider smile to their mother’s face as she turned and hurried toward the entrance to the penthouse garden.
“She’s happy to be home,” Norman commented.
“Yes, she is,” Michelle said. “And Doc’s happy, too. He told me he hated coming home without Mother here.”
“I’d call that smile she gave rapturous,” Hannah commented. “It’s nice to see Mother so much in love.”
“Speaking of that”—Norman turned to Hannah—“I think you and Lynne should give them an evening alone tonight.” He smiled at Lynne. “Hannah’s staying over with me and I have a guest room, Lynne. Will you come out and stay at my house tonight with us?”
Lynne looked delighted at the suggestion. “Of course I will. That’s a wonderful idea to leave those two lovebirds alone. Thank you for suggesting it, Norman.”
Norman turned back to Hannah. “As a matter of fact, if you ladies don’t mind, I’ll take Lynne’s suitcases out there right now and come back in time for dinner.” He turned to Michelle. “Is there anything you’d like me to bring back for dinner?”
“Yes. Bring the cats, both of them. Mother loves to see them play in the garden, and I stopped by the garden center and picked up a bag of ladybugs.”
“So we get to watch Moishe and Cuddles stalk the wild ladybug?” Norman asked.
Lynne gave a little shudder. “Do they . . . uh . . . eat them?”
Hannah laughed. “No! The reason it’s so much fun to watch is that neither Moishe nor Cuddles is fast enough to catch them.”
“I don’t think they’d eat them anyway,” Michelle said with a smile. “They have much more fun pawing at the branches and watching the ladybugs fly away.”
“You’re right,” Hannah concurred. “Just wait until you see the expressions on Cuddle’s and Moishe’s faces. You can almost hear them thinking, Why do they get to fly?”
CHOCOLATE SALAMI
This is a no-bake recipe that is served chilled.
Ingredients:
1 and ½ boxes of vanilla wafers (I used Nabisco Nilla Wafers)
1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces, ½ pound) salted butter
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder (unsweetened, I used Hershey’s)
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk) (I used Eagle Brand)
Hannah’s 1st Note: You can use any vanilla cookie that is tan or white and will resemble the fat particles in salami or Summer Sausage.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you want to make your own vanilla cookies to crush, I’d suggest Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies. They’re delicious and very crushable.
Use a Ziploc plastic bag to crush your vanilla wafer cookies. Simply dump them into the bag, press the Ziploc strip at the top to lock it, and lay the bag out on your counter. Either take out a rolling pin and crush them, or crush them by squeezing the bag in your hand. Your goal is to get cookie pieces approximately the size of coarse gravel.
Place the 2 sticks of salted butter in a microwave-safe bowl. (I used a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup.)
Melt the butter on HIGH for 1 minute.
Let the butter sit in the microwave for 1 minute.
If the butter is melted, you’re done. If not, melt it in additional 30-second increments with 30-second standing times in the microwave until it melts.
Pour the melted butter in a large mixing bowl.
Add the cocoa powder to the mixing bowl and stir it in.
Open the can of sweetened condensed milk and pour it into the mixing bowl. Mix it in thoroughly.
Add the crushed vanilla wafers (or whichever cookie you chose to crush) to the bowl. Mix it in thoroughly.
Place a sheet of parchment paper on your kitchen counter.
Scoop out roughly one-fifth of the mixture and place it on the parchment paper.
Spray your palms with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray and shape the salami “dough” on the parchment paper into a long roll