2086. Lynnelle, Chutney Queen

There’s no doubt that Lynnelle was the Queen of Chutney Makers in her gated community. Her chutney-making skills were legend. In fact half the gated community would ask that if they got the ingredients, would she make the chutney. Of course Lynnelle always said yes. And so it was that her kitchen, dining room and sitting room stank of white vinegar, and malt vinegar, and cider vinegar, and wine vinegar, and every other type of vinegar, for a good four to five months of the year.

Every week in autumn she would sell her chutneys at the Saturday village market. It didn’t take long for the chutneys made during the week to be sold. Someone suggested she raise the prices but Lynnelle said “it was a community service”.

When a new person arrived in the gated community she heard of Lynnelle’s generosity, and without asking turned up with boxes of vegetables and various ingredients and said she had heard Lynnelle made chutney for nothing and she wanted some. Lynnelle said goodness gracious that’s a lot of vegetables! This lot will take me more than a week to make. And indeed it was a lot and must have cost a packet at the greengrocers.

The new neighbour, whose name was Nancy, said she didn’t like the chutney. She didn’t hand it back either. She kept it and demanded that Lynnelle compensate her for the expensive vegetables that had been squandered.

Lynnelle and the entire neighbourhood told Nancy to go take a running jump. Nancy was last seen at the Saturday village market selling homemade chutney for an exorbitant price.

1486. Cindy’s lemon cheesecake

Cindy’s lemon cheesecake was famous all over the county. Whenever there was to be a community function of note – the end of the school year, an established local leaving the area, a wedding or a wake – Cindy’s phone would ring: “Cindy, could you make your lemon cheesecake?”

Cindy was generous to a fault. Of course she would make it. But hadn’t she – so many times, so many numerous times – shared the recipe with almost everyone else in the county? Had they ever thought of making a lemon cheesecake themselves?

Yes they had. But even when they used Cindy’s recipe things never turned out as mouth-watering. Cindy knew it, but then she alone knew that she had shared another recipe and not the one with the magic touch.