Sidewalk Scenes April 2025

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*** Featured: all Sunday Brunch Recipes *** Additional quick mixes (recipes) for brunch buffets *** New ‘Salty & Cara’ story: Plant Light District 5 ***

Here’s the Outlook:

  1. The category ‘Featured’ now contains links to all the recipes for this year’s Sunday Brunch arrangement. So if you’re having some friends over, you’ll know what to put on the table and still have time to chat.
  2. This year, our Easter Sunday Brunch buffet produced two new quick mixes:
    1. Take 2 tablespoons of a mild mustard and 1 tablespoon of California Jam (see recipes under the [Featured] link in the top menu) and mix well. Voila – you have a fruity mustard sauce (we scooped the rest out of the pot without anything else, so good).
    2. To make a very light chocolate spread, you will need a packet of dark chocolate pudding powder (extra chocolate, usually for half a liter of liquid or similar). You take half of the powder out of the package and cook it according to the instructions (using only half of the liquid, of course). Allow the pudding to cool completely (to room temperature). Take about 8 tablespoons of the cooked chocolate pudding and add 2 tablespoons of coconut yogurt. Mix carefully (no stirring or it will turn into chocolate sauce). This is really good and by far not as heavy as a standard chocolate spread. You can use the rest of the ‘pure’ chocolate pudding on your brunch buffet. It works really well with the fresh fruit salad I recommended in the Sunday Brunch outline for this year. Sort of a dark whipped cream substitute.
  3. Below you will find the next episode of “Plant Light District” from Salty & Cara. A juicy fable set in a world inhabited by fruits and vegetables. Love and crime, raw but served hot. Don’t know what’s cooking? Check out the Salty & Cara Infopage [Overview and Table of Contents]

By Mag M. Schaper

Salty & Cara – Plant Light District 5

Fourth story, fifth episode: Cara pays a strange visit. And learns fascinating things about New Valley’s and her family’s past

Picture This

When Cara arrived at the underground quarters of the head of the Tomatoni clan, an old zucchini opened the door. He bowed curtly, then asked her to follow him into his master’s study.

Cara tried not to think about the parallels between being led into a study and the adventure in which her uncle had been involved in the Big Valley. He had been part of a scam, and the whole thing almost would have ended very badly for her if her grandfather and the palace guards had not come to her rescue. So she looked around and tried to calm down.

“Nice barrel,” Cara mused as she walked around the room.

“Yes, I like it here,” came a voice from the background. Don Tomatoni was sitting in a big chair, reading a book, “it feels closer to the roots”.

“Yes, and the potatoes,” she chuckled.

“This is where my family started,” the Don continued patiently, but in the dim light she thought she saw a faint grin on his face. “Let me turn up the light a little. I want to show you something. I am an art collector, you know. Not many people know that about me, in fact I usually do not let visitors in here. It’s my personal space when I want to take a time out from being an ordinary crook.” Now the grin was obvious.

“Only you were never an ordinary crook,” Cara muttered, remembering Beta’s remarks about the Fruitster and his methods from earlier: ‘He makes a move, things change, and you wonder if they were ever different before or not. He is anything but plain brutal.’ That’s how the pear had put it. “Oh, and I knew your family started down here. Claire told me.” She was sure that the Don knew Beta by her real name, since he walked around High Breds regularly.

“Hm,” Don Tomatoni said, “since we’re dropping the name charade: why don’t you call me Rico?”

“Will do, Don Rico,” Cara replied, and began to look more closely at the long and high line of artwork on the walls of the studio.

“This one is fascinating,” she said, studying a large painting from floor to ceiling with fragmented figures and geometric colored shapes arranged at odd angles.

“Yeah, a young artist from around here needed money to open his own gallery in the Plant Light District. So I told him, ‘Paint me a picture you would like to have in your favorite room. And this is what he came up with. It was quite a job to get it in here. He had to paint it on fabric instead of wood, like traditional painting. Then we rolled the fabric up and put it on a frame of sorts before mounting it on the wall. It turns out that this young painter’s work and technique is very popular these days. He even sells pictures to Old Valley now.”

“Oh, that must have added quite a bit to the value of this impressive piece.”

“Yes, I have been very fortunate with my collection,” he smiled modestly.

She walked along an assortment of more or less common motifs until she reached a group of paintings of a more provocative style. She gasped. In one of the pictures, a beautiful young starfruit lay on a large platter among rebens, plums, and other mindless fruit. All she was wearing was a crown of roses. Next to it was a scene with a large hooded figure holding a huge knife paired with the same starfruit. Again, she was wearing nothing but some flowers on her head. And a third motif followed where the starfruit stepped out of the broken shell of a coconut lying in a sea of flowers that was remarkably similar to the area now known as Gentle Slopes. Only it was a version of the landscape as it must have looked before the valley’s rich and famous started building their mansions.

Cara was dignified: “Does my father know these pictures exist? Was she your mistress?”

The Don was obviously enjoying the payback for her earlier cheekiness, but he had also taken on a more fatherly expression. “No, Cara, don’t worry. He has never seen those pictures, and they were painted long before your parents ever met. And she never let me touch her. This was as close to her skin as I could get, and I paid a high price. Both for the skill of the painter – and for the discretion. The model also demanded a rather opulent compensation.”

“Money? Did she ask for a lot of money?”

“No, she sought something far more precious. She wanted knowledge and connections.”

Cara took a moment to let it all sink in, then regained her composure. “About why I came here… . You said you could get things done inside and outside. How about smuggling a package out?”

The tomato laughed so hard he shook: “Wow, you are definitely your mother’s daughter. Even tougher, I might add. She should be careful about messing with you.”

“Yes, she should,” Cara growled, “I need you to take a package out of here. And I need you to do it secretly, but also a little obviously. Can you do that?”

Still trying to get a grip on himself, he took a few deep breaths. Then, in an instant, he was all business. “Yes, of course I can. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure the right people find out. Good luck with your mission. I hope you come through it unscathed.”

Then he turned and rang a small bell. The old zucchini reappeared in the doorway and waited for Cara to follow. The audience was officially over.

As Cara passed the tomato, he whispered to her in a very low voice: “…I refused. They asked me to kill you, but I said I could not take on Hanano and the Queen, under whose protection you are. But I simply did not want to kill you. Then I informed Hanano. I just wanted you to know.”

Cara had reached the door and turned to ask, “Who wanted to kill me? Who is ‘they’?”. But the Don had already turned back to reading his book in the big chair and paid no attention to her.

“Does my father know these pictures exist? Was she your mistress?”

“… she never let me touch her. This was as close to her skin as I could get, and I paid a high price. Both for the skill of the painter – and for the discretion. The model also demanded a rather opulent compensation.”

All rights reserved. Copyright ‘Salty & Cara’ by Mag M. Schaper 2023-2025

Side Notes:

Needless to say, the stories about Salty and Cara are pure figments of my imagination. No resemblance to any person or place – present or past – is intended. But I am sure you have already figured that out 😉