Plus, Ida Mae needed her help preparing the store for Christmas in the Brier—the town’s annual tradition where every shop owner keeps his doors open long after closing and attempts to lure new customers in with the same kind of complimentary powdered cider, store-bought pound cake, and chewy popcorn balls offered by the shop owners before them. The Apple Plate Restaurant (famous for its signed photograph of Dolly Parton, who visited back in ’75) and Ida Mae’s Amish Country Store are the only shops in the whole lineup that do not serve this predictable fare. The proprietor of the Apple Plate, Vidalia Swanson, serves apple pie à la mode and carameled apple cider as a way of expanding her business’s reach along with her customers’ waistlines. Ida Mae is not the cook that Vidalia proclaims herself to be. Still, she takes just as much pride in the complimentary food she serves her customers during Christmas in the Brier. The past month alone, Ida Mae’s been forced to lie numerous times, claiming she was sold out of hummingbird cake when she had twenty iced loaves rolled in Saran and stashed in the freezer.
