Kitchen Chaos (11 page)

“In our house those things are considered weapons,” my mom says. “We have a set, but my husband has to hide it so my boys don't grind anyone's fingers into paste.” Oh, man. Now she's starting in on the “Crazy Caputos” stories?

Everyone chuckles, except Dr. Wong, who clearly wanted to get credit for her correct answer. It's weird, but I've been in situations where I've felt exactly the same way.

“Well, class,” Chef Antonio says, “today we're going to use this dangerous weapon—one of the oldest cooking tools historians have recorded—to create
cornmeal, which is the base for many different dishes in cultures from around the world. Actually, it was first used to feed cattle, but then folks realized, ‘Hey, this stuff is
too good
.' ”

Chef shows us the prep table, where all sorts of ingredients are laid out in dishes and bowls, and tells us to fill a tiny glass bowl with dried corn kernels and bring it back to our partners. Liza and I dip our tiny bowls into the kernels at the same time, scooping up any old amount, but Dr. Wong makes Lillian do it in this very careful, precise way, even though we're not actually measuring anything. Lillian looks so embarrassed that I almost feel sorry for her—until I remember that she's totally intruding on my friendship with Liza.

As the chef demonstrates, I try to watch the way he grinds the kernels in a neat, even—what Mr. McEnroe would call “fluid”—way. He says, “No need for rat-a-tat-tat movements. See? Nice and easy. . . .”

Back at the table with my mom, I pour our dried
corn into the marble bowl. “Do you want to go first?” I ask.

“Why not?” my mom says. “I can't burn them, right?”

“Right,” I say, trying to sound positive, even though overcooking is just one of the many ways my mom regularly inflicts damage in the kitchen.

I look around, and everyone is getting into the rhythm of grinding their corn, cool as cucumbers. And then there's my mom, pounding away at our kernels, bits and pieces flying everywhere except in the bowl. I wish I'd worn safety goggles.

Mom finishes “grinding” and looks up from our pathetic mess. She glances around at everyone else pretending not to notice. “Oops,” she says, a little too cheerfully.

Chef Antonio comes around to our side of the table and puts one hand on my mom's shoulder and the other on mine. I make eye contact with Liza, who makes goo-goo eyes and mouths the word “lucky.”

“Ay, ay, ay, ladies,” Chef says, eyeing my mom's latest disaster, “what happened over here?”

My mom sweeps as much of the corn shrapnel as she can into her hand and dumps it into the mortar. “I'm not sure,” she says, “but I'll definitely get the hang of it next time.”

Chef laughs warmly and gives my mom a supportive pat on the shoulder. “Fortunately for you, Theresa, that was just a little project to give you all a sense of the process for turning corn into cornmeal, which can then be transformed into almost anything. Our first recipe starts with a combination of cornmeal and water, which in many places is eaten just like that and referred to as ‘cereal' or ‘porridge' or—my favorite—‘mush.' ”

In a kind of bizarre unison, Liza, Lillian, and I make faces at the idea of eating wet, soggy cornmeal—the image of cows chewing mush cud is now burned into my brain—and everyone laughs.

“Don't worry, girls.” Chef Antonio beams at us.
“You will be surprised at just how delicious a lowly mush can be when in the right hands. All over the world people transform it into something marvelous. The Romanians have
sadza
, the Brazilians
angu
—everybody loves it in some form or other!”

“Now, Theresa, since you mentioned earlier that you grew up with Italian cooking, our first recipe should be a piece of cake—or, I should say, a piece of
polenta
—for you.”

Great. Since my mom's track record isn't terribly impressive when it comes to simple tasks like boiling water for pasta, I'm pretty sure that the fact that a dish is Italian won't give her any sort of culinary advantage. But I go along with her idea that she's the “head chef” and I'm the “sous chef,” handing her ingredients the way E.R. nurses hand surgeons scalpels and clamps on hospital shows.

To her credit, my mom doesn't burn the polenta. Unfortunately, that's only because it takes her so long to get the lumps out. You have to whisk the cornmeal
into the boiling water delicately, slowly, evenly to avoid creating balls of the stuff. My mom pretty much dumps it in. So we have both little hard pellets that might break your teeth and larger marble-size ones that explode with a cough-inducing puff of powder. Not so tasty to eat that, I'm sure. But she doesn't burn it, since the rest of the class has moved on to the next recipe before we have a chance to put ours in the oven.

The next item is Mexican corn on the cob with butter, lime, and Cotija cheese—the kind we line up to buy at the food carts surrounding the old soccer field across from the city pool. This she burns. Actually, it's more like she incinerates it.

Our final recipe of the day is corn bread—one of my dad's firehouse specials. Dad's corn bread is even more famous in our family than his waffles. It also happens to be one of the recipes that I've been making with him since I was little. I've never tried, but I could probably make Dad's corn bread
from memory. My mom knows this, of course. Even though the two of us don't have the kind of partner ESP like Liza and I do, without saying a word, we switch positions so that now she's the sous chef and I'm in charge.

Despite the fact that my mom nearly mixed up the measurements for sugar and salt, then splashed the buttermilk everywhere, our corn bread comes out pretty good. It's not Dad-quality, but it's definitely edible, which is more than I can say for the dishes Mom attempted. Chef Antonio is working his way around the room, tasting everyone's bread and giving out compliments and pointers. When he reaches us, his eyes light up at the sight of our perfectly golden, fully cooked corn bread.

“You see, Theresa,” he says, putting his arm around my mom's shoulders (if Liza weren't focusing on her corn bread, she'd be really jealous!), “the third time is a charm. Just look at this gorgeous creation. I knew you could do it—you should be proud!”

Poor Mom. Chef Antonio has moved along to Errol and Henry before we have the chance to set him straight. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm sure my mom's cooking “challenges” will reveal themselves again next week—over and over again.

Going to school with your mother is definitely weird, even if it is
cooking
school. Mama has never been shy about her (very) extensive knowledge of food, but who knew she'd be like one of those kids who always raises a hand aggressively or blurts out the answer without giving anyone else a chance? It's like she just wants to show off how much she knows about every little thing. So embarrassing.

At least she didn't turn every recipe into a disaster,
like Frankie's mom. But I think I might have preferred that to how competitive she was—with me—and how she insisted on doing everything perfectly. By the look on Frankie's face at the end of class, I'm guessing she would have rather been partners with my mother than hers. I'm beginning to discover that those two have a lot in common. Maybe that's why Frankie's still not even half as nice to me as Liza. I can tell she's trying, but mostly because Liza's always giving her looks or nudges to remind her that we're all a team.

Right now we're in the computer lab at school. We're supposed to be writing up our project proposal for Mr. McEnroe, but we got preoccupied looking at the video I shot of Saturday's class. I mostly focused on Chef Antonio explaining the history of corn and demonstrating how to do the tricky parts of the recipes, but I also got some good action shots of Liza, Frankie, and their moms.

“Hey, there's my polenta!” Liza yells, pointing at
the screen but being careful not to touch it because our digital media teacher, Mr. Russo, makes you clean every single monitor in the room if he catches you even
accidentally
touching one. “Looking good, right? And tasty, too!”

“I'll bet,” Frankie grumbles. She's already fast-forwarded through the shots of her mom stirring and stirring—technically, we were “whisking”—their lumpy pot of polenta. Her mom looks more like she is literally attacking the cornmeal than preparing it. On the screen we can see her go whack, whack, whack. Apparently, they never made it past the “mush” stage.

I didn't shoot much of Mama and me working on our recipes, mostly because it was hard to hold the camera and add ingredients at the same time. The few shots I did get make me cringe. In every one my mother is showing me how to “properly” sprinkle herbs or pour batter into a baking dish—or even spread butter on corn! I'm starting to wonder if asking her to sign up for the class was a mistake. She
was ready to quit as soon as she found out the other moms were taking it too, but I'd dared her to take the class and she'd accepted. And MeiYin Wong never walks away from a challenge.

“Those two are all over each other,” Liza says as we watch the couple she calls “the Newlyweds” taste their corn bread. They actually feed each other little bites like it's wedding cake and they're the bride and groom all over again. “I hope I'm that happy when I get married.”

They do look happy. My parents never show that kind of affection for each other. Their lives are completely intertwined and I can't imagine one of them existing without the other (what would my father eat? who would my mother talk to about the superiority of Chinese everything?), but I can't remember ever seeing them kiss on the lips (
ew!
) or even hold hands.

Frankie points to something in the corner of the screen behind the Newlyweds, and Liza and I lean
in to get a closer look. “There's Chef's son,” she says. “Javier, right? Total cuteness.”

In the frame Javier is not just tiny but also blurry, and Liza leans in even closer. “Really? Headphone Boy? I barely even noticed him, what with Cole throwing a hissy fit and then Angelica doing her fairy godmother thing.”

I don't say anything, but I definitely noticed Javier. He has the same thick curls and deep brown eyes as his dad, and—the one time I caught him doing it—a really sweet smile. Sometimes when Chef Antonio was giving us instructions or my mother was going on about why her methods are “better” than his, I kept the camera focused on the action and let my eyes wander over to the little table in the corner of the studio where Javier was hunched over his notebook.

“What about you, Lillian?” Frankie asks. “What did you think of Javier?”

“Um . . .” I shrug, trying to look natural. “He seemed okay.”

Frankie narrows her eyes and then turns to Liza. “She's blushing! I think Lillian has a crush on Javier!”

Liza shoots her a look. “Frankie.”

“No, I don't!” I insist, probably too strongly. “I didn't even talk to him.”

“Hmm.” Frankie looks unconvinced. “We'll have to fix that next week.”

“No, really,” I plead. “Please don't.” But it's kind of nice to have Frankie teasing me about something . . . maybe she's starting to warm up to me?

“Hey, Frankie,” Liza says, directing our attention back to the screen, “check out your corn bread!” In my head I thank her for changing the subject.

The next shot is of Chef Antonio congratulating Frankie and her mom on their drama-free final recipe. Mrs. Caputo has a fine dusting of cornmeal throughout her hair, and her apron is covered with streaks of char. She's smiling at the chef, but her heart clearly isn't in it.

“You made that, didn't you, Franks?” asks Liza.
“Your dad and the rest of Engine Company Nine would be proud.”

“Should I put corn bread on our list of foods we'll include in our project for the museum?” I ask, doing my best to make sure the conversation stays on food and project planning and doesn't veer back to boys.

Frankie's eyes start to roll, but she controls herself with great effort. “Sorry, Lillian, but how is corn bread an example of a food that was brought
to
America
by
immigrants? It was the Native Americans who taught the European settlers how to make it, remember?”

“Oh yeah, right,” I say, ignoring the attitude and trying to stay positive. She may not like me very much, but I'm determined to figure Frankie out. Winning her over and becoming real friends with her and Liza would be even better than getting an A+ on our project. I decide to make it my personal challenge, and, like my mom, I refuse to back down.