Kitchen Chaos (19 page)

“We'll figure out something, Francesca. I
promise. It will be okay. Maybe, thanks to your cooking class, Mom will be able to pull something together!” He grins to himself before picking the potatoes back up and sauntering to nice Mr. Pak, the grocer, to ring him up. I'm still frozen in the aisle, unable to do more than sputter.

My mom?
My
mom will have to make a traditional Italian dish for everyone at school to share? Everyone? At school? To actually eat? If both my grandmothers weren't out of town right now—one in Florida, the other in Italy—I would ask one of them to do it. They had to pick
now
to be away?
My mom
bringing something she made to a school event. This so can
not
be happening.

My good day is now just a memory. My nightmare has begun.

It's hard to believe that today is our last cooking class. It's pathetic, I know, but American Cooking 101 has been the closest thing I've had to a social life since we moved to Brooklyn. What's going to happen next week, after the Immigration Museum project is over? My “Frankie project” has actually started showing signs of success—she hasn't been openly mean to me in a couple of weeks, and lately she's been acting almost friendly. Once our social
studies assignment is complete, will she go back to treating me like an annoying nobody? Will Liza still be my friend, or will she decide it's too much trouble trying to stick up for me around Frankie when we don't have to work together anymore?

So many questions are jostling around in my head, but there's no time to think about them too much right now because my mother and I are running late for class. Well, not late, but definitely not as punctual as she likes to be. Today's theme is bread, probably the one food other than cheese that my mother has no interest in or use for. (I, of course, can't get enough of it.) There's plenty of bread in China, but it's usually more like Wonder Bread than the homemade kind you get from bakeries in America and other countries. My mother has definitely never baked bread—or probably even wanted to—so she was in no hurry to leave for the cooking studio today.

When we finally get to class, it looks like Chef Antonio is delaying his introduction to finish some
prep work. Normally, this would have frustrated my mother, but today I'm the one who's annoyed. I thought my mother was beginning to appreciate these cooking classes, maybe even enjoy them a little, but the fact that she's literally dragging her feet this afternoon makes me wonder if there was ever any point to this whole experiment.

“Ah,
bueno, bueno
!” bellows Chef Antonio as we grab our aprons and take the two empty seats at the end of the table. “I am just getting everything
perfecto
for our last—and most challenging—class.” He stops to wink at my mother. “I know how much our MeiYin enjoys a challenge.”

My mother's lips turn up into a half smile, and I can tell that she's embarrassed. She definitely enjoys a challenge when she can be pretty sure she's going to win. Noodles or peppers? No problem. Beans? Bring 'em on. But bread? Bread is uncharted territory, and when it comes to food, my mother is used to knowing her way.

Chef tells us that the history of bread goes back thousands and thousands of years—at least ten thousand. But archaeologists have found evidence of flour dating back thirty thousand years, so people may have baked bread then, too. He says bread of some kind might be the only food that can be found in every single cuisine in the world—yes, even Chinese. One of the earliest types of bread was flat bread, like pita, tortillas, chapatis, and loads of other kinds that are still popular in many cultures. Eventually, people figured out that yeast made dough rise, which meant fluffier bread, and that's when loaf breads started becoming popular.

Baking loaf breads takes time, because you have to let the dough sit for it to rise. Today we're making baguettes, those long French breads that call out to you when you pass by a bakery window. Chef Antonio says baguettes are tricky because you have to let the dough rise in stages, but a fresh baguette is
el mejor
—the very best—and he can never teach a bread class without including them.

The first thing we do is combine water, yeast, and flour, and my mother actually lets me handle the mixing. We have to wait twenty minutes for the flour to soak up the water, so we start on our second recipe: popovers. Chef says popovers are the American version of the British Yorkshire pudding. I've never had either one, so I have no idea how they're supposed to turn out. From the skeptical look on her face, I can tell my mother doesn't know either—it's a look that says, if something is unfamiliar, it must be inferior.

It turns out making popovers is easy—or at least mixing the batter is. All you do is blend butter, flour, salt, eggs, and milk and pour the mixture into an already-hot muffin or popover pan. Then you stick it in the oven for forty minutes. Chef Antonio told us if we've never had popovers, we're going to be surprised—but absolutely no peeking!

While the popovers are baking, we all go back to the baguettes. Just salt the dough a little, and it's time
for kneading. When my cousin Chloe and I were little, we were obsessed with Play-Doh. We loved to form it into balls and then roll it out with our little plastic rolling pins. Or we'd twirl it between our palms to make long tubes that we'd stuff into a special Play-Doh press. When you squeezed the handle, your funny-looking tubes would magically be transformed into perfectly even ropes of hearts or stars.

The dough for our baguettes is even more fun to knead than Play-Doh, and it doesn't have that Play-Doh-y smell. I'm really getting into it. My mother, on the other hand, can't quite get the hang of it. There's a rhythm to kneading, and Mama doesn't have that patience. I look around—the class is about even with people who like to knead and people who don't. The Newlyweds are enjoying it, and Henry is too. Errol seems completely perplexed and has moved to a total observer position. Liza and her mom are laughing while kneading their dough, which is definitely taking shape. Chef Antonio has rushed over to Frankie
and her mom, which means something has gone terribly wrong.

As for Mama, her dough is lumpy and cracking, and she has a look on her face to match. My mother is zero fun when she's grumpy, so I instinctively put down my own dough and pick up hers. I sprinkle a fresh layer of flour on her board and then begin to knead her dough.

“Like this, Mama,” I say, and I show her how I lean into the dough with the heels of my hands.

When the lumps and cracks are gone, I look up at her. My mother is gazing at me in a way I don't recognize. I'm not sure what she's thinking, but I decide not to worry about it. “Now you try.”

After a moment of hesitation my mother shrugs and presses her hands into her dough. Not bad. I get back to work on my own, and soon we're kneading in sync, our almost-identical hands making the same movements at exactly the same time. My mother raises her eyebrows and looks me in the eye.
“Interesting” is all she says. I decide to take it as a compliment.

It's time to let our dough rise, but our popovers aren't ready to be taken out of the oven yet. So Chef gets us started on our last recipe: naan, a flat bread that's popular in many Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. He tells us that naan is normally made in the oven, but we're going to make a stove-top version instead that's faster and, he promises, just as tasty.

In a bowl we mix together flour, sugar, and baking soda, then add plain yogurt. I am excited that there's kneading involved in this recipe too, and I notice that my mother watches me get my dough going before starting on her own.

A loud buzzer sounds, and everyone stops what they're doing and looks up at Chef Antonio. “It's time!” he announces, and we all abandon our naan dough to race over and gather around the big oven. Even Javier joins the crowd, peeking over his father's
shoulder as Chef carefully slides the five pans onto the cooling rack with his big oven-mitted hands.

Wow. Popovers really do look like they've popped—or they're about to, anyway. They're like golden dough balloons bursting out of little muffin bottoms. Each group of two has a different color popover pan. Ours is red, the Chinese color for good fortune—I bet you can guess who chose it! I'm thrilled, and a little amazed, to discover that the entire red pan of popovers is perfectly glowing and puffy. My mother also looks surprised—and impressed. She takes in the perfection of our popovers, then looks up at me, and there's something in her expression that I've seen before—only it's usually the result of her culinary achievements, not mine. I think it might be pride.

The popovers in the green pan have gone flat. Or maybe they never even popped. It's not hard to guess which pair the green pan belongs to. Frankie and her mom look as deflated as their popovers.
Maybe they'll have better luck with the baguettes.

Our popovers taste as good as they look—maybe even better. The crust around the “balloon” is crisp and light, while the bottom is moist and deliciously buttery. I can see why the British call their version “pudding.” We have to eat quickly because it's time to flatten and fold our baguette dough and then put it back in an unheated oven to rise again. Chef Antonio says there won't be enough time to wait for it, so he gives us each an identical mound of dough that has already risen to do the next steps. I look over at Frankie as she happily exchanges her bowl of dough for a new one. If her mom had any trouble following the recipe, Chef's replacement could be their lucky break.

Before we form our baguettes, we have to grill our naan. Each group gets a special frying pan called a
tava
, which we start heating before anything goes in it. Then we divide our dough into balls and roll them out with a rolling pin. Naan doesn't need to
be a perfect circle, but I'm excited when mine turns out pretty symmetrical anyway. My mother rolls hers too thin, like a dumpling wrapper. I help her mold it back into a ball and then roll it out again, thicker this time. I'm used to helping Mama with some stuff in the kitchen, but I'm usually the one learning from her. It seems like now our roles are reversed. I wonder if this is as weird for her as it is for me.

We brush our naan with ghee—a special kind of butter—and lay it in the hot pan. As the dough heats up, it starts to bubble. The room is pretty quiet while everyone concentrates on the naan, not wanting to flip it too soon, but also hoping it doesn't burn. I make eye contact with Liza, who's three stoves away, and mouth the words,
This is so cool!

Totally!
she mouths back.

I help my mother turn over our naan, and the bubbles sizzle as they hit the pan. When our naan puffs up like a pita, we flip it again, and in less than a minute it's done. I tear off a piece and take a bite.
Mmmm. It's crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and just the right amount of salty. Even my mother, the bread-o-phobe, can't stop at just one bite.

Chef Antonio says there's just enough time to turn our dough into baguettes and bake them before class is over. He shows us how to divide our dough into three equal parts and shape each piece into a long rope that will become a baguette. Usually, Chef explains, the dough would need to rise again, but he used a special yeast so we can put them straight into the oven. In the time it takes me to make two ropes, my mother makes one, and I'm pretty sure we both notice that mine are smoother and more even than hers. Before they go in the oven, we use a sharp knife to make diagonal slits along the length of each baguette, and even though she never lets me touch her knives at home, this time Mama lets me do all of the cutting.

While our baguettes are baking, Chef Antonio calls us all back to the table. Normally, we spend the last half hour of class cleaning up, but today he tells
us not to bother—he'll do it after we go home. He pulls up an extra stool next to his and calls Javier over to join us.

“
Mis amigos
, sharing my knowledge about the origins of some American food with you has been such a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed our little Saturday cooking club as much as I have and maybe learned a few things about your favorite dishes as well!” He looks from Liza to Frankie to me. “And I want to say a special
gracias
to you three girls, for allowing me to be a part of this very nice mother-daughter activity you planned.” Chef puts his arm around Javier's shoulders and tousles his curls until Javier pushes his hand away. “There's nothing more important than time with family, and you girls have shown me that even big kids can survive spending a few hours a week with their parents.
Muchas gracias
for that. You inspired me to find something like this to do with
mi hijo
.”

Javier raises his eyebrows, and my stomach does a little flip. “Oh, man,” he sighs.