Kitchen Chaos (8 page)

Taking a daily walk is one of the few things my mom makes time to do for herself. Early in the morning, when she gets home from work, after dinner . . . she may not do it at the same time every day (that would be impossible in our house), but she does it every day. “If I miss a day of walking, I'll lose my mind,” she always says—which is probably true, considering the constant chaos around here.

By “taking a walk,” I don't mean going out for a leisurely stroll around the block—I mean a five-mile power walk at a pace even my dad can't keep up with.
Before she messed up her back carrying four kids all over Brooklyn, my mom was a runner. She says walking doesn't feel like exercise the way running did, but whenever I go with her I end up huffing and puffing and sweating like one of The Goons. I don't tag along with her much. But she likes to have company, so my brilliant plan is to bring up the cooking class during a walk. That way, if she gets annoyed, she'll be too winded to do a whole lot of yelling.

As we're getting ready to leave, Nicky is playing with his LEGOS and my older brothers are watching some extreme sports show with their super-cute friend James (who, sadly, is also super dumb). Rocco looks up at my mom and me with his bug eyes and pushed-in nose, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth like it always does. He bark-snorts at us, begging us to bring him along, but you can't take a pug on a power walk—they get overheated and can't breathe. Poor Rocco, he should have been born a golden retriever.

My mom and I do some stretches and then head out toward the river, past a row of little shops I love that sell the kind of things you take out of the bag, put on your dresser, look at for a few days, and then forget about until your mom bugs you to dust them. “Tchotchkes,” Liza calls them when she's doing her impression of Nana, her grandmother on her dad's side.

We pass the little farm that used to be a parking lot and now grows all kinds of vegetables right here in the middle of the city. Sometimes in the summer we come after camp or on the weekends to help pick buckets of green beans or tomatoes or whatever's ripe. Some college kids are putting signs up around the farm announcing the fall Harvest Festival, and there are loads of pumpkins on the vines that look ready to be picked. My mom points to one of the signs and reminds me that if we bring Nicky to the festival again this year, we'll have to make sure he doesn't terrorize the chickens like he
did last time. I decide it's the perfect moment to bring up our big idea.

“Speaking of harvesting,” I say (I don't usually say things like “speaking of,” but I like the way it sounds—I'll have to remember to try it next time I talk to Mr. McEnroe), “there's a cooking class Liza and this new girl Lillian and I want to take for our social studies project. You don't mind if I sign up, do you?”

My mom slows down a little and looks kind of baffled, but confusion is a pretty normal state for her. “I'm not sure I get the connection, Francesca. A cooking class, for a social studies project? And how much is it, anyway?”

“Well,” I say, grateful for the slightly more relaxed pace and a chance to catch my breath, “Liza saw a commercial for this class with that really cute chef from the cooking show she's addicted to, and the theme is American cooking, which works perfectly with our unit on immigration. Get it?”

“
Bella
,” my mom says, picking up the pace again now that we are close to the path along the river, “I've got four kids' schedules clogging up my brain. You're going to have to connect the dots for me a little bit here.”

Between huffs and puffs, dodging runners and cyclists and strollers, I tell my mom the whole story of how the big idea was born and how it turned into our project for Mr. McEnroe. I leave out the part about us needing her to take the class too—first things first.

We stop for a minute when we reach the water and watch the Staten Island Ferry chug by.

“Get it?” I ask, wishing I'd remembered to bring a water bottle.

“I think so. But you still haven't told me how much it costs.”

I tell her my Christmas money should cover it. She looks relieved and kicks into high gear again.

“In that case, I see no reason why you shouldn't take the class, Frankie,” she says. “It sounds like fun.”

Bingo. “Really?” I say, doing my best to keep pace. “That's great, Mom, because, actually, we kind of need you to take it too.”

My mom's baffled look returns. “Excuse me?”

The sun gleams through the Statue of Liberty's crown as I explain how Liza thought her mom would take the class with us, only she forgot about Cole.

Without breaking her stride, my mom wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and turns to me. “But why me? We all know the kitchen is your dad's domain.”

I go for the big guns. “True. But don't you want to show Dad and the boys that you're not the nightmare in the kitchen that they think you are?”

Suddenly, my mom stops walking, which is definitely not typical Theresa Caputo. “Francesca,” she says, “I may not be Julia Child, but I don't think I'm a ‘nightmare in the kitchen,' either.”

When I don't say anything, she pauses. “Am I?”

If anyone's mom needs a cooking class, it's mine.
The funny thing—in a pathetic sort of way—is that she doesn't think so. I decide the situation calls for some tough love.

“Mom,” I say, “you burn everything from toast to chicken wings. Your hot dogs explode, your cake batters are runny, your quesadillas are like rubber, and you've dumped hot pasta water on your foot twice in recent memory. And let's not even talk about that thing with the omelet, okay? Don't you think you could use some professional help?”

My mom sighs and plops down hard on someone else's stoop, even though she hates it when people we don't know hang out on ours.

“Okay, so maybe I am a ‘nightmare' when it comes to cooking,” she says. “I still like to try. But honestly, sweetie, I love that your dad is the master chef in our family. I feel lucky compared to a lot of moms I know. I don't need to take a class to try to cook as well as he can. I'm happy to let him be King of the Kitchen.”

“But, Mom,” I plead, “we can't take the class
without an adult, and Dad's on call on Saturdays. It's too late to come up with another project idea, and anyway, this one's really good—Mr. McEnroe's totally going to love it.”

My mom looks at me as if everything suddenly makes sense. “Ah-ha! Now the truth comes out: You need me.”

I shove her a little with my shoulder. “Come on, Mom, imagine Dad's and the boys' faces when you suddenly whip up a delicious dinner—without anything melting or exploding. They'll be blown away.
And
they won't be able to make fun of your cooking . . . um . . . skills anymore.”

My mom considers this and then checks the time on her phone. “Let's walk and talk,” she says, hopping up from the stoop.

I follow, a few paces behind, as usual. When I finally catch up, I tug on her sleeve like a little kid begging for another quarter for the gumball machine. “Oh, please, Mommy, we've got to do it!”

“Frankie, you crack me up, you know that?” My mom laughs. Then she speeds up for the last few blocks of the walk home.

When I get there, the door to our house is open, but my mother's still standing on the top step just staring inside. I slide past her and step into one of the most massive messes I've ever seen—and trust me, I've seen a lot. Our house isn't filled with antiques or anything, but we do have some nice furniture that my grandmother gave us when she sold her brownstone and moved into an apartment building. Apparently, Nicky and The Goons decided it would be a good idea to transform the living and dining rooms into an indoor skate park by turning the furniture into ramps and half-pipes. Every chair, table, and sofa has been tipped upside down, or at least on its side. Nicky's entire collection of LEGOs is spilled out all over the carpet to make a “hazard area” that the three of them are trying to avoid as they “skateboard” in their socks and crash into the couch cushions like total dweebs.

I hear what sounds like a cross between a whimper and a growl and kneel down to peek under an overturned side chair. Of course it's Rocco, who clearly can't decide whether to defend his turf or run for his life and has chosen to hide out under his favorite chair instead. I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up. My mom doesn't look angry, upset, or even annoyed, and I decide she must be in shock. “Frankie?” she says.

“Yeah, Mom?” I reply, standing up.

“When did you say that cooking class starts?”

I smile, crossing my fingers on both hands. “Saturday.”

Without saying a word to my brothers, my mom puts her arm around my shoulder, grabs her purse, and leads me out of the house. She doesn't look back or even bother to close the door. “I'm in,” she says. “Let's go over to that studio and sign ourselves up.”

My mother is an ox. Not literally, of course (although she does look a whole lot like one when she's mad). I mean she was born in the Year of the Ox. According to the Chinese zodiac, oxen are hardworking, driven, and strong-willed—probably the first three words most people who know my mother would use to describe her. Not only is she an ox, she's also a Taurus, so no matter which zodiac you believe in, MeiYin Wong is one stubborn woman.

I, on the other hand, am a goat—creative, wandering, and disorganized. I'm also big on sleeping, watching TV, and just hanging out. I'm pretty much the polar opposite of my sister, Katie (a dragon, a born leader), and as you can imagine, none of my goatlike character traits go over very well with my mother. Still, I am her daughter, and sometimes, on very rare occasions, I summon the ox that lives deep down inside of me, too, and you'd be amazed how strong-willed and stubborn a lazy little goat can be.

Convincing my mother to take the cooking class with us is definitely a job for my inner ox. Luckily, he's super bored from not having been called on for so long and is ready to lock horns with a much bigger, more powerful beast. When Frankie and I got the text from Liza with the news about needing an adult, I was surprised at how determined I became to win the battle and sign up for the class. We
have
to be able to do this, and
I
have to help make it happen. I guess spending a month trying to fit in has made me kind of
desperate—not exactly an oxlike quality, but powerful in its own way.

I'm helping my mother with the dishes when I mention the class. Our new house came with a perfectly good dishwasher, but my mother's not satisfied with the way it cleans, so she's ordered a new one. Until it arrives, she insists on doing the dishes by hand rather than using an appliance that isn't up to her standards. So we're both wearing rubber gloves, our arms elbow-deep in greasy suds, and I'm wondering what my mother has in store for me if I leave a few spots on the glasses like our dishwasher.

“How are those new friends of yours?” she asks while scouring the remains of some noodles that stuck to the bottom of a pot. “Are you going to invite them over again soon?”

“They were practically just here,” I say. “And I told you, they aren't exactly friends. We're just doing a project together.”

“How is the project going? There's a great library nearby. You can get there on your bicycle.”

I put down the platter I've been rinsing and decide this is my moment. “Actually,” I begin, turning to my mother, who has moved on to oiling a wok, “we're going to be doing a different kind of research for our project. We're taking a class.”

My mother looks perplexed, but in a sort of angry way, as if confusion is a weakness that shouldn't be tolerated. “What do you mean taking a class? I thought the project was for one of the classes you're already taking.”

“It is,” I explain. “The project is for social studies. But we're going to do the research for it in a Saturday cooking class taught by a professional chef. It runs for six weeks, and we'll really learn a lot.”

“A cooking class?
You?
” my mother says with the same tone of disbelief she'd use if I told her I was in the running for the Nobel Prize in science.

“I know I've never been that interested in
cooking, Mama, but this is a special kind of class. And it's for an assignment.”

“Why do you need to take a special class? If you girls want to learn to cook, you could just ask me. I've been trying to show you how to make
jiăozi
for years! Your friends certainly cleaned their plates, they must have liked my cooking.”

“I know, Mama, they did. They loved the food you made. Everyone does. But this isn't a Chinese cooking class. We'll be learning all about
American
foods, traditional
American
foods, and how immigrants from all over the world brought them here.”