All Four Stars (2 page)

THE SECRET COOKBOOK

GLADYS TOSSED AND TURNED SO MUCH
in bed that night that the half-raw pizza dough in her stomach probably got flipped a hundred times. The harder she tried to fall asleep, the more she thought about the events of the day—and the years of cooking that had led up to it.

It had all started with a visit from her aunt Lydia.

Aunt Lydia was Gladys's mom's sister, but the two were as different as mushrooms and milk shakes. Aunt Lydia lived in Paris, while Gladys's mom hated big cities. Aunt Lydia's trunks burst with colorful scarves, while Gladys's mom's closet held row after row of dark business suits. But most importantly, Aunt Lydia loved great food, while Gladys's mom—and dad—felt exactly the opposite.

The summer when Gladys turned seven, Aunt Lydia had visited from France. Every day she and Gladys took walks together around East Dumpsford, the Long Island suburb where the Gatsbys lived.

“This town is nothing like Paris,” Aunt Lydia sniffed as they made their way down the main street one day. “All the houses here look the same, and instead of a lovely Eiffel Tower, you have that stinky landfill. But maybe things will look prettier to us if we eat something good while we explore.”

Indeed, Aunt Lydia's mood often seemed to improve when she was eating—and she always had some kind of strange, delicious snack in her purse. On any given day she might offer her niece a dried persimmon dipped in chocolate, a lavender-flavored sandwich cookie, or a pretzel coated with a green powder called wasabi that made Gladys's eyes water. But Gladys loved the weird snacks, and as they walked through town she tried to point out more places where her aunt could find food.

“That's where we get dinner on Mondays,” she told her as they strolled past the Pathetti's sign, with its flashing pizza pies inside each giant
P.
“And we eat Fred's on Tuesdays.” She pointed up at the glowing chicken bucket that rotated outside of Fred's Fried Fowl. “And Wednesday night is Sticky's night!” she said as they passed under the huge plastic hamburger that dripped neon pink sauce high above the Sticky Burger drive-thru. “Do you eat at restaurants a lot in Paris?”

“Oh, Gladys!” Aunt Lydia burst out. Her scarves flapped in the breeze as she pulled her niece around to face her. “Those are
not
restaurants,” she said, pointing back at the strip of fast-food joints with a shiver of disgust. But then, slowly, a smile spread across her wasabi-dusted lips. “How would you like to see what a
real
restaurant looks like?”

Fifteen minutes later, they were at the East Dumpsford train station, Aunt Lydia punching buttons on a machine to buy them two tickets to New York City. The city was only an hour away, and Gladys's dad took the train there and back every day for work, but Gladys had never been. She clutched her aunt's hand tightly as they boarded the silver train, then she watched as Middle Dumpsford, West Dumpsford, and Far Dumpsford whipped by outside her window. Eventually the train dipped into a dark tunnel, and then all at once they were pulling into Penn Station in the heart of Manhattan.

“I did a little college here before I moved to France, you know,” Aunt Lydia told Gladys as they rode the enormous escalator up to the street, “and I bet I can still remember all the best places to eat!”

Their first destination was an Ethiopian restaurant on Tenth Avenue, where the tables looked like colorful baskets and wailing songs played over the speaker system. Their food came out on a huge round plate, and instead of using forks or spoons, they scooped spicy bites of pureed beans and chunks of meaty stew into their mouths using their fingers and a spongy bread called injera. Gladys had never eaten anything like it.

Next, Aunt Lydia took Gladys on the subway to a crowded kosher restaurant on the Lower East Side. There they shared a table with a pair of bushy-bearded men and slurped chicken soup from steaming bowls. Gladys's favorite part was the giant spongy ball—a matzo ball, her aunt called it—that bobbed up and down in her broth.

After walking around a bit more, they finally rode a bus to Chinatown, where they sat on duct-taped chairs in the window of a tiny eatery and feasted on dumplings filled with tender pork and crunchy scallions. Gladys didn't understand how the dough surrounding the dumplings could feel both soft and crispy in her mouth at the same time, but that didn't stop her from finishing an entire plate.

“Now
that,
” said Aunt Lydia each time she led a full-tummied Gladys back out onto the bustling streets of Manhattan, “was a restaurant!”

And Gladys had to agree. The food she was eating with her aunt tasted nothing like what her parents picked up for dinner in East Dumpsford. She wasn't sure she could ever enjoy a Sticky Burger again.

Walking home from the train station that night, Gladys asked her aunt how the cooks in New York City got their food to taste so good.

“Is it magic?” she wondered out loud.

Aunt Lydia let out a throaty laugh. “No, my sweet Gladiola,” she said, using one of the flowery nicknames she'd given her niece. “I suppose it's part science and part art.” Then she explained as best she could how the right amount of heat, for the right amount of time, combined with just the right amount of this spice or that sauce, could make the right ingredients taste incredible.

“I wish that I could teach you more about cooking,” she continued as they turned into the Gatsbys' driveway, “but your parents seem dead set against my using the kitchen at all. And while I'm a guest in their house, I don't want to break their rules.”

So instead of cooking, Aunt Lydia and Gladys continued with their walks around East Dumpsford. One day, near the end of the summer, they came upon a dusty-looking shop that they had never noticed before.

“Mr. Eng's Gourmet Grocery,” Aunt Lydia read from the faded sign in the window. “Well, shall we have a look?” Gladys nodded, and her aunt pushed open the rickety wooden door. A little bell chimed overhead—and suddenly, they were in a different world.

The aroma from the wall of spices hit Gladys first, tickling her nose with sharp, exotic scents she had never smelled before. To her left stood a refrigerator full of cheeses: wheels and wedges in shades of red and yellow and blue. And toward the back of the store there were piles of purple potatoes, yellow tomatoes, and orange peppers; a bin full of tiny, spiny pink fruits; and a stack of great green squashes with necks curved like swans.

“My goodness,” Aunt Lydia murmured. “I didn't think that a place like this could exist in East Dumpsford!” With every word she spoke, she inched closer to the cheese refrigerator, as if she were a magnet that belonged on its door.

Gladys wandered over to the spice wall and picked up a jar filled with little striped seeds. C
UMIN
, the label said. She gave the jar a shake, and the seeds responded with a satisfying, maraca-like rattle.

“Would you like to try some?”

Gladys whirled around and found herself staring up at a tall, slender man with bushy eyebrows and inky-black hair shot with gray. His eyes were kind behind his wire-rimmed glasses, crinkling in the corners as he smiled down at her.

“I haven't seen you in here before. I'm Mr. Eng, of course.” As he spoke, the man reached down and gently took the jar of cumin out of Gladys's hands. Then, motioning for her to hold out her palm, he unscrewed the top and tapped a few seeds onto it. As she crunched on them, she found that they tasted rich like nuts, sharp like licorice, and even a little bit fiery.

“Do you have a spice grinder at home?” Mr. Eng asked.

Gladys shook her head no.

“Well, we'd better start with something more basic than cumin, then.” His eyes roved over the hundreds of glass jars stacked up against the wall. “Here,” he said, pulling down a jar of red-brown powder. The label said E
XTRA-
F
ANCY
V
IETNAMESE
C
INNAMON
. “It's already ground, so you don't have to do a thing but sprinkle it on top of any sweet dish. Pancakes, oatmeal, and of course cakes and pies. Let's go get you a bag.” His long legs carried him swiftly toward the checkout counter, and Gladys scurried after him.

“But I don't have any money,” she said.

Mr. Eng chuckled softly. “Haven't you ever heard of free samples?” He pulled a small plastic bag out of a drawer behind the counter and scooped some cinnamon into it. “This one's on the house.”

And so Gladys went home that day with her first ingredient. If it wasn't for Aunt Lydia, she probably would have just tucked the bag away in a drawer, letting it make her pajamas smell nice. But instead, she couldn't stop thinking about cooking with it. Could she use the cinnamon—or other spices from the wall at Mr. Eng's—to recreate the kinds of foods she and her aunt had eaten together in the city? If so, how?

The answer came in the mail a few weeks after Aunt Lydia's return to Paris.

At first glance, the package appeared to contain a famous children's book: the one with the Eiffel Tower and two straight lines of girls on the cover. But when Gladys peeked inside, she saw that the jacket had been swapped.

It was a cookbook.

Then, deeper in the package she found a smaller book with blank pages and an inscription inside the cover.
Here is a journal for recording all of the lovely things you eat and cook,
it said in tiny letters.
The cooking can be our secret.

And Gladys had kept that secret—until today.

A FOODIE GROUP OF ONE

CHRISTMAS DINNER A FEW DAYS LATER
was its usual sad affair. Gladys's parents took her to the Happy Rainbow All-U-Can-Eat Buffet—which Gladys had always thought was a funny name, since the foods they served only came in one color. But as she picked over this year's plate of dry brown turkey, sticky brown stuffing, and soupy brown “green” beans, she didn't think she would ever be able to laugh about food again.

Gladys wrote in her journal as soon as she got home.

Another Christmas at the big brown buffet. The food this year seemed even browner than usual. Maybe the new heat lamps they got are stronger, like those tanning beds people lie in when they want to pretend they just went on a tropical vacation? The turkey definitely looked like it had spent some time on a desert island—and tasted like it, too.

Anyway, this year's award for the most impressively brown thing that should never be brown has to go to the Jell-O. I wonder what flavor it was supposed to be. Nutmeg? Root beer? Beef? I took a tiny bite off Dad's plate, and I'm still not sure.

The sad thing is that there are so many nice brown foods—like soy sauce, and dark chocolate, and fresh-baked whole wheat bread. Why can't the buffet serve any of those?

(food edible, but nowhere near delicious)

Gladys closed her journal gently. It wasn't the original one Aunt Lydia had sent—that book had filled up years ago—but since then her aunt had made sure to slip a new one into Gladys's birthday package each year. The latest had a simple red leather cover, and Gladys always felt better after reviewing her meals in it. She used a four-star rating system, just like the critics at the
New York Standard
newspaper did, though she'd never had a meal that earned all four stars. Still, Gladys was always hopeful that an amazing four-star meal might be right around the corner. She even carried the journal with her at school, just in case a swapped-for lunch surprised her—and because scribbling down reviews gave her something to do while everybody else was off playing at recess.

Gladys wasn't looking forward to going back to school next week. She'd had plenty of friends when she was younger—it seemed like everyone was friends back then, or at least all the girls were. Everyone got invited to everyone else's birthday parties, and if Gladys examined her piece of birthday cake a little too critically before eating it, no one seemed to care.

But last year, in fifth grade, everything had changed. Or maybe it happened the summer before at Camp Bentley, where most of the kids in town went. All Gladys knew was that when she got back to school that year, everyone seemed to be part of a group. And whether it was the soccer players, or the brainiacs, or the super-popular girls, every group seemed to be on guard against anyone who was too weird or different. Suddenly, one random comment about a delicious arugula salad could get you laughed at for weeks. Gladys was alone, in a foodie group of one.

Now, as she tucked her journal back into its hiding place under the bed, Gladys thanked her lucky star fruits that her parents didn't know she was writing about food. If they did, they probably would have banned that for the next six months, too.

• • •

At home the morning of her first day back at school, Gladys was daydreaming about pho bo—the Vietnamese beef- and noodle-filled breakfast soup that she had cooked once in fourth grade—when she heard a horn honk outside. She looked out the window to see Sandy Anderson dashing out of his house next door, his blond hair flattened down with gel. He had a backpack over one shoulder and his school blazer flung over the other.

Sandy was a year younger than Gladys and had gone to a private school ever since he and his mother had moved in last year. The day after the Andersons arrived, Sandy's mom had sent him over to introduce himself and ask if he could borrow a cup of sugar. He quietly mumbled that she wanted to bake cupcakes but wasn't finished unpacking all of their kitchen supplies. Of course, the Gatsbys didn't have any sugar. But, trying her best to be neighborly, Gladys's mom sent him home with a handful of pastel-colored packets of artificial sweetener that she found in a box next to the instant coffee.

Gladys observed the whole exchange from the top of the stairs, then moved to the window to watch Sandy hurry home. A minute after he disappeared into his house, the Andersons' front door opened again and an annoyed-looking Mrs. Anderson rushed out to her car and drove away, probably to buy some real sugar. Sandy had not been back to the Gatsbys' house since.

Now, Gladys watched Sandy's bus disappear down the block.

“You've hardly touched your cereal!” her mom cried, snapping Gladys's attention back to the food in front of her.

“Mom,”
Gladys said, shoving the bowl of fake apple–flavored rings across the table, “the milk is
green.
”

They compromised on an energy bar, which Gladys ate in the car. She usually just rode the few blocks to school on her bicycle, but her mom insisted on driving today. “It's too cold outside to ride on that bike,” she said, but Gladys suspected that her mom's real motive was to keep her from stopping at Mr. Eng's on the way to or from school.

It was too bad, since visiting Mr. Eng was usually the highlight of Gladys's day. She liked to alphabetize his canned tomato products (crushed, diced, paste, pureed, stewed, whole) as she munched on a fresh clementine from the fruit bin (and, okay, maybe a jam-filled croissant from the pastry case). Plus there was Mr. Eng himself, who always had time to tell Gladys about his latest gourmet imports. He was good at listening, too; if she'd stopped there this morning, Gladys surely would have told him that she was nervous—but also excited—about getting a new teacher.

Mrs. Wellchurch had left in December to have a baby, though Gladys wasn't sad to see her go. She had known that she was in for a long, boring year after their first assignment. Mrs. Wellchurch had forced everyone to read their “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essays out loud, and Gladys didn't know which was worse, having to share that she spent the summer at home with a babysitter, or having to hear about what all the other kids did at Camp Bentley, the camp run by Charissa Bentley's parents. Charissa was the prettiest—but also the meanest—girl in Gladys's grade, and Gladys refused to spend any more time with her than she already had to during the school year.

As her mom turned the car into the school parking lot, a horrible thought struck Gladys. What if their new teacher made them all write about what they'd done over winter break? Gladys doubted that an essay called “How I Stole My Dad's Blowtorch and Set the Kitchen on Fire” would make the best first impression (even if it would make her temporarily more popular among some of the pyromaniac boys).

“I'll pick you up right here at three o'clock,” Gladys's mom said as she pulled up in front of the school. “I'm sure you'll be anxious to catch up with the other kids, but try to be out here on time so I can get back to the office, okay?”

Gladys nodded blankly and shut the car door behind her. If she needed any more proof that her mom was completely clueless about her life at school, this was it.