Boiling Point (5 page)

That’s exactly when she ditched out of Dish, just as they were getting it off the ground. Suddenly, she was totally unreachable, and ignored them. At first the girls thought Natasha was just being difficult again, but then they found out what was really going on. It turned out that Natasha’s dad had promised to lend the girls some money to help get Dish started.

Then he’d lost his job. He still wanted to give Natasha the money, but she felt guilty taking it. Too embarrassed to face her friends, she blew off helping them with a huge cooking job.

And the girls hadn’t seen Natasha since.

Soon Molly, Amanda, and Shawn reached Park Terrace Cookware—the store where their cooking classes were held. They walked through the store to a large, gleaming kitchen in the back. In the center of the room were two rows of long tables with wooden tops and chrome legs. The tables held several workstations. Each student had his or her own cutting board and supplies. Today there was also a rolling pin—plus flour, salt, shortening, and milk, already measured. And there was a utensil that the girls didn’t know what to do with.

Amanda looked around. No Natasha. So far, so good. But Peichi was already there, talking nonstop to serious-looking David Stern. He couldn’t seem to get a word in, so he just kept nodding his head. Then Peichi saw the girls.

“Hi!” Peichi ran over to the girls and greeted them. Her shiny black hair was up in a high ponytail, like the twins’ hair. “What do you think the rolling pins for? What do you think we’re going to make today? I wonder if Natasha’s gonna show up?”

Just then, Carmen Piccolo, the instructor, walked in and began to chat with some of the students. She wore her long reddish-blond hair in a ponytail. As she put on her chefs apron, the girls hurried to their workstations.

“Hello, class,” said Carmen.

“Hi, Carmen!” chorused the class.

“Today is our last class,” said Carmen. “You’ve all been so great. And as I promised in our first class, you’re all getting graduation gifts. Freddie will pass them out!”

Just then, a young man with short dark hair and a goatee rushed in. Freddie Gonzalez was Carmen’s assistant. He was
always
good for a laugh.

He began to hand out a chefs apron and an instant camera to each student. “How ya doin’ today, Connor?... Looking good, Omar, looking good!. . . What’s up, Peichi?”

“Look!” said Peichi, holding up her apron. “It has my name embroidered on it! And they even spelled it right!”

Everyone checked out their names on their aprons. Under their names, PARK TERRACE COOKWARE was embroidered in smaller letters.

“Cool!” lots of kids were saying as they put on their aprons.

“I’m a professional now,” said Omar, striking a pose. “Now all I need is a tall white chef’s hat.”

“Actually, that’s called a
toque blanche
,” said David, as he pushed up his glasses.

“I’m glad you like your aprons,” said Carmen. “Today is our pie workshop! We’re going to learn how to make piecrust!”

“Piecrust?” protested some of the boys.

“Yeah, piecrust, man!” said Freddie. “Come on, Connor, you know you love pie. You, too, Omar. Now you’ll be able to make a pie whenever you want, and it’ll taste better than your momma’s.”

“You mean we’re not going to make a whole meal, like we usually do?” asked Peichi.

“That’s right,” replied Carmen. “Piecrusts take time to make, especially when you’ve never made one before. Today we’re going to make chocolate cream pie. That has just one crust—the bottom crust. That’s enough for today.”

“Mmmm
, chocolate cream pie, said Amanda dreamily to herself. But most of the kids heard her, and laughed. Amanda blushed deep red and pretended to be fascinated with her rolling pin.

“Each of you will make your own pastry dough,” Carmen went on. “We’ll use a few of these pastry shells for today’s pies, and the rest of you can take yours home. Let’s get started! To save time, Freddie has already measured out the ingredients for the crust.”

As she always did, Carmen stood at the front of the class so she could demonstrate everything the students were supposed to do.

“I’m going to tell you something my mom told me the first time we made a pie together,” announced Carmen. “‘Don’t be afraid of the dough!’ Remember—you’re the boss, not the pie dough.”

The class chuckled.

“If you remember that, you’ll have more fun,” Carmen went on. “Okay. First let’s mix the salt and flour together in your mixing bowl.” Everyone followed along. Then Carmen picked up the strange-looking round utensil that had a handle attached to strips of curved metal.

“This is called a pastry cutter, or pastry blender,” she told the class. “Watch me use it to cut the shortening through the flour.”

Carmen added the shortening. then pressed the pastry cutter down into the ingredients. The metal strips helped combine the ingredients. “Now you try,” she said. “Do it until your shortening looks like giant peas.”

“This is hard,” complained Connor after a while. “My dough keeps sticking to the pastry cutter.” The class giggled, because every week, Connor said exactly what most of them were thinking.

“This is nothin’,” cracked Omar. “You’re just lazy.” Connor and Omar were always goofing on each other.

“You can scrape off the dough with a butter knife,” Carmen told Connor. “Freddie will bring you one.” She addressed the class again. “This takes patience,” said Carmen. “When you bake—especially pastry—you always need to be patient.”

After that, the class followed Carmen as she sprinkled milk on the flour and mixed it lightly with a fork until all the flour was moistened and stuck together.

Next Carmen gathered the dough together with her hands, and pressed it firmly into a ball.

“Yo, watch it. This isn’t pizza dough,” warned Freddie, when some of the boys pretended to throw their balls of dough up in the air.

The girls in the class rolled their eyes at one another. The boys were always acting up, and in almost every class they eventually had to be separated.

“Now we’ll wrap the dough in wax paper and chill it,” said Carmen. “Just like you guys in the corner need to chill!” she joked.

“Why do we need to chill the dough?” asked Peichi.

“If you didn’t chill the dough, it would be too sticky to work with,” replied Carmen. “Which would force you to add more flour. Then the baked piecrust would be tough, not crumbly. This dough should chill for about two hours. But we don’t have that much time in class, so we’ll have to put it in the freezer and just get it as cold as we can, while we make the chocolate filling.”

Carmen broke the class into groups to make the filling. The students counted off in threes. Molly and Peichi ended up with Connor and Omar.

“Oh, no! Not her!” Omar said. He was talking about Peichi, whose constant chatter drove him nuts.

“You’re so lucky you’re with us,” boasted Peichi. “‘Cause
we
are gonna show you how to do it right.”

“I’ve made pies before,” said Omar. “Lots of ’em.”

“Yeah, right,” said Molly, not looking up from the recipe. She handed Omar a measuring cup. “Here. Measure a cup and a half of sugar.”

“Okay,” Omar said.

Molly cut up some squares of unsweetened chocolate, and Peichi separated some eggs, then gently beat the yolks with a fork. Omar stirred three cups of milk into a mixture of sugar, salt, flour, and cornstarch, added in the pieces of the chocolate, and cooked it over medium heat.

Freddie came running over. “You have to stir it constantly!” he said. “Good job.”

“Wow, this smells great already!” said Peichi. “It’s like chocolate pudding!”

The mixture began to thicken as it boiled. Omar let it boil for one minute, took it off the heat, and slowly stirred half the mixture into the egg yolks.

“Okay, now we pour this mixture back into the pan,” read Molly, “and boil it for another minute.”

After the mixture boiled, Omar took the pan off the heat, and Connor blended in some butter and vanilla. “Wow, that’s rich,” he said. “Now we chill it in the fridge.”