Frogs' Legs for Dinner? (4 page)

On Sunday morning, Katie Lynn tried to watch the French Chef with her mother. But her mother kept asking Katie Lynn to French-braid her hair.

“I think I'll be a better French cook if I look more French,” her mother said. “Don't you?”

“It might help, Mom,” said Katie Lynn.

When a commercial came on, she snuck
into the kitchen. Grandma and Tina and Gerald were sitting at the table.

“It looks like we're safe for today,” she said. “The French Chef hasn't said anything about snails or frogs' legs.”

“Thank goodness,” said Tina. She bit off the ear of a rabbit cookie. “I don't think I could stand any more animals in this kitchen.”

Katie Lynn sat down with them. “Have you made the icing yet?” she asked.

Grandma and Tina just looked at each other.

“Zut alors!”
said Gerald. He laughed.
“Zut alors!”

“What's Gerald saying?” asked Katie Lynn.

“He's saying, ‘Oh, no!' in French,” explained Grandma.

“We think he's picking it up from the French Chef,” said Tina.

“Why's he saying, ‘Oh, no!'?” asked Katie Lynn.

“We can't find the icing recipe,” Grandma said.

“What?”
Katie Lynn cried.

“We think Gerald ate it,” added Tina.

Katie Lynn gasped. “Oh, no! Do you remember what was in it, Grandma?”

“Just bits and pieces,” said Grandma. “But Tina and I have tried all kinds of combinations, and nothing works. At least, according to Gerald.”

“Gerald!” Katie Lynn said. “What do you mean?”

“We let him taste each new icing,” Tina explained. “If he spits it out, then it isn't any good.” With a sigh, she added, “So far,
he's spit out everything we've given him.”

Gerald laughed.
“Zut alors! Zut alors!”
he said again.

“Zut alors
is right,” said Katie Lynn. “I can't believe the new Ape House depends on Gerald. What does he know? He's the reason we're in this mess.”

“He knows cookie icings,” said Tina.

“Well, we'll just have to keep trying,” said Katie Lynn. “The Zoo Benefit is this afternoon.”

Just then, Mrs. Cooke came into the kitchen. “The French Chef showed us how to make a very simple sauce,” she announced. “That's what we're going to have for dinner tonight.”

“That's wonderful, Kathy,” Grandma said. She sounded tired. “What are we going to put it on?”

Mrs. Cooke got a puzzled look on her face. “We're not going to put it on anything, Mother. We're going to eat it like a soup.”

Tina made a gagging sound.

Katie Lynn bit her lip to keep from giggling.

“Well, that's nice, dear,” Grandma said. “I'm sure it'll be an interesting experience for all of us.”

“Oui! Oui! Oui!”
said Mrs. Cooke in her best French accent. She grinned. “The French Chef always says that to people.”

While Mrs. Cooke made her sauce, Katie Lynn, Grandma, and Tina kept trying to make a cookie icing.

“Please like this, Gerald,” said Katie Lynn. She gave him a bite of icing number ten.

“Yech!” said Gerald. He stuck out his tongue at them.

Suddenly, Mrs. Cooke sighed.

“What's wrong, Mom?” Katie Lynn asked.

“This just doesn't taste like a sauce,” Mrs. Cooke said. “I don't know what happened.”

“Well, don't worry about it, Mom,” said Katie Lynn. She gave her mother a big hug.

“I don't know where I went wrong,” Mrs. Cooke said. “I must have misunderstood the French Chef's accent.”

“Stop that, Gerald!” Tina cried.

Everyone turned to look at Gerald. He was licking his fingers.

“What's he doing?” asked Katie Lynn.

“He's eating your mother's sauce!” said Tina.

Suddenly, Katie Lynn gasped. “But look at him! He didn't spit it out!”

Katie Lynn stuck her finger in the mixing bowl. She scooped out some of her mother's sauce and then licked it off. She was absolutely amazed. The sauce was delicious.

“This is it! This is it!” she cried. “This is the icing we need!”

“It's not an icing, Katie Lynn,” said Mrs. Cooke. “It's a sauce.”

“I don't care, Mom! It's wonderful,” said Katie Lynn. “You've done what we couldn't do. You've come up with an icing we can put on our animal cookies.”

“But what about dinner tonight?” Mrs. Cooke said.

“Don't worry about that, Mom,” said Katie Lynn. “If you can show us how to
make this, dinner tonight will be on the Katie Lynn Cookie Company.”

Grandma tasted the sauce and cried, “Oh, Kathy! Katie Lynn's right! This is incredible!”

“What's in it, Mrs. Cooke?” asked Tina.

Mrs. Cooke got a funny look on her face. “I'm not sure,” she said.

The Secret's in the Sauce

Katie Lynn looked at the kitchen clock. There were only a couple of hours before the Zoo Benefit.

“What do you mean, Mom?” she said.

“I didn't write down the recipe,” said Mrs. Cooke. “It was so simple, I didn't think I'd forget the ingredients.”

“Do you remember any of them?” asked Tina.

“Well, sort of,” said Mrs. Cooke.

“Then let's just mix those together,” said Grandma.

“But I also added other things,” said Mrs. Cooke.

“Why?” asked Katie Lynn.

“It wasn't looking like the sauce on television. But then I remembered something the French Chef always says,” said Mrs. Cooke.
“All good cooks add their own personal touches.”

“So what was your personal touch?” asked Tina.

“I don't remember,” said Mrs. Cooke.

“Oh, this is terrible!” said Katie Lynn. “We have the perfect icing for our animal cookies, and we don't even know what's in it.”

“Well, we just all need to relax and take
this one step at a time,” said Grandma.

Everyone took a deep breath and sat down at the kitchen table.

“I think the first thing I put in the bowl was flour,” Mrs. Cooke finally said. She pointed to a blue canister on the counter. “I got it out of that.”

“Oh!” said Katie Lynn. “That's powdered sugar!”

“How much did you use?” asked Grandma.

“Three cups,” said Mrs. Cooke. “I sifted it first.”

Katie Lynn wrote down what her mother said.

“What next?” asked Grandma.

Slowly but surely, Mrs. Cooke remembered what she had put in the mixing bowl.

In addition to three cups of sifted powdered sugar, she used:

Grandma looked over at Katie Lynn. “Did you get all that?”

Katie Lynn nodded.

When they were sure they had all the ingredients Mrs. Cooke used, they mixed some of the “sauce” by hand.

“It tastes just like Mom's!” cried Katie Lynn. “We have the icing for the new cookie! Now all we have to do is mix up different colors for the different animals.”
She gave her mother a big hug and added, “You've saved the Katie Lynn Cookie Company.”

“Come on, girls! There's no time to waste!” said Grandma. “Let's get started.”

They made blue icing for the snails.

They made green icing for the frogs.

They made white icing for the rabbits.

They made other colors for other animals.

Soon, all the animal cookies looked like real animals.

Finally, they were finished.

“Do you think Mr. Chesterfield will like them?” asked Katie Lynn.

“Well, there's only one way to find out,” said Grandma. “Let's take these cookies to the Zoo Benefit!”

Everyone Goes Ape!

Everyone piled into the car, and Mr. Cooke drove to the zoo.

Tina gasped. “Where'd all these people come from?” she said.

“Mr. Chesterfield said everyone in town would be at the Zoo Benefit,” said Katie Lynn. “He was right.”

“I'm sure they all came to buy your animal cookies,” Mr. Cooke said.

He grinned at Katie Lynn and Tina.

“I hope so,” said Katie Lynn. “We want to make enough money to build a new Ape House.”

Gerald made ape noises in the back seat.

“We need to hurry. Mr. Chesterfield is probably wondering where we are,” Grandma said. “Everyone grab a container of cookies.”

They rushed to the main entrance. Mr. Chesterfield was waiting for them.

“There you are!” he said. He got a big smile on his face when Katie Lynn showed him the animal cookies. “Perfect! Perfect! I knew I could count on the Katie Lynn Cookie Company!”

“Of course!” said Katie Lynn.

She and Tina grinned at each other.