Kitchen Chaos (15 page)

We're deciding what to make for the other dioramas when there's a loud explosion in the kitchen. All three of us jump out of our seats to see what's going
on and discover that Nicky has decided to make a smoothie for my mom when she gets home, only he forgot to put the top on the blender. Pink globs of cold, sticky smoothie splatter us the second we open the door, and big goopy drops plop onto our heads from the ceiling.

So much for project planning. Liza and Lillian take off to wash the pink slime from their hair. They're laughing as they go, but I don't see what's funny. Maybe one of The Goons should have just killed me when we walked in. At least that would have put me out of my misery.

If there's one food you can be sure never to find in our refrigerator, it's cheese. There is nothing Chinese about cheese, and even though my parents have lived in America almost as long as they lived in China, they've just never “developed a taste for it,” as Chef Antonio would say. I, on the other hand,
love
cheese. One of my favorite things about moving to Brooklyn is going to the old Italian grocery stores on Saturday mornings and buying fresh-made mozzarella. If you
order it salted—which you should—the guy behind the counter scoops up a big blob of it with his giant tongs and dips it into a vat of salty water before stuffing it into a container and topping it with an extra splash of salt water for good measure. The cheese is so fresh, the container warms your hands, and it's almost impossible not to stick your fingers in and tear off a piece before you even leave the store.

Why am I going on about cheese? Because it's the theme of today's cooking class, which means my mother is acting even snootier than usual. Unlike last week, when she turned into a living, breathing Wikipedia page about peppers, my mother hasn't tried to wow the class with even a single fact about cheese today. Instead, while Chef is telling us that people have been making cheese for ten thousand years and that it's mentioned in Greek mythology (Nicky would be excited!) and pictured in hieroglyphics on ancient Egyptian tombs (cool!), she's got her arms crossed over her chest and a bored
expression on her face. Whatever. Since Mama seems completely uninterested in cheese, maybe I'll actually get to do some of the cooking today, instead of just helping her do it.

Just as Chef Antonio is about to introduce our first recipe, the door to the studio slams open noisily and in come Liza and her mom. They've got Liza's little brother, Cole, with them too, and he doesn't seem very happy about the way Liza's mom used his stroller to shove the door open. I'm relieved Liza made it—I was starting to worry—but her mom looks stressed out as usual, and I'm pretty sure they hadn't planned on bringing Cole again.

Chef rushes over and holds the door open for Ms. Reynolds and the stroller. “I am so sorry,” she says, spinning around to pick up the Matchbox car Cole just threw on the floor. “His ear's been bothering him, and I think he's getting another tooth . . . The sitter actually showed up, but at the last minute I just couldn't leave him.”

I make eye contact with Liza, who isn't smiling. She rolls her eyes.

“Por favor,”
says Chef Antonio as he squats down to Cole's level and hands him the car, “no apologies.” He stands and looks at Liza's mom. “And no more babysitters. Your little boy is welcome to come here every week—my mother would like nothing better.” Chef gestures to the corner of the studio where Javier is slumped over his phone like always and Angelica is sitting in a window seat doing some kind of intricate needlework. When she sees Cole, she jumps up and claps her hands together, her perfectly penciled lips spreading into a wide smile.

Liza's mom unbuckles Cole's stroller straps, and Angelica immediately swoops him up into her arms. He coos and hands her the Matchbox car, which she pretends to drive up one of his arms and down the other.

“That's very sweet of you,” Liza's mom says as Cole practically bubbles over in giggles. “But too generous. He can be a real handful.”

“Este chiquito?”
Angelica says, leaning in to rub noses with Cole. “A handful of fun maybe! Right,
papi
?”

Cole grabs two chubby fistfuls of Angelica's curls and hollers, “More, more, more!”

Liza's mom looks horrified and is about to yank his hands away when Angelica makes it clear she doesn't mind by giving Cole another nose rub and dancing him over to the window to look out at all the real cars. Liza looks relieved and, grabbing her mom's hand, pulls her over to the big table, where the rest of us are trying to act like we haven't been staring at them, transfixed by their family drama. Good thing I remembered to turn off the video camera.

“Okay!” Chef Antonio bellows, clapping his hands. “The gang's all here!” Embarrassed, Liza and her mom wave sheepishly at everyone. “Now,” Chef says, “where was I? Oh yes—my favorite question: How did people first discover that milk can become cheese? Does anyone know?”

Immediately, all eyes are on my mother, who, until now, has blurted out an answer to every one of Chef's questions practically before he's even finished asking them. Mama raises her eyebrows, clearly taken aback. Apparently, the origin of cheese is not among her areas of culinary expertise.

“How about someone other than MeiYin?” Chef quickly asks, saving the day. Relieved, my mother lets out a tiny, nervous laugh before the superior expression settles over her face again.

Mrs. Newlywed raises her hand halfway. She doesn't usually say much, so, of course, everyone's curious to hear her answer. I point my camera in her direction and start taping.

“Um, this might sound disgusting, but if I remember correctly, a long time ago traders or herdsmen or people like that stored milk in animal stomachs—which contain the rennet that you need to turn milk into cheese. So, at some point, someone was carrying milk in a cow or sheep stomach, and when they went
to pour it out, well, it wasn't milk anymore.”

Liza and Frankie both look as grossed out as I feel. Everyone else looks impressed, including my mother, even though I can tell she's trying not to let it show.

“Perfecto!”
Chef Antonio booms, and gives Mrs. Newlywed a hearty round of applause.

Mr. Newlywed looks surprised, as if he's just discovered something new and fascinating about his wife. “What?” she says, giving him a playful shove. “I took food science as an undergrad.”

“So,” Chef says, “now that we know how milk becomes cheese, we're going to make some cheese of our own. On the prep table behind me is a sheep stomach for everyone—”

“Ew!” Liza, Frankie, and I scream in accidental unison. A few others around the table gasp in disgust. Even Javier looks up from his phone.

“Gotcha!” the chef cries, pointing at us. “Lucky for us, there are other ways to make cheese. No
stomachs required—except for eating.”

We all laugh, including Javier. I realize I'm aiming the camera at him and quickly turn it off. My cheeks get hot and I hope he doesn't notice.

Our first recipe is for an Indian cheese called
paneer
, which is really fun to make. You have to heat the milk until it almost boils and then add lemon juice, causing it to form these funny little clumps called “curds.” Then you strain the curds through a cheesecloth, wrap them up, and squeeze out all of the liquid.

Even though cheese isn't her thing, my mother turns back into her bossy self and orders me around as usual. Only this time she's just talking, because she actually lets me do almost everything. I'm surprised, but I don't want to ruin it by asking why, so I just do what Mr. McEnroe always tells us to and “go with the flow.”

You can't use
paneer
right away, so while ours chills in a bowl of ice water, Chef Antonio gives us
each a bowlful from a batch that he made yesterday, and we stir up a spicy spinach and pea stew to pour on top of it. As soon as the ingredients switch from cheese curds to vegetables and curry, my mother takes over again and it's back to slicing and dicing for me. I don't mind, though, because there are still two recipes to go, and I've finally discovered her weakness. If my mother were Superman, cheese would be her Kryptonite. Call me Lex Luthor, but I'm definitely enjoying catching a glimpse of her “mere mortal” side for a change.

“I know there's one around here somewhere,” I tell Frankie and Lillian. I'm standing on the kitchen counter in my socks and searching the cabinets for this fondue set that was originally my grandmother's, I think. Ever since we made cheese fondue in cooking class on Saturday, we've all been haunted by the delicious lava of melted cheese, and we decided to do our project planning over here this afternoon so we could make some while we work.

Frankie pops up from behind the refrigerator door holding a half-empty package of my brother's cheese sticks. “This was the only thing I could find that even resembles cheese,” she says, eyeing it, “and I'm not even sure it qualifies.”

Frankie's used to the sorry state of our fridge, so I'm not embarrassed for her to see it anymore. Lillian, on the other hand, is staring at the bare shelves like an archaeologist uncovering a rare artifact for the first time. “Why don't I run out and get some, um, more cheese?” she suggests. “You know, like the kind we used in class.”

Chef Antonio's recipe calls for a combination of Swiss and Gruyère, but he said cheddar or any other kind of good melting cheese works just as well. “Good idea,” I say, still poking around for the fondue pot. “Better check to see if we have the other ingredients first.”

Amazingly, Frankie discovers that we actually have enough flour and butter for the fondue, but we
need bread and some fruit for dipping. “We should get something to drink, too,” says Frankie as she closes the refrigerator door. “All I saw in there were juice boxes.”

“Got it,” Lillian agrees, not looking up from her shopping list. Instead of words, she's drawn tiny detailed pictures of everything we need. From up here, I can see that Frankie's watching her too, and I can tell she's as fascinated as I am.

“Why don't you go with her, Franks?” Maybe the two of them going on a mission to the grocery store without me would help Frankie get over her thing with Lillian. Frankie shoots me a raised-eyebrow look that I'm glad Lillian's too focused on her list to notice. So much for that idea.

“I think I'd better stay here and help you find the fondue set,” Frankie says. “You don't mind going solo, do you, Lillian?”

“Not at all,” says Lillian, grabbing her list and heading for the door. I give her some money from
the grocery jar Mom keeps in the cabinet above the stove. I guess Lillian didn't want to be alone with Frankie either.

I step over the stove to get to the very last of the cabinets, a small one just two shelves high that's above the refrigerator. It's almost impossible to reach unless you're doing what I'm doing now, and my mom definitely would not approve. Our apartment may look a little empty and neglected, but my mother is religious about keeping it clean—and feet on the countertops totally wouldn't fly.

“Found it!” I call down to Frankie, who, instead of helping me search for the fondue set, has been studying the perfect miniature bagels and hot dogs (two foods we're pretty sure everyone will be surprised to learn came from immigrant cultures) that Lillian has made out of modeling clay. Frankie stuffs the tiny replicas back into their sandwich bag when she sees that I've caught her admiring Lillian's work.

The fondue set is still in its original box. On one
side is a diagram of everything that's supposed to be inside—the fondue pot, the stand it sits in, the heater, and six metal skewers that have fancy little hoops on the end you're supposed to hold. On the other side of the box is a picture of some people at a party, holding their drinks in one hand and dipping their skewers of sliced apple or cubes of bread into the pot of bright orange cheese with the other. All of the colors are overly bright, or “saturated,” as Hank—our sixth-grade digital media teacher, who insisted we call him by his first name—used to say. Frankie and I both have an app on our phones that can make any picture you take look like a relic from the 1970s, just like the one on this box.