Isabellsah Cullen issued a challenge to share an embarrassing story, and I immediately thought about the first meal my sister and I ever cooked. To be fair, I was 9, and Gayle was 13. We got better. If that wasn't enough, I threw in some of our other finest moments. We can laugh at them now. I also firmly believe that Jersey Girls are genetically incapable of cooking grits. I moved south more years ago than I care to admit, and I still can't do it.
Oh, yeah, all the characters you know and love belong to Janet Evanovich. All the mistakes, in and out of the kitchen, are mine. (and Gayle's)
"Val, are you sure about that?" I asked as my sister carefully measured.
My sister gave me a look that clearly said she knew better than me. "I printed these directions carefully. I know what I'm doing!"
Boy, that brought back a whopper of a memory.
Our parents were at grandma and grandpa Mazur's house. Grandpa was really sick, so they had gone to help grandma out. Since they still weren't home by 5:30, my sister Val decided that we were going to cook dinner. How hard could it be? We were both in middle school. She was in 8th grade, and I was in the 6th. She has been taking Home Economics that semester, and they had just started a section on cooking. Since she read the entire textbook in the first week of class, she figured that made her an expert.
Since neither of us had ever cooked on our own before, Val was going to do the more difficult sauce. I was in charge of cooking the spaghetti. I filled mom's pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. While I was waiting, I watched Val put together the ingredients for the sauce. I don't think she did it quite right, but she won't listen to me. Once the water started to boil, I added the pasta and stirred it. After that, I remembered to read the directions and set the timer.
While it was boiling, I noticed that the water level was getting lower, but I just kept stirring. Val asked me to go get the tomato sauce, so I wandered off to the pantry. I returned to the stove just as the timer went off. I looked in the pot and froze. The water had boiled out and the pasta was burning in the bottom of the pot. I didn't want Val to know that I had screwed up, so I quickly turned off the burner and emptied the pasta into the strainer. If Val noticed that no water came out of the pot, she didn't say anything.
Since my part of our cooking experience was done, I gladly went to set the table while Val finished the sauce. Soon the whole house was filled with the delicious aroma of spaghetti sauce. Why does Val have to be perfect at everything? By the time our parents walked in the door, everything was waiting for them on the table. They looked so worn out that I was glad we did this for them.
We all sat at the table and shoveled food onto our plates. Mom turned to Val and said, "Everything looks and smells wonderful, darling. You are going to make some man a wonderful wife someday!" Hey, I cooked, too! Just as I was about to kick Val under the table, she told mom that I made the spaghetti. Mom ignored her, but dad ruffled my hair and said, "Good job, pumpkin."
We watched while dad took the first bite. Both of us were so anxious to see the look of pleasure on dad's face. Neither of us were prepared when dad started to choke and raced to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Unsure of what could possibly have gone wrong, we both took small bites of our dinner. OH MY GOD! I spit out whatever that was and quickly downed the glass of milk in front of me. Val burst into tears. Dad came back into the dining room clutching his water glass and turned to mom. "Helen, why don't you order a pizza?" He ruffled my hair again and smiled. "Pumpkin, that was the crunchiest spaghetti I have ever eaten!" I know spaghetti isn't supposed to be crunchy, but he was laughing, so it was good, right? I mean, I know it tasted horrible, but dad wasn't mad at all.
Val was crying even harder now. Mom came back from the kitchen and wrapped her in a hug. She was holding the recipe that Val had copied from her home ec book, and laughing quietly. Val wailed, "I don't know what went wrong!"
Mom smoothed out the paper on the table. "It wasn't your fault, sweetheart. You only made a teeny tiny mistake. You weren't supposed to put 14 teaspoons of garlic into the sauce."
"But that's what the recipe said. I copied it down exactly!"
"No, honey, it's supposed to be 1/4 teaspoon of garlic."
I couldn't wait for the pizza to get there.
Snapping back to the present, I looked into the pot we were working on. By herself, Val can put together a pretty decent meal, now. Why she decided we should try this is a mystery to me. I scooped out a runny, nasty spoonful and let it fall back into the pot with a plop. "Val, nobody in their right mind eats grits anyway. When Albert's grandmother gets here next week, take her to the diner like a normal person."
Val looked into the pot and smiled. "If this was red, it would be just like that spaghetti sauce."
I hugged her and laughed. "That wasn't as bad as the Spam and onion casserole."
She looked horrified that I would mention that. "Well, at least I'm not the one who set the microwave on fire popping popcorn!"
She did not just go there. "No, you flooded the kitchen using soap instead of detergent in the dishwasher." Ok, I can see the storm clouds over this horizon. I should stop her before she remembers the time I wiped out the garage door backing out before it was totally up. I held up my hands. "I'm sorry. Let's just admit that we sucked in the kitchen. At least you got better." Neither of us looked at the pot.
"I'm sorry, too. I'm just nervous about Albert's grandmother visiting. Are we good?"
I smiled at her. "Good? We're the best!" What can I say, we're sisters.
