Turning Up the Heat

by Diane Muldrow

  Molly raised her hand. “We’re half-Italian, half-Irish,” she said. “Our mom’s grandma came here from Italy, from—from—” Her mind went blank. She looked over at Amanda.

  Amanda spoke up. “A town called Lucca.”

  “That’s in northern Italy,” said Carmen with a smile. “I’ve been there. It’s wonderful there. And guess what—one of the dishes we’re making today is from Lucca! It’s called chicken under a brick.”’

  “Chicken under a brick?” cried the kids.

  “Right!” said Carmen. “But I couldn’t find a brick, so...” She held up a couple of big rocks. “were going to use these!”

  “Rocks?” exclaimed everyone.

  “Then we should call it ‘chicken under a rock!’” said Omar.

  “You’re right, we should call it‘chicken under a rock,’” said Carmen. She laughed. “But that sounds even funnier than chicken under a brick! Don’t worry—we re not going to eat the rock. We’ll use it to flatten the chicken. We re also going to make a sort of toast called bruschetta, a rice dish called risotto, homemade ravioli—”

  “Yesss!” cried Connor from the back row. “I love ravioli!”

  “And a salad with tomato, mozzarella, and basil,” continued Carmen. “Oh, and biscotti, too! Biscotti are cookies. So let’s get started! Count off to three. The ‘ones’ will do the ravioli, the ‘twos’ will do the chicken, the ‘threes’ will do the risotto.” Carmen always broke the class into small groups. Each group made at least one dish. And Carmen would often stop class to let everyone watch what one group was working on.

  After everyone counted off, Peichi and Amanda were in the chicken and biscotti group, Shawn was in the ravioli and bruschetta group, and Natasha and Molly were in the risotto and salad group.

  “Ow! Don’t hit me with that rock!” Some of the boys in the chicken group were horsing around, pretending to pound each other with the rock.

  “Watch it,” Freddie called over to them. “Put the rock down, Connor. No one touches the rock except for Carmen or me.”

  Peichi and Amanda were the only girls in the chicken group.

  “I feel like we re with a bunch of five-year-olds,” whispered Peichi.

  “Maybe they’ll get too rowdy and Carmen will make people switch groups, to break them up,” said Amanda. That had happened before.

  Meanwhile, in the risotto group, Natasha chopped basil that would go into the dish. Molly began to mince an onion. She still wasn’t very good at using a knife. Carmen taught knife skills in class, and every student got a chance to practice. There were always lots of items to cut, chop, and dice.

  Carmen stood and watched Natasha and Molly use their knives.

  “Pretty good, Natasha,” said Carmen. “Molly, just remember that you don’t have to grip your knife so hard.”

  Carmen left to watch the ravioli group.

  In a low voice, Natasha said to Molly, “So, now you’ve met my mom.” She didn’t look up from her cutting board.

  Molly didn’t know what to say. What’s Natasha getting at? she wondered.

  Molly swallowed and said, “Uh-huh!...So, you’re going to have a tea party.”

  “Well, I didn’t know I was,” said Natasha sharply. The other kids in the group looked over at Natasha, surprised.

  Weirdness alert!thought Molly. I knew something strange was going on outside with Natasha and her mom!

  Everyone went back to their work, and Natasha lowered her voice again. “This tea party is my mom’s idea. She’s so old-fashioned.” Then, as if talking to herself, Natasha muttered. “Why can’t I have my friends over just to hang out? Everything’s such a big deal with her.”

  “Well, it’ll be fun, anyway,” Molly assured her. “I’ve never been to a real tea party. Who else is coming besides the Chef Girls?”

  “Maybe you should ask my mom,” said Natasha, rolling her eyes. “She’s doing this because she—she wants to—check you out! Make sure you’re all okay for me to hang out with. It’s so embarrassing.” She tried to laugh.

  Whoa! thought Molly. We’ll be on display. Bizarre!

  As weirded-out as Molly was, she tried to make Natasha feel better. “Don’t worry,” joked Molly. “We’ll all try to act normal in front of your mom.”

  A smile flickered over Natasha’s face.

  “Okay, class! Stop what you’re doing for a moment,” called Carmen, standing near Shawn. “I want to talk to you about the ravioli.”

  Peichi’s hand went up. “What are you going to put in it?” she asked.

  Carmen smiled. “I was just going to tell you,” she said. “We’re going to use spinach for the filling.”

  “Spinach?” muttered some of the kids.

  “Ravioli often has meat in it, but not always,” Carmen went on. “And I know you’re going to like this. We re going to make the dough by hand today, but you can also make it in a food processor. Shawn has put the flour and salt in a bowl, and Connor has poured in olive oil and some hot water. Now I’m going to shape it into a ball... can everyone see?...and knead it like this.”

  Carmen quickly kneaded the ball of dough for a few seconds, then said, “Now you try it, Shawn.”

  “You go, Shawn!” cracked Omar from across the room.

  Shawn rolled her eyes, embarrassed. The whole class was watching her. She pressed down on the dough with both hands and worked with it as Carmen had done, but it just felt like it was all ending up on her hands. “It’s kind of sticky” said Shawn, looking up at Carmen.

  “Okay, we’ll do this...there, is that better?” asked Carmen, sprinkling some flour over the dough with her fingers.

  Everyone in Shawn’s group practiced kneading the dough. After just a few minutes, the dough was smooth.

  “Great!” said Carmen. “Now, who would like to practice rolling out the dough with a rolling pin? You, Omar...come over here.”

  All the boys in the class began to laugh when they thought of Omar using a rolling pin.

  “Me?” asked Omar. “No way, man. I’m not in the ravioli group.” He was turning red.

  “Go ahead, Grandma!” cracked a kid named Ryan.

  Everyone began to laugh. Even Carmen and Freddie smiled.

  “Yo! I’ll roll it over your head, Ryan,” joked Omar. “All right! I’m gonna do it! Here I come! I’m gonna use a rolling pin!” He strolled over to the table as the entire class began to clap.

  “Just do it like this,” said Carmen. She rolled the pin over the dough a few times. “Now you try.”

  Omar clowned as Carmen handed him the rolling pin. He flexed his muscles, cleared his throat, and finally began to roll out the dough. “Hey, this is easy!” he said. “Look. It’s getting thinner!”

  “Can I try?” asked Peichi.

  Omar looked up at Peichi. “I don’t know if you can handle it,” he kidded her. “You have to be really strong, like me.”

  “I am really strong!” retorted Peichi.

  “Come on over, Peichi,” said Carmen.

  Peichi tried, then handed the rolling pin to Shawn. Soon everyone wanted to use the rolling pin, even the other boys.

  “Okay, everyone, the dough is ready now,” announced Carmen after a while. “It’s as thin as we can get it. Now we’ll make the filling. You can go back to what you were doing, and when we re ready to make the ravioli, everyone will get to make some.”

  It was easy to make the spinach filling. Shawn’s group quickly cooked the spinach in boiling water, then chopped it. They heated some olive oil in a pan and threw in some minced garlic. After it had softened, they added the spinach, salt, and pepper. They let the mixture cool, then added an egg, Parmesan cheese, and even a little nutmeg, which was a spice that Shawn had used in cookies before.

  “It seems weird to put nutmeg in with spinach and garlic and cheese,” she commented to Carmen.

  “Don’t worry! It’ll be good,” Carmen assured her. “It just adds a little special something.”

  Soon it was time to make t
he ravioli. Carmen stopped the class again so everyone could watch. “This is the fun part!” she announced.

  As everyone hung around the table to watch, Carmen quickly cut the thin pasta dough into wide strips. “Now we’ll add the filling,” she said. Shawn’s group dropped spoonfuls of the spinach mixture evenly in rows on top of half the dough, about an inch apart.

  “Don’t put too much filling in,” warned Carmen, “because when you cook the ravioli, the thin dough can break apart.”

  Then Carmen folded half the dough over the half with the filling, sealed the sides with her finger, and pressed down to seal the dough between the little mounds of spinach.

  “Now we just have to cut it into pieces,” said Carmen, brushing some flour off of her hands. She looked up. “Here, Freddie, you do it.”

  Freddie flashed a smile. “I love this part! he said, walking toward the table.

  He took a pastry wheel, which was just a handle with a wheel at the end that had points all around it. He rolled the pastry wheel through the dough in between the spinach mounds.

  “Ta-da!” said Freddie. “Ravioli!”

  “The little raviolis look so cute!” observed Peichi.

  The boys snickered.

  “Aw, so cute!” said some boy. imitating Peichi.

  Peichi rolled her eyes.

  “Now someone else can try,” Freddie said.

  “Oooh! Let me, let me!” cried some of the kids, pushing toward the table.

  “Everyone can take a turn,” said Freddie, handing the pastry wheel to Amanda. “We made a lot of ravioli.”

  “What are we going to put on top of it?” asked Amanda as she carefully rolled the pastry wheel through the dough. “A tomato sauce?”

  “A tomato sauce is a great topping,” said Carmen.

  “Or a meat sauce,” added Freddie.

  “But today we re going to top it with butter, a fresh herb called sage, and some Parmesan cheese,” Carmen went on. “It’s so simple, and it tastes great.”

  “So, why do we put the chicken under a brick? Or a rock? Or whatever?” Peichi had asked Freddie when he’d come by her group’s table at the beginning of class.

  “It makes a crispy chicken,” replied Freddie as he opened a package containing a whole chicken. “We’re going to butterfly, or split, this chicken, and marinate it. ‘Marinate’ means to soak it in a type of sauce to give it flavor.”

  “What’s in the sauce?” asked Thomas.

  “Actually, we call the sauce ‘marinade,’” said Freddie. “This marinade has salt, garlic, olive oil, and fresh rosemary. Believe me, there’s nothing better than rosemary on chicken! Amanda, you can start to make the marinade. Chop this garlic—not too small, please. And Peichi, you can mince this fresh rosemary—

  “Mmmm! This rosemary smells so good!” interrupted Peichi, as she held the leaves near her nose.

  “Connor,” continued Freddie. “I’ll help you cut off the excess fat. Then you can wash the chicken and pat it dry with some paper towels. I’ll show you how to take the backbone out of the chicken.”

  “Cool!” said the boys.

  “Gross,” said Amanda.

  “Don’t do this without an adult,” said Freddie, reaching for a heavy knife. “You can always ask the butcher at the supermarket to do it for you. The breast needs to be face-up...I’ll just cut along one side of the backbone from front to back, and take it out...now see how the chicken lays flat?”

  Peichi and Amanda combined the rosemary leaves, garlic, and some salt with olive oil, then rubbed the mixture all over the chicken.

  “We can put some marinade under the skin, too,” suggested Freddie. “Thomas, take a spoonful and slide it under the skin.”

  “Okay,” said Thomas. “That’ll make the flavor really come out, right?

  “Right.”

  “Now what?” asked Amanda.

  “We’ll refrigerate it,” replied Freddie. “Until we re ready to cook it. How we can start on the biscotti. f>iscoHi are twice-baked cookies, so they take a while to do. but first you better wash your hands. And dont forget to use soap!”

  “I know what biscotti are,” Connor as he dried his hands. “They look really hard to make.”

  “You guys can handle it!” said Freddie. “Here’s the recipe. Just follow it and you’ll be all right. Now I’m going to check on the salad group.”

  Meanwhile, Molly and Natasha’s group was busy making the salad and stirring the risotto.

  “We’re going swimming later at Peichi’s,” Molly told Natasha. “Do you want to come, too?”

  Natasha didn’t look up from the risotto she was stirring. “I can’t go anywhere,” she said. “Except here. I’m grounded for a week. I can’t go anywhere except for this class.”

  “Grounded! Why?”

  “Well, I went over to your house without telling my mom where I was going. I sneaked out.”

  “So that’s why you—you left so suddenly yesterday.”

  “Uh-huh. I started getting a stomachache, cause I knew my mom was looking for me and freaking out, so I had to go. I didn’t want to tell everyone that, though. Anyway, I got into a lot of trouble when I got home.”

  “So why is your mom giving you a tea party? I mean, that doesn’t sound like a punishment.” commented Molly.

  Natasha just shrugged, so Molly decided not to ask her any more questions.

  Half an hour later, the class was psyched. It was almost time to eat! The risotto was almost ready, the salad was done, the cookies were baking, and the ravioli was boiling. Everything smelled great.

  “We’re hungry,” shouted the boys in the chicken group. They were carefully watching the bread for the bruschetta that they were toasting under the broiler.

  “Heads up, everybody!” called Carmen across the room. “We’re going to cook the chicken now!” She looked at the bruschetta boys. “Take that out now,” she said. “Rub some garlic in, brush the olive oil over the bread, and put a little salt and pepper on top.”

  Carmen heated some olive oil in a pan. “Here we go!” she said. She placed the chicken in the pan, skin side down, and threw in some garlic and rosemary. “Now we weigh the chicken down.” She put a skillet on top of the chicken.

  “Now,” she said, “my helpful assistant, Peichi, will hand me the rocks.”

  Peichi giggled and reached for the rocks.

  “One rock. Two rocks. Thank you.” Carmen set the rocks on top of the skillet that was on top of the chicken. “There! Chicken under a brick! Or rocks, that is. I’m cooking it on a high heat for ten minutes, and then I’ll roast it in the oven for about fifteen minutes. All we have to do after that is take the weights off, turn the chicken over, and roast it another ten minutes.”

  Finally, it was time to eat.

  “Who’s the hungriest person here?” Freddie asked the class.

  “Me!” called Connor.

  “No, me!” said Omar.

  “Then you guys get to help me take the food out to the table,” said Freddie. “You too, Natasha.”

  So Natasha and the boys helped Freddie put the food on pretty platters and in bowls, and carry it out to the back room. The room was small, and a big table took up most of it. Carmen had set the table with a dark blue tablecloth, blue-and-white china plates, fancy glasses, and cloth napkins that matched the tablecloth.

  “Waiter, I need some service,” cracked Ryan to Omar as he put the bowl of risotto on the table.

  “It feels like Thanksgiving!” said Peichi, giggling. “Natasha! Sit here!” She patted the empty chair next to her.

  The first time the class had sat down together to eat, it felt a little funny. Everything looked so fancy and not all the kids knew each other, since they came from all over Brooklyn. But now things were starting to feel less awkward. It didn’t seem as strange to eat, talk, and laugh together.

  “Yo, man, put your napkin on your lap,” Omar told Connor. “And please pass the ravioli!”

  “I will, man, chill out,”
said Connor. Omar and Connor were always kidding around.

  Natasha spoke up. “Please pass the chicken under a brick’!”

  Everyone laughed, and Natasha smiled her first real smile all day.

  chapter 6

  After class, Amanda, Molly. Shawn, and Peichi hung out with Natasha on the sidewalk outside Park Terrace Cookware.

  “I’m stuffed,” said Molly. “That was great. Especially that ravioli.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Natasha. Her smile was gone.

  “Here comes your mom, Natasha,” said Shawn.

  Natasha didn’t turn around. “Can you believe she won’t even let me walk here by myself?” she asked. “She thinks I’m five years old.”

  “Well, I wish you could come over today.” said Peichi. “You’d love my pool! And we’ve made up all these games to play in it. And we re making a video. My dad lets me use his video camera, as long as I’m careful with it—”

  “Okay, bye, Natasha,” interrupted Molly. She didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Ross again. “Let us know about the tea party.”

  The friends turned around and walked toward Peichi’s house.

  “So, when is this tea party?” asked Peichi. She was annoyed at Molly for cutting her off. She’d wanted to meet Mrs. Ross and see if she would be invited, too.

  “We don’t know,” replied Shawn. “I wonder if she’ll have fancy china? And little cakes?”

  “Knowing me, I’ll break a teacup,” moaned Molly. Everyone giggled.

  “What’ll I wear?” Amanda muttered.

  “Yeah, what do you wear to a lea party?” asked Shawn.

  “Don’t ask me,” replied Molly with a shrug. “I think this is gonna be crazy! Like something out of the tea party in Alice in Wonderland!”

  “Yeah, Mrs. Ross will be the mean queen,” joked Peichi. Everyone cracked up, except Amanda. She was picturing herself walking in Natasha’s front door. Mrs. Ross would be standing there with her hands on her hips, staring at her, trying to make her nervous, but Amanda would be looking so cool in her flower-print tank dress...no, her butter-yellow capris with the embroidery along the hem, and white peasant top...