Phineas L. MacGuire...Gets Cooking! Read online

I’m not allowed to use the stove.

  “Hey, Sarah!” I called. “How am I supposed to cook dinner if turning on the stove is against the rules?”

  Sarah came in from the living room, where she’d been having a tea party with Margaret. “Do you know how to turn it on?”

  I felt my face turn red. “Uh, not really.”

  “No need to be embarrassed, little buddy,” Sarah said, patting me on the shoulder, which made me feel even more embarrassed. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  Then she showed me what I needed to do. We have a gas stove, which is pretty cool, because you have to get the gas going and then twist the knob to just the right place. Swoosh! A flame pops up and you’re ready to cook!

  The instructions on the pasta box said I had to let the water come to a boil before I put the spaghetti in the pot. I didn’t know how long that would take, so I thought I’d go ahead and pour the sauce into another pan and start heating that up. Which is where I ran into my second problem.

  I couldn’t get the lid off the jar.

  “Like I said, there’s a first time for everything, right?” Sarah said, patting me on the back again. “The trick to this is use a rubber glove. It gives you more traction, which, in case you’re wondering, is just another word for adhesive force.”

  I hadn’t been wondering, actually, but it was good to know.

  Sarah wrapped the lid with one of the yellow rubber gloves by the sink, took a deep breath, and twisted. The top popped off.

  “Know why the jar makes that popping sound when it comes off?” Sarah asked.

  “Um, I’m not sure,” I said, my face getting even redder. I was starting to feel like a total failurezoid in the lab. “Maybe it’s gas that’s being released from the jar? Maybe the contents are under pressure, and then you open the lid and everything rushes out?”

  Sarah nodded. “That sounds like a good explanation. Hey, do you know how to turn on the oven? You need to start preheating it for the garlic bread.”

  That, I did know.

  Five minutes later I had the sauce heating up in a pot, the garlic bread unwrapped and on a baking tray, and the box of spaghetti ready to dump in the water, just as soon as the water started to boil.

  I also had six spaghetti sauce stains on Lyle’s shirt, but I was pretty sure they’d wash out.

  Then a couple of things happened all at once. One, my mom got home from work. Two, Sarah started giving her the daily report. Three, the water came to a boiling point, which means, in case you’re wondering, that it had reached a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

  So while my mom and Sarah were talking, I dumped the spaghetti into the pot. All two pounds of it.

  That might not have been the greatest idea in the world.

  • • •

  After dinner was over, I decided to write a lab report, which is what scientists do, whether their experiments are successful or not. I wrote down the name of the experiment, the steps I had taken, and the results. Finally, I wrote down a list of everything I’d learned, including:

  1. After you put spaghetti in boiling water, you need to stir it. Otherwise, it all clumps together into one big pasta log.

  2. It’s also a good idea to stir your spaghetti sauce if you don’t want most of it to burn to the bottom of the pot.

  3. Two pounds of pasta is enough to feed a family of four for about a week.

  4. When you cook pasta for forty minutes, it sort of disintegrates. Forget about eating it. I mean, just totally forget about it.

  5. Cheerios for dinner is really pretty good, especially with garlic bread.

  chapter four

  I spent lunch today reading this book my mom gave me called The Joy of Cooking. After last night’s dinner disaster, I thought I’d be kicked off kitchen duty, but my mom says every cook makes mistakes, especially at the beginning, and the only way to learn is to try, try again.

  Actually, my mom was pretty nice about me ruining dinner. The only thing that made her mad was me wearing Lyle’s shirt. She was a little bit irritated because I got spaghetti sauce on it, and slightly more irritated that I’d spent eight bucks on the sauce in the first place, but she was super mad because wearing oversize clothing—especially a big shirt with long sleeves—in the kitchen is dangerous.

  “Safety in the lab is a scientist’s number one priority,” she told me. “So tomorrow night, wear a T-shirt.”

  At lunch, I was reading the chapter called “Know Your Ingredients” when Ben practically skidded into the chair next to me.

  “Fantastizoid news, Mac!” he exclaimed, smacking a piece of paper on top of my book. “Your great cooking experiment could not come at a better time! Just look at this contest we’re going to win!”

  I glanced at the piece of paper, which looked like it had been torn out of a magazine. THE COOKING CHANNEL’S FIRST ANNUAL RECIPE CONTEST! the headline shouted up at me in superbright yellow letters. ENTER AND WIN $10,000, PLUS A BRAND-NEW KITCHEN!

  “What do I need a brand-new kitchen for?” I asked, pushing the announcement back toward Ben. “I’ve already got a kitchen.”

  Ben shook his head. “It’s not the kitchen we’re after, Mac. It’s the money! Ten thousand buckaroos! We’ll split it fifty-fifty and each still have a load of dough. Me, I’m using my half to go to Hawaii and learn how to surf.”

  Ben’s big dream has always been to be a rock star surfboarder. Well, his big big dream is to be a famous cartoonist, and he thinks surfing is a part of the cartoonist lifestyle.

  I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff.

  “Okay, so the money would be nice,” I said. “The only problem is, I’m just learning how to cook, and you don’t know how to cook at all. So how are we supposed to come up with some award-winning recipe?”

  “We’ll spend this weekend having a Cooking Channel marathon at my apartment,” Ben said, sounding confident. “We’ll pick up all sorts of useful information, some good cooking tips and what have you, and by Sunday we’ll figure out a great recipe. According to the announcement, we have to e-mail our recipe, preferably with pics of the finished product, by Monday, April 8. That gives us two and a half weeks.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud popping noise to my left. I turned and saw Aretha popping her pencil against the table. At our school, fourth-grade boys and girls don’t sit together at lunch, even when they’re fellow scientists. If you do, people will automatically start calling you boyfriend and girlfriend.

  I try to avoid that at all costs, and so does Aretha. So what we usually do at lunch is sit at tables next to each other, in case we have any important scientific information to share.

  Aretha had her Girl Scout Handbook open in front of her, but she was looking straight at me. “Two weeks isn’t much time, Mac. The good news is you’re in luck. I’ve just started working on a cooking badge, and helping you would help me.”

  “But I don’t really know how to cook,” I repeated. “I think it would help to know how to actually cook stuff if I wanted to make up my own recipe.”

  “Yeah, which is where my great idea comes in,” Aretha said. “See, I’ve got to do this unit on eggs to get my badge. My dad’s going to teach me how to cook eggs on Saturday, and it would be a lot more fun if you and Ben were there. I bet my dad would give us all kinds of helpful cooking hints. Plus, I’ve got to make up an egg recipe and come up with a food science project. So we can brainstorm together. Three brains are better than one.” She glanced at Ben. “Or two brains. Whatever.”

  Aretha started packing up her lunch bag. “The thing about coming up with recipes is, you don’t have to be totally original. Think of something you really love to eat, and then imagine ways you could make it better.”

  “Right!” Ben exclaimed. “Like me, personally, I love a banana–peanut butter smoothie. And you know what would make that even more better? Bacon. See! I’m a genius! We’ve got this contest in the bag.”

  “You think you’re going to win with a banana,
peanut butter, and bacon smoothie?” I asked.

  “You think I should throw some strawberry jelly in there too?”

  Aretha and I looked at each other. Then we looked at Ben.

  Then we both yelled “No!” so loud that everybody in the cafeteria turned around and looked at us.

  Ben shrugged. “It was just an idea.”

  “So what are you going to cook for dinner tonight, Mac?” Aretha asked, closing her Girl Scout Handbook. It was almost time to go out to the playground for recess.

  “My mom said maybe I should try something simple, like homemade waffles. Which would be good, since we’ve got all the ingredients.”

  “I love breakfast for dinner!” Ben said. “As long as you still get real dessert, that is.”

  I lugged The Joy of Cooking out with me to the playground. I was pretending it was a chemistry textbook, which it sort of was, although it probably had more oatmeal cookie recipes than your average chemistry textbook. While Ben went to play soccer with a bunch of third graders, I sat down on the stairs by the door and got back to reading about ingredients.

  It was actually a lot more interesting than you might think.

  For instance, I learned that yeast cells reproduce really fast if you give them some warm water and sugar. It turns out that water and sugar are to yeast what chocolate-chip ice cream is to human beings.

  While the cells are growing and reproducing, they produce these things called enzymes. When I looked this up in the dictionary later, I learned that enzymes are catalysts for chemical reactions. In other words, enzymes are the movers and shakers of the chemical world. The enzymes produced by the yeast convert starch into sugar. The yeast eats the sugar and then produces carbon dioxide gas, and that’s what makes the dough get all puffy.

  To put it another way, it’s kind of like the yeast ate a bunch of junk food and farted.

  But in a good way.

  I was just starting to get into the section on baking powder and biscuits when a shadow fell over the page. I looked up and saw Evan Forbes. As always, he was wearing red Chucks, a gray hoodie, and a blue-and-red-striped T-shirt. It was sort of his uniform. He kicked up some dust with one of his Chucks and sneered at me.

  I knew that whatever happened next, it would not be good.

  I’ve never understood kids like Evan Forbes. For one thing, it seems like he lives to make other kids unhappy. For another thing, he never does his homework. Just today, Mrs. Tuttle dismissed us for lunch but told Evan to wait. I was the last one out of the classroom, so I overheard her say, “I’m going to have to call your parents, Evan. This is the third time this week you haven’t turned in your math assignment.”

  “Go ahead,” Evan had answered in a loud voice, like he didn’t care if anybody heard. “My parents say it’s my choice. If I don’t feel like doing homework, I don’t have to.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. I glanced back over my shoulder, expecting to see Evan looking all tough and mean, but to my surprise he sort of looked like he was about to cry.

  It was pretty weird, if you want to know the truth.

  “Hey, Mr. Top Chef!” Evan said, reaching down and flipping my book shut. “I thought you were some hotshot scientist or something, but I guess I was wrong about that. It turns out you’re a culinary artist!”

  Actually, I was kind of impressed by Evan’s vocabulary. “Culinary” was a pretty advanced word for a Neanderthal like him.

  “I am a scientist,” I told him. “Have you ever heard of something called a molecular gastronomist?”

  “I’ve heard of a chowderhead,” Evan said. “That’s what you look like to me.”

  “I don’t know how to make chowder yet,” I said. I was trying to make a joke, but my voice came out sort of squeaky. “Besides, I think I might be allergic to clams. I’m allergic to a lot of stuff.”

  Have I mentioned that I’m allergic to fifteen things, including avocados, cottage cheese, grape jelly, celery, and anything purple? My mom says that the only things I’m actually allergic to are peanuts and cat hair, but I have documented proof that purple ink gives me hives.

  Evan shook his head. “I oughta clobber you. But, listen, I’m gonna give you a break. My sources tell me you’re all into this cooking thing now, and I could really use some brownies. My mom’s on this health kick, and sugar’s, like, against the law in my house. I haven’t had a brownie in two weeks. So here’s the deal—you make me some brownies, and I’ll let you live a little while longer.”

  “Why don’t you just go to the store and buy some brownies?” I asked.

  Evan shook his head. “Store-bought brownies aren’t the same as homemade. Not even in the same universe. So meet me here tomorrow before school with a dozen brownies in an unmarked paper bag. That is, if you’re interested in keeping all your teeth.”

  I watched Evan walk across the playground and join a game of football. It was supposed to be touch football, but every time the playground monitor turned her back, somebody got tackled. I mean, tackled as in thrown down to the ground and trampled on.

  Scientifically speaking, I was in big trouble.

  chapter five

  There were a few minutes left in recess, so I ran down to Mr. Reid’s office. Maybe he could give me some helpful hints for baking brownies.

  “The best recipe I know is in that book you’re holding right there,” Mr. Reid told me. “Let’s take a look, and I’ll walk you through it.”

  Mr. Reid pulled up a chair next to his desk, and we both sat down. “So when do you want to make these brownies?” he asked, searching the The Joy of Cooking’s index for the recipe.

  “As soon as possible,” I told him. I didn’t mention that my life might depend on it. “The minute I get home from school.”

  “Do you know if you’ve got what you need?” He found the brownie recipe page and ran his finger down the list of ingredients. “Do you have butter and eggs?”

  I nodded.

  “Flour and sugar?”

  I nodded again.

  “Four ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate?”

  This time I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure we have chocolate chips. Could I just use those?”

  “Nope, because the recipe already has sugar in it, you see. But no worries—I always keep a few baking supplies in my drawer here.” Mr. Reid pulled out his bottom desk drawer, and I could see that he wasn’t kidding. There were plastic containers marked FLOUR and SUGAR and boxes of salt, baking powder, and baking soda. At the very back was a box labeled BAKING CHOCOLATE.

  “Sometimes, if one of the teachers is having a bad day, I take my ingredients up to the kitchen and bake ’em something. I’m pretty famous around here for my brownies, as a matter of fact.”

  Mr. Reid shook four little blocks of chocolate wrapped in wax paper out of the box and handed them to me. “Now, the tricky thing about chocolate is that it burns really easily when you melt it. So what you have to do is chop it up and put it in a microwave-safe bowl with the butter, which you need to cut up into cubes. Microwave it for forty-five seconds, stir, and microwave it again—but only for forty-five seconds. Let it sit a minute, then microwave it for maybe thirty seconds.”

  “Why does chocolate burn so easily?”

  “Low melting temperature,” Mr. Reid explained. “It melts in your mouth, right? So let’s say it melts at ninety degrees. Heat it up much higher than that, the cocoa butter separates from the solids and everything burns up. It’s not pretty.”

  “I wonder why things have different melting points,” I said. “I mean, all liquids have the same boiling point, right? And everything freezes at the same point, when they get below thirty-two degrees.”

  “Actually, Mac, only water freezes at thirty-two degrees,” Mr. Reid told me. “Everything has its own freezing point, which is usually the same as its melting point. It just depends on whether something’s moving toward the state of becoming a solid or becoming a liquid.”

  I must have looked as confused as I felt,
because Mr. Reid smiled and said, “Just think about a piece of ice, Mac. Ice is frozen water. Freezes at thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, right? So when does that piece of ice start to melt?”

  I thought about it for a minute and then made a guess. “Eighty degrees?”

  Mr. Reid shook his head. “Way too high, Mac. Now, this might twist your brain into a knot, but the melting point of ice and the freezing point of ice are exactly the same. It’s called being in equilibrium. So water freezes at thirty-two degrees, but ice can be considered to be melting at thirty-two degrees. If chocolate melts at ninety degrees, it also is starting to freeze at ninety degrees.”

  You know the weird thing? I almost understood what Mr. Reid was saying.

  Almost.

  But not really.

  “Okay, enough about thermodynamics,” Mr. Reid said, looking at his watch. “You should be back in your classroom. Do you have any more questions about brownies? You can always call me at home later. Just follow the instructions, Mac. Cooking is chemistry, right?”

  “Right.” I nodded, trying to look confident. All I knew for sure was that if I burned the chocolate, I couldn’t make the brownies, and if I didn’t make brownies, I was a goner.

  When Ben heard I was making brownies, he immediately wanted to help. “This could be like practice for when we come up with our prizewinning recipe. We could mix stuff in the brownie batter—you know, experiment. We could mix in bacon!”

  “You’re obsessed with bacon,” I told him. “Bacon in brownies, bacon in milk shakes. Bacon’s not even healthy.”

  “My mom says that nitrate-free bacon isn’t so bad.” Ben lowered his voice to a whisper, since Mrs. Tuttle was giving us the evil eye for talking during silent reading period. “The fact is, Mac, bacon just makes everything better. That’s sort of my motto.”

  “Well, I’m not putting bacon in these brownies,” I whispered back. “And I’m—I’m not allowed to have anyone over today. You know, since I messed up Lyle’s shirt and everything.”