Excerpt from Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest (CB Leaver): Kitchen Chaos

Kitchen Chaos

My mommy is a very nice mommy, but she is a very bad cook. When my sister needed to take some deviled eggs to Rain­bow Girls’ meeting, my mommy made them. Mommy didn’t re­ally want to make them. She wanted to find some place to buy them. However, the leader of the Rainbow Girls’ chapter told Mommy that they were asking all the mommies to make, not buy, the food contributions in order to set a good example for the girls in the chapter. Some example!

Against her better judgment and protesting all the way, my sister, Fawn, took them to her meeting. We all knew what would happen. Sure enough, Fawn came back home with all the eggs except one. After one person had tasted one of the eggs, no one else wanted to eat them. Mommy said she did not understand what the problem was. She had made only one small change to the recipe. Since she did not have any paprika, she used some­thing that she thought would be okay because it looked very much like paprika: cayenne pepper.

That’s how my mommy cooks, and I guess that’s how she always cooked. When she was a little girl, she cooked a cake for Grandpa. He did not like it. He said it was not fit for the pigs, and he threw it into the pigpen. Mommy was very unhappy. The pigs would not eat her cake, and every day when she slopped the pigs, she saw the cake sitting in the comer of the pigpen where the pigs had pushed it away. I guess at some point, it just disappeared because it was something called biodegradable. At least, that’s what I think happened because years later when I stayed on Grandma’s farm, I fell into the pigpen, and the cake was gone.

Mommy was very disappointed in Grandpa—and in the pigs. She thought maybe her friends would appreciate her cooking better than they do. So, she made another cake. Grandpa’s cake had been a spice cake, and Mommy had put in every spice in the cupboard (after all, it said to spice to test and she liked all the spices she had put in) to make sure she had all the ones that Grandpa liked. This time, Mommy decided to make just a plain old pound cake, but, of course, being rather creative by nature, she added her own touches to it. The cake turned out rather nicely—or so she thought. She took it to school and offered it to the cafeteria lady (believe it or not, the school actually let Mommy work in the cafeteria—but, of course, they did not let her cook). The cafeteria lady tested it. Yes! It was edible! So, she but it into pieces and put it out for the students to try, but nobody wanted any at all. All the pieces were still there when lunch was over. The cafeteria lady told Mommy that the students probably did not like Mommy’s innovation with food coloring. Most people aren’t eager to eat a cake that is green on the inside.

That’s why we don’t let Mommy cook! Mommy used to scare us. She told us that if we did not help clean up the house, she would cook supper. We really hurried and worked hard to get everything cleaned fast, so that Daddy would cook supper.

We learned to cook, too. I like the way my brother and sis­ters cook better than the way Mommy cooks. Mommy got mad about that once, though. She had an important visitor. My brother, who was twelve years old at that time, made pot roast for dinner. It was very good. Mommy was very pleased with him until the guest complimented him on his cooking, and he said. “Thank you, but in this house, knowing how to cook is self-defense.”

My mommy’s secretary, Jacqueline, was a good cook, though. So, once when it was my birthday, I called her and asked her to make my birthday cake. She said she could not because she would not be home that evening. I cried really hard. I told her that if she did not make my cake, Mommy would! So, Jacqueline told Mommy to buy me a cake. (Whew!)

Every once in a while, though, Mommy thinks that it is okay for her to cook. Once she decided to have a BBQ for all the people who worked for her. That was a good decision, and it should have been and actually was a lot of fun. She also decided that she would like to make braided bread for the BBQ. That was not a good decision, but it was fun. She made the dough, put it in a bowl to rise, and then became involved in other things until it was be time to braid the bread and bake it. While Mommy was working on other things, the doorbell rang. It was her secretary, Irene, who had come early to see if she could help with anything. Mommy thanked her and assured her that everything was under control. Irene did not believe her, though, because she could see some white stuff oozing out the kitchen door into the living room. It was Mommy’s dough! She had left it for too long, and it had risen up and out of the bowl, down the stove, and across the floor. Who knows where it would have run off to had Irene not shown up when she did?

Daddy lets Mommy cook Christmas dinner. I keep telling him not to, but lots of times it has turned out okay. Each time that was a very pleasant surprise. However, last year, it happened! I knew it would. Mommy burned the ham. We could not eat it; there was only a black outside shell—all the inside had burned away. No stores were open, so we all went to a restaurant for Christmas dinner. What can I say? I told Daddy not to let Mommy cook!

Conclusion:

Just putting on an apron does not make anyone a cook!

Read more posts about CB and his BOOK.