Dinner Disaster

With Kabe’s arrival around the corner, and Freya’s constant “pushing” of home cooked meals, Teri finally (and reluctantly) decided to attempt cooking. Kabe would be home in two weeks, so she would have to perfect her skills very soon. I guess I’ll make some tomato soup, Heidi makes her soups look easy, decided Teri as she planned it out in her head. A pot of red soup, where Breeze and Freya admire me and my excellent cooking skills!

That morning, Teri drove to Natalie Charcoal Cat’s three story house and asked to borrow her pot and two bowls. “Why, anything for you, Teri!” Natalie says with her typical enthusiasm.

Teri smiles, “Thank you very much, Natalie. I’ll give these back tomorrow.”

“Good luck, Teri! Maybe you can throw a dinner party once you get the hang of it?”

“That’s not a bad idea, Natalie, good thinking,” agrees Teri.

As Teri returned, she excitedly got out her supplies. Chopping board, knife, tomato, salt, pepper, pot, pan, mentally listed Teri.

She began carefullying cutting a small cut into the tomato. Then she began to boil water and plop the red fruit in, a small pinch of salt and pepper was added. Teri sighed with satisfaction as the water slowly became red after watching for 15 minutes. The cut in the tomato allowed the juices and seeds to seep out and into the hot water.

“Oh mother, just imagine everything else you can cook!” exclaims Teri’s daughter.

Teri smiles too, “Yes, yes. I’ll be an amazing cook!”

“Maybe we can even add some of the vegetables you bought into the salads from the Delicious Restaurant!” grins Freya.

“One step at a time, Freya.”

How will the tomato cook in hot water? Wondered Teri, I guess I can roast it a bit with the nice pan Heidi got me. Teri grabbed her tongs and removed the tomato from Natalie’s pot and into the pan.

The mother then grabbed the spatula and started moving the tomato around in the pan. “All this cooking is hard work,” declares Teri, “Freya! Pour me a glass of lemonade, please!”

Freya hands her mother a glass and watches the tomato with wide eyes. She screams, “Mom! The tomato’s on fire!”

“Nonsense, Freya!” waves off Teri before yelling, “AHHHHH! IT’S ON FIRE!”

Instantly, Teri pours her cup of lemonade into the pan and with a sizzle, the flames die out. “Well, I hope you don’t mind some lemon flavor in your soup.”

“I just want the soup in to come out in one piece!” grumbles Freya.

Teri laughs, “Freya, how can soup not come out in one piece?”

“With you, anything is possible.”

“Why, thank you, Freya,” agrees Teri.

Freya sighs and gets back to studying her English.

Teri carefully picks up her burnt tomato with the tongs and pops in back into the simmering pot, filled with red liquid. “Ah, Freya, HELP!”

“What’s wrong?” Freya asks, looking at her screaming mother.

Teri goes silent for a while before pointing out that the soup stained her dress. “I hope it washes out,” worries Teri as she quickly rushes off to the shower.

Freya sighs again, and tells herself, “At this rate of the so called ‘disasters’ and pauses in cooking, we’ll have dinner by midnight.”

With both her mother and sister busy, young Breeze makes a quick nab for a fork and a slice of cake before retreating to a corner of the room, little do they know Breeze has already had her dinner.

With the soup almost done, it’s time to set the table. Teri didn’t have any spoons on paw, so she made a quick trip to her sister’s house to borrow hers. Freya would watch Breeze and when their mother returned, dinner would be ready. “Would you like any drinks, Aunt Teri?” asks Grace, Teri’s niece as Teri entered.

“No thank you, but it was very nice of you to ask,” praises Teri, knowing that her niece would love to be seen as mature big girl.

Grace grins ear to ear and lets Heidi know that her older sister had arrived. “Hi Teri, how are things going?”

“VERY TERI, of course,” comments Teri, “Say, could I borrow your spoons? I am making some delicious tomato soup.”

Heidi smiles warmly, “Help yourself, Teri. Let me go get some salt and pepper biscuits to go with your soup.”

Heidi disappears into the kitchen and soon returns with a green basket containing biscuits and two silver spoons. “Much appreciated, sis, see you tomorrow!”

“Bye! Tell me all about it tomorrow!” exclaims her eager sister.

The trip back to the Lakeside Lodge was a peaceful one and Teri was already planning another dish to make as soon as she mastered cooking tomato soup. After Teri arrived home, she seasoned the soup some more, watched proudly at her creation.

However an hour full of disasters passed, which included more slices of cake missing, soaking wet homework and an overdosage of pepper, Teri finally begins to serve her soup. From the pot to the bowl, easy as pie, the Choch mother tells herself. Fortunately, this was the only part of the process where Teri doesn’t mess up. “Dinner is served!” she announces to her two daughters.

Breeze and Freya peers into the metal pot to find red soup, accompanied with lots of pepper corns and one big wrinkly, burnt tomato.

Breeze grins nervously, “Looks VERY TERI.”

Teri nods, “Yes, yes, of course.”

“Ah CHOO!” Freya sneezes, “Mother, I think you went overboard with the pepper.”

Teri scratches her head, “Hmmm, let me go get the salt to balance out the flavors.”

Teri carelessly pours the salt into her daughter’s bowl until the lid pops out and all the salt spills inside Freya’s bowl. Then, the salt began to absorb Freya’s soup until there was only red salt crystals left. Freya stares blankly into the empty bowl. “Mom, the soup is gone,” comments the confused rabbit.

“I’ll get you another bowl, but let me try it first,” Teri answers with much confidence despite all the events it took to get to this point.

Freya and Breeze watch in anticipation, Teri takes several sips before concluding that the soup is missing something. “Hmmm, it’s missing something. It doesn’t have the same taste as...as...as PIZZA!”

“Mom! You know how unhealthy and greasy pizza is!” yells Freya.

Ignoring her daughter’s reasons, Teri goes out, hops into her Cherry Cruiser and leaves to town.

There she would purchase her favorite food for dinner, instead of having salty, red, burnt soup.

Once Teri was gone Freya mutters under her beath, “Introducing, a cook even worse than Pearl Babblebrook. Meet, Teri Choch!”

Pearl Babblebrooke was well known in Sylvania (where Teri, Freya and Breeze lived with the rest of their family until they moved to the countryside of Cloverleaf Corners. The rest of the Chocolate Rabbits would join them once everything was settled in Sylvania), Pearl was the Babblebrooks’ grandmother. She was a kind, sweet rabbit who offered any cooking advice as long as someone would listen. Unfortunately, Pearl wasn’t the best cook and often her dishes came out botched. Everyone just didn’t have the heart to tell her, so instead they would listen carefully and follow their own recipes when Pearl looked the other way. Freya remembered the stories of how her father followed Pearl’s recipe for chocolate cake and ended up have a burnt, dry cake that looked pink.

“I brought pizza!” Teri yells as she enters the Lakeside Lodge.

Freya smiles, “Yay, there's dinner!”

“Wait a minute where’s Breeze?” asks Teri.

Young Breeze happily sat in the corner of the house enjoying her own “dinner”, an ice cream sundae!