Cooking and Other Experiements
Scott glared at the onion in front of him and wondered if just blasting it into bits would qualify as "dicing" it. What he seemed to be doing with his knife was hacking it into enormous fragments, which he didn't think was quite the point. He turned the knife around in his hand, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.
"Think of it as dissection," Hank said, applying his own knife to a stalk of celery to much better effect.
"That doesn't help," Scott said. "Anyway, why would you dissect an onion?"
"I wouldn't," Hank said, "but if you wanted an elementary lesson in miscroscopic plant biology, you could prepare a slide --"
"I don't," Scott said. He glanced at the turkey awaiting its stuffing, hoping Hank wouldn't suggest dissecting it.
This had seemed like a good idea when Jean had suggested it. Well, it had seemed like a somewhat scary idea, but Jean had seemed so enthusiastic about it, and he suspected in part she was doing it for him. He wasn't sure how to tell her that it wasn't just that having Thanksgiving dinner arrive in catering boxes was depressing, it was that Thanksgiving was depressing. You were supposed to be with your family on Thanksgiving.
He remembered his mother wrestling with the oven in the last house they had lived in, swearing and laughing and wiping sweat away from her forehead with the back of her hand once she'd finally managed to arrange the turkey in the tiny oven. He hadn't thought about cooking Thanksgiving dinner himself one day; he supposed he'd assumed that someday he'd be married, and his wife would ...
"There's no harm in learning to cook, assuming you like to eat," Professor Xavier said. Scott jumped and nearly severed his finger. He hadn't realized the Professor had come into the kitchen. "Although starting with Thanksgiving dinner might be a bit ambitious."
"We're fine," Jean said, coming in after him. She was wearing an apron over her t-shirt and jeans, and she looked determined, if not entirely confident. "We have recipes, and everything."
"Yes," Professor Xavier said, glancing at the oven as if measuring the chances that it might explode. All it was doing was pre-heating at the moment, so that seemed unlikely. "Please don't cut your fingers off, Scott."
"I'm fine," Scott said, hacking violently at the onion to prove it. "Where's Professor Lehnsherr?"
"Still asleep, I believe," Professor Xavier said. "He's never quite seen the point of this holiday." He took the knife out of Scott's hand and began cutting the onion into neat cubes. "It's a vegetable, not an enemy."
"Right," Scott said. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk about his bad attitude toward onions in front of Hank and Jean, who were stirring together an enormous bowl of stuffing mix, into which Jean was adding solemnly-measured amounts of celery and walnuts.
"Where's Warren?" Jean asked.
"Still asleep, I think," Scott said. "He says he doesn't do cooking."
"That's what he thinks," Jean said. "There's plenty to do after the turkey goes in the oven."
Professor Xavier handed over the cutting board full of onions, and Jean added them to the stuffing. She and Hank contemplated the stuffing and the bird somewhat dubiously.
"I'll let you figure this one out," Professor Xavier said. "Scott, would you come help me find the turkey platter? I'm fairly sure there is one somewhere."
"I don't think she knows what she's doing," Scott said once the door had closed behind him.
"There's a lot to be said for trial and error," Professor Xavier said. "At worst, we can always order a pizza."
"I know, it's just ..."
"Not the same?" Professor Xavier opened one of the tall china cabinets, investigating one of its lower shelves. "What do you want to be different?"
I want my real family , Scott thought, but there wasn't any point in saying it. He squatted down to look for the platter himself, gingerly lifting pieces of antique china and setting them down again carefully. "How come you didn't do this last year? I mean, you can cook."
Professor Xavier shrugged. "I've never really been that nostalgic for my childhood holidays," he said. "Anyway, they involved a full kitchen staff in pressed aprons, not experimental onion dissection."
"I guess having a kitchen staff isn't really an option with us here."
"Neither is a good restaurant in Manhattan." Professor Xavier retrieved a large platter from the cabinet with a satisfied look. "But there's a time for everything. Including being thankful for what you have."
Scott stayed still for a moment, trying to decide how angry he was about being told he ought to be grateful when his parents were dead. After a moment he realized he wasn't actually angry. He knew Professor Xavier meant that it could be worse, and he knew that it could. It would be worse for any of them to be alone.
"My mom used to make this sweet potato casserole with little marshmallows on it," Scott said slowly.
"There are marshmallows in the pantry," Professor Xavier said. "Better vegetables have been sacrificed in the name of holiday tradition."
"I don't really know what I'm doing. It might explode."
"Then Hank will have a chemical mystery to investigate, which will make him happy," Professor Xavier said. "And you will get to scrub sweet potatoes off the walls."
Scott thought it might be worth the risk.