Miami!

by Giada De Laurentiis

  “You bought a sundress, too?” Stacey asked Emilia.

  “Yeah,” Emilia said. “We . . . um, didn’t pack light enough clothes for this hot weather!”

  Stacey laughed. “Miami is definitely hot. That’s for sure.”

  They stepped back out onto the sidewalk, and Alfie felt the sticky humidity surround him again. Hot was right. He couldn’t wait to get in the water!

  “Where should we change into our suits?” Emilia asked.

  “All the big hotels have bathrooms in the lobbies,” Stacey answered. “We’ll just go into one of those.”

  The trio made their way back toward the row of huge resorts. Alfie loved the salsa music pouring out of every store. He moved to the music as they walked.

  Stacey laughed. “Maybe we should find you a salsa lesson.”

  “That would be cool!” Alfie replied. “Let’s take a salsa lesson, Emilia!”

  “Maybe,” Emilia mumbled. “Let’s just get to the hotel.”

  Stacey led them to the entrance of the first big hotel in the row, and they ducked inside. Alfie drew in a breath as they stepped into the lobby. He’d never seen anything this grand before. They followed Stacey across the lobby and down a side hallway to the restrooms. They changed quickly and tucked the rest of their clothes into the shopping bag.

  “We can get out to the beach this way,” Stacey said as they made their way down the ornate hall. They passed through a set of tall, billowy curtains and landed on a terrace with an enormous pool in the middle of it. They were surrounded by more art deco–style buildings. Alfie thought it looked like a scene from an old Hollywood movie. Palm trees lined each side of the pool, and a path led to the back of the resort. Stacey opened a gate, and they exited onto the bike path they’d used earlier. They dodged bikes and Rollerbladers and made their way across the path and onto the sand. Alfie kicked off his shoes and buried his toes. The sand was warmer than it had been that morning. He loved that feeling more than anything!

  “We should have bought beach towels, too!” Emilia said.

  “Not to worry.” Stacey smiled. “Follow me.”

  They walked straight down the beach to a section of lounge chairs and umbrellas set up in neat and tidy rows. The chairs all had blue covers, and the umbrellas were a matching blue. Each one also carried the logo of the hotel they’d just walked through. It reminded Alfie of the Grand Lahaina in Maui.

  Stacey grabbed three towels from a stack outside a cabana on the sand. Then she walked down the beach, a little farther from the lounge chairs and closer to the water, and spread them out.

  Alfie dumped their shopping bag on top of one of the towels. “Let’s hit the water!” he said. He ran down to the water and let a wave lap over his feet. Just like the sand, the water was also warmer than it had been that morning, and it felt great. Then he noticed for the first time how small the waves really were. There was nothing that you could really ride or surf—not like Hawaii.

  As if reading his mind, Stacey said, “We don’t really get very big waves here in Miami. You have to go farther north along the Atlantic Coast to get any real ones.”

  But as soon as they were wading out and swimming, Alfie forgot all about the waves. The water felt so great, and being able to swim and play around without having to worry about big surf crashing all the time was also fun.

  After a while, they went back to their towels to dry off in the sun for a bit. But as soon as they got hot again, they’d run and plunge back in. After all of their recent beach adventures, Alfie decided that eventually he wanted to live near the ocean.

  As they dried off for the last time before returning to the festival, Alfie spotted something out in the water. “Is that a shark?” he asked, his heartbeat speeding up.

  Stacey laughed. “No, that’s a dolphin. Look! You can see a few of them together.”

  Alfie stood up and looked out again. “Cool!” he said, watching the pod of dolphins bound through the water. “I’ve never seen dolphins before.”

  “There are manatees, too, on the gulf side. Those are really cool. And huge!”

  “I guess we’ll have to go to the gulf side next time,” Alfie said. Emilia smiled and nodded. There were so many places to see and explore! “We could spend our whole lives traveling and still never see everything,” Alfie said.

  “But we can sure try,” Emilia replied.

  Alfie smiled. “We sure can.”

  “I guess we better go check in,” Stacey said, standing up and shaking out her towel.

  Their bathing suits were dry, so they put their volunteer T-shirts and jeans on over the top and returned their towels to the cabana. They walked up to the bike path to follow it over to the festival, spotting the crowd way before they’d reached the entrance.

  “All that swimming made me hungry,” Alfie said as his stomach grumbled.

  “Me too,” Stacey said. “Maybe we’ll swing by a couple chefs’tents for some samples before we go back to the volunteer area.”

  “Sounds good to me!” Emilia said. Alfie nodded enthusiastically.

  They entered the festival, and Stacey led the way to a booth where a chef was preparing Spanish food. The chef’s name was Chef Reyna.

  “What are you making?” Alfie asked her.

  “This dish is called paella,” Chef Reyna answered, pointing to a huge, shallow steel pan with big handles on each side.

  “Pie-ay-uh,” Alfie repeated.

  The chef nodded. “It’s a traditional Spanish rice dish with saffron and spices. This is a seafood paella. It has mussels, shrimp, squid, and clams. Some paella dishes have chicken or sausage, as well.”

  Chef Reyna dished up fresh samples for Alfie, Emilia, and Stacey. The mussels and clams were still in their shells.

  Alfie took a bite with just rice first. He could taste onion and garlic and maybe a hint of lemon. Then he dug a mussel out of the shell and tried a bite with a piece of squid. He’d never had either of those before, and he didn’t like them at all!

  “What do you think?” Chef Reyna asked.

  “It’s amazing!” Emilia said, devouring her paella.

  “So good!” Stacey added. “I love the mix of flavors.”

  “And you?” Chef Reyna asked Alfie.

  “I like the rice . . . ,” he said. “I think I taste lemon.”

  “That’s right!” Chef Reyna said. “But not a big fan of the seafood?” She smiled.

  “Yeah, not so much. Sorry!”

  Chef Reyna laughed. “No need to apologize! We all have our own likes and dislikes.”

  “If you don’t want your seafood, Alfie, I’ll have it,” Emilia said.

  Alfie happily passed off the pieces of seafood and enjoyed the rest of the rice. He hoped the next thing they were able to try was more on his list of “likes.”

  “I can’t get over what a cool festival this is,” Alfie remarked as they wound their way through the booths, tents, and people. There was so much going on all around them. Alfie spotted a nutrition company handing out loads of granola bar samples from the back of a bright-pink truck with the company logo all over it; another demonstration booth invited spectators to try out the latest kitchen gadget, which Alfie thought looked like a miniature spaceship; and at another booth, a woman won a huge basket stuffed with goodies from a pasta company.

  “It is,” Stacey agreed. “There are some really fun sit-down events, too. A chef chooses a theme and then creates a menu around that theme. The guests get to experience a full meal from the same chef—like an Italian feast or a Southern brunch.”

  “That sounds amazing,” Emilia said. “Zia would love all of this.”

  Back at the volunteer area, Stacey checked the schedule for her final assignment of the day.

  “Thanks for taking us to the beach,” Emilia said as Stacey gathered her things.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, thanks,” said Alfie. “That was really fun!”

  “You’re welcome! I always love showing people around when they visit Miami.” Stacey waved and then she headed off to get started on her task.

  Alfie and Emilia checked the schedule, too. They found their names near the bottom of the list, but they didn’t have a task assigned to them. They were confused. They looked around for Sally or Marcus or one of the other more experienced volunteers, but the area was pretty empty. They were about to follow after Stacey and see if she or the chef she was assigned to needed any help. But just then, Marcus ran up.

  “There you are!” he said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys.”

  “Sorry!” Emilia said. “Stacey said you gave the okay for us to go to the beach.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Marcus said. “I knew you were off for a bit, but I was hoping to catch you around the festival somewhere.”

  “What’s wrong?” Alfie asked.

  “It’s Margo,” Marcus said. “She needs your help.”

  Alfie and Emilia ran all the way to the other side of the festival to reach Margo at her junior chef table. When they got there, Margo was wiping tears from her face.

  “What happened?” Emilia asked.

  “My sample,” Margo said, gesturing to a lopsided pie on the table in front of her. “I tried making the lemon meringue pie, and it’s terrible!” she cried.

  “I’m sure it’s not terrible,” Alfie said. He’d never had a piece of pie that was terrible before. How bad could it be?

  “Try some,” Margo said.

  Emilia picked up a fork from the table and took a small piece from the pie. She handed Alfie a fork to try a piece, too. Margo watched as they each took a big bite.

  Alfie’s taste buds immediately went into overdrive. He looked at Emilia and could see by the puckered look on her face that she was having the same reaction. For one thing, the meringue topping was crunchy. Alfie didn’t know much about lemon meringue pie, but he knew it wasn’t supposed to be crunchy—he thought it should be smooth and creamy, and this definitely wasn’t. The meringue was also too sweet, which normally he wouldn’t mind, but in contrast to the incredible tartness of the lemon filling, it was way too much. Margo was right. Her pie was pretty bad.

  Margo registered the looks on their faces and started to cry again. Emilia set her fork on the table and spoke in a gentle voice. “It was your first try. The next one will be better—you know what needs to be different.”

  Margo nodded and tried to smile. She glanced around at the other junior chefs’ tables. Alfie could see that several of them were looking at Margo but trying to pretend they were busy working on their own recipes. Margo swiftly picked up their forks and tossed them into a garbage can under her table. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m going to have to make it again and make it better.” But then her shoulders slumped. “I just wish it was something I was excited about—then maybe I’d feel differently about making it again. I really don’t feel any connection to this recipe.”

  Alfie nodded. He’d heard Zia talk about that before—about making food that excited you and matched your palate. She always said how important that was. Alfie wished that Zia was here to help them.

  “Hey, guys!” Stacey called from behind them. Alfie, Emilia, and Margo turned around. “Want another sample?” She stood holding out a tray of sandwich samples. Each sample had a little toothpick with a red, white, and blue flag in it, but it wasn’t the American flag. This flag had one big white star in a red triangle with much wider white and blue stripes.

  “Sure,” Alfie said, picking up one of the sandwiches. “What is it?”

  “It’s a Cubano—a traditional Cuban sandwich from Chef Fernandez,” Stacey said. “He requested the two of you again, but Marcus said you were here helping Margo, so I filled in.”

  “Thanks,” Emilia said, taking a sample.

  Margo shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

  Alfie was eager to try the sandwich not only because he’d liked everything Chef Fernandez had made, but also because he wanted to see how it compared to Zia’s Italian Cubano.

  “I have to keep circulating. I don’t want to get on Chef Fernandez’s bad side,” Stacey said with a wink. “I’ll see you later!”

  Alfie and Emilia waved good-bye. Alfie lifted the sandwich to his mouth, but then he stopped. “Wait!” he cried. Emilia had just taken a bite of the sandwich. She looked down at the remaining sample, alarmed, as if something might be wrong with it. “That’s it!” Alfie cried.

  “What?” Margo and Emilia asked, still confused.

  “Maybe you don’t have to make a traditional lemon meringue pie,” Alfie said.

  “But . . . but I do,” Margo argued.

  Alfie shook his head. “You should put your own twist on it—a new version that’s unique to your style of cooking and the flavors you like!”

  “Yes!” Emilia chimed in. “That’s right! That’s what our aunt does constantly with her cooking, and she’s always trying to encourage us to do the same. If you want to stand out, you have to have your own flair.”

  “I didn’t think about it that way,” Margo said. “The judges’ rules don’t say anything about having to make a traditional version of the recipe—because they’re not giving us an actual recipe to follow at all. It’s a great idea.”

  Margo sat down at her table and opened her notebook. “Hmmm . . . Now I just have to figure out what my own twist could be—especially since I should probably still make that pesky meringue . . .”

  Alfie and Emilia weren’t sure what to do next. They wanted to give Margo the space to brainstorm, but they didn’t want to disappear in case she needed them. Alfie couldn’t help but scan the crowd for more purple T-shirts and trays of samples. After only a few minutes, Margo stood up from her seat and cheered, “That’s it! I know what to make.”

  Alfie and Emilia watched as Margo scribbled down a quick list of ingredients and handed them the piece of paper.

  “Can you run to the market for me?” Margo asked. “I’m going to stay here and start experimenting.” Alfie saw the sparkle and excitement in Margo’s eyes.

  “Of course!” Emilia said, taking the list.

  “Great. Thank you both so much!” Margo began pulling out ingredients and bowls and baking sheets. Then she picked up her entire lemon meringue pie and tossed it into the garbage. “Guess I don’t need that!” she said.

  Emilia and Alfie looked at her with wide eyes and then laughed. They hurried off in the direction of the market. Emilia held out the grocery list in front of them, and they examined it as they walked.

  “I don’t know what she’s going to make,” Alfie said. “Do you?”

  “No idea,” Emilia responded. “I guess it’s going to be a surprise.”

  Alfie smiled. He couldn’t wait to see what she was going to create.

  The next morning, Alfie and Emilia enjoyed a quick breakfast of leftovers from the festival that had been left in the trailer refrigerator the night before. They snuck out of the trailer, and Alfie made sure his wad of paper was still working to jam the lock on the door. Then they did their loop around the grounds just in time to meet Marcus, Sally, and the other volunteers back at the tent for the morning meeting.

  “Gather around, everyone,” Marcus called, corralling all the volunteers. “It’s the last day of the Miami International Food Festival . . . ,” he started.

  Alfie and Emilia exchanged a disappointed glance. Alfie hadn’t realized the festival was already ending. He was enjoying it so much!

  “It’s been a record year for attendance,” Marcus continued. “And we couldn’t have done it without our amazing group of volunteers.”

  Everybody clapped and smiled.

  “And I want to say a special thank-you to our kid voluntee
rs,” he said. “Your enthusiasm and energy has been a fantastic addition to our efforts. Now, I have the final list of assignments for the day. Those of you who have been helping out our junior chefs should head over to that area because the competition is starting as soon as the festival opens this morning.”

  Alfie felt his heart beating in his chest. He was so nervous and excited for Margo. He couldn’t wait to get over there and see what she’d made with the ingredients they’d picked up for her.

  “At the end of the day we’ll be folding up tables and chairs and helping chefs break down their booths.”

  “What about the volunteer trailers?” someone asked, taking the thought straight from Alfie’s head.

  “They will remain open until tomorrow morning when the final festival breakdown is complete.”

  Alfie and Emilia glanced at each other again. At least they’d have a place to stay for one more night.

  “Okay, that’s it!” Marcus called. “Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy the last day of the festival!”

  Alfie and Emilia gave Stacey a quick wave and then raced off to the junior chef area. The festival was about to open, and even more people were gathering at the entrance than had the day before—everybody wanted to take advantage of the last day of fantastic food. As they neared the junior chefs’ tables, the festival opened for the day, and a major crowd instantly formed around the area. Alfie and Emilia squeezed their way through to Margo’s table. She spotted them right away and beamed, giving them a thumbs-up. Alfie was relieved already. Even if Margo didn’t win, she’d made something she was clearly proud of, and that was even more important.

  One of the contest judges was standing at the center of the circle of tables with a microphone in her hand.

  “Welcome to our Miami International Food Festival Junior Chefs Competition!” she said. “We have five junior chefs competing today. And we are very lucky to have as one of our judges Chef Fernandez, from right here in Miami. Today’s winning junior chef will have the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Chef Fernandez to cook together and learn from his amazing expertise.”