Midnight Cullen Cooking Contests

I had this idea before Breaking Dawn, but when Edward mentioned the Food Network, I just went crazy and had to write this :D

--Setting: The Cullen Main House, 12 AM. In Bella's perspective, right after Breaking Dawn--

"Food Network? I didn't think you were serious." I glanced around the kitchen, trying not to laugh as I watched Emmett seriously stare at the TV with a whisk in his hand, Alice murmuring over a cookbook and Esme and Carlisle moving the food from the cabinets and the refrigerator to the counter. Rosalie was examining her reflection in a silver bowl, since her usual distraction, Renesmee, was with Jacob outside. He slept almost as much as us these days.

Alice looked up at me sharply. "Edward didn't tell you?"

"There's a lot Edward doesn't tell me," I said, glaring at him. "But what in particular this time?'

"We can cook very well for vampires not because we just watch the Food Network," she said with disgust, "We are great chefs because we have Midnight Cullen Cooking Contests."

I gaped. Midnight Cullen Cooking Contests? I glanced at Edward, and he was smirking. "It was just a little surprise that you'd find out eventually." His family was getting a big kick out of my reaction, too. I could see a smile on each of their faces as they prepared so seriously as if they were heading into battle.

"So you're saying you cook... for no one?"

Jasper shrugged as he pulled out several more cook books out of the cabinets I had once thought were empty. "We find humans to try our creations and watch their reactions. We've learned from there."

"Well," Alice said, "I found a recipe!"

Edward plucked the cookbooks out of her hands with a quick movement. "You know you aren't allowed to pick the recipe. You always chose the one for your best interest!"

Jasper sighed dramatically. "Oh snap, well I guess I'll just have to make you all nervous so you drop the eggs like last time!"

Edward raised his eyebrows. "Oh really? Then I'll just have to throw the refrigerator at you a second earlier this time."

"Boys," Esme instructed maternally, "No destroying the appliances. This time whoever does that will be disqualified." I glanced warily at the refrigerator, realizing that it had indeed been a different refrigerator almost every day and I hadn't noticed it until now.

"Yeah, Bella," said Emmett, who was still a bit mad at me for winning almost every arm wrestling match since I had become a vampire. "Be careful with the appliances." He was wielding a blender this time and was setting it next to some appliances I had never seen before. I gave him a withering glance and fluttered uselessly around the spacious kitchen as Esme flipped through the cookbook. I could feel the atmosphere slowly turn into a competitive one as the sound of the paper ruffling was the only sound.

Unconsciously, we all circled around the counter around Esme and next to our teammates.

"Found it." Esme announced, and closed the book, grinning. "But first the rules. No use of special powers," Alice, Jasper and Edward groaned. I didn't mind, since I had no ability that applied to cooking contests. "No destroying appliances, and you each have to come up with your own adaptation to the recipe. The last unburned, whole, edible, standing dish wins."

I glanced at Edward, who was still smirking. I had a feeling that the Cullen Cooking Contests were a little more... intense than I had thought before.

Esme smiled and continued. "And the recipe is... pizza!" With that, everyone was off. Edward pulled my arm towards a corner of the kitchen, since I was as confused as ever. Pizza? From the same family who drove Ferraris and Volvos and had eternity in front of them, they stayed up late making pizza?

"You'll have to watch most of the time, since I'll be doing the actual cooking since I've done this thing before," Edward said with an apologetic smile, his arms darting around as he set out the cooking supplies from the cabinet. The kitchen was abuzz with other low, hurried voices and the hushed clanking of utensils.

"Excuse me? I think I know what I'm doing," I said with mock disgust, "I was, after all, human just a short time ago. I know how things taste."

Edward shot a glance at the other Cullens. "It's not the taste we're worried about."

I remembered the words Esme had said. The last dish standing.

"What exactly are we making?" I asked quickly, helping set things out as he pointed to the cabinets with miscellaneous spices and dishes.

"Chocolate pizza."

I stopped for a split second."What? Why?"

"Quick- get the milk," Edward said urgently, zeroing on in Emmett who was eyeing the only carton of milk. We jumped at the same time, darting to the milk. I reached it a second before Emmett, snatching it away with a smirk. He snarled and I didn't flinch. With the way he had gripped the whisk earlier, it was no doubt that he took these contests seriously. Apparently, him and Rosalie had been losing a lot of Cullen Cook-a-thons recently.

The next ten minutes were absolute insanity. Alice was carefully guarding the refrigerator and snarling at anyone who even looked at it, and we were all forced to use whatever ingredients had been set out beforehand. Her and Jasper were working swiftly on some double-decker monstrosity that towered high over Emmett and Rosalie's pile of ingredients. You could tell the pressure was getting to Rosalie's team when we heard Emmett murmur something about pouring chicken noodle soup on it and setting it on fire.

Carlisle and Esme were working as smoothly as Alice and Jasper, both gracefully flipping something on the stove. A fried pizza?

At the fifteen minute mark, everyone started to get nervous, and 'advocates' were sent to the other teams to 'examine' their creations. Basically, it had turned into an all-out war of sending teammates to spy and bring back ideas that would make their creation better. It was obvious when this started because the room became silent quickly, and I didn't hear anything except for the exaggerated noise of the cooking appliances to cover up the sneaking.

"I know you're watching, Alice." I said as she stood behind me. "You know, just dropping in," she said angelically. Our chocolate pizza was done, and we were working on a sculpture in the middle and needed to melt the chocolate chips.

When Alice left, Edward whispered to me, "I need to go melt this chocolate, if anyone comes near our creation just throw the milk at them," he said. He smiled at me and darted to the microwave and watched the seconds tick by.

Emmett didn't want to miss his opportunity. He sauntered over and leaned against the counter, holding his signature cooking appliance. I heard the toaster pop on the other side of the room near Rosalie and tried to hold back hysterics. The toaster?

"Nice sculpture you're working on," Emmett said a little grumpily, and then changed his mind about whatever he was planning as he saw Edward glaring at him from across the room. Emmett turned around casually and then out of nowhere threw the whisk in a perfect arc at Alice and Jasper's creation.

"Incoming!" Alice said a second before the whisk had left his hand. She didn't even turn her back from the tower as Jasper caught the whisk with one hand. "You need to be more creative with the attacks, Emmett," Jasper said, smirking.

Time was winding down, and all the teams were getting desperate. I had to stop working for a moment and go to the hall and laugh when Emmett and Rosalie put their 'creation' into the blender and then the microwave. I had not laughed so hard in months. When I walked in, they were just taking it out of the oven. It started to bubble and then simply caught on flames. Without thinking, Rosalie threw it over hear head, quickly flattening her hair to make sure it was all there.

Alice and Jasper suffered the consequences as the flaming catastrophe flew right past their tower- and just managed to catch some of the frosting, which is all that was needed for their dish to explode into flames.

Because of the human charade, the Cullens had to have fire alarms. This proved to be quite a detriment to all of us as the sprinklers went off, dousing everything in water. And when I say everything, I mean everything: Esme and Carlisle's perfect traditional pizza, Edward and my chocolate concoction, Alice and Jasper's already flaming tower and Emmett and Rosalie's gluey mess plastered to the far wall.

With only three minutes remaining, everyone realized that their work was ruined and tried to find the quickest way to come up with something- anything. Emmett and Rosalie pulled out some poptarts, but while they were searching for some way to melt them into a pizza pan, Alice unplugged the toaster and they spent a minute waiting for them to cook before finally realizing that it wasn't plugged in.

Of course my attempt of making instant oatmeal were sabotaged by Jasper- I mean it was completely understandable how he only 'accidentally' placed some sparklers in them!

Carlisle and Esme put in a last attempt as they went for a PB & J sandwich squished into a pie pan and called it 'pizza'- and the sad part was they looked like the team in the best shape.

"5..." Esme called and everyone grabbed their dish and found the finishing touches.

"4..." Alice looked around swiftly to spot any other things she could sabotage.

"3... 2... and time's up!" Everyone gathered around the counter, anxiety and competitiveness rolling off of us, each holding their dishes behind their backs. Edward laughed a little, and I didn't ask, too caught up in the suspense.

"You first, Alice," Esme said, gesturing to the smirking spiky haired vampire. Alice and Jasper had managed a some kind of fruity smelling substance on top of some bread dough. It didn't look appetizing. Esme nodded and moved on.

"Rosalie?" Rosalie gave a dark look to Emmett as he put the dish on the counter. I held back my laughter as best as I could, for they had pried the gluey mess from the wall and presented it.

Esme and Carlisle had a hard time keeping straight faces, too, but then presented their dish. Uncooked spaghetti was flopped onto some kind of squished sandwich with a couple slices of pepperoni.

Edward presented our dish which was perhaps the worst of all (next to Emmett's and Rosalie's of course) and was uncooked eggs and bacon on a plate, not even trying to pretend to be a pizza in any respect.

"And you said you could cook!" I said shaking my head in mock disgust. That did it, looking around at the dishes that had absolutely no resemblance to pizza and looked like some kind of disaster. We all broke into hysterics, even Alice and Emmett who were easily the most competitive.

"So," Emmett said when the laughter died down. "Who's up for round 2!"

"Round 2? I think if we ever tried to cook in here again we'd set the whole place on fire," I said, my damp clothes and hair reminding me that we were soaking wet.

Emmett shook his head, "No, of course I didn't mean cooking." And he pulled a Playstation controller out from one of the counters. "Who's ready for L.A. Rush?!"

We started filing out of the kitchen, and Edward put an arm around me. "So that's what we do when we aren't watching humans sleep," he teased. "As you can see, nothing exciting."

I grinned. "No, not at all exciting. We only almost burned the house down. I wonder what the town would think of that."

"Alright, I'm playing you first, Bella," said Emmett as he plugged in the controller. I rolled my eyes. Apparently he wasn't over the whole arm wrestling thing. Edward smiled at me as we assembled in front of the TV and I took the remote, looking at the screen. Just what seemed like yesterday, I was ready to die for Renesmee and my family, and now I was knocking down the Hollywood sign in a video game against Emmett.

How things had changed.

Tayla Cullen