Current mood:	hungry
Entry tags:	miss lila fowler, recapper: loubeelou, saint elizabeth of sweet valley, sweet valley twins, tv show, unicorns

SVT#89: Jessica's Cookie Disaster
Okay, so after all the Elizabeth recaps, I missed Jessica. So here is an example of her in all her egotistic glory.


However, her ego may perhaps be a bit dented by how fug she looks on the cover. Like, ridiculously so. Plus she's wearing dungarees. We should have a Go Fug Yourself site for Wakefield covers. Plus we can post pictures of ourselves doing our best Wakefield impressions. Ooh! We should do that anyway!!


Okay, story time!
So Jessica fluked an A in a history test, so now she's hovering on the edge of the honour roll for the first time ever. Do you guys really have honour rolls in middle school? I thought that was a high school/uni thing. I must admit I don't really understand how they work, but from movies I've watched, I understand that a 4.0 is a good GPA.
Pardon my ignorance on this topic, and we'll get back to Jessica. She's very stoked about this sudden smartness, as she will become more than just super popular and pretty. She will be Jessica Wakefield, popular and pretty girl genius! She's kinda sick of everyone taking Liz more seriously than her. Jess is smart too! "She and Elizabeth had more in common than just fabulous Southern Californian good looks."
I've never understood how blonde hair and blue-green eyes means they look Southern Californian. SoCal isn't exactly an ethnicity? I thought they looked Swedish myself. Bork.

At this point, Liz enters. She feels the need to warn Jess that she's holding a calculator, not a Walkman. I can just picture Jess trying to plug headphones into a calculator and getting all annoyed. Heh.
Jess informs her that she is now smart. Steven won't be able to call her "the sister who didn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain." 'This sister could not only come in out of the rain, she could predict the weather and tell you what kind of clouds were forming in the south.'
Uh, yeah. All the smart people I know can do that. Can you guys not do that? *raises eyebrows* Wow, that must suck for you.

Jess and Liz end up in a huge argument about what to watch on TV. Liz wants to watch and Amanda Howard interview, Jess wants to watch Lifestyles of the French and Famous, which is some cooking show with celebrity guest stars. Lifestyles' guest star is Jean Voilan, star of Jessica's fave soap, Days of Turmoil (best soap name EVER). The chef's name is Chef Crepe- I love these French names that are just food words! *cough* Daniella Fromage *cough* Chef Crepe refers to himself as the French Einstein- because whipping perfect egg whites has the same relevance to the world as E=MC squared.

Elizabeth can't believe Jessica would rather watch that than an "important literary program". I doubt Amanda Howard is literary, Liz. Her 'mysteries' are probably the Sweet Valley version of Goosebumps. As they argue Steven busts in and steals the remote, switching it to a baseball game, and both twins miss out.

The next day in home ec class, they are making cookies, and Jess and Liz are paired. Jess is sternly reprimanded by Lila for missing the show. Lila asks why Jess didn't use the VCR to tape one show. Ha! Lila pwns you dorky twins. And she doesn't even have to share her TV!
Liz and Jess are pretty pissed at each other, and start sniping at each other until Jess ditches Liz and starts baking her own cookies. The teacher, Mrs Gerhart, announces that the best cookies will win extra credit, and Jessica's pretty excited. These points could get her on the honour roll!... that's if she finishes her cookies in time. She rushes the mixing part coz she doesn't have much time. She doesn't understand much either.
Step one: Cream butter and sugar.
Jess's brain: How do you get cream out of butter and sugar?
Eggshells, dissolve while baking, right? Sifting flour doesn't matter?
What was it you said earlier, Jessica? Girl genius?

In the meantime, Ellen Riteman is eating all her and Lila's cookie dough. If Mean Girls was in Sweet Valley, Ellen would be Karen.

Jessica spills sugar all over Liz accidentally, then smears raw egg on her top trying to wipe the sugar off. Liz gets snappy, and they both start arguing again. Jess waves a wooden spoon around (slap her with it! You know I- uh, you want to!) and then hits a few bottles and knocks some flavourings into her batter. Gargh! Cookies ruined! JESSICA ANGRY!
To repair the damage, she adds some red and blue food colouring, to make the cookies purple. But it's a dark, "unhealthy" purple shade. Ewness.

Todd's checking out Elizabeth's ass cookies, all complimenty. Todd and Aaron's basketball cookies are yum. Maria's and Julie's have become one giant (although yum) cookie. Lila and Ellen's "biscotti" (guess whose idea that was) is delicious. Lila insists they'd be great with cappuccino, but Liz knows Lila hates cappuccino.
Caroline and Randy's cookies are made of fail, but that's okay coz they're nerds.
Elizabeth's are good, as always. But Jessica's have come out al ovely soft lavender colour and WOW! They are fabulous! They are a taste orgasm! She wins the extra credit! Everyone tries the cookies and experiences the joy spasms. Even Lila admits the deliciousness. Jess is understandably stoked- especially when Mrs Gerhart says she wants to submit Jessica's cookies to a cooking show her friend produces! And guess which show!? Yup! Lifestyles of the French and Famous! Oh. Em. Gee.

Mr and Mrs Wakefield arrive home from work and are surprised to see both Jess and Liz doing their homework. When Jess announces that she's made the honour roll, the folks are very proud, calling the grandparents and offering a dinner at La Maison Jacques, which must be fancy because it has a French name. Liz feels a bit let down, because the folks didn't make half this fuss when Liz brought home an A in an English test and a 100 in a science experiment last week. Admit it Liz, they love Jess more. Everyone does.

The Unicorns offer to help Jess make 400 cookies for the TV show. Janet decides they will be the Unicorns' "signature cookie- like a designer cookie". They will be called "Unicookies". Original. Bruce Patman mocks the shit out of them, particularly Jessica. Jess is a bit confused by the Unicorn Club hogging her glory. Seriously, did she not think they'd do that?

Mr Bowman suggests that Liz try out for the principal's list, which is only for students with straight A-pluses in all their subjects. Basically it's created to make honour roll kids feel retarded. I can't believe they have this junk in middle school, but then, I can't believe it's not butter either, so I guess I'm just a cynical person.
Liz decides to go for the principal's list, and Amy the-not-yet-Slutton agrees with her. She reckons its Elizabeth's way of asserting her individuality. You could just join a sports team or something, Liz. Earn that size-six figure!

The Unicorns are discussing what's going to happen with the Unicookies. Seriously, words with 'uni' at the front of them are rarely a good thing. Unitards, unibrows, unisex toilets...
Ellen explains to Jess that if the cookies are a Jessica thing, they're just a fluke, but if they're a Unicorn Club thing, it's another success in a long line of successes for them. They're already powerful, but these cookies will make them "invincible". Yes, Ellen really thinks this. I love Ellen. Jess thinks Ellen makes sense. This worries me. So Jessica agrees to go with it, and they'll meet the next day, when Jessica will reveal the secret recipe.
But alas! Jess CAN'T REMEMBER what she put in the cookies! Chocolate? Pecans? Spices? Heroin? Tomacco? She doesn't know. Oh crap. Liz knocks on her door at that moment to conduct an interview for the Sixers, and Jess bullshits her way through it with super pretentious self-applauding comments like "I'm trying to keep a strong sense of self. Sure, I might be an overnight sensation. I might have tons of people falling all over me..."
So modest. Even Liz thinks, Golly, Jess. We're talking about cookies here, not the cure for cancer.

So the Unicorns come over and bake some cookies, but Jess puts ginger, licorice essence and pineapple flavouring the first batch. Epic failure. The Unicorns are pissed, and Jess is so busted. Saint Liz comes in and calms them all down. Everyone votes to stick together. Then the Unicorns make their exit, leaving Jess with all the dirty dishes. Passive aggressive.

The next day they all meet up at Lila's. They try a bunch of different flavour combos, but all are in the range of average to poor. The club are fast losing faith. Lila suggests hypnotising Jessica. They lower the blinds, light a candle, and swing a necklace with a silver tooth pendant on a chain. Apparently Lila got it from the dentist when she didn't get any cavities all year. Lila doesn't get cavities. She's way too awesome.
Anyway, the hypnosis totally fails- on Jessica. Lila does succeed in hypnotising Tamara! But Lila doesn't know how to un-hypnotise her, because she learnt from watching a TV show, and she changed the channel before it ended! Whoopsies.

Liz is trying to get 100s in all her classes, and scores really well on a pop history quiz. But oh noes! She forgot about an algebra test! She gets a B, which ruins her life. She explains to Mrs Wakefield later why she's killing herself trying to get perfect grades and Mrs W's response is a sappier version of 'Liz, you're already smart, which is cool, so we don't care if you do this. Don't turn into a total loser just to get on some list, coz we love you anyway.' Thanks, Mom. Liz realises she forgot to turn in an extra-credit book report. It seems she's sabotaging herself unintentionally. Maybe she's never going to get on this list of nerds.

The Unicorns meet early Monday morning in the home ec room, hoping to jog Jess's memory. More failures follow, culminating in a Unicorn bitchfight. Belinda actually slams Lila over the head with a cookie sheet! What was her childhood trauma? Jessica throws a raw egg at Lila, who wisely ducks, and the egg lands safely... on Mrs Gerhart's forehead. The girls are promptly punished and told to clean up and get the fuck out. The unicorns have had enough. They bail on Jessica, refusing to use the good Unicorn name to endose a product so shabby. It's like Bart Simpson's quote: "Come on Krusty, I'd never put my name on inferior quality merchandise." Jess is furious, and vows to make them all sorry.
Little does anyone know that Lila has secretly ordered fancy cookies from Switzerland to be flown over. She will take them on the show and save Jess's butt and take all the glory! Oh Lila! You are the height of just-too-muchery!

But as Jessica gets home that day, Saint Elizabeth comes to the rescue. Jessica! Have you ever heard of serendipity? Not the movie, the word! St Liz is concocting a plan, and promptly sets up the Wakefield kitchen using the exact ingredients on the bench in the exact order that they were in that day at home ec class. Well, almost. Elizabeth may be blonde, with blue-green eyes and a California tan, but she doesn't have a photographic memory. But serendipity will save her! Liz picks a fight with Jess to get her riled up, and Jess starts waving a wooden spoon around, just like the first time, and wham! She knocks a bunch of flavourings into the batter. She's annoyed at first, but Liz quickly writes down the ingredients. Vanilla, almond extract, and almond powder. Yes, out of three secret ingredients, two are almond. Lame.

The cookies bake, and smell greeeat. And voila! They are the taste orgasm cookies! Elizabeth has saved the day! One problem though- they still have to make 400 cookies by the next afternoon. Fortunately, Mama and Papa Wakefield decide that now is a great time to start being supportive, and volunteer themselves and Steven to help bake all the cookies. At 2am, in total 404 cookies are make. SUCCESS! Jessica decides to call them JEM cookies. The J is for Jessica and the E is for Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: "What's the M for?"
Jessica: "I don't know, really. It just sounded good."
Mama Wakefield: "Maybe the M is an upside-down W for Wakefield."
I guess you can't call them JEW cookies.

At school that day, Jessica looks pretty knackered, and Lila takes this as a good sign that Jess fails at cookies. Jess keeps her success a secret, and quietly agrees when Janet makes her promise not to mention the Unicorns on TV. Lila's all prepared to save Jess's hiney. I so wish she'd gotten the chance, but Lila arrives that afternoon at the TV studio, struggling to carry all her cookies, and then is knocked over by a wayward guy rushing out the studio door. Lila falls down the steps and all the cookies go splat- on the ground, on her nice clothes. LILA ANGRY! To burn her further, Random Guy mentions that two blonde twins are in there with loads of cookies and everyone loves them.

Jessica is stoked at her brilliance. The celebrity guest is once again Jean Voilan!! And he likes her cookies! Chef Crepe is a huge fan too, as are the studio audience, who are all moaning in ecstasy. Liz and Jess are a fabulous success, and neither twin notices Lila in the wings fuming, covered in stuck on cookie bits.

Back at school, however, after basking in her TV glory, Jess discovers that her most recent home ec project has received a D+ grade. She's booted off the honour roll. Plus, Elizabeth decides to give up on the principal's nerd list. Life is back to normal!

Does anyone know a basic sugar cookie recipe and want to make some Jew JEM cookies? I'm not entirely sure what a sugar cookie is, as cookies here are big chocolate-chip things, but if anyone wants to bake some and add one extra teaspoon of vanilla essence, half a teaspoon of almond extract and 1/3 cup of ground almonds, that would be super cool. Then we will really find out if they are the Gism Cookies of the World! Personally, I think you can't beat Double Iced Chocolate Chip Chews from the local Ma Higgins' Bakery, but whatever. Each to their own.
Merry Christmas everybody!!!