White Jacket Required (9 page)

“Good,” Tony said. “Thanks for all your hard work tonight. I know your schedule is tight right now, but thanks for being here. You can go.” He turned his back and then returned to laughing with his son, leaving me standing there with my mouth wide open.

A compliment from Tony? That had surely never happened before. After his hard words earlier in the night, I was convinced that he hated me. Now, the simplest of compliments completely made my night, and I smiled broadly while I walked back through the restaurant, out the door, and to my car. When I got back to the apartment, Helen was heating up some chicken soup in the microwave.

“Hey, stranger!” she said. We really hadn't seen much of each other lately, with my busy school and work schedule and her odd hours. She had dark circles around her eyes and looked like she had lost a little bit of weight off of her already very slender frame. I set my bag down on the counter and pulled up a bar stool.

“How are you? How's work?” I asked her.

“It's okay . . . not exactly how I pictured it going, but that's life, you know?” Helen's words were soft and hinted there was more to the story.

“I can't even imagine. I feel like all I do is complain about my busy schedule, but you're over here hardly sleeping and potentially getting shot at!” I laughed to lighten the mood.

Helen smiled. “Well, I don't know about all of that. It's just hard. The only other girl in my department quit today, so now I feel like I'm all alone with all the guys. I want them to treat me the same as they would each other, but it's difficult.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “I know it's a totally different scenario, but there are hardly any girls in my program, either. All day long I deal with dirty jokes and adolescent boys staring at my boobs.”

Helen finished her soup by the sink and ran some water in her bowl before placing it in the dishwasher. “Yeah . . . some days I just wonder if I made the right decision doing this. I could be halfway through fashion school by now!”

To me, Helen had always seemed much more the fashion-designer type, but she was hell-bent on catching the bad guys.

“You could always play the ‘what-if' game,” I said. “I do the same thing. If I weren't here right now, I'm sure I would be living in Tampa and working some nine-to-five starter job at a PR agency or something. This is hard, but it's much more interesting!”

Helen nodded. “Yeah, you're right. I'm sure it will get easier. I'm going to head to bed—I have a long day tomorrow and feel like I haven't slept in weeks.”

I said goodnight and headed into my room for bed as well. Every night when I got home from work, my favorite thing to do was run a hot bubble bath and soak my aching feet for a few minutes. Sometimes I read in the bath, but other times I just zoned out, letting my mind wander away from meat temperatures and kitchen-safety regulations for a little while. What would I be doing if I weren't here right now? It all seemed to work out so perfectly, with her moving here and finding the apartment so quickly. I loved school, for the most part, and was glad that I'd made the decision to move here, but it was always interesting to think just how different life could be as the result of one decision.

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

Makes about 4 dozen large gingerbread men

If you enjoy gingerbread cookies as much as I do, you really should try this recipe for a thick, moist, and chewy version. To make gingerbread cookie sandwiches, cut cookie dough in 4-inch circles and sandwich the cookies together with Chocolate-Buttercream Frosting (p. 15).

⅔
cup packed dark brown sugar

⅔
cup molasses

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 teaspoon baking soda

2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 egg, lightly beaten

3¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

In a large heavy-bottom pot, combine brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and white pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat and continue to boil for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove pot from stove and add baking soda, stirring to combine well (be careful: the mixture will bubble up here—just keep stirring!). Add butter a few chunks at a time, stirring to combine with each addition. Add egg and stir. Stir in the flour and salt gradually. The dough will be very soft and still warm.

Roll out the dough ¼-inch thick on a floured surface and cut it into rounds with a cookie cutter or large glass.

Bake cookies, spaced 2 inches apart, until golden and just set, about 12 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool. The cookies will firm up as they cool.

8
KNIVES OUT

A
S I STEPPED INTO MEAT FABRICATION CLASS ON THE FIRST
day, there was only one sound to be heard: the slamming of frozen meat on stainless-steel counters. The kitchen was cold enough to take my breath away. As I walked in and took my seat, I glanced up at the thermostat on the wall and saw that the temperature read fifty-two degrees. The assistant chef, a small woman who appeared to be in her late twenties, saw me looking. “Gotta keep it cold so the meat stays fresh,” she said. “You'll learn to wear layers in here.” I nodded and crossed my arms for warmth. The chef coat that once felt thick and heavy on me now felt like a layer of sheer cotton.

“Girl, you gotta dress warmer! It's only going to get colder in here once Chef starts pulling out the meat!” said the girl who was sitting across from me at the counter. She rolled up the sleeves of her coat to reveal another layer of cotton. “The secret is these little boys' long underwear from Walmart. Got a four-pack for only five dollars last weekend, and they pretty much fix the problem.” She laughed and her eyes twinkled.

“I'll have to remember that! I'm always cold anyway, but this is brutal. I'm Jenna, by the way.” I extended my hand to her as the other students started to pour in the kitchen now, most of them making jokes about the temperature as well.

“I'm Cat. This is my second time taking Meat Fab, so I know the drill. Seriously, get yourself to Walmart, or just start eating more of what we're cooking—you're a skinny one!” Cat laughed again, and I had a feeling we would get along just fine. Coming from Basic Skills, where I had been surrounded by adolescent boys all day every day, laughing with another girl came as a welcome relief. Diego and Frank were in the class, too, but we were no longer bound as partners and they had formed their own guys-only group on the other side of the kitchen. Despite our having formed an odd friendship toward the end of Basic Skills, I didn't really miss them too much. Just then, Frank looked over in my direction and waved, and I smiled.

Only a few minutes later, we headed back outside the kitchen for lineup, which felt like second nature to me now. Some of the students in line had been in my previous class, but I noticed quickly that a handful had dropped out, mainly girls. A few people I didn't recognize at all, and wondered if they, like Cat, were taking the class for the second time. We had two chefs for this class, Chef Sharmin and Chef Zoey, who had spoken to me earlier regarding the temperature in the kitchen. Chef Sharmin was a tall, lanky man who looked to be in his early forties.

“Miss Weber,” he said in a nasally voice when it was my turn in line.

“Good morning, Chef Sharmin. It's nice to meet you,” I replied as I routinely stuck out my hands to him so he could inspect my nails.

“You're pretty skinny,” Chef said. “I hope you're not one of those vegetarian types.” He sniffed his nose and raised his eyes to me.

I silently thanked God that I
wasn't
one of those vegetarian types anymore. While in college, I had dabbled in vegetarianism for a year, but a delicious
croque monsieur
in Paris the previous summer changed my diet forever. After one bite of that grilled ham and cheese sandwich, I knew I could never turn back.

“No, sir. I love meat,” I said.

Chef looked hard at me. “Good. Because I fail vegetarians. Now get in the kitchen.”

That morning we got lectured about how we weren't at Le Cordon Bleu to learn the art of making salads and grilled cheese, we were there to perfect classical French culinary techniques. Chef went on to tell us that we were expected to taste every single thing that was prepared in the class. No rule said we had to like it, but we had to at least try it all. Our syllabus featured conventional meats such as chicken, pork, and beef but also included rabbit, alligator, frog, and oxtail. My stomach churned at the very thought of eating an actual tail, and again I was thankful that I had left my vegetarian ways behind somewhere on the Left Bank in Paris.

I quickly decided I liked Chef Zoey much better than Chef Sharmin. For starters, she was a woman, and that alone was a rarity in the kitchen. She was short and muscular, no doubt from heaving heavy pots of stock around the kitchen, and wore her light brown hair in a short, bouncy ponytail beneath her tall chef's hat. When Chef Zoey spoke, she spoke with authority, daring any of the snarky teenage boys in class to give her attitude.

As both chefs continued to lecture, I learned that during the course of three weeks, I would memorize every part of a cow and pig and the slaughtering process that brought the steak to the table. Some of the dishes we were to make sounded delicious, such as pulled pork with Texas coffee barbecue sauce, perfect roast chicken, and beef stew. Pulled pork was a dish I had discovered after my vegetarian stint, and now I couldn't get enough. I loved the tangy vinegar-based sauce local to South Carolina, where I went to college, and couldn't wait to learn how to make it myself. I figured the skill would come in handy for tailgating and football games, something Rob would love as well.

Later that morning we were again assigned groups for the rest of the three weeks, and unfortunately I was not with my friend Cat. Instead, I found myself again in a group with two guys, though this time they were my age and seemed a little more serious than Frank and Diego. Our first assignment was oxtails, and if you have never prepared oxtails before, I don't recommend it. Eating all parts of the animal may be a status symbol in certain foodie circles, but the minute the box of tails was set down in front of us, I felt nauseated. The tails were pasty white and looked like pure fat globbed on Popsicle sticks.

I reached hesitantly into the cardboard box and picked up a stick with a gloved hand. Chef had demonstrated how we were to slice off extra fat from the tail, leaving only a small amount of meat to be consumed. I picked up my paring knife and gently ran the edge of it down the tail, scraping off a thick layer of gelatinous fat with it. Carlo and Josh, my two new partners, laughed and joked in Spanish as they, too, scraped their oxtails.

I stood with one hand clutching the tail and the other holding the laminated recipe, as I tried to figure out what the next step was.

“So, I think we just get as much fat as we can off the tails and then sear them in oil before braising,” I said. I couldn't imagine actually eating this dish, which still seemed to be pure fat despite my desperate attempts to scrape the tail.

“This is a traditional dish where I come from,” Carlo said. “We usually serve it only on Christmas, though, 'cause it's so rich.”

Rich is right!
I thought, and proceeded to heat the oil and drop in the tails one by one. They sizzled when they hit the hot fat and smelled almost like burgers. Soon, the tails grew golden brown and the fat pooled around them in glistening puddles. While I had been working on the tails, Josh had put together a mix of sautéed
mirepoix
(onion, carrot, and celery) and deglazed the pan with some white wine and chicken stock. I carefully transferred the sizzling tails to the other pan, and Carlo quickly poured more stock on top.

“There!” I said. “I guess that needs about an hour to cook, so we can get all our cleanup done early.” Other students were still searing their tails and chopping onions, and I felt very glad for my fast little group. The guys went outside for their cigarette break and I started scrubbing the table. I had to admit that the oxtails smelled a lot better now, simmering with rich stock and vegetables, than they had on their own. I peeked under the lid and saw white foam dotting the top of the stock; carrots rose and fell in the bubbles.

When it was finally done and we came together as a class to taste the fruits of our labor, I brought a spoonful to my lips and paused. The cooked tails still smelled vaguely like hamburgers, and tiny bits of meat and fat had fallen off the tail and now swirled in the stew as well. It looked good. I put the spoon in my mouth and chewed. I had to admit, the flavor wasn't all bad, but the texture of the tail was what got me. It really was just like a fat-covered Popsicle, and the meat felt stringy and greasy in my mouth. I set the bowl down and took a sip of water. At least I had tasted it.

Over the next three weeks, I worked harder than I ever had for anything in my life. I cut, butchered, and seared. I memorized all the parts of a cow and pig, and scared Helen half to death in the kitchen one night as I practiced deboning a chicken while in my pajamas around midnight. I had only a few days until my final practical for the class, where we would have to break down both a chicken and a fish completely, each in less than two minutes.
Breaking down
was a term used to describe the process of turning the animal from a whole carcass into edible portions. We were expected to know the different bones and how to remove them gently, with swift slits of the knife, so as to not tear the gentle flesh. Everything needed to be intact, clean, and ready to throw in a hot skillet.