The Monday Night Cooking School - By Erica Bauermeister Page 0,41
white bowls of spiced salt that released just the lightest touch of fennel into the air. And then, she was at the kitchen door.
“It’s not such a big room, after all,” Lillian commented.
“I want to work here,” Chloe said, simply. “I won’t drop a thing.”
IT HAD BEEN a couple of months later that Chloe saw lights on in the restaurant kitchen on a Monday night when she walked past on her way home from the grocery store. The next afternoon when she arrived at work, Chloe asked Lillian about the activity in the kitchen.
“That’s my cooking class,” Lillian replied. “I teach lessons the first Monday of the month.”
“Could I come?”
“Chloe, if you want to work in the kitchen, I can start you as a prep cook.”
“I don’t want it as a job,” Chloe fumbled. “That’s what my boyfriend does. I’d just like to be able to cook sometimes. So when he comes home from work, I could do that.”
Lillian nodded. “I see. Well, a new class is starting in September. You could give it a try.”
“What do the classes cost?” Chloe was running numbers in her head. She wanted this to be a surprise, but didn’t know if she could afford it, and didn’t know how many extra shifts she could add to her schedule without Jake noticing.
“Let’s just call it on-the-job training for now, shall we?”
. . .
THE FIRST NIGHT of classes Chloe had realized quickly that she was at least a decade younger than anyone else in the room, which did nothing to reduce her sense of trepidation. Lillian saw her from across the kitchen and smiled but made no move to introduce her to any of the students. Chloe went over to the sink to wash her hands, and stood next to a fragile-looking woman with silver hair.
“Are you here with someone?” the woman asked conversationally. “Your mother, perhaps?”
“No,” said Chloe, a bit defiantly.
The woman regarded her appraisingly. “Good for you,” she said. “My name is Isabelle.”
Chloe hadn’t been sure that she could kill a crab that first night, but she took a cue from her experiment walking across the dining room and closed her eyes. In the darkened space of her mind, she had felt the life in the crab under her fingers, and mourned its end, simply and deeply, before pulling off the shell as quickly as she could. When she ate the crab later she closed her eyes again, and felt the life come into her.
At the end of the class, Lillian touched her elbow as she left. “You’re learning, Chloe. You should be proud of yourself.”
While Chloe loved the classes and the people in them, she hadn’t had the courage to try any of the lessons at home until after Tom’s night with the pasta. Chloe had watched him, the gentleness on his face as he worked, the way his hands touched the ingredients like the body of someone he cherished, and she decided this would be the dish she would make for Jake, and he would see her food as love.
It was harder getting along with Jake these days. Even though she was holding on to a regular job, the river of his commentary did not cease; it simply changed its course. Her hair (she was thinking of going natural; he thought brown was boring), her clothes (not seductive enough for him, too risqué for the outside world), her ideas (nonexistent). Sometimes Chloe felt as if he was tying her up into a tight little ball, small enough to throw far away from him.
It took Chloe a week to get up the courage, and the money, to make the pasta sauce—she wanted to buy a real red wine, deep and strong but gentle on the heart; Lillian had said that the sauce would follow the lead of the wine. Still, after all her thought, she had to ask Lillian to buy the wine for her, as she was too young to make the purchase herself.
“I have a better idea,” Lillian remarked. “Come with me.”
The two of them contemplated the restaurant wine rack. “You know,” Lillian commented with a rueful smile, “I could get in a lot of trouble doing this. Perhaps if I just give this to you we can deem it culinary encouragement.” She pulled a bottle from the rack, wiped the label, and presented it to Chloe.
“Please put this somewhere in the bottom of that backpack of yours, will you? I’d hate to lose my liquor license.”