White Jacket Required (4 page)

Helen jumped up from her seat and gave me a huge hug the moment I walked through the doors at P.F. Chang's.

“Hi!” I said with a big smile. “You look so gorgeous! I've missed you so much!”

Helen did look gorgeous, with her designer T-shirt, fashionable ripped jeans, and large Prada purse. “I want to hear everything!” she told me as we sat down.

“Well,” I told her. “I'm in Orlando looking at going to culinary school, actually!”

Helen's eyes got wide. “Oh my God! You would be perfect for that! The culinary school over on the parkway?”

“Yeah, there's a Le Cordon Bleu there. I never really thought I would actually go, and I'm still pretty unsure, but I just finished going on the school tour. I've had it up to here sitting at home and looking for entry-level writing jobs online, you know?”

The waitress came by and set down a glass of water and lemon in front of me. I scanned the menu and quickly ordered some orange-peel shrimp, my favorite. Helen ordered a spicy noodle dish and a soda.

I took a long sip of water and picked up my fork. “But what about you?” I asked her. “I heard some rumor you are moving here to become . . . a cop?!” I raised my eyebrows incredulously.

Helen giggled. “I am! Can you even believe it? Well, I graduated from the police academy last month and got placed here right after. I'm supposed to start my job in two months and I'm looking at apartments like crazy right now.”

I still couldn't get it through my head that Helen, little Helen from down the street, was going to be a police officer. Something about it just didn't add up in my mind. “I had no idea you were serious when you said you wanted to work with the police! What does your mother think about all this?”

Helen sighed and made a face. “You know Mom. All she does is worry. I mean, of course she wishes I had chosen a safer career, but I really want to help people and this seems like the best way.”

Our meals came, and the serious talk ended as we dug into our lunch. My shrimp were perfect, slightly spicy and crusted with chewy orange peel. I cleaned my plate in about five minutes flat.

“You know,” Helen said, “if you were actually serious about this culinary school thing and were planning on moving here, we could totally live together.”

I looked up from my plate. “I didn't even think of that,” I said.

When we were kids, Helen and I made a pact that we would be roommates when we were finally old enough to get our own place. I hadn't thought about that for at least fifteen years.

“Remember how we always said we would be roommates someday?” she asked, excitement growing in her voice. “We always said we would live where it snowed and have a little house.”

I laughed. “I was actually just thinking the exact same thing. We also said we would have a big furry dog! It sure isn't about to snow any time soon here in Orlando, but yes, I remember.”

The rest of lunch was spent gossiping about friends we went to middle school with and discussing potential future apartments. I still hadn't made up my mind, but now that I knew Helen was going to be there and wanted to live together, the idea of moving seemed much more feasible. When we said good-bye, I promised to call her immediately after I talked to my family and made a decision. She was heading to look at one more apartment that afternoon before driving home to Naples, and she promised to keep me updated as well.

During the next few weeks, I thought long and hard about going back to school. I weighed the pros and cons and discussed the matter at length with Rob. He urged me to go, saying it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and that we would work out the distance between us. My parents were supportive, but of course they reminded me that the tuition would come out of my own pocket. Finally, I decided to just go for it. It was only fifteen months, after all, and how could I turn down living in a new city with my best friend? I called Helen as I was faxing my paperwork over to the school, and we both starting screaming into the phone. She had found a nice two-bedroom apartment about four miles away from school, right next to the newest and nicest mall in Orlando. We set a move-in date three weeks away, and I started to pack.

A week later, I was back at Le Cordon Bleu, this time with my dad, to sign the final papers that would secure my place in the class of 2008.

“I know it's not much to look at from the outside,” I told him as we walked toward the admissions office. “But it's like a whole different world inside, I promise!” We headed in, and once again the Food Network was on, and women in business suits and telephone headsets answered calls behind the front desk. It felt different this time, though. This was my school now.

We signed in at the front desk, and after a short wait we were led back into the admissions office. An African American woman named Rhonda had been assigned to be my admissions coordinator and take care of things like uniforms, textbooks, and class schedules, as well as to help me finalize my new Sallie Mae loan. I had a feeling I wasn't really going to like Sallie Mae very much, but I chose to think about the present moment instead of the future.

“Jennifer! Welcome!” Rhonda's voice boomed, filling the small cubicle where my dad and I sat. When I asked her if she had completed the Culinary program herself, she just laughed and said that her husband did all the cooking in their house.

“I've got your three sets of uniforms all folded up for you right here, Jennifer. Why don't you go in the bathroom over there and try them on so we'll know if we need to make any changes.” She signaled over to the left corner of the room where there was a water cooler and a tiny door. She set a pair of size small black-and-white checkered pants and a white chef coat in my arms, and the sheer weight of the outfit shocked me. Once in the bathroom, I struggled with the coat, pulling it in every direction, trying to get it to lie more flatteringly against my body. After a few minutes, I gave up and walked out self-consciously.

Rhonda and my dad were waiting right outside the door. “Now there's a real chef! You look great, girlfriend!” Rhonda exclaimed, pulling a bit on my coat. “Are you sure you don't want to get a size up, though? Most students do find that they gain about ten or fifteen pounds during the first few months of school. All that butter they use!”

My expression must have told it all, because my dad started laughing and he winked at me. “Oh no . . . ” I laughed. “I don't really think I have to worry about that; I'm a pretty avid exerciser.”

Rhonda shrugged. “You sure?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, I'm fine. These fit perfectly.” I walked back into the bathroom and looked at my reflection in the small mirror. I felt like a whole different person. Gone were the days of cute sundresses and designer jeans. I was entering a whole new reality, one where I didn't have to worry every day about what to wear or how to do my hair. The thought was actually rather freeing.

The textbooks, standard-issue Le Cordon Bleu books that were given to students at every one of their fifty-some schools around the country, were large and heavy. Being a longtime reader and lover of cookbooks, I eagerly opened up
Cooking Fundamentals
on the ride home that afternoon and paged through some of the recipes. All of the ingredients were listed by weight instead of the standard cup and tablespoon measurements that I was used to, and I hoped that when I went to pick up my tool kit the week before classes started, a scale would be included. Unlike typical cookbooks, this one was geared toward a professional, or restaurant, kitchen. No pretty pictures and no novella-like paragraphs introducing the recipes, just simple ingredient lists and cooking methods. This cookbook was boring, and I was a little disappointed.

“Well, honey, I'm really excited for you,” my dad said during the car ride home. “It seems as if this is where you're meant to be, and I'm proud of you for making the decision. I'm sure you know it's not all going to be easy, but I really think you're going to do great!”

“Thanks, Dad. I'm excited, too. Helen and I were talking last night about decorating the kitchen in the new place, and I just can't wait to move in.” I think I was almost as excited to get my own apartment as I was to start school.

“Have you thought about a job yet?” Dad looked over at me. “You know your mother and I can help you out a little bit, but you still need to pull your own weight. We can pay for half of your rent, as we discussed, but everything else needs to come out of your own pocket. This is part of being an adult.”

I let out a sigh. “I know, Dad! And you know I hate to ask for money, anyway. Finding a job will be the first thing I do, promise.”

Once we got home, I packed my new textbooks and uniforms in a box, labeled it “Cordon Bleu” in big black letters, and shoved it in the hallway. I couldn't wait to start my new life.

Move-in day came just a week later and was filled with boxes, sweat, and hugs. Helen had hired professional movers to carry up all her old furniture from college, while I just plopped down two suitcases and three sealed boxes on the living room floor. I figured I wouldn't need too much, since I'd be wearing a chef uniform every day, so I left most of my belongings at home at my parents' house. Helen had generously offered me her old guest-room furniture, and I loved my new room with a view of downtown Orlando. That evening, after all the movers had gone and Helen and I were finally alone, we decided to go grab Pad Thai from a restaurant down the street. As we squeezed lime on our noodles and swirled them around our forks, we caught up on what had been happening in each other's lives during the past few years in college. I told her about transferring from University of Alabama to College of Charleston, dancing barefoot to beach music on the Carolina coast, and meeting Rob in an elevator the summer before. She told me about her crazy Tallahassee parties, the rigidness of the police academy, and how if she wasn't going to be a cop, she would have tried to become a fashion designer. By the end of the meal we were laughing so hard we were crying. Finally, our little-girl dream was coming true.

We spent the next few days by the apartment pool, soaking up the last of the summer sun and our freedom before my classes began and Helen started her new job. I had exactly three weeks to find a job, but I just wanted a few days to relax and get to know Helen again. Like me, she enjoyed cooking, so we made the traditional Greek recipes that she grew up on and that we both loved, like
avgolemono
soup and light, buttery cookies covered in powdered sugar. Helen was quiet, like me, and came from a good family. Her twin brother had just graduated from Babson, a business school in Boston, and was hoping to break into the real estate market.

“So, do you think that you and Rob will end up together?” Helen asked as she reached for the bottle of sunscreen. There were no clouds in the sky, an absolutely perfect late-summer afternoon.

I paused and thought for a second before I answered. “I honestly don't know. Sometimes I think so, sometimes I don't. We've never really talked about it, and I don't want to be one of those girls who just settles down right after college with her first serious boyfriend, you know?”

Helen nodded. She was dating another police officer, who lived a few hours away as well. They were serious, but I couldn't see them staying together. Helen had no intention of settling down in her early twenties, and this seemed to make all the guys want her even more. “Yeah, that's how I feel about Michael,” she said. “I know he wants something super serious but I'm only twenty-two. I have to make a career for myself before anything else happens.”

I pondered the word
career.
I was about to go back to school for another year and a half before even really starting mine. Rob was eight years older than I was, and most of his friends were already married, some of them with kids. Rob was mature and steadfast, with a good job in the financial field and an apartment of his own. He was at a place in his life where a serious relationship made sense. There were definitely times I thought about whether we would settle down together, but that was nothing I really wanted to get into right now. Despite the fact that I was a college graduate and was living on my own, I still felt very much like a kid at times.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Rob and I have a lot of fun together, but I just don't know who I'll even be in the future. . . . I could be a completely different person.” I rolled onto my back, trying to focus on my first day of school instead of where I would be in the next five years. I preferred to take one day at a time, and right now, that meant remembering to unpack my schoolbooks.

That night, after we had eaten a simple, quick dinner of turkey burgers and sweet potato fries, I sat on the living room floor organizing my books while the Food Network played in the background. I never really got into the competitive cooking shows, always preferring
Giada
or
Paula Deen,
but that night I found myself wondering if school would be like a real-life episode of
Top Chef.
I had always been the quiet, introverted one in class, never raising my hand unless I was 110 percent sure I knew the correct answer. How would I fare being under pressure all the time? Just the thought of it gave me butterflies in my stomach. I stared down at the book in my lap, a book for Meat Fabrication, a class I knew absolutely nothing about. My future was completely unwritten, and I loved it that way.

Girls' Night Turkey Burgers
with Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

Serves 2

Old Bay seasoning is the secret ingredient in these easy and healthy turkey burgers. I like to serve mine with melted cheddar or pepperjack cheese on top. The spicy sweet potato fries (baked of course!) complete the meal.

1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced into matchstick-thin slices

Sea salt

⅛
teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste