Read Beaten, Seared, and Sauced for Free Online Page B

envelope arrived from the CIA congratulating me on my acceptance. Nelly and her ex-husband used to own a house together, and with the money she’d made from selling it, she wanted to buy a modest place upstate. We’d keep the apartment and she’d pay cash for a place in Saugerties, where she and I had fantasized about living ever since we’d taken a trip there while visiting her parents in nearby Rhinebeck. Bob Dylan and the Band had recorded the Basement Tapes in Saugerties. The area was beautiful—rural and set right up against the edge of the Catskill Mountains. We’d staywith her parents for a little while. The pieces were falling into place—sort of.
    “So basically, the responsibility for our bills and living expenses falls on my shoulders? Will I be fully supporting both of us while you’re in school?”
    “No—”
    “Honey, I just need to ask. How are you going to make money? School is full-time; you have to study hard. How can we make this equal?”
    Nelly had been working hard on a draft of her novel. She worked hard teaching, spending hour after hour outside class every week reading and critiquing student fiction. How much more of her time would I be asking her to give up?
    “I don’t know. I will figure something out.”
    “Right. And what about those other questions—like, do we get married?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.”
    Another envelope arrived from school, this one from the financial aid office. The page that detailed the award had figures in two columns: one for Term One, another for Term Two. Combining the funds allotted for the two terms—two years—still left me wholly in the red, and for way more than I really felt comfortable taking on in terms of debt. I threw the paper in the wastebasket in the bedroom, and when Nelly walked into the apartment later on, I told her all the debate, all the worrying, the arguing, everything was moot. I couldn’t afford to go.
    A week or so later, we were sitting in the living room, reading. Nelly had her feet tucked under my legs, and she laid her book down and looked up at me. “Do you still have the financial aid statement from the CIA? Can I see it?”
    “I threw it out. But …” I got up and moved toward the bedroom. “I haven’t emptied the trash in here for a bit. It’s still here.” I gave it to her and went back to reading.
    “How do you know,” she asked after studying it, “that this definitely means it’s for two years and not two semesters?”
    “It’s a two-year program; term one, term two. Year one, year two.”
    “Will you call them tomorrow and ask?”
    I called the next day and asked. After getting my information up on her computer, the woman from financial aid said, “Wow! That is a really generous award.”
    I felt a little puzzled. “But my question is this: Does term one and two mean semester one and two?”
    “Two semesters.”
    “Really?”
    “Well, it wouldn’t be very generous if it was for two years.”
    She and I spoke at some length and then she transferred me to the Admissions Office. When I hung up, I was slated to begin the Associate Program in Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of America on June 16.

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    A LL THE ENTHUSIASM, ALL the excitement, all the force of the visions in my head—of me, stove-side, actually cooking—slammed straight into a brick wall.
    Six weeks of academic classes (Gastronomy, Culinary Math, Food Safety, and Product Knowledge) coupled with the school’s one-month annual hiatus for repairs in July meant nine weeks before I’d get near any food.
    The day before classes started, we’d been enduring the last of our orientation, with instructions to refrain from harassing each other and lurid tales of the evils of alcohol, not to mention the ins and outs of fire safety. Then came the words we’d been anticipating: “If you will please go to the lobby outside the auditorium, you will receive your tool kits and textbooks.”
    It was mayhem—a