by Jenna Weber
What felt like hours later, I returned to my front door, huffing and puffing with a shiny new blister poking out of my heel. Later that week, after spending a little more time online researching shin splints, I decided to seek out a special foot doctor who could maybe give me some professional training advice. Both Helen and Rob thought I was completely crazy to keep on running when it caused me so much pain, and I was beginning to feel the same way. I hoped that this new doctor could shed some light on the situation.
“Miss Weber, you have two options,” Dr. Richards said, as I sat on the wrinkled white paper that covered the exam table. “Stop running, or learn to run through the pain. The pain isn’t going to kill you, and there’s only a very slim chance it will actually cause something more serious, like a stress fracture.”
I just stared at him. “You mean . . . just run through it? Run through the pain? That’s the answer?” I’d thought he was going to tell me about some treatment or low-cost therapy program that would diminish the pain.
“Yep. If you want. It’s up to you. After looking at these X-rays and measuring your feet, I can see exactly what your problem is: your hips are off balance. This is causing more stress to be put on the right foot and, thus, giving you shin splits. There’s really nothing we can do except prescribe you some orthotics that may or may not work. The best advice I can give you, as both a doctor and a fellow runner, is that you should keep at it. There might be pain, but you’re an athlete and athletes deal with pain.”
This was definitely not the answer I was hoping for. An athlete? Sure, I was training for a race, but I never actually considered myself an athlete. I was a cook and a wannabe food writer. I chopped chicken, sautéed garlic and, in my spare time, wrote poems. I wasn’t an athlete by any stretch.
“Okay . . . well, thanks anyway. Hopefully it’ll get better . . . .” I said, leaving the office in a hurry and calling Rob on my way out.
“He said to run through it! Run through the pain!! That’s ridiculous!” I said angrily into the phone as I searched for my car in the doctor’s parking lot.
“He said what? That’s stupid, Jenna. I don’t care what that quack says; you’re really going to hurt yourself long term if you keep running like that. I can’t believe he actually said that!”
I balanced the phone against my shoulder, fastened my seatbelt, and started the car, letting the air conditioning blast on my face to calm me down. “I mean . . . I don’t want to quit, you know? I don’t know . . . I guess I’ll just see how it goes. I have to go—I’ll call you later!”
I clicked my phone shut and started to think. Was the race really worth it? Was running even really worth it? If I didn’t run, I’d probably have to spend at least fifty bucks a month joining a gym or doing more yoga classes, but then at least I wouldn’t always be in pain. Still, part of me wanted to just finish what I started. It might hurt, but at least I wouldn’t be a quitter.
I took three days off and then hit the pavement again. Afterward, it hurt to walk, and in the middle of the night when I got up to use the bathroom, I almost fell over. I hated the way my body felt weak and incapable. Finally, on yet another five-mile run, I called it quits. As much as I hated to admit it, there was no way in the world I could run thirteen miles if I couldn’t make it through five without throbbing pain. I stumbled back into the house, threw my shoes in the closet, and called Rob to tell him I was done.
“I honestly think you made the right decision,” he said. “I mean, why cause yourself that amount of pain? It’s just a race!”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to do it to prove something to myself, I guess. Oh well . . . there’s always yoga!” I laughed sarcastically.
“To be honest, I never really saw you as a runner anyway, Jenna. You’re always on the go and running from one place to the next, between work, culinary school, and shuttling from one city to the other . . . but running races? It’s never really seemed like you. Do something that makes you feel good inside and out—that’s the Jenna I know!”
Rob was always good with the pep talks.
“Hmm, I kinda like that,” I said. “I can still be a ‘runner,’ but not in the literal sense of the word. I’ll just keep running around, and eating, and living!”
After hanging up the phone, I wandered into the kitchen. As much as I knew it was the right decision to stop training for the race, I still felt like I was letting myself down a little bit. I grabbed a potato from the pantry and started peeling it over the sink, preparing to make a potato pancake for breakfast. Once I had the potato all peeled and smooth, I cut it into two and started grating each half on my old box grater over a piece of wax paper. Then, I dumped the grated potato into a large metal bowl, added sea salt, pepper, and a beaten egg, and formed the blob into a large shaggy pancake that I seared in a hot skillet coated with vegetable oil. It smelled like French fries and made me remember all the times my mom made potato pancakes at home, topping them with a spoonful of chunky applesauce and serving them alongside grilled pork tenderloin.
“Mmm, what’s that smell?” Helen asked as she came into the kitchen.
“I was craving potato pancakes for some reason,” I replied. “Want half?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind! That looks awesome.”
I sprinkled a little additional sea salt on the now crisped and browned pancake and handed Helen half on a plate. “Want applesauce?” I asked her as I opened the fridge and grabbed the jar of Musselman’s.
“No thanks, I’m good.” She took a bite and widened her eyes. “Yum! Jenna, this is delicious!”
I put a big spoonful of applesauce on top of my pancake and dug in as well, relishing the sweet and salty combination. For a moment, I forgot all about the stress of running and concentrated on what really mattered to me, which was food and cooking. I might never be a runner, but maybe I could be a real food writer someday with a little training.
Potato Pancake for the Blues
Makes one jumbo pancake
Best made and eaten while wearing fuzzy pajamas and slippers. Things just taste better that way.
1 large russet potato
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon canola oil for light frying
Applesauce or sour cream for topping
Peel the potato and grate using a box grater. Season with sea salt and pepper and add the beaten egg, mixing everything until well combined.
Heat the canola oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is sizzling, gently drop in the potato batter and fry until golden brown and crispy, about 3 minutes per side.
Remove and serve immediately with applesauce or sour cream (or both!), alongside pork or eggs.
Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork
Serves 6–8
Be sure to grab Lawry’s Baja Chipotle Marinade for this slow-cooker classic. It lends a zesty spice that’s irresistible! Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for up to four days.
2 pounds pork shoulder (ask your butcher if you don’t see it on the shelf)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground mustard
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ onion, chopped
½ bottle Lawry’s Baja Chipotle Marinade
½ bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce
Rub the pork shoulder all over with the salt, ground mustard, and cayenne. In a heavy pan over medium-high heat, brown the shoulder on all sides. This should take about 10 minutes.
Remove shoulder from pan and place in a slow cooker. Add chopped onion and sauces. Turn slow cooker on high and cook the pork for 6–8 hours, until it falls apart easily when pierced with a fork.
Remove pork from slow cooker and shred with two forks. Spoon sauce over top and serve.
6
OUI, CHEF!
MY NERVES WERE ON FIRE. THE NIGHT BEFORE, I HAD assembled everything perfectly. I had ironed and starched my uniform, orga
nized my knife kit, and trimmed my fingernails shorter than they had ever been before, getting every tiny bit of old polish off. After work, I had tried to fall right asleep but ended up lying in bed for two hours. When the alarm finally rang, bright and early at 6 a.m., I leaped out of bed, anxious nerves turning into excitement about the day to come.
I arrived at school thirty minutes early and took a deep breath as I entered the kitchen classroom for the first time. My primary thought was how cold the room was, and I nervously fiddled with my cravat (a necktie that’s part of the traditional chef’s uniform) to disguise my shaking hands. There were only a few other students in the kitchen, and I recognized the face of a girl who had been in orientation with me a couple of weeks before. She returned my nervous smile, and I grabbed a metal bar stool from the corner of the kitchen and took a seat next to her alongside the metal counter. Out of my bag, I pulled a brand-new notebook with neat, smooth pages. I couldn’t believe that only a few months ago I had been sitting in a Victorian Literature class, preparing to take my final exam. The minutes ticked down, and even though the room was chilly, I felt a prickle of sweat start at the base of my neck, where my long hair was gathered and pulled into a hairnet-covered tight knot.
More students filled the room, most of them boys who looked to be about eighteen. Only three other girls entered the kitchen, and for a moment I wondered what in the world I was doing here, thinking about how I probably should have followed everyone else’s advice and gotten a safe and comfortable job after college instead of putting myself in thousands of dollars of student debt. It was too late for that now, though, and at exactly 7:30 a.m., Chef Stein walked into the kitchen. “LINE UP!!” he barked and then turned and walked right back out of the room. I took a deep breath and followed the rest of my classmates out of the room, where we formed a line with our backs straight against the wall while Chef shook our hands and inspected us individually. Since my last name begins with W, I was at the end of the line and waited nervously for my turn. Finally, I moved forward.
“Good morning, Chef!” I said in an overexcited tone, shaking his hand. Whenever I get nervous I act way too enthusiastic. He scanned his roster and glanced up at me.
“Why are you here, Weber?”
I paused, then smiled, showing my teeth. “Well, you see, I just graduated from the College of Charleston with a degree in English. After college I went to Paris to study travel writing, and now I’m here to learn everything about food so I can make a career as a food writer!” The overeager tone got the best of me again. I wanted to run far, far away.
Chef just stared at me with a deadpan expression and then smirked. “I didn’t ask for your entire life story. I just wanted to know why you’re here. Weber, there’s nothing I hate more than a good restaurant critic. Personally, I’d like to fry ’em all up for breakfast and then cut into them like strips of crispy bacon. That’s how I feel about food critics and now that’s how I feel about you, too. From now on I’m going to just refer to you as ‘the enemy.’ How do you feel about that, Weber?” How did I feel? I felt like I was about to lose my breakfast right there on the shiny linoleum floor, that’s how I felt. Instead, I just mumbled something unrecognizable and then scurried back into the kitchen to begin my first day of school.
Later, as I stood with my future peers in a huddle around a long rectangular table in the chilly classroom kitchen listening to Chef Stein dictate, my anxious nerves returned.
“I’m not here to be your friend, buddy, or pal. The rules are written in your book, and if you don’t respect them then I will fail you and you will go home, no questions asked. This is my house and you will listen to what I have to say.”
Chef was an ex-marine with a passion for classical cooking and a very long list of things he thought were “disgusting,” such as the microwave, the Food Network, all celebrities, chain restaurants, shortcuts to anything . . . the list could go on for days. He was a large man with hair buzzed short in typical military style. When he looked at you, it was as if his blue eyes pierced right through you, just challenging you to look away.
Every response we gave to him had to be a “YES, CHEF” or “NO, CHEF” in unison. The louder we were, the happier he was. “Sounding off,” it was called. To someone with my mild-mannered Southern upbringing, shouting in class seemed intense and unnatural. I always hated to be yelled at.
The classroom kitchen was large, with a long row of commercial-grade stoves in the middle and two long wooden countertops on each side. There was nothing on the walls, not even a clock, which Chef said would be too much of a distraction. In the back of the kitchen there were two large stockpots—large enough for a small person to stand in—in which chicken and veal stock bubbled continuously all day long. I learned that every morning we were to get to class thirty minutes early to set up our individual work space with a cutting board, a sanitizing bucket, a waste bucket, two dishcloths, and our tool kit. Homework was mandatory and reviewed aloud every morning—and Chef loved to call on unsuspecting students whom he thought might not have finished their work.
Also every morning, students were to procure food from the Purchasing Department, set up Chef’s demo (complete with peeled vegetables and tools), fill the industrial-size three-compartment sinks with water and sanitizer for dishwashing, and arrange our own mise en place, ingredients and tools, so that we wouldn’t waste any time after the demo. Timing was everything here, and part of our daily homework was to complete “timelines” of the next day’s recipe, including all tools, ingredients, and preparations used.
That first morning, we were each assigned a workstation along the two countertop rows. I found myself the only girl on my end of the counter, which wasn’t surprising given the ratio of men to women in the class. The three guys surrounding me were all from Florida, too, and had just graduated from high school the previous spring. Their faces bore remnants of adolescent awkwardness, with fading acne scars and faint shadows of beards. Frank, Jim, and Diego were all from the same town and constantly bantered about different girls they’d been with, or made racist jokes. When I introduced myself initially, Diego made a low-pitched whistle and said something in Spanish while elbowing Frank. Color rose in my cheeks, but I was determined to meet their gaze and not back down. The four of us were going to be working together for the next three weeks, after all.
On the second day, I felt a bit more prepared for lineup, but I was worried about my triple-rolled checkered chef’s pants, knowing I should have spent the extra twenty bucks to get them hemmed. My scalp had already begun to itch under the hairnet and my white hat.
“Good morning, Chef,” I said loudly as we shook hands. He just looked at me and wrote a note on his paper.
“Hands,” he barked, gesturing for me to stick out my hands so he could inspect them for any sort of cut or dirt speck hidden under my now too-short fingernails. “Socks.” I pulled up my pant leg to show short white socks. He made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Miss Weber, are your pants hemmed?” There was no point in lying to him because I could tell he already knew.
“No, Chef,” I responded.
“They’d better be by tomorrow. Get in class.”
And so it was. That evening, when I got home from school, I sat in my apartment staring at my bank account on my laptop screen, half a turkey and cheese sandwich next to me. Getting my pants hemmed would eat into my food budget for the month. Screw it, I muttered under my breath, and decided to just do it myself. In my closet, I found the small plastic sewing kit my mom had given me—the same sewing kit that had remained sealed for the past four years because, despite my childhood prairie-girl phase, I hate sewing with a burning passion. I told myself it must be done, though, and after I poured myself a large glass of wine I sat down on the couch with the Food Network on and prepared to hem my first pair of pants.
I worked and worked at it, but my efforts were in vain: the stitches came out loose and loopy. I wondered briefly if I should pick them all out and start over, but th
en I glanced at my watch and saw that it was already ten o’clock. I set the pants aside, fell into bed, and dreamed of checkered pants and life-size sewing needles stitching up my legs.
By the third day, my class officially lost our only fifteen-minute break of the day because a girl showed up thirty seconds late. Now we went straight through the five hours with no stopping. I didn’t mind this as much as my partners, who, along with the other smokers in the class, suffered greatly from nicotine withdrawal during stressful situations.
On my fifth day of Basic Skills, we made our first dish to be graded, pasta with sautéed vegetables and pesto sauce. As soon as Chef said “Go,” I raced to my station and began work on supreming and zesting an orange, along with the various knife skills I had to demonstrate before I could even start on my pasta. To perfectly supreme an orange means to leave it bare and juicy, with no flecks of stringy white pith at all. Sweat trickled beneath my cravat and I fought back exhaustion. I was quickly discovering that culinary school was more than just frosting cupcakes, as I had envisioned it. I was under more stress now than I had been all four years of college combined. We had an hour and a half to complete everything, and the timer was ticking.
I took out my sharp paring knife and made clean, easy cuts down the segments of my orange. I wiggled each glistening segment out gently but still managed to lose half of each one. I scraped off every speck of pith, for if Chef saw any white at all we would lose points. In the end, I had no pith on my segments, but they were ugly and misshapen—not at all like the perfect ones that Chef had produced effortlessly in a matter of minutes during the demo. I took a deep breath, put the segments in a ramekin, with pretty ones on top to hide my mistakes, and began work on the other knife skills. While I was working, I glanced over at Frank’s tray. I had to admit, for being crude and obnoxious, he was a pretty good chef. All of his oranges were perfectly supremed, and he chopped so fast it looked like his knife never left the cutting board. I quickly got back to my work.