by Jenna Weber
Season with salt and pepper and serve.
Old-Fashioned Chocolate-Walnut Torte
Serves 6
Ahh, the dessert of my childhood. This torte screams “retro,” and you’ll never guess the secret ingredient.
2 egg whites
1¼ cups granulated sugar, divided
20 saltines, crushed
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, plus additional for dusting
1½ cups chopped walnuts
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Heavily grease two cake pans with butter (cooking spray won’t work here).
Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed. When you can’t see the bottom of the bowl, slowly add 1 cup of the granulated sugar, continuing to beat on high, until stiff, glossy peaks form. Fold saltines into meringue.
Spread meringue over the bottoms of cake pans and bake for 25 minutes. Transfer the meringues in the pans to a wire rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, whip the cream with the cocoa powder and the remaining ¼ cup sugar. Fold in walnuts.
When meringues are cool, gently peel them out of the cake pans. This might be difficult, but it’s easiest if you run a knife very gently underneath the meringue to loosen it up a bit. Don’t worry if it breaks a little—you’ll be covering the whole thing in whipped cream anyway, so no one will know the difference.
Spread half of the whipped cream onto one meringue layer. Gently place the other layer on top and top with remaining whipped cream. Spread meringue evenly over the sides of the meringues, then dust top with cocoa powder.
10
MOVING ON
I PULLED INTO MY APARTMENT PARKING SPOT, TRUNK FILLED WITH suitcases and groceries, eager to see Helen again after two weeks apart. She had gotten home a few hours before I did, and we were planning on cooking something easy for dinner together that night. My arms were full as I flung open the door and shouted inside, “Mella!” using my childhood name for her. When we were seven, Helen’s grandmother from Greece taught us our Greek names—mine was Yonulla—and we had been using them for each other ever since. It started as a childhood joke, but somehow it still stuck almost fifteen years later.
Helen walked into the kitchen wearing dark jeans and a black shirt, with her hair done up in a messy knot on the top of her head. Without ever seeming to try, she always managed to look fashionable.
She gave me a big hug. “Yonulla! I’ve missed you!” she said.
“I missed you, too. I can’t wait to be filled in on everything over dinner. Want to go out?” I asked while starting to unload the groceries.
“Sounds perfect. I’ve been craving some good Pad Thai lately. Do you need help bringing in anything from downstairs?” she asked, and I couldn’t help but notice how much healthier and more rested she looked than when we’d parted only two weeks ago. The dark circles had pretty much faded entirely from around her eyes, and she seemed relaxed and full of life.
“Nope, I got them all. Thanks, though. I’m just going to unpack a little, then I’ll freshen up and be ready for dinner,” I said.
I couldn’t wait to tell Helen the news of my decision to switch programs. I had one more general culinary class to get through before I could officially make the switch, but that class happened to be Introduction to Baking, so I was excited regardless. Tomorrow I would have to talk to the registrar’s office, and I also needed to talk to Tony at work to make sure I could swap my night shift for daytime. Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place, and I couldn’t wait to get going.
We got to the restaurant around six and headed to our favorite booth in the back. It seemed like just yesterday we were here after moving into the apartment, before this new phase in our lives ever really started. Right after our Pad Thai came, as I was swirling my first long noodle around my fork, Helen cleared her throat.
“So . . . I made some decisions over break,” she began, looking down at her plate. Whatever she was about to say was clearly well thought out but difficult. “After talking with my mom and dad, I’ve decided to quit the police force and move back to Naples for a while, while I figure out what I really want to do.” Helen bit her lip. “I’m really sorry, Jenna. I wish there were an easier solution.”
I sat stunned. What about our apartment? What about being roommates, just like we talked about when we were eight years old? This was supposed to be our fun year together, and now Helen was moving away. I could never afford our place on my own and had never lived by myself before. I was both mad and sad at the same time. I remembered the time in fifth grade when my family moved away and I was sent to a new junior high all by myself. Helen and I had had a sleepover on our last night in my house, and we stayed up late telling secrets and promising each other that nothing was really going change. The next day, though, as my parents’ minivan pulled away, leaving Helen and her mom in our old driveway, fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I had never felt so alone. My new school was cold and unfriendly; all of the other kids in my grade already had set groups of friends and teased me about my glasses and my skinny, undeveloped body. Once the boys found out that I didn’t wear a bra, I got taunted endlessly and ended up hiding in the shower stall during P.E., writing tear-stained letters to Helen.
“Oh,” I said. “But why are you moving home? Couldn’t you figure things out here?” I asked her.
Helen looked sad. “I think I already have a temporary job lined up at home until I make more decisions. It just makes more sense for me to move back in with my parents right now because they’re willing to help me a little bit. Nothing is set in stone though . . . I just really wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. But don’t worry, I’m still going to pay half the rent from home. I don’t want you feeling stuck now that I’m leaving.”
“When are you going?” I asked her. My first day back at school was the next day, and every night that week I was scheduled at the restaurant. The calm of Christmas break was about to be broken.
“In a few days. I’m packing up now,” she said.
“Well then! I guess that pretty much covers everything,” I said tartly and then concentrated on my dinner. I hated myself for responding like that, but the words had just flown out of my mouth.
Helen made a sad face. “Don’t be mad at me, Yonulla. I just had to do something because I was getting depressed. This isn’t going to change anything, really.”
I knew it would, though. I had just found my best friend again after years apart, only to lose her once more. She would move home, I would continue with school, and we would both move on.
I sighed. “I’m not mad at you, I’m just bummed. I don’t want you depressed or unhappy, so this is obviously the best choice. I’ll just miss you, that’s all.”
We changed the subject to lighter things, chatting about Rob and Michael and our brothers. She asked me how John was doing and I rolled my eyes.
“He’s such a teenager,” I said. “Only thinks about himself and just wants to have fun. I’m kind of worried he might be hanging out with a bad crowd.” I didn’t mention that Mom had found a pack of cigarettes in his trunk last week.
“I’m sure he’s fine. Teenage guys all go through that stage.”
“Yeah . . . I just want to make sure he’s okay, you know? It seems like just yesterday he was five and we were pushing him around in that wheelbarrow.”
Helen laughed hysterically. “Oh my gosh, I’ll never forget that. Remember how you used to dress him up like a pioneer and tell him we were going on the Oregon Trail?”
“Ha! Those were the days. We were so weird,” I said, laughing now, too. Back then, everything seemed so uncomplicated.
When we got home, I ironed my chef’s uniform and laid out everything for the morning. I couldn’t wait to make my switch official and dive deep into the world of bread, cookies, and pastries.
The next morning, I gathered all my tools and headed to school earlier than usual. At 6:45 a.m., the hallways were still quiet, but the aromas of fre
shly roasted coffee and scrambled eggs wafted in from the cafeteria. I made my way to the classroom kitchen where Introduction to Baking I was being held. There were only two other students in the kitchen so far, and I recognized one of the guys from Basic Skills setting up his station. This classroom kitchen was different from any other I had been in so far, with long wooden (not metal) tables down the center and industrial-size ovens all along the wall. In the back of the kitchen, the biggest stand mixers I had ever seen were propped up against the wall, ready to cream butter and sugar into thick ribbons. The kitchen smelled slightly of yeast, but the best thing about it was that it was warm. Gone were the days of wearing little boys’ long underwear underneath my chef’s whites and gripping hot tea to keep from shivering.
A very small woman wearing glasses and a large chef’s hat was at the front of the room, weighing flour on an old-fashioned kitchen scale. I set my pastry tool kit down on an end of one of the long tables and made my way to the front to introduce myself.
“Hi, Chef, I’m Jenna,” I said.
Chef looked up at me over the tops of her glasses and smiled warmly. “Hi, Jenna! I’m Chef Tolby. It’s nice to meet you.”
Finally, a chef who didn’t appear to be hostile or a member of the Green Berets. Chef Tolby was a sweet older woman who later told us that she had worked as the head pastry chef at a number of Europe’s best restaurants before moving back to the United States and “retiring” to teach. She stood only a little over five feet tall but was bursting with enthusiasm and passion for baking. I could already tell I would learn a lot from her. When I told her that I was making the switch to the Baking and Pastry program, she smiled wide, eyes crinkling, and welcomed me. For the first time yet, we weren’t assigned partners or groups in class. Chef Tolby said that it was important for all of us to learn basic baking principles on our own, without the constant aid of teammates. I’ve always worked better solo, and I liked this plan a lot. As in my two previous classes, though, we would have practicals every Friday morning that were worth a large percentage of our grade. As Chef Tolby went over the syllabus, I paged through the notebook she had just handed out. On the list of things to make were chocolate-chip cookies, croissants, sponge cake, and pizza dough. Finally, I felt right at home.
After Chef finished her short lecture, we were set loose to work on our first recipe: biscuits. I turned the page in my notebook and smoothed down the recipe. Then, I cleared my area and dug for my measuring spoons in my tool kit. Though we were given small electronic scales as part of our initial culinary kit, Chef Tolby wanted us to become familiar with the old, weighted kitchen scales first because, she explained, “you never know what your future restaurant will have.” There was already a line forming around the enormous flour bins at the back of the room, and I grabbed my bowl and made my way there. We needed equal parts all-purpose flour and pastry flour, along with sugar and vegetable shortening. I loved not having to rely on anyone else to get the work done, and as soon as all my ingredients were properly weighed and measured, I let myself drift in my baking zone, where all I had to worry about was following the recipe and everything else would just fall into place.
Forty minutes later, the scent of freshly baked biscuits permeated the kitchen. Chef Tolby made rounds, stopping at each of our stations and asking how it was going. My biscuits had turned out perfectly—light, airy, and huge with golden-brown bottoms and lightly toasted tops. I let them cool while cleaning my station and sweeping the floor, then brought them up to Chef to be graded at the end of class.
“Beautiful, Miss Weber! I think you might have found your calling,” Chef said as she picked up one of my biscuits and broke it in half to inspect the inner crumb.
I blushed, feeling my confidence rise a few notches. It was exactly the boost I needed after last month’s Meat Fabrication debacle. “Thank you, Chef. I really loved baking these.”
“I can tell. They look wonderful.”
I took my tray back to my station and prepared to do the thing I had been looking forward to for the past five hours: I broke open a biscuit and brought half to my lips. It tasted like butter and toast, and the crumbs melted quickly on the tip of my tongue. Eating it reminded me of the weekly “breakfast for dinner” night at my sorority house during my one semester at University of Alabama. Piles of fluffy buttermilk biscuits were split open and stuffed with scrambled eggs and bacon, and it was always my favorite meal of the week. Missy, our sorority house cook, made amazing biscuits—but this one that now lay half eaten on my cutting board definitely tasted just as good, if not better. I discreetly wrapped the other half in a paper towel and stuffed it in my tool kit for later.
When I got home from class that day, I remembered the biscuit half. I scooped it out and quickly reheated it in the microwave before layering on a piece of ham and some cheddar cheese for a quick prework snack. Helen was busy packing up her room into the same cardboard boxes that she had unpacked only a few months before. I shouted hello with my mouth full and then made my way into my bedroom, leaving a trail of crumbs behind me.
First-Day-of-Class Biscuits
Makes one dozen biscuits
This recipe guarantees fluffy biscuits every time, unless you forget the baking powder. Serve them split open with butter and your favorite jam.
2 cups pastry flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup shortening, chilled and cut into small pieces
¾ cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together pastry flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add shortening and mix well with your hands until the mixture resembles tiny grains of sand.
Form a well in the center of the dough and pour in the buttermilk. Mix only until combined. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead five times. With a rolling pin, roll out dough ½-inch thick.
Cut biscuits using biscuit cutters or the rim of a large glass. Place biscuits on lined baking sheet and bake until golden, 12 to15 minutes.
Serve with honey butter, raspberry jam, or ham and cheese.
Spicy Sesame Noodle Bowls
Serves 4
Whenever I have a craving for Vietnamese food, I head to the kitchen and make this recipe. Cooked shrimp make a nice addition.
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup hot water
1 cup canola oil
1 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
⅓ cup sugar
½ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup chili oil
2½ tablespoons toasted sesame oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces soba noodles, cooked, drained, and rinsed with cold water (drizzle with sesame oil after cooking)
Sesame seeds for garnish
Sliced raw veggies of your choice (red pepper strips, carrot sticks, bean sprouts)
In a large bowl, mix together the soy sauce and hot water until combined and smooth. Add canola oil and mix again, then add tahini, sugar, and vinegar, mixing well after each addition. Add chili oil, sesame oil, and garlic. Whisk until everything is combined.
Serve with cold-cooked noodles and top with sesame seeds and raw vegetables.
11
BREAKING BREAD
FINALLY, IT WAS THE FIRST NIGHT OF MY FIRST OFFICIAL BAKING and Pastry class. I had switched over to the program effortlessly, a matter of a few signed papers and swapping my old knives and culinary tools for more baker-friendly gear. I now had more measuring cups and spoons, a wooden rolling pin, and a brand-new set of pastry tips that I couldn’t wait to test out.
Helen had moved home a week earlier. Before she left, she’d promised again to continue paying her share of the monthly rent. We gave each other a big hug. When her SUV pulled out of the drive, I went back in
side the apartment and stood in the silence. Then, I made myself a fancy dinner and went to bed early. Part of me thought I would actually enjoy living by myself. I was so busy, anyway, and hardly ever there to begin with. I could leave dirty dishes in the sink, go to bed early without an excuse, and blast my music while getting dressed for work in the morning. It was freeing.
And now here I was. With my whites on, my flour out, ready to roll on the first night of class. Bread 101, it was called. I had already read the first chapters in the textbook and couldn’t wait to get started. During this class, we would be learning all about bread, starting with the basics of bread science like flour type and gluten, and then moving on to baking classic French and American breads. My instructor, Chef Hill, had quite a reputation with the ladies as being the most attractive chef in school. He had shoulder-length wavy brown hair, deep blue eyes, and a permanent five o’clock shadow on his face. He’d worked as an artisanal baker for years and had the well-muscled arms and hands of someone who kneaded bread all day long.
During lineup, he looked me up and down and wrote a few notes in his planner. “Thanks, that’ll do,” he said, and snapped his book shut. I was the last person in line and hustled back to my seat at the front of the kitchen. I eagerly absorbed everything he said about different types of flour, gluten, wild yeast, and oven temperatures. I loved the warmth of the oven, the feel of the flour on my fingertips, and even the scent of the pungent fresh yeast, which felt like velvet but crumbled in the palm of my hand. My first bread from scratch was a loaf of traditional French bread, with a hard, crusty exterior and a soft, chewy center. By the third day, I couldn’t tell if I was more in love with the way Chef Hill looked as he plunged his tanned hands into a big pile of dough, or the way baking homemade bread made me feel—alive and talented. I loved learning and taking notes about different countries’ bread-making traditions, and there was nothing quite like eating homemade bread straight out of the oven, either.