Off the Menu (33 page)

“Good. What else?”

“Cooking for someone should be giving them a gift from your soul,” Mari says, looking sidelong at Max and blushing. Something tells me she has cooked for him recently.

“Absolutely.”

“But good food is also a gift you give to yourself and taking the time to eat really good food that is really good for you shows that you respect yourself,” Aretha says. She has lost a few pounds since starting with us, and I know it is because she is learning about making smarter choices.

“Food safety is like aircraft maintenance, always worth
the time and effort,” Renaldo says, quoting one of Patrick’s favorite quips, and making everyone laugh.

“Perfect!” Patrick offers a hand for a high five.

“There are more jobs than you can imagine in the food industry, and if we want a career, there will be one to match the things that most interest us,” Helena says. Originally, I assumed that her being here was just about cooking for her family, but as the class has gone on, she has started to ask about restaurant management in a way that makes me think she might be thinking about a front-of-house position, which I think would be a great move for her.

“And if we want to run a restaurant we better be sure it’s the only thing in life we want to do, because it is very, very hard work and very difficult to be successful.” Joseph is more determined than ever to take over his uncle’s diner, and I have every faith that he will do a wonderful job with it.

“Your kitchen is only as good as the lowest-paid person in it, and if that person is you, you have the whole place riding on your shoulders.” Juan says this with pride. He recently started washing dishes at Nuevo Leon, a job I hooked him up with, and even though the work is sort of thankless, hearing Patrick say how important it is I know makes him feel good.

“We have to be willing to try anything once, especially the stuff that scares us.” Clara may have changed the most of any of them. The orange plastic curls are gone in favor of her own gorgeous thick black hair, grown out to just below her chin, and pulled back with a simple headband. The thick makeup has been replaced by clean, clear skin with just a hint of blush, lip gloss, and mascara, the green contacts gone to reveal sparkly brown eyes. The flashy, tight clothes slowly disappeared, and today she is wearing a simple denim skirt and dark eggplant-purple shirt that flatter her voluptuous
frame and caramel skin. Kai gave her a major makeunder, and the results are wonderful. She looks like a typical teenage girl, not jaded or world-weary, and seems to have gained some amount of comfort in her own skin. And she has been blowing us all away with her food, most of it traditional Mexican recipes from her grandmother and foods from other Latino cultures that she finds in cookbooks and magazines. I would not be surprised to see her become a powerhouse in the Latin food movement. She’s going to meet Rick Bayless next week about a summer job, and I have every faith she will nail the interview.

“Alana? Anything they missed?” Patrick looks over at me.

I think hard and take a deep breath. “Life is also about balance, just the way recipes are about balance. When your recipe isn’t balanced, it doesn’t taste right. Too much salt, or too little can make all the difference. Lack of acid, too much bitter or sweetness, if you don’t find the balance your food will never be all it can be. The same is true of your life. You need it all. Work that makes you happy and fulfilled and supports you financially. Family and friends to lean on and celebrate with. Hopefully someone special to share your life with, and a family of your own if you want that. Some way of giving back, in honor of your own blessings. A sense of spirituality or something that keeps you grounded. Time to do the things you need for good health, eating right and exercising and managing your stress. If you have too much of one and not enough of another, then your life isn’t balanced, and without that balance, nothing else will matter.”

All day I was sure that I would turn down the Foundation job. The financial downside is just too big to ignore. As much as I love the idea of working with kids, training teachers to empower them with our curriculum, having an impact on so
many lives, the sacrifice is too much. Because the sacrifice isn’t just mine. I can’t just blithely go after something that feeds my soul to the detriment of my parents’ lives. I was sure of it.

But now, after these past three hours, I’m up in the air again. When I’m here with these incredible young people, my heart just wants more. I want to see them grow and develop. I want to follow their paths. I’ve had a million ideas today about the program and things we could do, new programs we could start, and it jazzes up my blood and makes me feel all sparkly. The idea of being on
Master Chef Challenge
does not make me feel sparkly. It makes me feel nauseated.

“You guys have been amazing,” Patrick says, “so I’m going to make you a promise. You continue on your path, and you have me in your corner. Provided you stay out of trouble and on the straight and narrow, you have access to me. If you need a job, I will find you one, either in one of my restaurants or on one of my shows or through someone else I know. Finish school, keep in touch, and if I can ever help you, I will.”

The kids clap, and come over to get the cookbooks we brought them as gifts, signed and personalized. I watch Patrick with them. As awful as he can be, when he’s like this, it melts my heart.

As we walk to our cars, Patrick has a spring in his step.

“Thank you for that, Patrick, really. And offering to help them with jobs and stuff, that was very generous.”

“My pleasure. They seem like very cool kids.”

“They are.”

“And you seem really attached to them, and this program.”

“I am.” This would be the perfect time to tell him about
the job offer, to at least be honest with him that I’m strongly considering it.

“Just think, when you are up there on TV, all those kids are going to look at you and be so proud that you were their teacher. And girls everywhere are going to see you as such a role model. Child of immigrant parents, self-made, up by your bootstraps. You are an inspiring woman, Alana, and people are going to notice that.”

I never thought of it that way. I’ve only ever thought about being in the public eye as something negative, something that invites criticism and ridicule and embarrassment. But he’s right, the flip side of that is the possibility to inspire and educate and be a role model. I think of the girls I grew up with in my neighborhood, girls who figured their only options were housewife, hairdresser, or housecleaner. The really ambitious ones aiming for nurse or teacher. And all five of those are honorable and honest jobs. But what if they had some reason to believe they could do or be more? What if someone from our neighborhood had been on television? Would some of them have dared to dream bigger?

“Well, I’m still thinking about that.”

“Yeah, yeah, think all you want. We’re going to have such fun on this adventure. Thanks for today, it was awesome. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow at the studio?”

I jump in my car and head over to RJ’s. I need to feed PJ and see if the fly traps I set this morning have done anything. I put eight of the long, curly hanging ones all over the house, and in the kitchen, and this weird trap that looked like a paper towel tube covered in ultrasticky glue, sitting in a base like a little square cup. I had to bait the trap by putting honey in the cup part. It was strange, but the package said that it was
safe to use near food, and I hated the idea of the toxic kind in the kitchen.

I let myself in with my shiny new keys, and step inside, turning on the light. I love RJ’s house. It looks like him. It smells like him. His beautiful Arts and Crafts antiques, the art, his guitar collection. It is warm and cozy and very much representative of who he is. I can hear loud mewling coming from the back of the house.

“I’m coming, JP. You can’t be out of food already, I was just here this morning!”

As I go through the house, I notice that the fly traps seem to be doing their job; each one has at least three or four dead flies attached, and I only notice one live one flying around. And when I get into the kitchen I discover that the tube trap has hit the mother lode.

It has caught a whole cat.

JP is straddling the tube like a witch on a broomstick, and the thing is completely attached to his underside from his chinny chin chin to the pink starfish butt hole he is so proud to wave in people’s faces. He is writhing in profound annoyance at this situation, all four legs stuck out straight and waving, unable to get any purchase or dislodge the offending item. He is also covered in glue and honey and dead flies.

“Shitshitshitshitshitshit.” What the hell am I going to do? I grab JP by the scruff and toss him in the bathtub, and then call Barry on his cell.

“Hey, you! I just dropped your dog off, sorry I missed you.”

“Help.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“You have to come to RJ’s. It’s an emergency.”

“I just left your place, so I’m not far, what’s going on? Should I call nine-one-one?”

“No, I just, I’m having a cat problem and I need some assistance.”

“Whew. Is he okay?”

“Mostly. He’s caught in a fly trap.”

“No, seriously.”

“SERIOUSLY. Barry, just get over here. You remember the house? On Manor, just north of Montrose, Japanese maple in the front.”

“I remember. I’m on my way.”

I unlock the door and leave it ajar. Then I call the emergency vet. They tell me to try to remove the glue with some sort of cooking oil, but assure me the cat is in no danger. I have to ask the most embarrassing question.

“Is it possible his little butt hole could get glued together? The trap seems to be stuck in that area.”

The nurse on the other end laughs. “I can promise you, even if there is glue there, he will clean it properly; there isn’t really any danger.”

“Whew. Thank you so much.” I am just hanging up when Barry comes through the door like an avenging angel.

“What on earth is going on?” he asks, kissing my cheek.

“Look,” I say, motioning to the bathroom.

Barry sees poor JP in the tub and begins to laugh.

“This is not funny, this is a disaster!”

He wipes his eyes, then grabs his cell phone and snaps a few pictures. “What? You are going to want this documented, trust me.”

“Look, will you just help me figure this out?”

Barry puts down the phone, takes off his coat, and rolls up
his sleeves. He looks at JP, who glares at him as if to say, “Hey! Asshole! Want to give a cat a hand here?”

“As I see it, I should hold him still while you pull the trap off, and then we should try to clean him off.”

“The vet’s office said cooking oil might get the glue off his fur.”

“You get the oil and the paper towels, and I’ll hang here with Professor Sticky Pants.”

I go to the kitchen and grab a roll of paper towels and a bottle of peanut oil that RJ uses for popping popcorn. When I get back to the bathroom, Barry is sitting in the tub, JP cradled against him, trap facing out. He has JP’s rear end sort of trapped between his thighs, and is holding his upper body firmly by the scruff.

“This fellow appears to be rear-wheel drive only, so watch the claws as you get down toward the tender bits,” Barry says.

I close the bathroom door behind me, figuring if he gets away he can’t go far. The idea of him getting any of that ick on one of RJ’s rugs or pieces of furniture makes me break out in a cold sweat. “Okay, here goes.” I grasp the top of the trap firmly, and begin to pull it away from JP’s body; he wriggles and mewls, but doesn’t try to bite me or claw at me. This stuff is really sticky, so I have to go very slowly or I risk ripping out the poor thing’s fur at the roots like the worst Brazilian ever. But eventually I get the whole tube separated from cat. Barry readjusts his grip, and I pour oil on the sticky swath down the cat’s belly, and begin to gently use the paper towels to pull the glue off his fur. It’s going well, but suddenly I hit a particularly stubborn bit, and pull a little hard.

JP yowls. Then Barry yowls as JP digs his claws into Barry’s thighs and launches himself into the air. He lands on the sink, gives a mighty shake, spraying the whole little
bathroom, Barry, and me with a fine mist of peanut oil, and then begins to run in frantic circles, and eventually cowers behind the toilet.

You know how they talk about trying to catch a greased pig? Greased cat is no better. Every time one of us grabs him, he slithers right out of our grasp. Finally we throw a towel over him, and use it to pin him down, and I work quickly to get as much of the glue off as possible. When I’m satisfied that he is fairly well degunked, Barry looks at me.

“So. Now that we used the oil to get off the glue, what do we use to get off the oil?”

I hadn’t really thought of that. But he’s right, we can’t just let him loose all covered in oil, he’ll ruin everything he touches.

“Ever wash a cat?” I ask him.

“Nope.”

“Well, we’re going to have to. What should we use? Shampoo?”

Barry looks down. “I think dishwashing detergent, isn’t it designed to combat grease?”

“You’re a genius. Sit tight.” I zip out to the kitchen and look under the sink. Thank god. Dawn. It gets grease out of your way. Says so right on the bottle. I also grab a small bowl, figuring we’ll need it for rinsing, and return to the bathroom where Barry and I give JP a very thorough and, I’m sure, uncomfortable cleaning. By the time we are done, Barry and I are both wet and greasy ourselves, and the cat is damp with some residual oil, but not enough for me to be worried about the furniture. We give him an extra-special treat of a can of tuna for his trouble and clean up all the paper towels and the offending trap. I drape some towels on the places I know he likes to sleep, the corner of the couch, his favorite
chair, RJ’s pillow. JP, having decimated the tuna, jumps onto the couch right on the towel and begins cleaning himself frantically.

“Barry?”

“Yes, my sweet?”

“Will you help me do something the teeniest bit wrong before we leave?”