One Tough Cookie
by Vinnie Hansen
Thirty teenagers stared at me. They were neither rude nor terribly interested. Alvina Jameson, the teacher, had efficiently commanded the students into two concentric semicircles before the stainless steel table. I wanted to shoo them back a full step. I could hear one kid's wheezy breathing.
"I thought she'd be a man," a tall boy in the outer circle whispered.
A tiny girl with long, long hair whipped around. "Geez, Chendo, Mrs. Jameson told us her name was Carol Sabala."
Despite the boy's assumption, society had made inroads into sexism. About one third of the cooking class was male. A few of the students were mildly curious about what I was going to concoct with the oversized bowl, flour, yeast, eggs, almond extract, and sugar. I was a little curious, too. I'd made Danish dough hundreds of times, but never in such a small quantity, and never for an audience. Of course, it didn't matter if the recipe flopped, as I'd lugged in a five-gallon bucket of chilled, already prepared dough for the actual baking.
The group hovered with limited wiggling and jockeying, and my admiration soared for Alvina Jameson, who smiled encouragingly at me from the end of the table. I rolled up the sleeves of my chef's jacket, and pushed up the cuffs of the pink turtleneck under it.
"Well, first you take the flour . . . ."
A couple of students found the statement amusing, which disconcerted me. I had not intended to be funny. "I'm so used to mixing dough to make two or three hundred Danishes, that generally I don't measure anything . . . ."
"See, Mrs. Jameson," the tall boy said, "she's a professional cook and she doesn't measure." The boy had hazel, long-lashed eyes stuck in a remarkably clear brown face.
Mrs. Jameson responded with a patient smile, a soft "Chendo," and a finger to her lips.
The beauty of Chendo's skin made him seem nerdy to me. Apparently stepping on a high school campus made one revert to stereotypes.
I hadn't looked forward to this presentation. My boss Eldon had pressured me to come, saying the demonstration would be good P.R. A reporter from the Register Pajaronian was supposed to be here, although no such person was in evidence.
I yammered about "proofing the yeast," and smiled when some kid whispered about the muscles in my forearms, the result of years spiking volleyballs and of stirring batches of dough.
I'd acquiesced to Eldon, the kitchen manager, for two reasons. First, it was useless to fight him on issues involving the image of Archibald's, particularly Archibald's kitchen, where I was a baker, actually the baker. Second, he'd hinted that there was a "mystery" for me to solve at the school, a possible poisoning, that Alvina Jameson wanted someone unofficial to "look into." I was flattered. I'd gained a reputation, at least among the kitchen staff, because I'd solved a murder case, but that had been over two years ago. I'd toyed with the idea of becoming a private investigator, but my husband Chad had been, and continued to be, dead set against it.
Eldon, my immediate boss, was a dichotomy: a boring, born-bureaucrat who blathered at length, as though he had no insight into his audience, but yet was dead-on at reading people. He certainly knew what buttons to push to get me to comply with his wishes. We had, though, compromised on my dress. I had agreed to wear the top half of our uniform, the white chef's jacket and chef's hat, if I could forgo the creepy houndstooth pants for regular jeans.
"I don't think that's the right image," Eldon had insisted. "It doesn't look professional."
"I'll believe I'm a professional," I replied sarcastically, "when I get paid like one."
"That outfit would not accurately represent the way we dress at Archibald's."
"How am I going to check out the poisoning for your friend if I stick out like a maraschino?"
His soft face twisted into a moue of disapproval. "Mrs. Jameson is not that kind of friend."
As I finished the Danish dough and hefted the bowl to Alvina Jameson, I wondered how she and Eldon knew each other. I rolled the already cooled, manageable dough from the five-gallon bucket. The demonstration was going well. When I lapsed into silences, Alvina breezily filled them. "Look, class, at how she rolls the dough. A light touch."
"Do bakers make good money?" The boy who asked was as tall as Chendo, but filled out and beefy. He wore a red cap twisted backwards.
I felt like telling him that every twist of his cap shaved off I.Q. points, but instead I said, "No. I, fortunately, have a husband who works."
"Do you have any kids?" The girl was the one with the Godiva hair who'd set Chendo straight about my gender. She was so tiny only her chest and smooth, soft face showed above the table.
Alvina Jameson shot the girl a look to say the question was inappropriate, but she simply tipped her head of luxurious brown hair, requesting a response.
"I used to," I said dryly, "until I got this new recipe for pot pies." I'm demented; I enjoyed watching her figure it out. Her dark eyes popped. "I'll demonstrate that recipe next time Mrs. Jameson invites me to speak."
Eldon had supplied me with a generous two-quart container of expensive Danish filling, a mixture of marzipan, cream cheese, sugar, and slivered almonds. I brushed a thin layer onto the rolled dough, and cut the dough into sixty strips.
"Do you always have to wear that dorky hat?" the beefy kid asked.
"Javier!" Mrs. Jameson said sternly.
I thought that was a hell of a question given his backward cap, but I kept my voice neutral. "It's either this dorky hat or a hair net." I was glad that he hadn't seen the pants.
"I'd rather wear a hair net," he pushed.
He wanted more reaction. I ignored him, picked up one of the strips and twisted it like a locker room towel for snapping.
"Wow," Javier said sarcastically.
Mrs. Jameson edged close to his big shoulder. It didn't seem possible that she could intimidate him, but he clearly did not like the teacher beside him. He turned from her and wilted.
In about one second, I'd wrapped the dough around my forefinger into a Danish. I picked up another and another, fast as a machine, and I could see the kids were suitably impressed. Chendo offered a genuine, "Wow." Showing off, I made Danishes with my eyes closed and then I shaped a few behind my back.
While my adult colleagues found such displays tiring and obnoxious, the kids liked it, and wanted to know what else I could do. After I'd dolloped each pastry with raspberry filling, the bell rang. I was tired and felt the salty, nervous sweat in my armpits, but I had to admit that I'd had an enjoyable time. Maybe I should become a cooking teacher.
Order One Tough Cookie
Contents © Vinnie Hansen. Please do not repost or print without permission.
