White Jacket Required by Jenna Weber Page A

morning, Chef Sharmin. It’s nice to meet you,” I replied as I routinely stuck out my hands to him so he could inspect my nails.
    â€œYou’re pretty skinny,” Chef said. “I hope you’re not one of those vegetarian types.” He sniffed his nose and raised his eyes to me.
    I silently thanked God that I wasn’t one of those vegetarian types anymore. While in college, I had dabbled in vegetarianism for a year, but a delicious croque monsieur in Paris the previous summer changed my diet forever. After one bite of that grilled ham and cheese sandwich, I knew I could never turn back.
    â€œNo, sir. I love meat,” I said.
    Chef looked hard at me. “Good. Because I fail vegetarians. Now get in the kitchen.”
    That morning we got lectured about how we weren’t at Le Cordon Bleu to learn the art of making salads and grilled cheese, we were there to perfect classical French culinary techniques. Chef went on to tell us that we were expected to taste every single thing that was prepared in the class. No rule said we had to like it, but we had to at least try it all. Our syllabus featured conventional meats such as chicken, pork, and beef but also included rabbit, alligator, frog, and oxtail. My stomach churned at the very thought of eating an actual tail, and again I was thankful that I had left my vegetarian ways behind somewhere on the Left Bank in Paris.
    I quickly decided I liked Chef Zoey much better than Chef Sharmin. For starters, she was a woman, and that alone was a rarity in the kitchen. She was short and muscular, no doubt from heaving heavy pots of stock around the kitchen, and wore her light brown hair in a short, bouncy ponytail beneath her tall chef’s hat. When Chef Zoey spoke, she spoke with authority, daring any of the snarky teenage boys in class to give her attitude.
    As both chefs continued to lecture, I learned that during the course of three weeks, I would memorize every part of a cow and pig and the slaughtering process that brought the steak to the table. Some of the dishes we were to make sounded delicious, such as pulled pork with Texas coffee barbecue sauce, perfect roast chicken, and beef stew. Pulled pork was a dish I had discovered after my vegetarian stint, and now I couldn’t get enough. I loved the tangy vinegar-based sauce local to South Carolina, where I went to college, and couldn’t wait to learn how to make it myself. I figured the skill would come in handy for tailgating and football games, something Rob would love as well.
    Later that morning we were again assigned groups for the rest of the three weeks, and unfortunately I was not with my friend Cat. Instead, I found myself again in a group with two guys, though this time they were my age and seemed a little more serious than Frank and Diego. Our first assignment was oxtails, and if you have never prepared oxtails before, I don’t recommend it. Eating all parts of the animal may be a status symbol in certain foodie circles, but the minute the box of tails was set down in front of us, I felt nauseated. The tails were pasty white and looked like pure fat globbed on Popsicle sticks.
    I reached hesitantly into the cardboard box and picked up a stick with a gloved hand. Chef had demonstrated how we were to slice off extra fat from the tail, leaving only a small amount of meat to be consumed. I picked up my paring knife and gently ran the edge of it down the tail, scraping off a thick layer of gelatinous fat with it. Carlo and Josh, my two new partners, laughed and joked in Spanish as they, too, scraped their oxtails.
    I stood with one hand clutching the tail and the other holding the laminated recipe, as I tried to figure out what the next step was.
    â€œSo, I think we just get as much fat as we can off the tails and then sear them in oil before braising,” I said. I couldn’t imagine actually eating this dish, which still seemed to be pure fat despite my desperate attempts to