“I’m not taking you to the emergency room to get your fingers reattached.”
I tuck my phone into the apron with a frown. “Fine.”
“Use a downward rocking motion to chop, starting with the tip.” He demonstrates it. “You want to let the knife do the work. Now, with an onion”—he cuts off both ends of the one on the cutting board with efficiency—“usually, we want more of a mince than a chop. Watch me. You’ll try it next.”
He halves the onion, peeling away the skin. Instead of hacking away at it, he makes even cuts starting with the tip of the knife, first down the length of it, then across. Little squares of onion begin to fall onto the cutting board.
I can’t help but fill the silence. “So, you liked dishwashing enough to learn how to cook?”
He shrugs. “More or less. It kept me out of trouble. I handled the dishwashing station almost every night, and finally, he promoted me. I learned the basics from there.”
“Nothing online mentions that.”
He pauses. “What?”
“I poked around a bit.” Underneath all the recent stuff—including my mother’sSalt & Savorinterview with him, which I reread—I found some interesting things. Announcements for old job postings. An award he won in culinary school. Photos of him in stiff chef’s whites, standing outside a tiny French restaurant. And the big one, the James Beard Award. He’s only a few years older than me, and he’s done so much. He makes a few successful adcampaigns for activewear seem like nothing. “You worked in Tokyo for a year, right?”
“Two.”
“Can you speak Japanese?”
“Not well.” He moves to the other half of the onion, mincing faster now. “I’m pretty much fluent in Spanish; that’s a useful skill in the culinary industry. My French isn’t awful. Japanese was a stretch.”
“See? That’s another thing that no one really knows.”
He sets down his knife. The onion has been deconstructed into a neat pile. “So?”
“So, it’s easier to be supported when you’re liked. If you want people to travel to taste your food, you need to give them a story they find interesting. Food culture is huge, and chefs can be celebrities.” I lean across the counter. A wobbly feeling bubbles in my chest at the sight of him looking at me, eyes sharp with attention. “It’s perfect for a restaurant called Fable. People—especially people with money—will always travel for an experience. A story. One about you, specifically. You’ve been in those circles enough to be known, but no one reallyknowsyou. Even in the interview with my mom, you barely said anything real about yourself or your background. What about the fact you have ADHD? That’s noteworthy.”
“So, what, they’re all going to flock here once they realize I’m neurodivergent, speak broken Japanese, and got my first job by acting like a scumbag?”
“Exactly.”
He laughs shortly. “Rich people.”
“It’s not just about rich people. All kinds of people like stories. The fact that you started as a dishwasher and ended up working in Michelin-starred restaurants—”
“Princess, most people start at the bottom and work their way up,” he interrupts. “That’s not the unique sob story you think it is.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I didn’t say it was a sob story.”
“We’re wasting time.” He picks up his knife, wiping away the remaining flecks of onion, and holds it over the table. “Your turn now.”
My protests about thisnotbeing a waste of time die in my throatas I eye the knife. It looks bigger than ever. If I drop it, it might take out one of my toes. I suddenly have begrudging appreciation for Jack’s closed-toe shoes rule. “With that?”
“What did you expect to use? A pair of safety scissors?”
I point to a smaller knife with a pearly handle. “What about that one?”
“That’s for deboning fish.”
“It looks much safer.”
“It’s better to learn how to use the right equipment from the start. The right way.” He picks out another onion and makes quick work of it. As he chops, he adds, “See how the cuts are even? Use the tip of the knife to make the slices while you hold it in place. Then you can go in the other direction, and the pieces will be uniform. Chopped pieces would be larger. Diced, smaller. Minced, smallest.”
“Do it again.” My eyes flick up to his. “Please, Chef?”
He pauses, jaw tight, the tendons in his arms flexing. He has that exasperated look in his eyes that I think might be reserved exclusively for me, but he gets to work on another onion. “Pay attention.”
