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I glance over at Tim who seems remarkably chuffed by the turn of events. Jake asks him, “Do you have any mushrooms?”
“Probably,” he says.
“Maybe I could do some lettuce wraps or something.” Poor Jake sounds crushed.
Trina looks less than thrilled with lettuce wraps. She asks, “Can you make bread, as well?”
Before he can answer, Tim wants to know, “Do vegans even eat yeast? I mean it’s alive, right?”
“Most vegans do eat yeast.” Jake explains, “Yeast is a fungus, not an animal.”
Yuck.Noting my expression, he adds, “Like mushrooms are fungus.”
“Interesting ...” I know mushrooms are fungus, but I don’t likethinking about it. Now I won’t be able to eat bread without thinking “fungus.”
Accepting his fate, Jake offers, “I could make garlic bread to go with Paige’s pasta dish.”
“Wonderful!” Trina seems happy that he’s contributing something else. She points between Jake and me. “While you two get everything set up, I’ll retrieve one of the cameramen to start taping.” To Tim, she adds, “That way we won’t interrupt your dinner service.”
Tim is not smiling when he walks out of the kitchen, but who cares? I’m about to get to know Jake a whole lot better, andhe’sactually in the market for love. Unlike some people who only want to make their ex-wives jealous.
Once Jake and I put on aprons, we start collecting things for our recipes. In the walk-in refrigerator, I sidle up to him and ask, “Have you ever eaten meat?”
“I didn’t become a vegetarian until I went to college. I became a vegan after graduation.” I find this very refreshing. Not many people today are willing to invest the kind of time and dedication such a lifestyle requires. As such, it’s clear that Jake must be good at commitment.
“Would you ever date a non-vegan?” I ask while wondering if there are any vegan women on the show.
Jake grabs a head of cabbage and some carrots. “Sure, but I’d hope that the woman I wound up with would be willing to at leasttrybeing vegan.”
“How much time constitutes trying?” I’m pretty sure I could live without bacon for a week.
Jake leads the way out of the refrigerator. “I’d hope she’d be willing to give it at least a year.”
A year of no pepperoni on my pizza? Who am I kidding? It would be a year of no pizza because I wouldn’t be allowed to have cheese. My heart starts to beat rapidly, and I wonder if I’m on the verge of a panic attack.
Jake doesn’t seem to notice my distress because he continues, “A vegan diet works wonders on the human body. I sleep better than I ever have, which results in my having more energy. My hair and nails are super strong, and my bowels move like nobody’s business.”
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond to the knowledge that Jake is a champion pooper. “Are you just anti-animal products or do you have other dietary restrictions?”
Trina comes back into the kitchen with the cameraman and a sound guy. While the sound guy sets up our microphones, Trina tells us, “Just carry on as you were. We’ll let you know if we need you to do anything differently.”
Once our mics are live, Jake tells me, “I don’t eat any white sugar or flour.”
“How do you make bread without white flour?” I ask. “Isn’t it super heavy that way?”
“It’s heavy but you don’t need as much to fill you up. Also, the fiber content really works, if you know what I mean.”Great, he’s talking about poop again.
Trina asks Jake to move over to a side station that has a cleaner background. While he’s being filmed making what I can only assume will be garlic bread that resembles hockey pucks, I plop five pounds of ground beef into the largest skillet I can find. Then I add five chopped onions, and twenty cloves of crushed garlic.
By the time the meat is cooked, it smells so good I’m ready to ask it to marry me. I glance over at Jake who looks nauseated by the intoxicating aroma permeating the atmosphere.Is it me or is he less good looking than he was a few minutes ago?
While I blot the fat from my meat, I watch Jake roll a questionable-looking mixture into tiny lettuce leaves. If that was my supper, I’d need two hundred of them to fill me up.
Trina leads the cameraman over to me while I’m pouring my macaroni noodles into a colander. “Okay, Paige, you’re on. Just tell us what you’re doing while you’re doing it.”
For some reason, I’m not at all nervous as I channel my inner Rachael Ray. I gush about how wonderful everything smells whileassembling my casserole. While I make a white sauce, I tell the camera, “You have to start out with a béchamel, so your cheese remains smooth and creamy.”
I show them how to whisk flour into the melted butter and then add the hot milk. Once that’s done, I slowly add the cheese until it’s all melted. Then I begin to assemble the casserole. “The thing that makes my cheeseburger casserole the best is the crushed potato chips I add on top during the last ten minutes of baking. Because a cheeseburger is nothing without chips!” Watch out, I might be on the verge of coming up with cutesy names like Rachael does.
