“We’re here to cook,” I protested.
“We’re here to shop.”
“Then let’s shop.”
“You should never shop for food on an empty stomach,” Jill said sagely.
“The only food you’ve ever shopped for is saltines.”
“Not when I’m hungry.”
She brought us to a little hole-in-the-wall deli just up the street from the Market. It had tatty wallpaper and a sticky floor, two rickety tables with mismatched chairs, and a girl behind the counter chewing very grape gum and petting an enormous and impossibly placid (or perhaps catatonic) German shepherd.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“The food is great,” Jill assured me. “My mom loves this place.”
“It’s dirty.”
“You don’t like dogs?”
“I love dogs. But not in my food.”
“She’s wearing gloves.”
“To pet the dog.”
“There’s nothing on the menu over five dollars,” Jill raved.
“I am willing to pay extra for a sandwich without dog hair,” I said.
We opted for lattes instead. Afterwards, we wandered through the fruit and vegetable stalls, the fish stands, the cheese counters and bakeries, the nut place. The wine shop. We were a little out of our element, but it was fun looking. We were a little out of our element, but everyone was happy to look at our list and make suggestions. It was dark by the time we got home.
“I’m too tired to learn to cook,” Jill declared, collapsing dramatically to the floor.
“You had three coffees,” I said. But Jill managed to raise herself only as far as the sofa where she stayed for the rest of the evening, being helpful by copiously sampling the wines and cheeses and determining which ones went best together. I made the most laborious meal in the history of time. It took me thirty minutes to chop three carrots and a head of broccoli. It took an hour of Googling to decide how best to broil a piece of fish. It took two and a half hours to cook the potatoes, and even then they weren’t done because I had the oven at 350 because I was baking cookies at the same time (the cookies weren’t done either, but they were still fine because raw cookies are better than done ones anyway). It was after midnight by the time we finished dinner. I couldn’t imagine doing that even once a month let alone every night.
“Saltine sandwiches are better,” said Jill.
“You’re too drunk to judge,” I said.
“That’s true,” Jill giggled. “Plus imagine how much worse this would taste if I’d helped.”
By Thanksgiving, I had mostly figured out what I was doing with seafood and vegetables, but animals with feet still eluded me. I could not get my head around reaching down a hole in a turkey (made when its head was chopped off), pulling out a bag of its guts, and replacing them with bread crumbs. As a solution, I proposed we be vegetarians. We made a feast without turkey. But it is hard to feast small. I made latkes (it was almost Hanukkah too), homemade applesauce (“Why buy when you can torture yourself?” asked my grandmother in an e-mail passing along her mother’s recipe), braised scallops (“Very vegetarian,” said Jill), roasted beets, and mini cream puffs with a variety of fillings for dessert. We lit candles and gave thanks—for having made it to the holiday, to the end of our first term, to the end of the year. We said thank you for the miracles of the semester—for learning how to cook, how to teach, how to be grad students, for not having to eat frozen spinach in cream sauce over boil-in-bag rice for dinner every night. For friendship.
You don’t get through graduate school without alliances. It’s like war, international diplomacy, and middle school—perilous climates untenable without support. For this I had Jill. And also like war, international diplomacy, and middle school, graduate school is rife with archnemeses. Everyone has one. Ours was Katie Cooke. Always overdressed and over madeup, she knit during seminar, used color-coded pens to take notes, and wore her reading glasses on lanyards which always, always matched her outfits. She sat in the middle of the front row if the chairs were in rows and right next to the professor if the chairs were around a table. She raised her hand to answer every single question posed. She was a Victorianist and a Mormon. We spent long evenings over beers that first semester mocking her. It was our stress release.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, we still had lots of leftovers, so we brought mini cream puffs to seminar. Everyone was wildly impressed that I had made them myself, even Katie. She cornered us after class.
“Those cream puffs were amazing,” she enthused. “You must be such a great cook.”
“I’m learning,” I said noncommittally. “Slowly.”
“No, those were really good. And healthy. Because they’re small so you can eat lots of them and it’s still okay.”
“Good point,” I said, wondering if she were crazy as well as annoying.
“No one cooks in graduate school,” Katie added.
“Sure,” I managed.
Suddenly she grabbed my arm. “You have to teach me how,” she whispered.
“What?”
“You have to teach me how. I can’t cook. I should be able to cook. My last name is Cooke.”
“You can’t cook?” Jill was incredulous. “You’re like some kind of domestic goddess. You knit during class. You’re wearing a suit.”
Katie shrugged. “Yeah, but I can’t cook.” This was surprising. Both that she couldn’t cook and that she was talking to us. Katie is often surprising. She sneaks up on you in ways you never expect. I didn’t know that yet.
I wanted to say, “I don’t really know how to cook either. I’m just a beginner.” I wanted to say, “It’s kind of a busy time of the semester right now. Maybe another time.” I wanted to say, “But we don’t really like you.” Instead, I panicked and said, “I’ve been practicing on Sundays. Jill helps by tasting and providing commentary. You could join us.” Jill glared at me.
“I have church until at least noon,” said Katie.
“Okay,” I said.
“I could come after though. Do you buy anything?”
“What?”
“Do you buy anything? I can’t buy anything on Sundays. But other people can cook for me. As long as I don’t pay them.”
“Thanks,” said Jill.
“I guess you could come after the shopping but before the cooking,” I offered.
“I’m so excited,” said Katie, clapping her hands. That made one of us.
That Sunday, I grilled mini pizzas and winter vegetables. Jill sat on the sofa, drank wine, and grilled Katie.
“So . . . Victorianism, huh? Kind of tight ass,” said Jill.
“Not so much . . . prudish,” Katie substituted, “as ordered, restrained, dignified really. Full of contradictions too.”
“Is that why you’re a Mormon?” Jill pressed.
“Because of the contradictions?”
“That too. And the prudishness.”
“We are fifth-generation LDS on my father’s side,” said Katie. “If you wanted, I could tell you about it.”