God, her smile can light up a room.
“Don’t tell me you named—”
“Every single one. Yep! Would you like me to introduce you?”
Alexander laughs and shakes his head. “I have a feeling you’re going to anyway.”
“This is Clyde, Toby the Second, Henry, Daniel, Jack, and Zimmerman,” she says, pointing to each one of her knives.
“And the bread knife?”
“Charlie. Rather fitting, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “God, it’s a good thing you’re cute.”
Eden gently bumps him in the hip with her own. “Show me what the hell a fine bruno-thingy is.”
Alexander demonstrates with a large potato, slicing with deathly precision and accuracy. “A batonnet is a rectangular prism that measures a quarter inch wide, quarter inch tall, and two to two and a half inches long. If you’re making French fries, it has to measure a quarter inch wide, quarter inch tall, and three inches long.”
“Does it have to?”
“That’s how they test you in school. To make sure you’re following instructions. You have to learn to measure by eye.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to test me—”
“I’m definitely going to test you.”
“What if I fail?”
“You won’t.”
“Your faith in me is flattering.”
“Less talk, more learning.”
“Yes, chef.”
Alexander moves on to demonstrate a fine brunoise. He slices the vegetable into even smaller portions, edges sharp and straight, turning the batonnet into a small pile of perfect cubes. “A fine brunoise measures one-sixteenth, by one-sixteenth, by one-sixteenth.”
“There’s no way you can do that without messing up. That’s puny.”
He nods. “At Gagnon-Allard, your teacher brings around a little ruler to double check.”
“People who are eating it won’t care, though.”
“True. But that’s haute cuisine. It’s still an art form. As pompous and ridiculous as it sounds, there are rules and expectations. It’s what differentiates us cooking here and some soccer mom cooking in her kitchen.”
“I guess.”
Alexander gives Eden an encouraging pat on the back. “Give it a try. Let me go find my ruler.”
She laughs. “Don’t say that. You’ll make me nervous.”
“Don’t be. You’ve got this.”
She gets to work, practicing over and over again. Alexander knows she isn’t half bad to begin with. Eden just needs some fine-tuning, a little nudge in the right direction. She’s a natural, picking up on things much faster than he anticipated. He shows her how to properly do a paysanne fermière and a rondelle on a bias, and shows her the difference between a fine julienne and a regular julienne. Eden soaks up information like a sponge, her willingness to learn and improve evident in the way she handles her knives.
When she’s all finished, she looks up at Alexander with wide eyes. “Well? How’d I do?”
