“It sure is. Are you brave enough to accept it?”
Juliette only stares back at me, and I know I have my answer.
Five minutes later, her migraine is seemingly forgotten as she stands in the kitchen donning an apron with her hair pulled back in a low bun.
“Contestants,” I state, moving around the counter to stand across from her. “Tonight, you will prepare an appetizer that you feel would be appropriately served at the elegant after-party of a Broadway theater debut. The following ingredients must be included in your recipe: chicken, arugula, and any form of cheese. You have thirty minutes to complete your dish. Begin.”
I start the clock on my phone and prop it up against a stack of books, which I have strategically placed on the counter. Juliette springs into action, firing up the stove and oven and grabbing vegetable oil from the cabinet. She sprinkles it into a sauté pan and briskly washes and dries the chicken I’ve left on the counter before tossing it inside.
She’s then off to the fridge, pulling out what looks to be cheddar cheese and a red onion. She leaves the cheese on the counter and then begins to chop up a quarter of said onion.
“It seems that chef Juliette is making some interesting choices this evening. Her predominant ingredients so far are cheddar cheese and raw onion, flagrantly disregarding her primary care physician’s warnings about acid reflux.”
Juliette shoots me the evil eye but keeps working, now looking through another food cabinet until she pulls out a small package of flatbread. Returning to the stove to check on the chicken, she opts to let it continue to cook and returns to her prep work.
A little time passes, and I once again check the clock. “Chef, there are now fifteen minutes remaining on your allotted time. This is also the part of our show where the contestant must reveal their most embarrassing moment in life.”
“Are you serious?” Juliette demands, scowling up at me from her spot on the counter, where she is now lightly oiling the flatbread.
“Answer the question, chef, or five minutes will be taken off the clock.”
Juliette grumbles and looks off into the distance until she glances back at me with a little smile. “Okay, when I was speaking at a conference once, I had a very bad cold and sneezed so hard that I’m pretty sure a chunk of my brain ended up on the podium mic. There was visible splatter, and I just had to stand there until someone brought me a tissue.”
“Oh god,” I mutter, wincing as I imagine it. “That’s a tough one.”
“The show must go on. Now leave me alone. I’m concentrating.”
By the time the alarm on my phone eventually goes off, Juliette has just barely finished and steps away from the food with her hands up. I then pull the plate towards me, gazing down at her presented appetizer.
“Chef Juliette, in your own words, please explain what you have prepared.”
Juliette takes a breath, looking exceedingly satisfied with her creation. “I have prepared my take on a chicken flatbread wrap, handmade with cheddar cheese, arugula, red onion, celery, and baked flatbread.”
I turn the plate around in front of me, scrutinizing its appearance before lifting it up and taking a delicate bite. I sit in silence for a few moments until I level my eyes on Juliette. Thinking back to all the bizarre judge’s remarks we’ve heard in our years of watching cooking shows, I channel my inner food critic and babble away with absolute authority.
“Chef Juliette, while I found your presentation to be rudimentary, I very much enjoyed the bold, captivating taste of the cheddar. The chicken was thoughtful. The arugula was flirty. The flatbread was both quiet and profound, giving off a distinct tree-falling-in-the-forest aroma. The textures danced the tango across my taste buds with every bite, and the celery felt reminiscent of an obscure poem I read in my hometown library in the seventh grade.”
Juliette continues to look at me expectantly, and I then take a gargantuan bite. “Simple translation, you win. All hail the flatbread wraps.” I give her two thumbs-up in case she can’t understand me through my mouth full of food.
“Well, that’s very dignified,” she mutters, picking up one of the wraps herself and taking a bite.
“These really are highly tasty,” I tell her. “If your writing didn’t work out back in the day, you easily could have become a restauranteur.”
Juliette shakes her head, finishing off her bite. “In a world of uncertainty, the theater was my only constant. I never could have done anything else.”
“What was it like?” I ask her dreamily. “What was it like when you finally got to dive in completely?”
Juliette smiles softly. “It felt like, and I know there must be a more eloquent way to put it, but it felt like I was finally returned to my home planet after being abducted by aliens for most of my life.”
I smile back at her, knowing exactly what she means.
“Coming over here and going to theater school, it was just everything. It shook the ground beneath my feet in the most freeing way that I never experienced before. I went from being surrounded by my father’s friends and his world and going to high school where subjects I couldn’t care less about were shoved down my throat, to doing and studying exactly what I was interested in. I was surrounded by like-minded individuals who I could talk to and who were ready and willing to receive and respond in a productive way. I went from living life at a distance to rolling around in my classmates’ sweat as we played with avant-garde and traditional theater.
“I finally had a laboratory to try and fail, to experiment. I was taught to be brave, and every day I was given the opportunity to make creative choices that might not work or that might lead to magic. It was the biggest game changer of my life.”
“I wish I could have been there with you,” I tell her.
“You would have hated me. How you put up with me now is a mystery for the ages, but back then, I was even more self-centered. I was absolutely single-minded in my ambition.”
