How to Change a Life Read online

  “But that is such a good school,” I say, puzzled as to why she would schlep all the way to the north side if she could have gone to one of the best private schools in the city right in her backyard.

  “Yep. In part because my dad is assistant principal and teaches English.”

  “Oh, then, never mind,” Teresa says seriously.

  “Exactly,” Lynne says.

  “So how tall are you?” Teresa asks me.

  “Almost five-ten.”

  Lynne whistles under her breath. “Damn, girl, you had better stop eating your Wheaties.”

  This makes me laugh, and then Teresa laughs and the three of us are quietly giggling in the corner of the room.

  “You know what this means, our birthdays all the same week?” Teresa asks.

  “What?” I say.

  She links one plump arm through mine, and the other through Lynne’s. “We are going to have to be best friends, the three of us.” And the way she says it is so decisive, so matter-of-fact, that Lynne and I find ourselves just nodding along. “Best friends forever,” Teresa says, as a proclamation, and so it was.

  One

  SEPTEMBER 2016

  Okay, Ian, here we go—open your surprise box and tell me what you have.” I’ve got my finger on my phone, the timer set for thirty minutes, ready to go. Ian’s little face is so serious. For a ten-year-old he has tremendous focus.

  “Let’s see,” he says, furrowing his dark brows over huge green eyes, his dark curls a little unruly and popping out from underneath his black bandanna. He reaches inside the lidded wooden box that says Darcy’s Treasures in faded pink lettering on the side, a loving donation to his training from his twelve-year-old sister. “I’ve got a leftover cooked pork chop from dinner last night, an acorn squash, pistachio nuts, and honey vinegar.”

  “Okay,” I say, practically watching the wheels turning in his little head. “Time starts . . . now!”

  Ian gets down to business, steeling his little chef’s knife.

  “Talk me through it as you go,” I say.

  “I’m going to do a pork chop and roasted squash quesadilla with pistachio chimichurri and honey vinegar crema.”

  “That seems smart. Tell me why as you prep.”

  Ian begins slicing the acorn squash into rings, laying them on a baking sheet and drizzling with olive oil. “Well, the pork chop is already cooked, and quesadillas are a smart use for leftovers because they cook fast so things don’t have time to dry out or get tough. The squash has good sweetness, which will go well with the pork, and will also be friends with the honey vinegar.”

  “Good. Why not just toss the pistachios into the quesadilla?”

  He seasons the acorn squash rings expertly with kosher salt, taking a pinch from the bowl and holding his hand at eye level, raining the salt crystals down evenly over the squash, and then pops the tray in the oven. “Because the heat of cooking would make them lose their snap and you need that textural element for contrast with the soft quesadilla.”

  “Excellent. Tell me about the chimichurri.”

  He throws the pistachios into a small nonstick sauté pan and starts to toast them. “Well, I’m toasting the nuts to bring out the flavor and intensify the crunch, and I’m going to chop them roughly and mix them with minced green olives, mint, parsley, shallots, olive oil, a touch of the honey vinegar, maybe some red pepper flakes for heat.”

  I’m so freaking proud of this kid, rattling off chimichurri ingredients like a boss. I know I inherited him with a heck of a palate, but in the last six years, I feel like I’ve practically raised him from a pup. “I thought you were using the honey vinegar in the crema.”

  He smiles wryly. “Judges love it when you use ingredients in multiple ways.”

  I laugh. “Boom.”

  Ian is training with me for America’s Junior SuperChef. The wildly popular kids’ version of the reality television culinary competition is holding Chicago casting tryouts in five months. Ian tried out last year and made it through the fourth round, getting cut before callbacks. But he’s a champ and not a quitter, and they asked him to come back to auditions this year, which makes me think they are setting him up to be this season’s comeback kid. I’ve been the personal chef for his family, the Farbers, since he was four. I spend three days a week with them, prepping breakfasts and school lunches for Ian and his brother and two sisters, filling the fridge and pantry with reasonably healthy, easy-to-grab snacks for the kids and their endless gaggle of friends who always seem to be hanging around the house, and cooking heat-and-eat dinners. One afternoon a week I train Ian after school. As a personal chef I hit the goddamn motherlode.

  The Farbers are the kind of rich that would make the Koch brothers say, “Damn, that’s a lot of money,” and the kind of people who make sure you would never in a million years suspect that they have that kind of wealth. Shelby and Brad were college sweethearts, fell madly in love, and got married right after graduation, before he invented some super-secret something or other related to communications that he sold for a couple of billion before he was thirty. But unlike some of their much less flush contemporaries, they don’t broadcast it. Brad runs a tutoring nonprofit that focuses on providing safe and structured after-school programs to underserved neighborhoods. He looks like your basic sweet Jewish dad, a little bit paunchy, a little bit balding, average height and looks. Shelby is tiny, maybe five foot even, and slim, with an appetite like a lumberjack and the metabolism of a hummingbird. I’d hate her if she weren’t so damned nice. She keeps her dark hair in a pixie cut, lives in well-worn jeans, Brad’s old sweaters, and ratty Converse All-Stars, and is beyond devoted to her family. She treats me like a sister. Their house, while in the tony Lincoln Park neighborhood not far from where I went to high school, is not on one of the main McMansion streets, but tucked away on a small side street on the northern edge of the neighborhood.

  The former three-flat that they converted to a single-family home still has all of its turn-of-the-century charm and quirks. They personally drop their kids off at school and take them to soccer games and go to recitals. They have a couple of regular babysitters for when they go out evenings, just local teenagers picking up extra money, and a housekeeper who comes twice a week to keep the mess under control. Brad drives an ancient Wagoneer that he restored himself, and Shelby has an Infinity SUV that is five years old. I’d say ninety percent of their extensive philanthropic generosity is donated either anonymously or in honor of other people.

  But most important is that the kids also seem to have no idea that they are the top one percent of the top one percent. They are really well behaved, and not entitled brats in the least. Sixteen-year-old Robbie is a junior at Northside College Prep, excelling in his classes, and just got moved up to co-captain on the lacrosse team. Darcy is a twelve-year-old eighth grader, in her last year at Catherine Cook elementary school with Ian, who is in fifth grade, and little four-year-old Geneva, who is in junior kindergarten. Darcy is the musician of the family, playing trumpet in the concert band and electric bass with her School of Rock after-school program. Geneva is the dramatic one, and we all joke that she is destined for the stage or screen. She’s a lovable terror, like a tiny little Amy Schumer, who remembers fondly every vulgar or scatological thing that was ever accidentally uttered in her presence. Full of sass and attitude, with a raspy little whiskey-soaked voice like she’s been smoking two packs a day since birth. They are as close to having kids as I am probably ever going to get, considering both my ever-advancing age and my permanent state of single. With the added benefit of not having to put any of them through college.

  I watch as Ian pulls the cooked squash out of the oven and drops it on the part of the cooktop that is currently not in use to let it cool for a moment while he mixes honey vinegar and a touch of brown sugar into thick crème fraîche, tasting along the way with the spoons I keep in a little cup on the stovet
op. Satisfied with the crema, he turns back to the food processor, where he has chopped the pistachios, shallots, olives, and herbs, and empties out the contents into a bowl, adding a splash of the honey vinegar, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and a healthy glug of olive oil. He tastes, adds salt and a good grinding of black pepper, tastes again, and nods, pleased with himself.

  “Ten minutes to go,” I say, checking my phone. “Keep talking me through things.”

  Ian reaches for a large flour tortilla and places it in a dry nonstick skillet. “I’m going to assemble the quesadilla now,” he says, sprinkling shredded fontina cheese over the whole surface of the tortilla. He dots the shredded cheese with small bits of fresh goat cheese. “I’m using fontina because it melts well and is mild, and some chèvre for a bit of punch and creaminess. Now the pork.” He has sliced the pork thin, and layers it over the cheeses, following with cubes of the roasted squash. He takes a second tortilla and places it over the whole thing, pressing down so that the cheese, which is already getting melty, will help stick the two halves together. He covers the pan with a lid, then turns to get three plates out of the cabinet. He places a spoonful of the crema on each plate and gives it a very professional smear with the back of the spoon.

  “Five minutes,” I say.

  He turns back to the stove, removes the lid, and deftly flips the quesadilla over, revealing the well-browned and crispy underside. He presses again with the spatula, hearing the sizzle as a little bit of cheese leaks out the side. He pulls one end of the quesadilla up to check that it is browned underneath and slides it out onto the cutting board.

  “I think I’m going to let it rest for a minute,” Ian says.

  “Why?”

  “So all the cheese doesn’t ooze out. Like resting a piece of meat so you don’t lose the juices?”

  “I think that is a good idea, and you still have two minutes to go.”

  “Is it time yet?” Geneva says loudly, walking into the kitchen and clambering up into my lap on the bar stool where I’m perched.

  “Almost. Give him one more minute,” I say, kissing the top of her curly head.

  Ian cuts the quesadilla into six wedges, stacking two attractively on each plate. Then with a saucing spoon, he adds some of his chimichurri over the center of the wedges. He takes the towel that is tucked into the belt of his apron and gently wipes a couple of stray drops of oil from the side of one plate.

  “And time,” I say. “Hands up.”

  Ian raises his hands, grinning like mad.

  “Now we can eat eat eat!!!” Geneva claps excitedly, bouncing in my lap.

  “We need one more judge, Gen—”

  “DAAAARRRRCCCCYYYY!!!” Geneva yells at the top of her lungs. Jesus, this kid has pipes. I think my ears are bleeding.

  “Darcy’s at her trumpet lesson,” Shelby says, coming into the kitchen and kissing Geneva’s cheek. “But something smells amazing in here. Can I be a judge?”

  “Absolutely!” Ian says, coming around the island to serve us our plates. Shelby kisses him as well, reaches up to squeeze my shoulder and wink at me, and perches herself next to me on a bar stool. Geneva immediately clambers over to her mom, who receives her with a loud “oof.” I miss the warm weight of her in my lap; she’s a cuddly kid, and I’m her godmother, an honor I was beyond touched to take on when Shelby and Brad asked me. I’m close to all the kids, but Geneva is the only one I’ve known since birth, so I have to admit she’s got an extra-special place in my heart. But this family? Any one of them has first dibs on my kidneys if they need them.

  “Chef, can you tell us what we are tasting today?” I ask in my serious Ted Allen impersonation.

  “Yes, Chef. Today I have prepared for you a pork and roasted acorn squash quesadilla with fontina and chèvre, served with a pistachio chimichurri and a honey vinegar crema. Please enjoy.”

  I take my fork and knife and cut off a tip of the quesadilla, dragging it through the crema, and using my knife to make sure I get some chimichurri on the bite as well. I close my eyes and taste. The tortilla is crisp; the pork surprisingly juicy, despite being a lean cut that was reheated; the acorn squash sweet. The fontina was a good choice. It’s super gooey but has a mild flavor that lets the pork and squash shine. The slightly sweet-and-sour crema works well, as does the bright herbal crunch of the chimichurri. Frankly, if I’d been served this dish in a restaurant, I’d have been pleased.

  “Wow, Ian, it’s good!” Geneva says, now sporting a crema mustache, a huge wedge of quesadilla in her hands dripping cheese and chimichurri into her lap. She starts to wiggle and sing. “His name is I-an, he cooks so goo-oo-ood, and he’s my bro-ther, so I get to eat every-thing . . .”

  “It’s delicious, sweetheart. You’re going to have to make more for Daddy later—he would love it!” Shelby says, using her napkin to absentmindedly try to mop up Geneva, who is devouring the snack with continued abandon, humming her little song as she goes, dripping crema on her shirt, her chin slicked with chimichurri. Then, with a sudden crescendo, she drops the rest of her piece on the plate, slides off her mother’s lap, and begins a series of pirouettes around the kitchen.

  “Ian, give me your assessment,” I say, pushing my plate in his direction.

  He tastes a couple of bites and then looks at me. “It mostly works well.”

  “Anything you would change if you did it again?”

  Ian chews his lower lip thoughtfully. “I think next time I would leave out the goat cheese?” He seems to be asking me instead of telling me.

  “Why?”

  “Um, too much stuff?”

  “That’s an interesting way of thinking about it. What makes a dish have a taste of having too much stuff?”

  “If it all isn’t in balance.” This one he knows.

  “So take me through your components, and tell me where the balance would be off.”

  “Tortilla, crispy. Pork, savory. Squash, sweet. Fontina, gooey and salty. Chimichurri, peppery and green and bright, with some acid. Crema, tart and creamy and cool. And goat cheese . . .” He trails off.

  “What does the goat cheese bring to the party?”

  “Well, it’s creamy, but the crema gives enough creaminess. So the goat cheese fights with it a little bit, overwhelms it, sort of makes the flavor . . . blurry?”

  He’s such a badass. “That’s a good word for it, Ian. Anything else?”

  He takes another bite. “I’d probably do the crema like the chimichurri, just a last-minute drizzle on top instead of underneath with the schmear . . . it’s making the underside of the tortilla lose its crisp.”

  “That’s a good catch. What is our rule about presentation?”

  He grins and recites it like a catechism. “Presentation is important, but our mouth better be the happy one in the end. It needs to taste even better than it looks.”

  “Perfect. But, Ian? This is all just nitpicky. This is a spectacular dish, and you should be very proud.”

  “Okay, what’d the squirt whip up now?” Robbie says, coming into the kitchen and dropping his backpack on the floor. He leans down to kiss Shelby on the cheek, while snagging a wedge of quesadilla off the plate. “Hey, El,” he says around a huge mouthful.

  “Hello, Rob. How was today?”

  “Good,” he says, chewing. “Hey, Ian, dude, this is pretty killer. Good job.” He reaches over for a brotherly high five. Ian beams. Shelby and Brad got super lucky with the kids spaced as they are. The two boys and two girls are both far enough apart in age that there is very little rivalry, and both of the older kids are very protective of the younger ones. There is certainly a normal amount of sibling squabbling, but in general they get along pretty well and are hugely supportive of each other. They all have different interests, so there is no competitiveness.

  Shelby hands Robbie a napkin as he reaches for the remainder of the piece Geneva has abandoned
.

  “Hey! You! I’m eating that!” Geneva stands at Robbie’s side like a tiny little dictator, hands on hips, glowering. Robbie reaches down and sweeps his little sister up into his arms and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “Is that right, little Miss Bossypants? Looked to me like you were giving a dance recital to the kitchen chairs, and not eating Ian’s delicious snack.” He starts to spin her around a bit, and she squeals in delight.

  “I’m telling you right now, Robert, if she pukes down your back you will get no sympathy or help from me,” Shelby says, smiling at her brood and winking at me.

  “I’m not gonna puke, Mom!” Geneva says loudly. “Wait, maybe I am . . .”

  Robbie stops spinning at once and puts Geneva down quickly.

  “Ha! Gotcha!” she says, grabbing the rest of her snack out of Robbie’s hand and returning to the other side of the kitchen, dancing and singing and being generally hilarious. At least to me. I think deep down Geneva is one of those kids who is a hoot when she doesn’t belong to you and you get her in smallish doses. I would imagine that living with her energy full-time would be exhausting and maybe even eventually annoying.

  “Eloise, what do you think? Do we have the next Junior SuperChef here?” Shelby asks me, as Ian begins to clean up. It’s part of our rule. When I cook for the family, I clean up. But when we train, he is in charge of keeping his stuff clean and keeping his equipment in good shape. I taught him how to sharpen his knives by hand, how to clean the cast-iron skillet with salt and oil it before putting it away. He takes it all very seriously, which impresses me almost more than his natural cooking talent.

  “Forget Junior SuperChef, your house might get a Michelin star before his voice changes.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Ian says in a voice an octave lower than his usual tone. Which makes Geneva lower her already basso profundo into an even lower register, making her sound scarily like the little girl in The Exorcist.