Chapter Text
Father treated the culinary arts as an exact science. The kitchen was busy, but never chaotic; everyone performed their tasks like synchronized dance choreography.
Occasionally, only very, very, occasionally, the dance would fall out of step. A dancer would turn left when they're meant to turn right. And then the balance of the kitchen would be interrupted.
I would always do my homework in the kitchen, and when the dance was thrown off, my father would summon me. "Armitage," he whistled. "Come here and look at this." He held out of bowl of separated crème fraîche. The offending station chef looked as if she was about to cry.
"Tell me why this is separated."
"She stirred it before setting it in the fridge."
"She stirred it before setting it in the fridge! Amanda, my seven year old—"
"I'm nine."
"My nine year old could correctly identify what went wrong. Armitage, could you tell Amanda how to rectify this error, since she clearly has her head up her ass today?"
"Um, she just needs to whisk it back really really good."
I winced over at Amanda, who began to vigorously wipe her face so my father would not see her tears. This task was in vain.
"Crying is for spoiled children," my father said, handing Amanda her bowl of crème fraîche. "Adults solve the problem. So fix it."
My father turned around to see the rest of the staff staring. "Am I paying you all to stare? Back to work."
The dance resumed.
Later at home, Father stood next to me by the stove with a glass of scotch in one hand and a wooden spatula in the other and watched as I tried and failed to make a perfect crepe.
"You interrupted me when I was speaking to a staff member and undermined my authority in front of my staff," he said, slapping my arm with the spatula when I failed again. "So we'll sit here all night if we have to."
Another crepe. I got slapped again for pouring too much batter.
Another. I didn't coat the pan quickly or evenly enough.
The pan wasn't hot enough. The pan was too hot. There wasn't enough butter on the pan. There was too in much butter on the pan.
"I'm running out of batter."
"You'd better get it right, then," my father responded. "Or make more batter."
I scraped the bowl for the final bit of batter and swirled it around in the pan as quickly as I could. I watched the edges curl up and the top matten and grabbed an edge with my fingers and flipped it over in one smooth motion.
She was perfect.
"Wow," I said, grabbing a spatula to place the beautiful thing on a plate.
My father inspected it closely.
"It's nice," he said, stepping his foot on the garbage can pedal and sliding the crepe into the trash. "Now go upstairs and finish your homework. I've got to clean up this goddamn mess you've made in this kitchen."
As I made my way up the staircase, I inspected the redness on my arm, and I knew that I would have to wear long sleeves at school the next day.