#Chapter 140: Inadequate

Abby Duck. Pork. A flaky pastry dough. It should be easy. I’ve practiced it a hundred times, tasted it a thousand. It’s one of my favorite French dishes to make, and yet, as the stage descends into organized chaos… I’m frozen. My eyes are wide like a deer in headlights. The deafening roar of the crowd, the sound of voices and cooking utensils, the movement of the cameras and the announcer’s voice booming over the microphone—all of it is too much. Suddenly, I feel as though I’m being transported back in time, back to a time when I was much younger… It was my first year of culinary school, the end of my first semester. For our final project, we were supposed to compete in a style not all that much unlike the cook-off, minus the sky-high stakes and the television production of it all. The class was gathered around our stainless steel tables, dressed in our fresh white chef’s uniforms, as our professor—Chef Andrews—paced back and forth in front of us, announcin