With the Fire on High: 10. Chefdom Summary & Analysis

Emoni has always wanted to be a chef. She started watching cooking shows and taking notes on her phone early. ’Buela allowed Emoni to experiment with more interesting ingredients, like gizzards and fancy Italian sausage (some of which Emoni bought with her own money). For Emoni’s 12th birthday, ‘Buela bought her a real knife set.

In eighth grade, when Emoni was applying for high schools, she told her guidance counselor she wanted to be a chef. But instead of pushing Emoni toward the school with a prestigious culinary arts program, the counselor said Emoni’s grades weren’t good enough and pushed her toward Schomburg Charter, which had a lottery. Only three kids from the neighborhood—Emoni, Angelica, and Pretty Leslie—got in. Emoni’s not a bad student, she’s just better with hands-on stuff than she is with memorization. But this means that Emoni has never been able to take a culinary arts class before.