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92.
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in With the Fire on High, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Teen Parenthood
Creativity vs. Professional Norms
Food and Connection
Caregiving, Independence, and Identity
Support, Community, and Mentorship
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, April 1, half the class anxiously checks their emails: today is the day college acceptance emails go out. Emoni doesn’t plan to check hers until she gets home, and Amanda is going into a job-training program, so she’s less excited. Chef Ayden announces that the students will have a free morning to explore. As he sends them off, he asks Emoni to chat for a minute. He says he went to school in Paris with Chef Amadí, and he wants to make sure she and Emoni are getting along okay. Emoni is surprised and impressed, and she realizes how little she knows about Chef Ayden. But she’s glad he’s her teacher, and she’s glad she’s paired with Chef Amadí—and she tells Chef Ayden so. Chef Ayden sends Emoni off to meet Malachi, loudly and jokingly warning her not to spend too much time with him.
By deciding to just not worry about college admissions decisions while in Spain, Emoni turns her trip into a time capsule of sorts. Here, she’s stuck in time and doesn’t have to think too hard about the future or the past. Instead, she can just enjoy and learn, and she can also figure out who she is without the responsibilities that she has at home. Chef Ayden offers Emoni another reminder that he’s fully in her corner when he checks in about how she’s getting along with Chef Amadí. He made sure to pair Emoni with a chef who was going to nurture Emoni’s preferred intuitive way of cooking, highlighting again that he does want to support the chef she is, not turn her into a robot.
Themes
