Chrissy Teigen's Culinary School for Wayward Models (Cravings fic) COMPLETE

Chapter 08: The Test

It was test day!!! The big day! The models were dragging their extremely tired asses around the kitchen trying their best to not totally screw up their recipes. They were all in pajamas or sweats, bleary-eyed, hair up in messy buns or loose chignons. The kitchen was strangely quiet, suffused with the intense focus of the models. Instead of the usual shouting and screaming and laughter and things breaking, the only sounds were spatulas and spoons and the shuffle of their Bottega Veneta slides.

Jenna went around the room, checking how things were going at each station, gently questioning techniques and flavors like Paul and Mary on GBBO.

"So what you doing for us today, Barbie?" Jenna asked.

"I'm doing Chrissy's recipe for Mexican Street Corn. As you can see I have my ears of corn cooking on my cast iron skillet and I'm turning them every few minutes so they cook evenly."

Jenna nodded. "Interesting. And how long are you thinking about leaving the corn on the skillet?"

"Until the corn starts to blacken here and there."

"Hmm. And what's this?" Jenna asked, pointing to a powder-covered plate nearby.

"I've got a mixture of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, cotija, and pepper, I'm going to coat the corn with that after it's done cooking."

"Do you have a plan for getting your seasoning to stick to your corn?"

"After I take the corn off the skillet I'm going to quickly brush it with mayo, then roll it in the cheese mixture."

Jenna narrowed her eyes at Barbie. "Hmm. You're sure about that?"

Barbie blinked. "Umm? I think so??? I'm just following the exact recipe you guys gave us????"

Jenna said nothing, wandering off to the next station.

"Why? Am I doing something wrong???" Barbie called after her.

Jenna stopped at Jasmine's station. "Morning Jasmine, looks like you're scrambling some eggs here?"

"Yes I'm doing the Cheesy Cheeseless Scrambled Eggs, which I'm going to pair with some garlic-roasted bacon."

Jenna was about to ask a pointed and insightful question expertly designed to make Jasmine question her time-management abilities when Chrissy breezed into the kitchen, looking radiant in Citizens of Humanity skinny jeans and a Sonia Rykiel blazer. She started to say "Hello!", calling out a bright and enthusiastic greeting to her students, but then she saw the models, felt the nervous vibe in the room, and by the time she'd finished saying the word it had become more of a question than an exclamation.

She stopped in her tracks and scanned the room. "Wat. What's going on here?"

"Test day," Jenna said. "Remember? I put it on your calendar and reminded you about it twice yesterday. I'm doing the thing where I go around and make them doubt their abilities."

"No no no no, I know it's test day, what's going on here, with them," Chrissy said, gesturing vaguely around the room and curling her lip suspiciously.

Jenna did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hands. "They were up late worrying about the test and studying their recipes, I assume."

"Oh were they?" Chrissy said, striding forward. She did a slow loop around the room, her eyes trained carefully on each of the models in turn. Finally she stopped at Barbie's station. She leaned in, putting her face very close to Barbie's, then shouted "AH HA!!!" Barbie jumped and knocked a spoon over and her parm-cotija mixture went flying. She froze, eyes wide. She looked at the other models like what's going on what do I do and the other models all looked back like bitch idk you're on your own.