BOOK ONE CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE COOK BOOK
1096 Words
She woke up the next morning with that strange mix of excitement and dread twisting in her stomach. The kind of feeling you get when life is suddenly moving again after sitting still for too long. The house was quiet, the sort of quiet that usually meant the kids were still deep in sleep, sprawled out like they owned every inch of their beds.
For a moment, she just sat there at the edge of her mattress, rubbing her palms together, grounding herself. Yesterday had been a lot. The school. The possibility of starting something new. The thought of Akin creeping back into her mind when she least expected it. Even the smell of peppers frying brought memories she didn’t ask for.
But today, she was determined to shift her energy.
She stepped into the living room, sunlight sneaking through the curtains and settling over the old rug she kept saying she would replace. And there he was — her son, hunched over the dining table with a pencil between his teeth, sketching something with the seriousness of a grown man solving global problems.
“You didn’t sleep?” she asked.
He shook his head without looking up. “I had an idea.”
She smiled. This boy was eleven going on thirty.
She moved closer. It was a drawing of her. Or something that looked like her if she had superpowers and a chef coat that flowed like a cape. At the bottom he had written, Super Chef Mom.
Something in her chest pinched. A small ache. A warm one. She ran her fingers over the page lightly, so she wouldn’t smudge the pencil.
“You know,” she said, “you make me want to try harder every day.”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “I just drew what I see.”
She wasn’t sure whether to cry or make pancakes, so she chose pancakes. Sometimes, the safest thing was to do something with your hands when your heart was overflowing.
Halfway through breakfast, her phone buzzed on the counter. The sound made her feel oddly alert, like life was clearing its throat before telling her something important.
She wiped her hands on her apron and checked the screen.
It was Cheftilda Culinary School.
Her breath caught. They wanted her to come in. Today.
Not an interview. Not a tour.
An assessment.
The kind where you stepped into a kitchen, were handed ingredients, and told to show who you were.
She stared at the message a little longer than necessary, the weight of it sinking in. Old habits tried to slip back in — fear, doubt, that voice that whispered maybe you’re dreaming too big, maybe you’re too late — but she didn’t give it permission today.
Instead, she quietly said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
The rest of the morning moved in a blur: prepping the kids for the woman who would watch them, tying her headscarf neatly, checking again that her knives were sharpened and wrapped properly. She grabbed her small worn-out recipe notebook — not because she needed it, but because it always reminded her of where she started.
By noon, she was standing outside the school gates again. Lagos heat pressed against her skin, people hurried past, but she stood still for a moment, staring at the building like it was a doorway to another version of herself.
Inside, the reception hall looked exactly as it did the first day she visited: polished floors, stainless steel accents, portraits of award-winning chefs lining the walls. But this time, she felt more present. More rooted.
The receptionist guided her to the assessment kitchen. For a second, she just stood at the doorway, taking in the space — steel counters, bright lights, a cup of clean aprons stacked neatly in the corner. It smelled like lemon and something hopeful.
The head instructor walked in — a woman with sharp eyes but a warm smile. The type that could tell within two minutes if you could cook or if you only liked the idea of cooking.
“You’re Nnenna?” she asked.
“Yes, ma.”
She nodded toward the counter. “Today is simple. Make us something that tastes like home. Something that tells your story.”
For a heartbeat, Nnenna didn’t move. Something about that instruction hit her deeper than she expected, like someone had whispered into her soul instead of her ears.
She walked to her station, opened her bag, and laid out her knives with the quiet confidence of someone who had fought to stand here.
She built her ingredients slowly at first — peppers, onions, tomatoes, ginger — letting her hands remember what they always knew. Then she started cooking, movements steady and intentional. At some point she stopped hearing the sounds around her, slipping into that familiar rhythm where time didn’t matter and the world seemed to soften around her.
When she plated the dish — her mother’s old recipe, reimagined with her own flair — she caught her breath. It looked like her. It tasted like survival and grace and all the versions of herself she was still trying to build.
The instructors tasted quietly. Too quietly. Her palms were sweating. Her throat tight, like she had swallowed a stone. But then one of them nodded slowly, the kind of nod that meant more than words.
“This,” the woman finally said, “is the work of someone who has lived. Not just cooked.”
Nnenna didn’t trust her voice enough to respond, so she just bowed her head a little.
They asked her to wait outside while they deliberated. She sat on a bench in the hallway, tapping her foot, heart racing. It felt like waiting for a medical test result, a visa approval, or a marriage proposal. That same fragile hope.
When the instructor finally stepped into the hallway, Nnenna stood quickly.
“Congratulations,” she said. “Welcome to Cheftilda.”
For a moment, everything around her went quiet. All she could hear was her own breathing, heavy and uneven. Her eyes blurred a little.
She didn’t jump. She didn’t scream. She just closed her eyes, exhaled, and whispered to herself, “We’re getting there.”
She didn’t know yet how hard the journey ahead would be, or the kind of growth waiting for her in the corners of her fears. But walking out of that building, she felt taller. Lighter. Like something inside her had finally unlocked.
Her story wasn’t changing overnight.
But something had shifted.
And it was real.
- Writer
