White Jacket Required Read Online Free

impressed. I glanced at my watch. The tour would start in five minutes. Then, I would meet an old friend for a late bite to eat down the street, before heading back to Tampa.
    Five other people were waiting in the office with me. Three of them looked to be about eighteen and reminded me of my brother. They wore baggy jeans and wrinkled polo shirts and seemed to know the girl who worked behind the desk. Around their necks hung blue lanyards and photo IDs with the traditional Le Cordon Bleu logo. The girl they were flirting with was blushing. She whispered something in Spanish and shooed them away with her hand. The boys laughed and disappeared through the double doors. That left me alone with a woman and a boy.
    The admissions girl stood up. “Anyone going on the one o’clock tour, please follow me! I’m Cherie and I’ll be your tour guide today,” she said. “What are your names, please?”
    â€œI’m Jenna,” I said.
    â€œI’m Laurie,” said the woman next to me.
    The guy barely mumbled, “Casey.”
    â€œNice to meet you all,” Cherie said. “The tour will take about forty-five minutes, and then afterward, if you want to stick around, I can answer any questions you might have. We’ll go into a few kitchens, meet some chefs, and help you get to know Le Cordon Bleu!” Cherie smiled and then pushed open the double doors with her back, revealing a whole new world. Students with black-and-white checkered pants and starched white coats moved quickly down the halls and into classrooms on the right and left. Aromas of meat and garlic filled the air, and chefs with tall hats walked with authority. I tried to picture myself here, wearing those baggy pants and the highly unflattering white cap. I was skeptical. As Cherie stopped to chat with a chef for a moment, Laurie moved to my side. “So, what’s your story?” she asked as we peered into a classroom kitchen and saw students with notebooks in their hands huddling around a chef-instructor. The students were scribbling furiously while the chef held a whole raw chicken in the air.
    â€œWell, I just graduated from College of Charleston up in South Carolina. I have an English degree, but what I’ve always wanted to do is write about food, so I thought culinary school would give me a good background for that.”
    â€œA food writer? Neat! I always though those restaurant critics up there in New York City had the best jobs. I mean, to eat for free!” Laurie said excitedly. She spoke with a bit of a Southern accent, and I guessed she was from closer to the Alabama state line, up in the Panhandle.
    I laughed and nodded. “Yeah well, I don’t really want to be a critic, although free meals would be nice. I always wanted to write books on food, actually, like cookbooks or novels with recipes in them.”
    â€œWell, good luck! I’ve never heard of anyone going to culinary school to be a writer, but it sounds interesting all right,” Laurie said and then added with a whisper, “This place sure is expensive, I’ll tell you!”
    Expensive, indeed. The tuition for both the Culinary and the Baking and Pastry programs rang in around $40,000. I hadn’t told my parents too much about the school yet, but knew that if I wanted to go, it would be out of my own pocket by means of student loans.
    Laurie told me that it was her lifelong dream to own a bakery, and she was finally in a position to make it come true now that all her children had grown up and moved out. Her passion was cake decorating, and she was interested in the Baking and Pastry program. Laurie had gotten pregnant right out of high school and had been a stay-at-home mom for the past twenty-two years.
    Casey, on the other hand, didn’t speak at all throughout the entire tour other than to mumble the occasional yeah or I dunno . He had a tribal tattoo around his forearm and wore his jeans three inches lower on