“It wasn’t Emeril, per se. What made it special is that I usually watched it with my dad,” she answered, slaying him once again with another of those subtle, yet radiant smiles. “It was our thing, you know? Every Saturday evening, Dad and I would try to re-create one of Emeril’s recipes. Except we could never find all the ingredients, so we had to come up with substitutes. Believe or not, jambalaya made with bratwurst is pretty good.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jamar said. The hint of wistfulness he heard in her soft laugh caused unease to stir in his gut. He hesitated a moment before he asked, “Is your dad…still here?”

“Oh yeah. The Colonel is alive and well. He’s in North Carolina, at Fort Bragg. My entire family is there.” She gestured to his basket. “Go for the sugar snap peas. They’re good for snacking.”

Jamar had been so caught up in her story that he’d forgotten about his assignment. He grabbed a bag of snap peas and reached for a butternut squash. He was pretty sure he’d eaten it in a soup once without wanting to dry-heave. He added collard greens to the basket.

He could have sworn he heard a tsking sound coming from her general direction.

“What?” Jamar asked.

“Nothing.” She motioned for him to go ahead. “Continue.”

“The added pressure of you watching my every move isn’t helping here,” he said as he lifted a head of cabbage from the shelf. Coleslaw counted as a vegetable, right?

“It sounds as if you’re afraid you’re going to fail the test.”

“Not even. Don’t let the jock label fool you. I got all A’s in school.”

“Did you really?” she asked, the teasing tone now absent from her voice.

“Well, not all A’s,” he clarified with a shrug. “But I did all right.” He finished with several ears of corn that were still in the husk and a head of cauliflower, then brought over the basket. He held it out to her. “How’d I do?”

“Hmm.” She peered at his choices. “You do have a few starchy vegetables, but I can live with that. The problem I see here is that when you cook those collard greens, you’re going to want to load them up with stuff like ham hocks, am I right?”

“Is there any other way to eat them?”

She shook her head. “You have so much to learn. Come on. Let me show you how this is done. I have a recipe for a healthy stir-fry that I guarantee you will love.”

Jamar grimaced as she filled the basket with carrots, broccoli, asparagus, and other shit he hated. She picked up a slim, purple eggplant.

“This is a Chinese eggplant. It’s sweeter and less bitter than your typical American version,” she said, dragging her fingers down the length of the vegetable.

Was she serious?