The problem was my brain. I couldn’t turn it off. I couldn’t even slow it down. It was on fast-forward. It was already at tomorrow, at the Can You Cut It? studios. It was facing off with Chef JJ and Dieter Koons and those five kids who were going to cook circles around me. It was already busy losing, making mistakes, and forgetting everything. And while it was doing that, it was playing a soundtrack of everyone I was letting down yelling at me.

Mom: At least two spices per dish, not including salt!

Zoe: Don’t cry!

Josh: Remember the Tea King! Love to compete!

Winnie: Tick-tock, watch the clock!

Walter: Chop even so it cooks even!

Dr. C: It can’t just taste good. It’s got to look good!

When I closed my eyes, Jeanine was there, dancing on the insides of my eyelids flinging spatulas like pom-poms and cheering, “Believe and achieve!”

Orange light from the streetlamp filled the Airstream. I’d forgotten how much lighter nighttime is in the city. In Petersville, dark is a can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face, are-my-eyes-closed-or-open blackness.

We’d had to scratch the plan to keep the Airstream in front of The Food Connection building at night. Parking there during the day wasn’t a problem, but a security guard had come out when it started getting dark to tell us we couldn’t keep it there overnight. What he actually said was, “This isn’t Jabours Motor Lodge.” None of us had a clue who Jabours was, but we got the point.

Since my parents knew the guy who owned the lot across from our old building, we drove uptown to camp out there for the night. This meant we’d be able to eat at Barney Greengrass at least once, possibly twice each day. It wouldn’t make up for no longer living around the corner from the best deli in the world, but by the time we went back to Petersville, I’d have gotten my fix of eggs and onions, at least for a while.

I know what you’re thinking, eggs and onions? How hard can it be to make scrambled eggs with onions? Any old eggs and onions: piece of cake. Barney’s eggs and onions, where the eggs are creamy like custard and the onions are so sweet, they taste like they’ve been cooked with brown sugar: impossible. I’ve tried. My mother’s tried. Walter’s tried. They can get close, but it’s never exactly right.

Don’t believe that any scrambled eggs could be that mind-blowing? Ask Josh. We went to Barney’s for dinner after we parked the Airstream, and he tasted them for the first time. I swear he didn’t look up from his plate until he’d eaten every last bite, and Josh isn’t even an egg fan.

Zippo almost dropped a tray of matzoh ball soups when we came through the door. He rushed over to give us all hugs that smelled like garlic bagels and then had the kitchen make a fresh batch of latkes. Before we moved to Petersville, we saw Zippo every Saturday morning and had for as far back as I could remember.