August wasn’t a social speaker, that much was clear, but he had Clara with him. She prodded him along and asked some questions, and then he was happy to take things from there. So he spoke about the brining period to us as well as the hundred or so people watching us, and I spotted a whole lot of attendees taking notes.

In the meantime, August interjected with instructions for us who were cooking, and I was currently doing my damnedest not to fuck up the hot sauce we were making from scratch.

Don’t curse.

It seemed like an awful lot of cayenne.

Good thing I liked spicy food.

“It’s a bit crowded here, Chef,” Bethany said. “Can I put the lettuce somewhere?”

August faced the audience. “If you’ve been to MAT in Nashville, maybe you’ve seen the sign that hangs above the hostess desk. I have the original at home, which used to belong to my nana. It says, ‘You Don’t Have to Eat the Vegetables.’” He got some laughs for that, and I smirked to myself. August turned to Bethany next. “Leave the crate on the floor. The lettuce is just gonna be a decoration.”

With that out of the way, it looked like August was about to make another round to see what we were up to, so I hurriedly swiped the trash into the bin on the floor before I placed the onion I’d sliced on a small plate. He’d said he liked a tidy kitchen. Tidy kitchen, tidy mind. Then I moved on to the latest instructions we’d been given: boil pasta and shred the block of cheese.

I wiped some sweat off my forehead and adjusted my ball cap, and I glanced around me to see how the others were managing. I hadn’t been told how much water to use for the pot. I didn’t know how much one cup of macaroni required.

Fuck it. I poured maybe four or five cups of water into a pot and set it on the stove. Then I threw in the pasta and turned up the heat.

August reached my station and cleared his throat. “Anthony Fender here is new at cooking, y’all.” Damn the fucking microphones too! “He happens to be an extraordinary musician and teacher, and maybe that’s kept him too busy to know that you don’t add the pasta until the water is boiling.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The bastard was trying to withhold his mirth.

“This musician and teacher prefers clear-cut instructions,” I responded.