If Fried Chicken Could Fly Read Online Free PDF Page A

before the cook-off. It was a fun, delicious recipe that gave the students something to focus on that wasn’t as serious as the cook-off but was a form of celebration instead. We could just give the students the recipe outside of school, but that defeated the purpose.
    Though Gram’s Country Cooking School wasn’t accredited by the American Culinary Federation, a certificate noting that a student had completed his or her full nine-month daytime course work was becoming a valuable tool for obtaining some of the best cooking jobs. In the world of food preparation, there was always a revolution occurring. Restaurateurs wanted as many options as they could get. We would still give the students their certificates, but they’d be cheated out of two of the big highlights—the cook-off and the cookies—that we’d promised them when they came to the school nine months earlier. Gram and I didn’t like breaking promises.
    Gram knew how to cook food that she and her parents and her parents’ parents fixed and ate. Gram made food with butter and cheese and flour coatings. Her food wasn’t light on calories or light on flavor. It was full and hearty and made taste buds stand up and pay attention and then swoon with delight. And when her students presented a certificate from her program, restaurant owners knew that they were hiringsomeone who’d learned the ins and outs of amazing fried chicken, creamy sauces and soups, potato dishes of all kinds, breads, and desserts that kept customers coming back for more.
    In the real world, Gram’s skills and methods were almost becoming things of the past, of a time when people didn’t write down recipes but just added some of this and some of that, a time when cooking secrets were passed down through generations—passed down verbally and in the kitchens of country homes, kitchens that didn’t have electricity or natural gas. So in the restaurant world, Gram’s skills were fast becoming a lost art.
    She was the first one to say that eating food cooked in lard wasn’t smart to do every day, but every once in a while eating should be all about flavor and comfort. That’s what we did: flavor and comfort, with a little lard added for good measure. Even for only a few days, it didn’t seem fair to close the door to our students.
    As for the nighters, we could postpone or cancel further classes and refund their tuition, but there was more to it than that. The current nighttime class was made up of the five judges for the cook-off. They were just as excited to judge as the other students were to cook. They could still judge even if we canceled their class, but that didn’t seem fair either.
    The cooking school also had a catering order to fill. Gram called the catering business a nice accident, because she’d never made catering a goal. But when she saw that students could get more experience by filling the orders, she thought it was a good addition. The library’s read-a-thon was tomorrow and Gram had committed the students to red velvetcupcakes. I could handle making the cupcakes by myself, but some of the upcoming orders might be more of a challenge.
    After playing all these things through my mind, and realizing that, even with the horrible murder of Everett Morningside, I needed to step it up and be more to Gram and the school than I’d ever had to be, I said, “Gram, the fire marshal said that if Jim clears us and we can get the worst of the mess cleaned up, it will be all right to continue operating. If Jim says it’s okay, let’s just cancel tomorrow and take it from there. I can make the library cupcakes. The daytimers won’t mind missing one day. It might be good for them to relax anyway. I’ll call Mom and let her know what’s going on and have her call the students. We’ll decide what to do after that. We have a lot coming up. No disrespect to Mr. Morningside, but we can’t let our visitors or the rest of the town down.”
    She looked at me, her eyes thoughtful and