82 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth AcevedoWith the Fire on High
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2, Chapters 42-68Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Savory”
Part 2, Chapters 42-68 Summary
After the incident with Chef Ayden, Emoni decides to skip the next two culinary arts classes. When working at the Burger Joint, she is confronted by Malachi and Leslie, seemingly on a date together.
’Buela suggests to Emoni that she should call her father and not be so hard on him. Emoni rings Angelica instead and talks about plans for the anniversary meal she will cook for her and Laura. In “Sisterhood,” Emoni reflects on how her friendship with Angelica was strengthened by mutual adversity. When she became pregnant and Angelica came out as a lesbian, both had to deal with “snide comments” at school, but they supported one another.
Malachi calls Emoni, and she asks him about his relationship with Leslie. He says they are just friends and asks if he can help her prepare the anniversary meal for Angelica. Malachi visits Emoni and ’Buela’s house to help cook the anniversary meal, which is macaroni and cheese. He reveals that the reason he changed schools is because his younger brother was killed in a gang dispute in his old neighborhood.
Emoni and Malachi take the food to Angelica’s house and help her prepare for Laura’s arrival. Angelica reveals to Emoni that she is nervous because she and Laura are planning to have sex for the first time that evening. After leaving Angelica’s, Emoni invites Malachi back to her place to watch TV. He agrees. They talk about school and music while watching a comedy, and Emoni says she feels “warmth shoot from the middle of my back” when he hugs her (168).
Emoni gets a phone call the next day, Sunday, from Tyrone. He says that he heard from “one of my boys” that she had been “bringing other guys around my daughter” (170). Emoni is furious that Tyrone was checking up on her.
’Buela and Emoni visit an expensive restaurant called Café Sorrel. ’Buela reveals that she knows Emoni has been skipping class. When Emoni asks about an ingredient in her risotto, she gets to meet the chef, who compliments her on her sensitivity to taste. At school Angelica tells Emoni about her date with Laura. She says that the conversations they had, and the sex, was wonderful. She also thinks that the food Emoni cooked for them was part of what made the experience so good.
Emoni returns to culinary arts class and apologizes to Chef Ayden. She explains how she was inspired by the chef at Café Sorrel. Ayden gives her the opportunity to lead the fundraising drive for the Spain trip. In class Emoni is paired with two other students, Richard and Amanda, to create a chicken-based dish. They work as a team, with Emoni now paying more attention “to the little details” (188), and gain praise from Chef Ayden.
Tyrone comes to pick up Emma on the weekend. There is still tension between them, and Emoni explains that Emma “doesn’t like it when Tyrone and I are mad at each other” (190). Emoni tries to come up with fundraising ideas with Malachi and Angelica. She decides herself that the best option would be to make food for the staff in a separate kitchen and sell it, and to produce the annual Winter Dinner. Emoni asks ’Buela if she’d be willing to look after Emma when she goes to Spain. ’Buela recognizes the importance of the trip and agrees to work out a schedule for Emma with Tyrone’s parents while she’s away.
Richard and Emoni work on a dish together that will be graded, and they follow the recipe exactly. When Chef Ayden suggests that the dish requires more salt, Emoni says that the recipe needs to be changed.
Angelica visits Emoni’s house with a bag of materials to make a Halloween costume for Emma. After running through various other options, they decide to dress her up as a chef. In “Dreams,” Emoni wonders whether, if her mother were still alive, she would have pushed her to achieve more. She also reflects on the dreams she has for Emma and that she sometimes imagines her becoming a business executive or actress.
Chef Ayden gets Emoni’s fundraising plans approved by the school administration. Now Emoni has to get up early to help with the “little restaurant” she and her classmates are running from the school. Emoni proposes some ideas for the Winter Dinner to Chef Ayden. She suggests that they make the dinner more restaurant style and that they could do individual plates of chorizo and macaroni and cheese. The class is still short of the money they need for the Spain trip, and they brainstorm other ways to raise funds. One is to move the Winter Dinner from the cafeteria to the gym to accommodate more customers. They also discuss ways of promoting the dinner.
In “To the Bone,” Emoni talks about how exhausted she is from her various commitments. There is work at the Burger Joint, completing college applications, mornings or afternoons cooking for or serving staff at school, and looking after Emma. She wishes she could have a break. On the evening of the Winter Dinner. Chef Ayden gives the class an inspirational speech, and they all set to work preparing the food. Emoni works tirelessly with Richard and Amanda to produce the Spanish-inspired starter. The class bows to the staff and visitors at the dinner. They raised $2,000 towards the Spain trip. The chef from Café Sorrel is in attendance. She complements Emoni’s cooking and gives Emoni her business card.
Emoni asks ’Buela for a loan to cover the remaining cost of the Spain trip. Unfortunately, ’Buela cannot afford it. Malachi asks Emoni and her family to come see a Disney on Ice show. In “Complications,” Emoni reflects on the situation with Malachi. She knows that he likes her but wonders if she has the time for boys. Angelica suggests that Emoni is afraid of being hurt again.
Despite her efforts, Emoni still has not managed to find all the money for the trip. However, she receives an email from her aunt in Puerto Rico saying she and her cousins have gotten together to donate $300 for the trip.
Part 2, Chapters 42-68 Analysis
In the first half of the novel, Emoni’s relation to cooking is characterized by a dichotomy. On the one hand, cooking for her is about love. It is about intuition, creativity, and emotional connection. As she says in one of the opening chapters, “I’m happier in the kitchen than anywhere else in the world” (17). Cooking involves setting free her “magical hands” and creating food that makes her friends and family smile. We see this approach explicitly in the anniversary meal she cooks. Not only does this experience allow her to connect with Malachi, but her food sets the context in which Angelica and Laura can become intimate. As Emoni explains, “I’m choked up at having been a part of making that night special for her” (183).
However, cooking in a more professional environment assumes the opposite character for Emoni. A key example is her work at the Burger Joint. There, cooking involves mechanically reproducing bland, unhealthy food for indifferent customers. It is something done of economic necessity, not from joy. Similarly, the culinary arts class, after its initial promise, starts to assume this negative character for Emoni. It seems to be more about following rules and accepting authority rather than genuine creativity or self-expression. This worry reaches its apotheosis when Chef Ayden asks Emoni to throw away a meal she has made. Although it clearly tastes good, he directs her to throw it away because she has not followed the exact recipe.
It seems at this stage, therefore, that Emoni’s dichotomy cannot be resolved. She can enjoy cooking for friends and family, but a professional context undermines the very self-expression that makes her want to cook in the first place. This also makes a career undesirable. However, this apparent contradiction begins to be resolved with her trip to Café Sorrel. There, with her grandmother, she enjoys a meal made not only with creativity and joy but with discipline, teamwork, and professionalism. The head chef, Lisa Williams, as a young female chef, serves as a role model for Emoni to aspire to. As important, she gives Emoni some crucial encouragement and advice. As she says, “You have the taste buds, and married with the technique and work ethic you’re learning in class, you’ll acquire the holy trinity to make it in this industry” (178-179).
This encounter suggests that creativity and the professional context can be reconciled. It inspires Emoni to return to culinary arts class and start joining her natural ability with a willingness to learn and follow directions. As she says to Chef Ayden: “I didn’t understand why you were asking me to throw away food or follow the recipe exactly even though my instincts told me it would taste better differently. I didn’t get it. But I think I do now” (184-185).
Moreover, this reconciliation manifests itself in several ways. First, she learns to work alongside others when making a dish with Richard and Amanda in class, subordinating her individual creativity to a greater collective effort. She leans the value of teamwork and restraint. Second, she learns the importance of recipes. To follow a recipe is to show respect for the invention of another, but it is also critical to learning and understanding. After she follows a recipe precisely, Ayden says that Emoni’s dish needs more salt. She retorts that the recipe needs changing. Having followed the recipe exactly means she is able to specify how it can be improved. It allows her to bring a greater degree of precision and consistency to her cooking. This process represents an evolution of her initial freeform and informal cooking style.
Finally, this reconciliation is about seeing the broader picture. As seen with the organization of the “mini-restaurant” and then the Winter Dinner, cooking professionally is not just about the act of cooking itself. As Emoni begins to understand, it is also about doing the “grunt work”—activities such as taking stock, peeling potatoes, and washing up. It is about understanding how such non-glamorous, and often onerous, labor allows the more creative and fulfilling side of cooking to take place. Even more critically, this understanding of the broader picture involves an awareness of economic realities. It means, as in the case of the Spain trip, working out how much money needs to be made, and how to make it. This in turn means appreciating other values not directly related to the act of cooking. These are the values of organization, leadership, and a broader strategic creativity in trying to reach those goals. Only with these qualities can Emoni hope to realize her new dream of becoming an executive chef.
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