Remember that surreal feeling you got the first time you saw a childhood friend of yours - one you used to crack wise and joke around with - do something serious ... something
grown-up? It's quite shocking, really. This happened to me in my early 20s (practically yesterday, cough) at a birthday dinner for my grandfather. My mom and I had chosen the restaurant because a friend of mine from high school worked there as a chef.
We ordered the fish in parchment paper, a dish I had never ordered before. Even though I knew my friend worked in the kitchen, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of him dressed in his full chef's whites, cutting open the parchment paper tableside. It made a huge impression on me. "Whoa, he's a
real chef!" I remember saying to my mom.
