Her tone of voice makes it sound like making salmon is as exotic as scuba diving off the coast of Australia

The school kitchen is spotlessly clean, but a smell lingers, food and frying and cleaning sprays, all mingling into something kind of… unappetizing.

I take a place around the large island counter and try to breathe through my mouth.

“…something exciting,” the teacher (who hasn’t introduced herself since the rest of the class obviously know her already) says. She’s wearing a striking green headscarf, long casual skirt, and a T-shirt. I guess teaching cooking class necessitates a more casual wardrobe. “We’re going to be having a practical lesson today, and we’ll take notes on it afterward.”

The teacher passes out cutting boards — they used to be white, but now they’re very much worse for wear, scratched and graying, with the marks of hundreds of students practicing cooking assignments — and sends two girls over to the huge, stainless steel fridge. They squeal a little as they hand out fillets of raw salmon.

“Nooooooo, not fish!” Shevi yelps comically.

“Ewww,” Tehillah says, wrinkling her nose. “Do we have to, like, touch, this?”

There are murmurs of assent, girls delicately covering their noses, some pushing their cutting boards as far away as they can.