Stir It Up by Ramin Ganeshram

“A makeup artist will be coming in here in a second, just to give you a little touch-up for the camera. Nothing fancy. Please tell her if there is anything you’re allergic to.” She pauses again and looks at me and the other girl. “You’re okay,” she says, pointing at me. “You’ll have to put your hair back,” she says to He Kyong.
    “After that we’ll take you into the studio and show you your stations,” she finishes. “I’ll see you in a little bit — good luck, guys.”
    After Brenda leaves the room, we all just stand there, not really sure of what to do next. He Kyong goes back and sits in the cosmetic chair. Her mother begins to fuss with her hair.
    The makeup artist hustles in a few minutes later. He is a young Latino guy with spiky blond hair and a nose ring. He’s also got a headset and a little black box clipped to his black jeans.
    “Who’s first?” he says in a singsong voice.
    Since He Kyong is already at the mirror she goes first, followed by me, then Jimmy. I pull off my jacket and sit down in the chair after He Kyong gets up.
    “Hmmm,” says the makeup artist, whose name is Abelardo. He tilts my chin up with his fingers and looks at my face from different sides. “You have good skin tone, I won’t have to do much.” Abelardo works for a few minutes applying makeup with a sponge to the corners of my mouth and on my upper lip, then uses a big brush to dust my whole face with a powder that he tells me matches my skin tone.
    “Fabulous,” he says, putting a little gloss on my lips. “Try not to bite your lips.”
    I nod and stare at myself in the mirror. Whoa. I’m surprised to see that I actually look pretty good.
    When I come back to the couch, Nyla says, “Beautiful, Anjali.”
    Brenda comes back just as Abelardo finishes making up Jimmy, who then mashes a Mets cap backward on top of his head. Along with our parents, we file after Brenda through more hallways and into a large kitchen with five parallel counters, each with a cooktop, drawers, and lots of utensils.
    People dressed in black chef’s jackets embroidered with the Food Network logo dash around.
    “New blood, Brenda?” a man calls out, smiling, as we walk past.
    “You know it, Chef Rob!” she laughs back. She tells us, “That’s Rob. He’s the head chef of the test kitchens.”
    Ahead of us a canvas curtain blocks the rest of the space. When we follow Brenda around it we see that, from the other side, it’s a backdrop of the city to make it appear as if we’re looking out of the window of a high-rise. The “window” is part of a false wall thatmakes up one side of the large kitchen where we’re going to cook.
    Three identical workstations are lined up side by side. Behind each one, an oven in pink, blue, or avocado green is built into the wall. The opposite walls have school lockers and chalkboards. I guess the space is supposed to look like a schoolroom, but it’s not like any school I’ve ever seen.
    “Where do they film
Power Chef
?” asks Jimmy as we walk into the space.
    “Right here,” says Brenda. “This whole studio is taken down and reassembled for each show. We film a series over the course of days or weeks and we store the sets in crates until we need them. You see them weekly, but they are really filmed over just a few days, a long time before.”
    “Wow,” says Jimmy, looking around.
    Just then a plump woman with curly shoulder-length black hair walks by.
    “Hey! Sam!” Nyla touches the woman’s arm.
    I recognize her right away. She’s Sam Vitelli, one of the Food Network stars and a judge on a lot of the cooking contest shows.
    Sam looks pleased to see Nyla. “Nyla,” she says. “How you doing, woman? What brings you here?” Nyla and Sam hug each other.
    Nyla puts her arm around me. “I’m here with my student who is one of the
Super Chef Kids
finalists,” she says proudly. “Anjali, this is —”
    “Sam Vitelli,” I blurt. I’m totally gushing inside. If I die right