Quality Ingredients

Chapter 1

She was too young for burnout.  Something different was going on.

Lisa moved slowly around the kitchen.  It was early afternoon and all of the chefs were working on prep.  There were enough of them to handle all of the work.  She was just there to oversee everything.  She set a pot of water on the stove for Indra who she knew was working on sauces.

At just thirty-three years old, Executive Chef ALisandria "The Commander" Manoban owned six restaurants.  She had a collection of six Michelin stars across four of her restaurants in the four cities that awarded them.  She had two books out and had appeared in more magazines and television spots than she could recall.  It wasn't burnout.  If anything, she had finally made it and was coming alive.  She had award winning food in her place in New York.  She set the bar for service standards at her restaurant down in Miami.  She was a household name in San Francisco.  Her spot in LA popped up on most celebrity favorites lists.  Her Las Vegas location was a not-to-be-missed destination on any foodie guide about Sin City.

The Portland, Maine restaurant wasn't about any of that.

Considering it was drastically the smallest city she had put a flag in so far, there was an immense amount of pressure on Houm, her most recent establishment in her hometown of Portland, Maine.  Lisa was very public about it and took all of the press and hype in stride.  After spending two months traveling around Italy to cook and eat and figure out what to do for her sixth location, it finally occurred to her that what she needed was to get back to her roots.

In the kitchen and on the map.

Authentic Italian cooking had always been her calling.  She spent time in France and she spent time in Spain.  She cooked and ate her way through Japan and China.  Brazil.  Argentina.  Portugal.  Russia. Morocco.  Nothing spoke to her like Italian food.  Right out of culinary school, she made a plan to back pack through Europe and eat and drink and cook and learn, but she never made it out of Italy.  It was too perfect.

"A watched pot never boils, Commander," Indra sighed.  Lisa shook her head and blinked a few times to clear her daze.  She'd been staring at the pot of water on the stove completely lost in thought.  She forgot to turn the burner on.

"Wise words," Lisa half smiled at her Head Chef.  Indra half smiled back.

Indra worked under Lisa in her very first restaurant in New York over ten years ago.  They were both from Maine, but didn't cross paths until they were in culinary school in New York.  Indra was incredibly talented, but she didn't want to be an executive chef.  She wanted to cook great food and maintain a solid kitchen.  She didn't have the drive Lisa had to lead the whole staff.  She didn't have the creativity Lisa had to design a full menu to match a visual dining concept and build a bar menu to pair with it.  She couldn't get people to blindly follow her like Lisa could.  She didn't have the money to do the whole thing at twenty-two years old like Lisa did, either.

But she moved on with Lisa to each new place.  Each new city.  Each new kitchen.  They barely even had to speak now they worked so well together.  New York was a given, Lisa had to open her first place there.  Miami was hot at the time and was easy to open up shortly after the instant success in New York. LA was a no brainer and Vegas was an obvious move to add to Lisa's roster.  San Francisco was a lot of work.  Lisa took years to perfect the plan before opening it. There were a lot of setbacks on that one.  Indra opened each location as Head Chef just below Lisa as Executive.

Lisa didn't ask Indra to come to Portland.  It was a small city full of food and it had a good scene to be sure, but in the wake of all of Lisa's prestige, it didn't carry the same weight as the other five restaurants.  It was more of a passion project, which the press never let her forget, but she didn't treat it with any less seriousness of purpose.  She walked Indra through the proposal one night over drinks to get some feedback and ideas and Indra's first response was 'when do we leave?'.