Fire Lodge ( jenlisa )

Part 1

"Winter arrived last night, all at once and with a vengeance."

Jennie Kim looked at the first line of the November newsletter on the screen of her laptop.

"That'll never do," she said to herself. The newsletter has to be positive if it's going to attract customers. Never mind that the last thing she felt was positive. This was going to be her first season managing the Fire Lodge since her parents had died in a helicopter crash, leaving her the owner and operator of the ski lodge-style bed and breakfast.

Then a couple of weeks ago the head chef quit, leaving Jennie with no time to do anything but to promote Chaeyoung Park, the previous assistant chef, to head chef. Never mind that at 20 years old Chaeyoung was two years younger than Jennie, and certainly the youngest head chef in the Valley by a matter of at least a decade. She had worked at the Fire Lodge for the past four years, going to culinary school in the off-season, so she was at least somewhat qualified for the position. And more to the point, she was here, she wanted the job, and she was willing do it for the salary that Jennie was able to pay. Since the helicopter company was holding up the insurance payout from her parents' death, Jennie was left trying to run the place on a shoestring - using the scant remnants of last year's operating budget to cover expenses during the season's first guests, then using the money earned from those guests to cover expenses during the later part of the season. It would work, so long as expenses didn't go up too much and no more than a few of the reservations canceled.

To fill out the remainder of the staff, Jennie called the same agency her parents had always used. She was sure that her father would have been able to demand better employees, but Jennie had a sinking feeling they had used her inexperience to pawn off on her a couple of rejects. For an assistant chef they'd sent her a girl named Jisoo Kim who, while nice enough, barely knew her way around the kitchen. And for assistant manager they'd sent her a girl named Lisa Manoban, a Thai immigrant who didn't speak Korean yet! Fortunately Lisa spoke Japanese, so Jennie could still communicate with her, but she couldn't take on the duties of assistant manager until she could speak Korean well enough to communicate with the guests. In the meantime, she was willing to work as a maid, at a maid's pay, until her Korean was good enough to earn her a promotion and a raise.

Jennie shook her head. Enough woolgathering. The newsletter wasn't going to write itself. She backspaced a bit and then started typing again.

"Winter arrived last night, all at once, surprising us with her delicate beauty."

That was a much better start.

******

Jisoo Kim sniffled deeply, trying to hold back the tears caused by all the onions she was chopping. She'd managed to make it through her first weekend at Fire Lodge, but she knew at least part of that was because Chef Chaeyoung was taking on more of the cooking than an executive chef would usually do. She was determined, though, that she was going to be an asset to the kitchen before long, not a burden. She'd already done the breakfast dishes and now she was getting a head start on chopping the evenings onions - Chef had told her "If you ever find yourself with nothing to do, go wash something. And if you find yourself with nothing to wash, go prep some vegetables.

Jisoo hoped to someday open her own restaurant, but that would require her to gain all the cooking skills necessary. And since she couldn't afford to go to culinary school, that meant her only shot was to learn on the job. But most chefs didn't have the time or the inclination to take on someone with no skills and teach them everything - not when there are so many new culinary school graduates looking for any job they can get. So she'd counted herself fortunate when the agency had recommended her for this job. Working at a small bed and breakfast under the one-on-one supervision of the executive chef was her dream job.