The Chef's Choice: The Chef's Choice. Kristin Hardy

      “Watch the movie,” Cady grumbled.

       Chapter Three

      “No tuna at all?” Damon asked. He sat in the tiny nook off the kitchen that served as his office. Smaller than a phone booth, the space held a little counter just wide enough for a laptop and a phone, high enough that he could either sit on a tall chair or stand and look out across the kitchen.

      “No more tuna, not today. We’re already out,” the fish vendor said over the phone.

      “How about skate wing?”

      “We got some nice scallops,” he offered.

      It was an education in what was possible, Damon told himself. “Fifteen pounds of that."

      “I got you down for haddock and lobster, also. Standing order. You still want it?"

      “For now. Things will be changing soon, though.” He hoped to God. With a scowl, Damon ended the call.

      He wasn’t used to not being able to get whatever he wanted delivered to his door, from suppliers no more than an hour or two away. Of course, he also wasn’t used to getting off work at midnight to find that the entire town had rolled up the sidewalks. After hours of fast, hard, demanding work, he needed time to come down. In Manhattan, that had meant a bar or nightclub. In Grace Harbor, it appeared to mean his living room.

      Then again, there was something to be said for getting enough sleep to be at work early. The kitchen, at this hour, was quiet. Only Roman was in, standing at the stainless steel counter that paralleled the row of stoves that ran along one side wall; together, the two formed the line, where the bulk of the entrées came together during lunch or dinner service. Opposite the end of the line was the little corner bay where hot and cold appetizers were put together; between the apps station and the end of the line ran a crosswise aisle that led through a doorway to the dishwashing station and the back door and the walk-in.

      Which brought him back to fish.

      “What kind of a fish market sells out of tuna at seven in the morning, Roman?” he asked.

      Roman glanced up, but his knife never ceased moving. “A fish market that sells a lot of tuna to Japan for sushi, Chef. You could probably get some shipped in."

      “I’m not going to get it shipped in when it’s fished right here.” He walked past Roman to the boxes of produce that had been delivered that morning. Farm Fresh From California, the labels proclaimed, but how fresh could it be if it had been shipped across the country by truck or plane or train? And why were they getting goods from California when New Jersey and Florida were probably growing everything they needed by this time of year? Doing business in Maine was proving more of a challenge than he’d expected.

      At least the kitchen was in good shape, all white walls and gleaming counters and terra-cotta tiled floor. The powerful fans at the ceiling were silent at this hour. When the stoves were fired up and the unbroken surface of their tops became one giant radiator, the fans and AC would kick into gear. Not that it would help much. Once the dinner rush was on and all the cooks were working on the line, all the air-conditioning in the world wouldn’t keep the temperature down.

      At this hour, though, the kitchen was cool and empty, quiet save for the soft tick of Roman’s knife.

      Damon turned back to his tiny office, the walls lined with clipboards that held the order sheets, a separate one for each day of the week. It was an organized system and Roman had kept it up, Damon would give him that. Actually, he’d give him a whole lot more, having seen the guy work the line during service the day before. A good man with a knife, Roman, and he ran a clean station. He moved easily from the grill to sauté to apps as necessary, turning out clean, consistently plated dishes each time.

      Damon had the facility, he had the staff. Now it was up to him to come up with the right food.

      The Sextant’s menu currently ran to entrées like baked haddock, steamed lobster, steak. Basic, satisfying fare, good enough for guests who didn’t want to deal with going into Kennebunk or Portland, but nothing that was going to bring anybody to the restaurant on purpose.

      The thing to do was to hold on to the New England traditions but rework them, take the lobster and blueberries and turn them into something more than the sum of the parts. It was that aspect of cooking that he really loved, letting his imagination take flight, playing with flavors, mixing elements to come up with a new twist that made the taste buds sit up and take notice.

      Of course, the thing to do was to go gradually. He’d ride with the current menu for a week while he developed the new dishes and Roman and the rest of the line cooks perfected making them. Then they’d rotate a few dishes in each night until at the end of the second week they’d be serving a revamped menu featuring the familiar flavors but taken to a new level.

      The restaurant currently had two stars in the guidebooks. The McBains were hoping for three; Damon had vowed to get them four. Of course, that had been before he’d found out what kind of food stocks he had to work with. A look at suppliers and food cost requirements meant jiggering things a bit, but he could still do it. He was going to blow away Ian and Amanda McBain. And their daughter.

      Especially their stubborn, opinionated daughter.

      She was definitely an original. Nice enough looking, he supposed, though you’d hardly know she was aware of it. He was used to women who flirted, women who were experts at polishing their own allure. He wasn’t sure he could remember ever meeting a woman who just purely didn’t give a damn about making a good impression, on him or anyone else. As annoying as it was, he had to give her credit. Her redhead’s skin might look milky smooth but that tough, compact body could go toe-to-toe with anyone.

      He remembered her scent and smiled. Going toe-to-toe with her could be kind of intriguing.

      The phone rang and he picked it up absently. “Hurst.”

      “Seven o’clock and already at work,” Paul Descour said in his lightly accented English. “I’m happy to see it."

      “That makes one of us,” Damon said, stifling a yawn.

      “You can sleep when you’re dead, my friend. You cannot build a world-class restaurant from the grave."

      “Now, there’s a sprightly thought to start out the day. Was that the only reason you called, to cheer me up?"

      “I called to see how your new venture is going.”

      “Oh, great. I’m learning how to make meals without fresh produce."

      “No green market?”

      “I’m working on it. So far, I can mostly tell you what they don’t grow within a hundred miles of here."

      “So it is a challenge. It will show you what you are made of.”

      “It’s not what I’m made of that I’m worried about,” Damon said.

      “You have always been resourceful. I am sure you will find a way. And how is the restaurant?"

      “It’s got possibilities,” Damon allowed. “The kitchen setup’s good. A little small for the size of the dining room but it’s not a problem right now. We’ve got enough tables to do a hundred and fifty covers a night but we’ve had less than a quarter of that since I’ve been here."

      “It is okay to start small. You are still working out the bugs.”

      “Bugs are definitely not on the menu.”

      “And that is a good thing. The health department just closed La Dolce Vida for violations,” Descour said, referring to Manhattan’s Italian restaurant of the moment.

      Damon shook his head. “Marco never was much on taking care of the details."

      “You may have had your faults, but you always kept a clean kitchen,” Descour said.