"One piece of advice was a model of clarity: I should never attempt to get involved with what he referred to as 'their lingo.' Speak English forcefully enough, he said, and they will eventually understand you." – Mayle, from French Lessons







Playing the novice to a new culture takes a delicacy of sensibility that not everybody has.  Sam might have to tip toe around the fact that he had never been a chef per se, only a chef domestique, otherwise known as a stay at home dad whose favorite parts of the day usually had something to do with reading a gourmet recipe, planning a menu, and then off to the grocery store with a kid or two to pick over the produce. Was this chefing? In his mind, yes, and, after all, isn't that in the end all that counts? When the gravestone is laid over at the end, will the words say that everybody knew precisely who he was and they all knew there was no way he was ever a great cook. Or, he often wondered, could he fudge it a little bit, and put on that stone that he "always loved cooking?" This gave him some ideas for the Bistro of One's Own – to make a sign out of stone with some immortal words scribbled all over it.  He thought again...maybe this was a little bit morbid, especially he was in essence starting from scratch. Wait, that was it! "From Scratch!" How clever he could be sometimes, he thought to himself while nobody else was looking, of course.

He looked back over to Clara. If she was to be his partner in this little escapade of an adventure, she would have to see the future of the place for herself.  Sam looked over her light and loose hair, bubbling in the wind a little, and could see the very tip of a sailboat off along the northern shore of Lake Mendota, deep, blue, and pleasant.