CHAPTER 3
ROGAN
The farmers market sets up every Saturday in the park, a tidy grid of white canopy tents and folding tables where everything smells like dirt and optimism. I arrive at dawn with Maya's borrowed truck, a portable gas burner strapped in the back, and a wild plan to announce the bistro's soft opening the only way I know how.
With food. Loud, unapologetic, impossible-to-ignore food.
I claim the last open spot at the end of the row, wedged between a soap vendor and a woman selling hand-knitted socks. The setup takes twenty minutes. Folding table. Butane burner. Cast iron skillet already blackened from a thousand other fires. I unload my mise: chorizo, fresh eggs from the farm two miles out, cipollini onions I found at the co-op, smoked paprika, and a jar of fermented hot sauce I've been nursing since my last kitchen job.
The banner Maya helped me paint last night hangs crooked from the tent frame:The Rooted Bistro – Opening March 21.
I fire up the burner and let the skillet heat until the air above it shimmers.
First rule of farmers market cooking: make smoke. Lots of it.
I drop a knob of butter, wait for the sizzle, then add sliced chorizo. The fat renders fast, pooling red and glossy, and the smell hits like a punch. Paprika. Garlic. Pork fat caramelizing at the edges. I toss the pan, flip the sausage, let it char just enough to make people turn their heads.
An older man in overalls pauses mid-step, his nose lifting like a hunting dog's.
"What're you making?"
"Breakfast. Want some?"
I crack two eggs directly into the pan, let them ride the chorizo fat, spoon it over the tops until the whites set and the yolks stay molten. Plate it on a paper dish with a drizzle of hot sauce and a sprinkle of chive I snipped five minutes ago.
He takes a bite, chews slowly, his face doing that thing faces do when the salt and heat and richness all land at once.
"Good God."
"The bistro opens next week. Tell your friends."
He nods, takes another bite, wanders off in a daze.
I crack four more eggs.
By eight,there's a line. Not a long one, but enough that people start noticing. I plate fast, talk faster, flip eggs one-handed while explaining the menu, the sourcing, the fact that yes, the goat incident was real and no, I haven't made peace with that particular animal yet.
The soap vendor glances over, her expression caught between amusement and annoyance.
"You're making the rest of us look boring."
"Want some eggs?"
"I want you to turn down the smoke. My lavender soap smells like chorizo now."
I toss the pan, flip a sausage coin in a perfect arc. "That's just good marketing."
She laughs despite herself.
The woman selling socks is less charmed. She adjusts her display, shoots me a look that could wilt lettuce, and mutters something about "city boys and their theatrics."
I take it as a compliment.
A kid, maybe seven, with a backpack shaped like a frog, edges up to the table. His mom trails behind, distracted by a conversation about heirloom tomatoes.
"Are you the chef with the goat?" he asks, voice high and eager, bouncing slightly on his sneakers.
I lean down, resting my forearms on the folding table. "Depends. Which story did you hear?"
