"Um. I haven't really plated before."
Perfect.
"Okay. Watch." I pull ingredients from the mise. Build a salad in forty-five seconds. Greens, radish, edible flowers, dressing, microgreens for garnish. "Your turn."
She tries. Takes three minutes. The radishes aren't sliced evenly. The flowers are clumped instead of scattered.
"Again," I say.
Maya says, "You're going to give her a complex."
"I'm going to give her a skill. Again, Samantha."
She rebuilds the salad. Two and a half minutes this time. Better distribution but the plating's timid. Apologetic.
"Stop treating the plate like it's fragile. Be decisive. The greens go here because you decided they go here. Own it."
"That's very chef-y," Josh mutters.
"You have a problem?"
"No, chef."
Smart kid.
By noon they've improved. Not great but functional. Derek's knife work is passable. Samantha's plating has actual composition now. Josh stopped checking his phone and started asking decent questions about timing.
Maya's orchestrating the whole operation from her laptop throne at the corner table. Confirming deliveries. Double-checking quantities. Emailing suppliers about Friday's load-in schedule.
"We're short on frisée," she announces.
"How short?"
"Twelve heads."
"That's half the salad course."
"I'm aware. Our usual supplier had crop failure. Aphids."
I pat my hands on my apron. Think through alternatives. Frisée isn't just garnish, it's structure. The bitter note that balances the dressing. Swapping it means reworking the whole dish.
"Can we get it elsewhere?" I ask.
"Yes. There's a distributor in the city who can overnight it. Conventional. Not local."
There it is. The trap I knew was coming.
Conventional means cheaper. Faster. Reliable. Means calling a warehouse and having perfect, uniform heads arrive tomorrow morning in refrigerated packaging.
Also means breaking the promise I made to Ivy. To the town. To myself.
"What about local options?"
Maya scrolls through her spreadsheet. "Farmer June grows frisée but she's already maxed out on our other orders. Same with the cooperative garden. Everyone's stretched."
"So our choice is conventional city greens or redesigning the salad course three days before service."
"Essentially."
