1
FINN
I had a key to the front door.
It was something I’d never thought about before. Something I certainly didn’t expect, at least not for a long time. A key to the front door of a restaurant.
I had been working in a fast-food place for a decade, going from a cook to a manager and back to a cook again, just so I could get back to making food. I went from working at a chain to a local joint, so I could make the burgers without using frozen patties. It wasn’t much, but I was allowed to create different kinds of burgers and sandwiches. So for a while—it was enough.
Though eventually, I needed more. I spent hours at home experimenting, testing, tasting every kind of new recipe that I thought I could pull off. I made cakes and pies. I made casseroles and steaks. I made Chinese food, French food, Mexican food, Indian food, Ethiopian food, and literally anything I could get my hands on ingredients wise. I wanted to make it all.
But my hometown wasn’t exactly a bastion of choices for a cook like me. It was either one ethnic style of food or all-American burgers and fries. No experimenting. No changes. People in rural Tennessee liked things they could predict, or so I was told. They never seemed to remember that I was from rural Tennessee.
And I liked things to be exciting, new, and different.
Then Helen came along. She put an ad out for a cook, someone who would be open to new ideas, on the county website. I just so happened to see it popping up on social media. She came to meet me at the burger place, and I made her the wildest turkey burger I could come up with, along with sweet potato fries and a dipping sauce of my own making. She hired me on the spot.
That was months ago. Since then, I had been in a kitchen with Tony, the other full-time cook at Dina’s Diner, making new dishes weekly. Putting out interesting things, seasonal things, fun things. It was a revelation and everything I had ever wanted in a job. Helen saved me, and she barely knew it. She was a big chef from Chicago, and she had waltzed into Ashford, Tennessee, just fifteen miles from my hometown, and changed my entire world. I was forever grateful to her for that.
My life up until she hired me had been frustrating. I never felt like I fit with anyone, which was doubly aggravating since I loved where I was. The mountains of Tennessee were home. I loved going out into the woods and just existing. Being able to do absolutely nothing for a while, surrounded by trees and wildlife and a good, roaring fire. This was the best. I craved it as much as I craved being in front of a stove and new spices in my hand.
Or a key.
Knowing that I had a key to the diner and knowing that Helen had given me carte blanche to create to my heart’s content as long as I stayed within the budget was liberating in a way I had never felt. Helen suggested that she would help me figure out how to pay to finish culinary school if I wanted, but I told her that wasn’t necessary. I had the diner to go and play in, and for now, it was all that I wanted.
I didn’t want to go to Chicago or New York. I didn’t want to get a job in a high-class fancy restaurant. It was hard for her to understand at first, but it just didn’t appeal to me. Working under another chef would mean working by their rules, cooking what they envisioned. I wanted to do my own thing. Working at the diner meant that while I was making a ton of regular diner food, I still had the chance to create on my own. That was worth far more to me than the prestige of a Michelin star.
Helen put a lot of faith in me. I wasn’t going to let her down. Not with the responsibility of essentially managing the diner, nor with the dishes I produced. The ones that were classics were served the way the customers expected them. And the ones we had created were done perfectly, or they didn’t leave the kitchen. These were standards, and I wanted to exceed them. Every time.
I turned the key and opened the door, reaching to my left to flip on the back row of lights. I liked keeping the lights low early in the morning, limiting it to the sunlight coming in through the large windows in the front as the sun rose over the mountains. I could stand at the stove in the kitchen, with the long serving window in front of me, and watch the sun come up. Too many lights on would mar the enjoyment of the sunlight bathing the diner in a new day.