How I gave my heart to the restaurant business

the long version

Starting with an interview at the Cauldron of Peace Health Food Restaurant, continuing through her early apprenticeship at the J&W Exotic Food Emporium (for every bite you take, you need a passport), through her brief career assisting a famously difficult television chef, Kitchie tries to follow her dream of opening a small, charming restaurant in the country. It's a dream that seems possible with the help of Gunnar - a blond Russian-Scandinavian hunk with bad English, a taste for gambling, and a gift for making money - whom she meets at a wandering street fair where she sells gourmet sandwiches and he purveys bad art. Together, Gunnar and Kitchie open a private dining club in a rented Brooklyn Heights brownstone. After they're run out by the neighbors, it's onto bigger and more terrifying heights, where corporate food vendors can elevate a rising star and famous food critics can snuff it out. Kitchie and Gunnar work, make love, work, and work some more - and every golden, exhausting success pushes Kitchie farther and farther away from her dream.