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The door opened a moment later.
“Oh!”
She sounded surprised, and I felt my brow crease automatically.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you need?” Her tone came out somewhat icy, as if she had been expecting me to leave her alone for the rest of the day.
As good as that idea sounded to me at this moment, I knew that there was not enough time before people started arriving for the season. If we were going to get this lodge ready for them, I needed to hear everything she had to say about the kitchen.
“I wanted to know if you had a list of ingredients and appliances you wanted,” I said simply, deciding to keep my tone as even as possible. “With the start of the season just around the corner, getting that kitchen stocked up is important. If you give me a list, I can make sure Rick gets the stuff next time he goes into town.”
She briefly disappeared before coming back to the door. She held out a piece of paper, a list she must have been working on when I knocked. I took it in my hands and looked it over. Most of these ingredients were everyday ingredients, though some were ingredients I wouldn’t have thought to keep on hand. Others were things that I had never heard of – like something called nutritional yeast.
I noticed that she had also color-coded the ingredients on her list. Those in black ink were those that any brand would do for, cheap or expensive. Those she had written in a lighter blue ink were the ones that she thought cheaper brands did better at. However, those in red had a brand name beside them that she preferred if they were available.
“Am I missing something? What is nutritional yeast for? And the cocoa nibs?” I looked up at her, hoping I could get some answers.
She shook her head softly before taking in some air to answer my questions. At least she didn’t hold it against me that I didn’t know what was on the list for what. However, I had a feeling these ingredients were things that wouldn’t exactly go with the kind of feel that this lodge was known for.
“The nutritional yeast is to help make vegan foods,” she started. “It’s used as a sort of substitute for cheese for vegans. And I also use it as seasoning for a few other things. The cocoa nibs, on the other hand, are to make some cookies with. I wanted bittersweetness in one of the batches. If we’re going to address the complaints that you’ve gotten from some of the people staying here, I think it would be a good idea for you to have at least a small selection of more interesting, elaborate foods rather than sticking to just the easiest to make foods… like sandwiches.”
Her tone is what rubbed me the wrong way. If she believed that I had hired her to fix an issue, then she was entirely mistaken. There were ways to do easy meals for all diets, I believed. In the past, vegans had just eaten peanut butter and jelly, and that had worked great up until now.
I didn’t really want to change the whole food system of the lodge to start catering to every diet. I never understood diets anyways.
There were so many diets and a couple of them wouldn’t even allow me to serve fish in the same kitchen. If it was a religious or medical restriction, of course I understood that, but just dieting to be cool was so… odd.
“Oh, and a stand mixer. I cannot believe that you don’t have a stand mixer in that kitchen. It’s a quintessential appliance, and I’ll need it to make baked goods.” She raised her hands as I felt my eyebrows raise. “You don’t even have to get one of the thousand-dollar, high-end ones. Just one of the mid-grades would do fine,” she continued.
I folded the list in half as she said this, formulating my words. I tried to keep my voice even, but my patience was thin.
“Miss Pennington, it’s very clear that there has been a miscommunication. Let me clear it up as succinctly as possible. This is a lodge, not a hotel. We’re not open all year-round, and we’re not supposed to be known for our food. I understand that there are more trendy diets this year than ever before, but I don’t want your fancy city foods here.”
“Excuse me?” Miss Pennington’s lip curled up a little, almost in disgust. “First of all, then maybe you shouldn’t have hired a chef when all you need is a high schooler with a hair net. And second,” she frowned and took a step forward. “Who said I was getting fancy? Nothing on that list – except perhaps the stand mixer since you’ve clearly never even given your guests cookies – is used to make something fancy.”
She crossed her arms on her chest, as if she was getting offended by the fact that I didn’t need her to make such elaborate meals. It wasn’t just a matter of personal taste, however. I was going by what was most interesting to the customers I would be serving year after year, and most understood that there was a grocery store and restaurants they could order from if they didn’t like what was being served at the lodge.
“I have never stopped guests from ordering carry-out or delivery if they preferred that to the lodge meals,” I continued. “But the point of our dining room is to be there when nothing else is open or if they don’t want to leave the lodge for whatever reason. I haven’t yet found someone in that situation who isn’t just fine with a sandwich.. I do keep gluten-free bread on hand for those with Celiac’s, and I plan to expand my offerings of diet-specific foods, but that takes time. And I honestly don’t really care about that right now with the start of the season in just a few days.”
“Or, you’ve been hiring the wrong people,” Miss Pennington lashed out. “Your definition of simple is too narrow-minded. There are more recognized diet problems today than ever before, and if you advertise that you feed your guests, then your kitchen should reflect that and actually try to feed people well..”
“And just where do cookies fit into that?”
“Cookies are literally one of the most simple desserts I could possibly make!” she nearly shouted. “Gosh, I can see why your last chef quit. You’re a nightmare!”
“Miss Pennington,” I stated less-than-totally-calmly. “My last chef quit because of personal reasons. However, half of the crowd here would be pleased with simple ham and cheese sandwiches and the other half would be pleased with PB&Js. It’s really not complicated.”
“You hired me to be the expert in that kitchen, and you’re not even letting me cook anything. If you need someone with only the skills of a high school student, why bother hiring a chef at all?!”
With that, Miss Pennington grabbed her keys, shoved past me, and stormed down the hallway, letting the door slam shut behind her.
I clenched my jaw as she stormed away.
While I didn’t understand what had her all up in a huff about the fact that I wanted her to serve simple foods, I could understand that perhaps it felt like an attack on her craft. From my years learning what I wanted to do after getting out of the Rangers, I had learned that many people wouldn’t take it well if they thought they were being personally attacked.
It was the last thing I had wanted to do, but for now, there was nothing more I could do. Instead of chasing after her, I took a better look at her list of ingredients and went to see what we had in the kitchen. If I wanted her to stay on so that I could open the lodge on time this season, then I should at least allow her to have some of the things on her list.
Knowing now that nutritional yeast was used for vegan recipes, I decided that had to be added to our pantry. At the very least, Miss Pennington might know how to make use of it properly. We hadn’t really branched out our menu to include vegan, keto, or other diet trends because they all required specific ingredients, and most vegans were happy to eat a PB&J. I still didn’t quite understand the fact that most vegans wouldn’t touch honey with a ten-foot pole, but it wasn’t my diet.
