Chapter 36 The Taste Of War

• The restaurant buzzed like an orchestra tuning before a concert. Cameras flashed, reporters whispered, and waiters floated between tables with trays of wine glasses balanced like fragile promises. It was the annual Paris Gastronomie Festival, and this year, all eyes were on one woman — Élise Dubois
• Her coming to the culinary scene had stirred gossip like a simmering sauce. Some said she wants to reclaim what was hers. Others whispered she was chasing the man who once broke her. Either way, she was the story.
• Élise stood at her station, hair tied back, eyes fixed on the gleaming metal counter. The dish before her looked simple: smoked duck with a cherry reduction and charred rosemary — her twist, the flavor that had once made Antoine Moreau fall silent the first time he’d tasted her food. Now, she prepared it again, not for him, but for every critic who had written her off.