Gemotions

The review, a venomous serpent of words, lay open on the kitchen counter, its accusations stinging like acid. Chef Antoine slammed the oven door shut, the metal reverberating with his frustration. He’d poured his soul into the new tasting menu, each dish a carefully constructed symphony of flavors. And for what? For a sneering critique that reduced his work to amateurish drivel.

He pictured the critic, Reginald Thistlewick, a man whose every meal was apparently a quest for perfection and whose every review was a slow, deliberate evisceration. Antoine’s jaw clenched. He’d show Thistlewick. He’d show them all. He’d bury them beneath a mountain of exquisitely prepared food, so perfect it would choke the very air they breathed. He grabbed a cleaver, the cool steel a comfort in his burning hands.