Chef Gillian Clark is at the end of her rope. Her checkered career in food has come to a complete halt. Maybe that's not a bad thing. It seems like the business these past few years has been rubbing her the wrong way. She's lost her way and forgotten why she started cooking in the first place. She left marketing to get away from the work day that set her innards a blaze and had her reaching for antacid. Now the making and selling of food has her reaching for harder stuff-taxes are passed due, the landlord wants more rent, the customers didn't come all this way for Lobster Newburg; they want fried chicken. Moreover, she is never able to get any judge she appears before to take her side. And issues of race make her wonder who she's really cooking for. Chef Gillian Clark is beyond tearing her hair out. She's ready to jump. And as she sinks to the bottom of the Potomac River, her 20 years of life in food spills over into her semi-consciousness. Played out before the reader is this oxygen deprived look at what should have been a great career.