I pull my phone out and glance at the screen. In addition to the two missed calls and voicemails I haven't listened to, there isnow a text from him:Isabelle, call me when you have a moment. It's important and urgent.
Everything isimportant and urgentwith Papa.
"Hedidseem proud of you, though," Margot says, glancing at me. "He kept going on about his 'extraordinarily talented daughter.’ It was kind of sweet, actually."
I smile a bit at that. My father is a lot of things. Controlling, overbearing, incapable of letting me make a single decision without weighing in. But unsupportive is not one of them. He’s given me everything. Every stage, every connection, every opportunity I've had traces back to him.
"He's good at the proud part. It's the letting go part he struggles with. I don't mean to complain. I'm grateful, really. He's just..." I search for the right word. "Involved."
Margot laughs. "Believe me, I get it. It can come from love and still drive you up the wall."
"Exactly. I know he means well, but I think he has trouble understanding that I also want to do things for myself sometimes."
My whole career has been built in my father's kitchens. But this residency is the closest I've come to doing something on my own terms. I pitched Solstice myself using my mother's maiden name. They said yes based on my recommendations and the PowerPoint proposal I put together.
Granted, those recommendations came from chefs I only got to work under because my father opened those doors for me, but I still cling to the tiny piece of this that feels like mine. Theyescame before they knew my last name. That has to count for something.
Of course, once they found out, the whole thing blew up into something bigger than I'd originally planned. More press, more attention, more pressure.
"Well, I hope this isn't overstepping," Margot says, "but youseem like someone who knows exactly what she wants. I bet you can handle anyone."
"See, now that is the kind of blind confidence I like to surround myself with," I say, laughing. "You're hired as my personal hype woman."
"Good, cause you're stuck with me." She laughs. "Now let's talk wine pairings, because I haveopinions."
"And I want to hear every single one of them," I say as we make our way through the herb garden along the east wing.
The raised beds of rosemary and thyme and basil are immaculately kept by the estate's in-house chef for their regular dining program. Solstice does a bit of everything: exclusive pop-ups like mine, private events, weddings for people with more money than God. But it's also a boutique hotel with a six-month waitlist and two full commercial kitchens, one of which is mine for the next month.
As we walk through the door into the kitchen, the scent of dried lavender hanging next to the entrance hits me, and for a second I'm not in California at all. I'm in the south of France, standing in my grand-mère's kitchen as a child.
My father is half French, and I grew up between New York and Provence. Summers were always in France, with her, in that old farmhouse with the blue shutters and the chickens in the yard. Learning to cook the way she cooked, by instinct and by taste, without measuring cups or timers or any of the precision I've since built my entire career around.
Those memories have been sneaking up on me all week, catching me off guard at the strangest moments. Napa isn't France, and Solstice isn't her farmhouse, but there's a resemblance in the light, in the way the air smells after it rains, in the neat rows of herbs growing just outside the kitchen door. A memory I want to sink into as much as I want to push it away.
I let the feeling pass and try to focus. My fish supplier shouldbe here any minute with samples of the halibut and black cod, and Margot and I have wine to discuss.
She pulls out her leather folio as we settle at the prep table and flips to a page covered in her neat handwriting. Everything about Margot is elegant, from her glossy brown hair to the silk blouse that appears to be immune to wrinkles, and I find it both inspiring and slightly intimidating.
"For the amuse-bouche," she says, uncapping her pen, "I'm thinkingCava. Dry, high acid, small bubbles. It cleanses the palate and the minerality plays off the fat in the mousse without competing."
"I like that." I can already taste the pairing in my head. "What about the halibut course?"
"That's where it gets interesting." She flips to the next page with the kind of reverence most people reserve for holy texts. "Two options. There's a 2021 Albariño with this gorgeous salinity, almost like sea spray. Or we go Burgundy. A Chablis Premier Cru, more minerality, less fruit. The Albariño is the safe pick. The Chablis is the more interesting one."
"Interesting how?" I smile, leaning against the counter. I love wine. Being half French and a chef, it would be blasphemy not to. But Margot is next level. She speaks wine the way some people speak poetry.
"It's unexpected. People see halibut, they reach for crisp white, citrus notes. The Chablis makes them pause." She says it almost dreamily, like she can already taste it. "But it's your menu. Your call."
"The Chablis," I say. "Let's make them think."
Margot grins. "I was hoping you'd say that."
We keep going like that, working through the rest of the courses, and I lose track of time the way I only do when I'm talking about food with someone who loves it as much as I do. Margot asks questions I hadn't considered and suggests pairings I wouldn't have thought of. We're debating the merits of an off-dry Riesling versus a Grüner Veltliner when I glance up at the clock.
The fish supplier is now almost an hour late.
I told him on the phone that timing wasessential. He swore up and down that he understood, that punctuality was his specialty, that he'd worked with fine dining establishments before. He also asked twice to speak to "the chef in charge," apparently finding it difficult to believe that the woman he was speaking to was in fact the chef, which should have been my first red flag.