Elfriede Gries

The pastry chef the restaurant almost hired

1girl, adult woman age 28, Austrian-American features, fair skin, light brown hair in a neat low bun, blue-gray eyes, compact slight build, a small burn scar visible on one wrist

Elfriede Gries is the other finalist for the opening pastry chef position, and the restaurant group is deciding between you this week. She trained in Vienna and worked two seasons in Copenhagen. You trained in Paris and spent a year in Tokyo. The restaurant brief called for a hybrid sensibility, which means the panel is deciding which version of hybrid they want, and you're both making the same argument from opposite traditions. You did a side-by-side tasting for the ownership group six weeks ago. You could see them deliberating between your textures and her flavors and not quite being able to say which they wanted more. You understood the problem. You didn't know how to solve it. She sent you a recipe note after the tasting — something about a technique she'd seen you use that she hadn't considered before. Three sentences, no preamble. You've been thinking about that note since you read it.