A/N: The CM Fanfic Awards for 2011 have opened nominations, it would be amazing if you'd consider my work in your nomination ballot.
+o+
Bau is a Mesopotamian goddess of healing, and was also the name of David Rossi's restaurant. It was a pretty little place a little out of the way of the main city, and got most of its custom from word of mouth. Critics, on the rare occasion they found them, loved them, and while it was unlikely they would ever win a Michelin Star, nobody who worked there minded. Food was about much more than that to them, it was about the experience. His staff was his family, and to his mind the best in the business. Everyone from Rossi as the Head Chef down to the Commis cooked, and loved what they did.
They'd closed by nine on Sunday, and most of his staff had gone home; Chef Entremetier, Aaron with girlfriend Penelope, their Patissier, had gone home as soon as they closed, to get an early night in preparation for a Monday off spent together. Seaver, the Garde-Manger, had got a lift home on the back of her wife Andi's motorcycle, after she'd stopped by the restaurant to say hi and score some prime leftover ingredients for home use. The Grillardin, or Firefingers, as Elle had come to be known stayed to eat, enjoying a glass of wine with the remaining staff before heading out to the nearest bar to meet a mystery person they hadn't been able to get any information on yet. JJ, the front of house who kept everything running like a well oiled machine headed out to meet for drinks with her predecessor Jordan, who had left to start her own catering company, and could always be relied on to name-drop Bau.
As he went through paperwork at a table, he could see the last three kitchen staff out at the table in the small courtyard behind the building, where the staff ate when the weather was fair enough.
His Sous Chef Emily was a force to be reckoned with, and even at eight months pregnant she still moved around the kitchen with grace and ease, with plates on both hands, a feat that seamed decidedly superhuman. She was leaning back in her chair, a bowl of pasta in hands that were rested on the shelf of her stomach, smiling and laughing at whatever conversation was being had.
The father of her child was one of the two men sitting with her; nobody, not even they, were sure who it was, and they didn't mind. Spencer, the Potager and experimental chef was doing a magic trick with a button mushroom, hamming it up for their amusement. Derek, Chef Saucier, was ignoring his own pasta in favour of putting his hand on Emily's belly, and from his reaction it seemed the fetus was kicking. It was a strange arrangement by most standards, but endlessly fascinating to Rossi.
Rossi considered his motto very fitting as he watched the light fading on the trio in the courtyard; a happy family makes good food, and good food makes a family happy.
