As the rich, earthy scent filled the room, the "smoke" in his head finally cleared. He realized he’d been so busy looking at the pedestal he was standing on that he’d forgotten how to stand on the floor.
The next morning, the surgical steel was gone, and the wooden spoons were back on the counter. Mateo was the first one in, peeling potatoes and joking with Tomás. He learned the hard way: in a kitchen, as in life, if you let the smoke get too high, you eventually lose sight of the fire.
By the end of the night, the dining room was half-empty. The "Nitro-Foam" was a disaster, and the local paper’s headline the next morning was brutal: A Chef Lost in the Clouds.