1st Bite

Set on a tropical island in Thailand, the strange plight of a beleaguered chef who, while romancing a mysterious woman, discovers the diabolical Zen of cooking. Following a near death escape, he returns to Montreal and falls hard for the woman of his life who unfortunately craves only his cooking but not his loving. Worse still, strange things surfacing around him indicate that his journey to the Far East has deep, divine implications. The stage is set for him to take the 1st bite of true love and end the cycle of suffering for all involved. —Anonymous Gus is a Montréal based chef specializing in Thai food. His boss and friend, Oom, believes he's a really good chef, but not zen inspired like the great ones. After an incident where a local gangster believes Gus tried to poison him and with whose wife Gus is sleeping, Oom advises him to go to Thailand both to hide out but also learn the zen of cooking from a master Thai chef. In Thailand, Gus is unable to find the master chef to whom Oom mentions, but he does find a young woman named Lake, his time with who is spiritual, mystical but life threatening. Upon arriving back in Montréal, Gus finds that Oom is gone and his restaurant is no more. Gus ends up working for Rose and Theo, personal and professional partners, who took over Oom's restaurant space. Gus continues the cycle of infusing into his cooking his life and blood and his suffering that was passed down to him from Lake, and that he is passing to Rose, who takes from his gift only what she craves. But despite the love associated with it, Gus wants to stop the cycle of suffering. —Huggo