
In 2014 or so, a dear friend of mine, who for the sake of anonymity we'll just call Lisa, was dating a chef at a local trendy brewpub. He was shockingly unlike her recent ex, the clean-cut corporate accountant who had been Lisa's first "real boyfriend."
The Chef, as Lisa would call him in our group chats, had a smattering of food-themed tattoos — a cartoonish bone-in ham on his shoulder blade, a nakiri knife on his shinbone, a teeny-tiny anchovy on his ring finger — and smelled like Parliament cigarettes and duck fat.