chapter 1

The air was crisp and cold with that faint electricity before a snowfall as I made my way down the bustling city streets. I catch sight of myself reflected in the gaudy Christmas display of a shop window and notice a flash of white at my throat peaking out from my coat. I realise that in my eagerness to get home I had rushed out of the hotel without even stopping to change out of my chef's whites.

The month of December for those who work in Hospitality should come with the warning: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." I had been working 14+ hour shifts all month and it was a little jarring to see daylight on a workday, never mind be amongst all the normal people making their way home from their 9-5 grind.

I stop at the Krispy Kreme in the train station and buy a box of a dozen glazed doughnuts. Sure, if I had walked another five minutes I could have bought a single perfect and petite pastry from the chic patisserie around the corner for the same price as the whole box of doughnuts but I've always been a "more is more" kind of girl. And when it comes to my taste in women I just want more. And more. And more.

When I arrive home she's waiting for me. My fat goddess, my 400 lb beauty. The woman who has given up her body as a monument to our shared desires. Even now the enormity of her still takes my breath away every time I see her. Everything about her is soft, full and ripe. Her belly is a big rounded dome that juts out before her as a symbol of brazen obesity and has only began to sag in the last 50 pounds of her gain, finally giving in to gravity. It pours forward onto her her thighs that bulge outward, spilling over any chair that dares to take her immense weight. Her breasts are two sumptuous orbs resting on her belly and her arms are plush and pillowy, their flab now hanging over her elbows.

When I present her with the box of doughnuts her face lights up with greedy delight and her belly utters a low, guttural growl to greet me.

"These should keep you satisfied until dinner is ready," I say.

"Oh, I don't know about that," she smiles. "How long will dinner be?"

I want to enjoy spending as much time as possible with her so I decide to make spaghetti Carbonara: quick and simple. But even then it had to be the best for her and I remove a disc of homemade pasta, rich yellow with half a dozen egg yolks, from the refrigerator to roll out and cut into long, blonde tendrils of spaghetti. I love to learn about the history of food, recipes are stories passed down through time that tell us as much about a culture as folktales and songs. But I can't be bothered with people who are so tediously didactic about food and insist that there is a "definitive" version of a recipe or a "proper" way to cook a dish. I have no doubt that most Italians would be aghast at the lashings of double cream and Parmesan that I was adding to my sauce to satisfy my love's over the top, completely decadent tastes and, of course, to pack as many calories into her ever growing belly as possible.

One of my commis once asked me what the secret to being a good chef was. I told him that I didn't believe in cutting corners or skimping on details no matter how easy or simple a task might seem. I said that I believe that even simple things can be elevated to perfection when they're treated with care and attention. And what could be more simple than eggs, cheese and bacon? It's probably saying things like that that has earned me the reputation for being such an uncompromising hard ass to work with. But the truth is that what makes me a good chef, or at least a better one than I was before I met her, is that I pretend that everything I make is for her. After all, everything tastes better when it is cooked with love.

Sometimes I am amazed by how silently someone so heavy can move and I utter a little gasp of surprise as she slips her soft arms around me and I can feel her doughy stomach press against my back as she gently lets a little of her weight rest against me.

"What do you have for your big girl tonight?" She asks.

"Big" is such an understatement. She's GARGANTUAN. She is impressively fat when stationary but you need to see her in motion to truly appreciate her size. I love the way her fat body moves, as she waddles towards the stove every step causes her huge ass to ripple and sends shock waves through her whole body that cause her belly to jiggle and sway.

She dips a plump finger into the creamy sauce. She never can wait. As she sucks the sauce from her finger she closes her eyes and utters a soft sigh. "Heaven."

Some couples hold their memories in faded old photographs or schmaltzy love songs but we have food. Think of Marcel Proust with his Madeleine cake and cup of tea. It's a pretentious reference but he was right: every bite is loaded with nostalgic potential, a sensory memory in every mouthful that can instantly take us back to a particular moment.

Though five years have passed, millions upon millions of calories have passed her lips and her body has ballooned beyond all recognition from the girl that she once was, the instant I taste the Carbonara I am transported back to the day we met as if it was only yesterday.

It was my first head pastry chef position. I admit that I was a self-entitled brat in those days, accustomed to everything coming all too easily to me. I had moved from a chef de partie position in a 3 AA restaurant that was pushing hard for a Michelin star to a head pastry chef in a hotel with a 2 AA restaurant, banqueting space and afternoon teas. I expected it just to be another step in the seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory of my career. It hadn't occurred to me even for a second that it might be a challenge, that I didn't really know anything about leading a team or that I might have to compromise my high standards to suit an increased workload.

I was always the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night and I spent all the hours in between wracked with worry. I was flailing, completely out of my depth. Worse, everyone seemed to know it.

It was a particularly bad day that brought Katy into my life. I had forgot to put baking powder in my scones for afternoon tea so they were hard and flat as hockey pucks, had spilled a pot of chocolate sauce all over my pristine white uniform and given myself a particularly nasty sugar burn. I was, as we affectionately call it in the industry, in the shite. It was all enough to make a grown man cry and by the time dinner service started in the restaurant I was ready to tear off my apron and admit defeat. The only thing that held me back was the news that there was a food critic from a prominent newspaper dining that night. I felt like if I could only serve something spectacular then maybe I could redeem myself, maybe I could prove that I was more than just a glowing CV and a handful of empty promises.

When the check came on I shouted "Oui, Chef!" with as much confidence as I could muster but when I removed her pistachio souffl� from the oven I could have wept. It was not pillowy and cloud-like and standing tall and proud as a chef's hat but a sad, shrivelled, sunken thing. The head chef shook his head in disgust as he called for service but no one could have been more disappointed than me.

The next day I found the review waiting for me on my section with the paragraph about the dessert circled in black Sharpie ink. Every word was completely brutal, the words "overly ambitious" and "amatuerishly executed" in particular stick in my mind to this day. There is nothing that cuts deeper than the criticism that you know in your heart to be true. I crushed the hateful paper in my hands but still I could see the name "Katy Pope" printed in bold ink.

My first job of the day was a batch of black sesame and peanut butter macarons. It was a recipe that I had been toying with for a while for my new a la carte menu but had never gotten quite right. Too many black sesame seeds made the macaron grainy but too few meant the flavour wasn't prominent enough and the colour was a dull grey instead of black. I opened the door and stood with the hot breath of the oven upon me. The macarons were all identically smooth and round with well risen feet and a dramatically black colour. Perfect. As I filled them with salty sweet peanut buttercream and finished them with gold leaf as a final decadent flourish, a plan began to formulate in my head. I was going to find the food critic who had rubbished my dessert and present her with a single perfect macaron.

I was amazed how easily I was able to get into her office but I realised my mistake as soon as I saw her. I had expected some jaded, middle aged journalist but the girl who was approaching me was about the same age as me. I realised then that she was just as green and eager to prove herself as me. Suddenly the plan that had seemed so right, so rational now seemed completely ridiculous. But it was too late to turn back now, I could only stand there like a crazy person and burn with shame and guilt for coming to harass someone who had only written the plain truth.

As she weaved through the tightly packed rows of desks she grazed her hip against another journalist's chair and looked a little surprised like one who has recently gained weight and has not quite adjusted to the extra space that they occupy. As she moved closer I noticed the way her skirt strained across her ample hips and her belly and breasts threatened to burst out of a shirt that was much too tight for her.

"Hi, I'm Katy," she said with a bright smile. "You were looking for me?"

"My name is Sarah, I'm the pastry chef at the restaurant you reviewed last night." I began.

"Oh..." she frowned, there was a fearful look in her eyes as if she was expecting me to fly into some unpredictable Gordon Ramsay-esque fit of rage.