Mostly Martha

In a German restaurant, Chef Martha Klein is the undisputed supreme ruler of the kitchen staff, and woe to any customer who would dare criticize her cooking. Her life is firmly centered around cooking, which takes on a obsessive level with stubborn single-mindedness. Even when she is ordered to take therapy, she still constantly talks about her work and the ironclad control she relishes. All that changes when her sister dies in a car accident, leaving her 8-year-old daughter Lina. Martha takes her niece in and while making inquiries about her estranged father, she struggles to care for this stubbornly headstrong child. Meanwhile, a new chef named Mario is hired on at Martha's restaurant and she feels threatened by this unorthodox intruder. The pressures of her work and private life combine to create a situation that will fundamentally call her attitudes and life choices into question while these interlopers into her life begin to profoundly change it.-Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)