At the restaurant, the father watches the few lunch guests throw out partially eaten plates. The daughter laments about having to cook without seasoning. They talk about how much they made today, and it’s not much. With the father’s need to pay for life-enhancing technology and other bills in the Coastal society, the lack of profit from the cafe is demoralizing. The daughter reminisces about how things used to be like with her mother around. Next week, they must pay the tax for the dome. The dad, however, remains optimistic about the cafe’s prospects. The daughter thinks about how they may soon be evicted from the dome, by the Coastals, if they don’t make enough money in time. Alone, the daughter goes to the safe and withdraws money.

The dome becomes dark at night. The daughter thinks about how New Orleans has changed so much ever since it became a multi-layered dome, though her bottom layer still looks like the original city, and it still belongs to the city’s original inhabitants. Eventually, she gets to the pink house and pays an entry fee. She asks the woman inside for seasonings, which have since been outlawed by the Coastals. For a thousand dollars, she asks for a day’s worth of seasonings. Hesitantly, she pays for it, hoping to revive the soulful food of her mother’s. The woman tells her to be careful, as she may be convicted for two decades by possessing them. After she drops the seasonings in her bag, the Coastals come in and raid the pink house. Shots are fired, and the daughter scrambles to get out. Barely, with a grazed wound, she makes it out.

Later, the daughter applies mediglue to seal her wound. Her father finds the seasonings and angrily asks what she’s doing with it. She asks for his trust as she intends to use it. First, she makes a plate of smothered turkey necks and rice for the day’s first customer, a person who worked in the upper levels of the dome. They’re elated at the taste of it, and so are the customers who bring their friends in and fill the cafe for the first time in a while, as the daughter cooks with her seasonings.

Eventually, a Coastal officer comes in and orders. The father, knowing what’s up, tells the daughter to run, but she insists on cooking food for him. She cooks a plate for the Coastal officer, with gumbo, juicy ham hock, and collard greens, who eats it and says that it’s illegal. He arrests the daughter and puts her in his hovercar. Eventually, after driving for a while, the Coastal officer stops in the middle of nowhere and takes the daughter outside to talk to her. He says he won’t hurt her, and he takes off her handcuffs. He asks how he learned how to make gumbo, to which she says that her mother taught her. Eventually, they realize that he used to eat her mother’s gumbo. He offers her a proposition to cook for the saints.

The daughter returns to the cafe and reunites with her father. She tells him about the saints, who are an underground group of people in the dome who want to save New Orleans culture, and how they want her to cook for them. The father reveals to her that her mother used to be a part of them and that he won’t get in her way now, because he’s no longer afraid.