Dottie Trout has happily written film reviews at the Southern Times for five years when she is suddenly informed the newspaper has been bought by a conglomerate of businessmen referred to as Thems Upstairs, who decided she would be better utilized writing restaurant reviews. Unfortunately, Dottie suffers from an eating disorder brought about by the simultaneous cardiac arrest of her two large parents. This puts her in the awkward position of having to write intelligently about food she is unable to eat. Her sister, Sissy, with whom she lives in the Trout family house, offers to eat for her and give lavish descriptions of each course, but unfortunately Dottie's general disgruntlement over having her workaday life changed by the constant awareness of food often creates havoc in restaurants, particularly Maison George, an upscale French restaurant possessing an atmosphere of insufferable elitism, which results in a comedy of errors beginning with Dottie pronouncing souffl� - soofle, aggravating an impertinent waiter and ending with both Sissy and Dottie high tailing it out the back door when the waiter trips on Dottie's 'parasol' upending a tray of Chicken Fricassee. Thus, tongue in cheek, the column Chez Dott�e is born.