Awakening from a Kitchen Nightmare

[Varindar Asyt]

Varindar found that her life as a Jedi was far from the high life she envisioned when she moved from a slave front desk worker to hotel manager. She knew that Jedi taking advantage of their station to live the high life at their faction's expense existed, but she hoped that the guests of the day, [member="Kat Decoria"] and [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"], would not be one of those Jedi. Yet, since it was the time between check-out and check-in at the Crown Nebula, she typically expected the restaurant's downtime to be occurring there, especially in the second half of that band. I hope that the lesson won't stretch out until, well, check-in time, she thought, while few Jedi would even try to run a 5-star hotel. But if she wanted to sleep in a luxury hotel, she could always say that it was part of her job as a hotelier, to take the best practices of other hotels its size and see whether it is implementable in her own hotel. Because she knew that some of those best practices were, in fact, better adapted to larger or smaller hotels than the Crown Nebula, whose 24 new rooms on the fifth floor will soon be completed, for a total of 82 rooms. And also some of those practices are region-specific or even implementable only on certan planets. Once the Force-users arrived at the hotel's front desk...

"Welcome, young apprentices. If you could please follow me to the restaurant's kitchen, this is where the lesson of the day will be taking place"

 

[Kat Decoria]

Kat had been told to go to this fancy resturant place to learn pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. Two techniques that she thought would be great when building, and she guessed fighting as well. What she didn't understand what why she was going to this high end resturant/hotel to do this training, but it beat spending her time out in the forest of Kashyyyk. Mostly because she bet the hotel was less likely to have giant spiders that want to eat her. Looking around, Kat definitely felt out of place. It was significantly posher than any place she had been to in years. This was somewhere more befitting her sister who was a Echani politician. Taking out her camera, she took a few shots to show her sister later. She was sure her sister would be impressed.

Hearing a woman speak, Kat looked around and saw an important looking woman speaking to her. Stating they were going to a kitchen, Kat pointed at herself then followed to the kitchen. "This place is sssssswwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeet. I thought Jedi lived in modest quarters, bare minimum kinda deal? Or is this more a personal project of yours? Mine's ships. Love me some ships. Dirty work at times but greeeeeeat." Kat commented cheerfully as she took a look around the place.

[member="Varindar Asyt"] | [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"]

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

She left the droids and her dog outside. Her companions where strolling around the town with some curious looks, while she had the smartest idea of having a cooking lesson, she found a place to do it so pretty fast. a Jedi place where they would teach there padawans how to cook a proper meal. Whenever her hands were trying to cook anything, she always end up doing a disaster, that's she a synthesizer in her ship, or mostly left the food in the hands of her droid, she did enjoyed eating, that was true. When she was a slave, she used to roast rats in the fire, and use to love bantha's rump in a place she knew in Coruscant, usually she got out of the restaurant always a little, or a lot, drunk due the consume of Accarrgm that the Wakka Wakka Wakka's Place served in the capital world of the Gallatic Alliance. She spend a lot of time in Kashyyyk drinking and eating, but always end it up picking a fight with a wookie after the bad memories of her dead friends came to her. "As you wish." her tone was trembling, she was a bit scared about learning to cook, specially when she knew that she was horrible in that. With her hands wrapped together in the back of her body, Jaräel started to follow the jedi chef through the hotel straight to the "belly of the beast". She did pay a lot of attention to the girl next to her, impressed by the hotel, which it brought a gentle and warm smile in her lips, after such a long time, it was nice to see some other people. "I'm Jaräel, and you are?", she asked, kindly keeping her cold blue eyes on that excited woman.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"I'm Varindar. Today's recipe is the bantha rump with the mushroom red wine gravy. First things first with the fries: all it takes is to deep-fry potatoes until golden. Do you want fries?"

Before she could get in the thick of it with pyrokinesis, she would rather make sure that the students understood what they want out of the cooking lessons: [member="Kat Decoria"] and [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"] may well be going to a five-star restaurant to learn cooking, but with the lesson taking place outside of the lunch rush hours, she may as well teach the full monty to them. If they want one specific component of the five sub-recipes that go into a bantha rump steak plate as served in the restaurant, or several of them without going all the way, so be it, and pyrokinesis shall be used for that purpose. Now she could tell that Jaräel had bad experiences in the kitchen, so, while these Jedi were learning how to cook on the house, they won't leave the place until they have eaten the fruits of the lesson. For now anyway, the fries were in two separate baskets, with the oil-filled pots still cold. If they wanted to use pyro to learn how to cook the fries, then and only then will they be putting the baskets in the oil, else they may as well have Varindar deep-fry the contents of those baskets.

"Or do you rather want to prepare steamed vegetables and/or steamed rice? There are a total of five sub-recipes that go into a plate of bantha rump steak: fries, steamed vegetables, steamed rice, mushroom red wine gravy and the steak itself"

 

[Kat Decoria]

Kat was so caught up in the moment she had to paused and realise that there was another person with them. She spun on the spot with her hand out with a grin. "Hey! Sorry, just never been to such a fancy place, sis will be sooooooo jealous. Anyways, I'm Kat, Jedi Padawan. Nice to meet ya, Jaräel." She grinned widely before looking around the fabulous kitchen. So big and so shiny, Kat doubted it ever stayed dirty for long, very unlike her workplace. That looked like a disaster zone, though she argued it all had a place and was in said place.

Listening to the plan of the day, Kat was confused, this seemed more a cooking class than a class on the Force. She held her tongue though, not wishing to appear rude. Instead, she decided to go with the flow, at least she'd get a free meal out of it. "I rather cook the fries." Kat stated, she was not that fancy a cook and preferred rustic and basic. Something that wouldn't eat into her very busy schedule. Being a mechanic full time and a Padawan left little in the way of it so spending half a day cooking was never an option for her.

[member="Varindar Asyt"] | [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"]

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

When the words 'bantha rump' were spoken, she could not control her eyes from getting bigger and bigger, filled with fear. For as much as she loved that kind of food, her heart was boiling with doubt about doing such delicacy with eatable taste, but, she maybe was a horrible cook, but she considered herself as a fine soldier, and did her duties as they appeared in front of her, so she nodded with her head in a harsh way, and focused it's attention on what needed to be done. Remembering the lessons about the pyrokinesis classes in the Jedi Order, and how her master used the ability to create great fires, or as a weapon against his enemies, she heard that many force users that specialized in the ability could even explode ships from the inside out. Her voice raised slowly, in a polite and educate way of showing respect for her elders. "If you don't mind i would like to take of the vegetables and the rice." Because she believed that there was no way in hell her abilities were so bad as to the point of burning the rice, or ruining the vegetables. Walking slowly in the direction of the stove, grabbing a huge bowl filled with green, slowly approaching the stewpot and grabbing a few of them with her long fingers, putting them inside the bowl and grabbing a few vegetables and placing them inside the pot. "Now all i have to do is fill it with water and boil it with my mind, right.... master?" She filled a jar with water, dumping in the pan till it was half full. Awaiting for orders, the mind already started to think about heat, thoughts of warmth and flame, but not of great fire, only of hot.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Now that you selected the ingredients to take care of, the time has come for the good stuff: pyrokinesis. Oh and one more thing: if you use pyrokinesis directly onto the potatoes, the end result will be more like an oven-baked potato than fries, so Kat, focus on the oil for this lesson. Since you guys are not going to be cooking the bantha rump proper, nor the gravy, what donenesses do you want? As far as I'm concerned, I want well-done"

Now that [member="Kat Decoria"] and [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"] took care of putting the ingredients in their respective pots, Varindar realized that Jaräel was more intrepid than the others, since heating up two pots for the purposes of steam cooking was going to cost a bit more in focus than one pot of oil for the fries. So, in fact, they were preparing the side dishes for three bantha rumps, and likely then some. With that said, the bantha rumps are on another plate, and she prepared to use pyro on a skillet containing butter and oil as the first step in preparing the gravy, so that she would, in fact, start cooking it. And yet, the red wine gravy recipe that she was preparing definitely didn't serve 3, more like 12; typically one served anywhere between three tablespoons and a quarter-cup of gravy on one bantha rump. So, in fact, they would have fresh gravy ready for when the rush hour comes. And, of course, punch the eighth hole in the loyalty card. Meanwhile, the bantha proper would be much faster to grill than the gravy, depending on the doneness the students wanted for their bantha rumps.

"The thing with pyrokinesis is that you're using the Force to make the molecules dance faster, and the dancing tempo is called the temperature. Sometimes you hit a temperature plateau where the stuff ceases heating up for a bit until it starts heatng up again; typically, when that happens you're either melting or boiling something. You will learn later that cryokinesis is the reverse idea, whereby you're instead looking at calming down molecules. With that said, heat up the oil and water until they boil, respectively"

 

[Kat Decoria]

Kat blinked, unsure how to go about this. The instructor made it sound simple but giving energy to molecules sounded tricky at best. Closing her eyes, Kat attempted to picture the molecules moving around, jumping around and bumping into one another. She then tried to create this, connecting to the Force and giving the molecules in the oil energy. At first nothing was happening which frustrated the rather impatient Kat but eventually the oil started bubbly with activity.

"I think I got it!" Kat commented as she continued to use the Force and cause the oil to bubble and rise in temperature. There was mention of the cooking of the steak, thinking of her preferences. "Oooooo... I want my steak as rare as possible. Good bantha steak needs to be cooked rare I think!" Kat stated, her stomach growling in anticipation.

[member="Varindar Asyt"] | [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"]

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

Filling the pot with water, almost to the half. Jaräel took the rice and place it inside, grabbing a big wood spoon and starting to move the rice a little. In her mind, she started to focus, imagining what the master said, about molecules dancing but not that fast, just enough so she could make the water boil a little. Or at least try to make it boil.

"I don't think this is working.", she almost whispered to whoever could listen. Still moving her fist up and down, right and left, and focusing about the molecules dancing. If she could not master, or at least learn, about pyrokinesis than how could she learn about cryokinesis? She wondered.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Kat, watch carefully the fries: stand ready to take them out and serve them onto three plates" she gave further instructions to Kat.

While [member="Kat Decoria"] got the oil to boil and hence the fries to fry, Varindar was busy simmering the porcini and cremini mushrooms inside the skillet until they browned; it was just what made sense to her to get to the next step done, and only once the cremini was browned, she could add the flour and the wine. However, she could sense that nearby [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"] struggled with actually feeding energy to the water inside the rice steam cooker, where the vegetables were positioned in a separate compartment in the pot but with the same water for boiling. For this reason, Varindar estimated that, by the time the red wine gravy was ready for them, the rice and the vegetables will also be: the lengthiest part of the recipe was Varindar's. But once the gravy was ready, it would definitely be gone quickly, because karkan ribenes were also served with the gravy of the day. Sometimes it was mushroom and red wine, at other times it was herb-and-pepper, and other times still it could be Ewok chicken gravy. Sure, Varindar wasn't a restaurant chef by any stretch, much less a five-star restaurant's executive chef, or even its saucier, but she had to check on Jaraël and give additional instructions.

"My apologies. I understand that not everybody gets it right the first time. Making molecules dance requires that energy be given for them to dance, proportional to the temperature you want them to get" she then told Jaraël in an attempt to help her out. "Your steak will be prepared rare, Jaräel, please say it so now if you want a different doneness, since it is being cooked now by another chef. However, you have to focus entirely on feeding the water the energy required to turn into steam"

 

[Kat Decoria]

Kat heard Varindar state she needed to keep an eye on the oil and ensure the fries didn't... fry? Anyways, Kat watched them carefully as she continued to focus on the cooking on the fries, before long they started to smell cooked. "Right, think these are done! Taking them out now." Kat gripped the handle and lifted the fries out of the oil, giving them a firm shake to remove any residue oil. Kat then placed them on the paper towels to dry off of oil.

"What's next o'chef?" Kat asked as she placed a hand on her hip.

[member="Varindar Asyt"] | [member="Jaräel il'Belaerys"]

 

[Jarael Belaerys]

In her own mind, the Arkanian kept thinking about what was said, ‘Feeding the energy, and making the molecules dance…’, going over and over on her mind, how would she make them dance if she had no idea what they looked like? Perhaps thinking like whatever form she want it was dancing would be a good idea. Closing her eye, inside her mind she tried to picture a shy couple in a nightclub, and so, Jaräel came pushing one against the other and telling them to dance, but how fast? Thinking of a old song that was slow enough the girl raised her hand over the pot with water.

Feeling the Force flowing through the tip of her fingers and the water couple slowly started to dance and without seeing, so did the water started to boil. Slowly at first, but as the tune inside her head got faster, so did the boiling of the water, and like taken from a dream, the Arkanian opened her eye, answering Varindar with a calm tone of her voice, almost as if she felt numb on the inside.
“Rare is fine… i think.”, she once nearly starved to death, so even raw meat would be great for her. And now closing back her eye, the girl wanted to continue with that, the dance, to use more of that power. Could she really make flames come out from the tip of her fingers?

[member="Kat Decoria"]
[member="Varindar Asyt"]

 

[Varindar Asyt]

Now that [member="Kat Decoria"] was done with the fries, Varindar turned her attention to [member="Jarael Belaerys"]; Jarael finally got the water to boil and, from there, the rice and vegetables to cook under steam. And the Arkanian student realized, at the same time, that she would be able to make flames with the Force. Meanwhile, for the next lesson, she was busy fetching the powdered ice cream while the chef was busy cooking the bantha rump steaks, and the entremétier got around to placing the rice and steamed vegetables onto the bantha rump steak plates, which, by the time they would be finished, would be under a cloche. So she also prepared three cups filled with powdered ice cream, one each for Jarael, Kat and Varindar, and she kept the final cup to herself. She thus presented other instructions to the two students present in the kitchen, while the remaining fries or steamed vegetables are being placed on other customers' plates because the amounts of those sides that were cooked were much larger than the needs of three plates, and that's not just the gravy.

"Next lesson: cryokinesis. Here, unlike pyrokinesis, the aim is to calm down molecules and hence make the object to freeze, so, in essence, to take energy away from an object. Once again, if you find that the temperature is hitting a plateau, don't fret: it typically means that the item is freezing or condensing once the plateau is reached. So try to take energy away from the powdered ice cream in your bowls"