Private Gourmet Padawan

[Varindar Asyt]

Varindar always has felt that it was easier to maintain peace if Jedi were shown to use the Force for peaceful purposes first, such as using pyrokinesis and cryokinesis for cooking. Perhaps she was biased because of her duties as a five-star hôtelier whose property on Trandosha also housed a gourmet restaurant, however. She sees guests come check in for the night, while also keeping an eye out for the restaurant guests. And the paddy of the day, Xian Xiao , would surely come here for dinner, but she should keep in mind that today's paddy could want to rent a room for the night. Either way, she will come by the front desk.

"Welcome to the Crown Nebula Hotel. What can I do for you today, fine dining, or booking a room to stay?" Varindar asked.

 

[Xian Xiao]

The girl had spent most of her life on Coruscant and hadn't been exposed to anything fancy...ever. She had taken a taxi to this hotel and had been informed she was here to learn some skills that would be useful to her. However, she didn't have any money of her own and the taxi dumped her out of the speeder a few blocks from her destination for that reason.

"Stupid hard-wired droid!"

A few people probably turned to look at the young teen when she yelled after the speeder, but they returned to whatever they had been doing quickly. Looking around to get her bearings, she saw the location where she was supposed to be and started walking the short distance between them.

Upon reaching the doors, they opened for her and dark eyes went wide with surprise. Turning around a few times, she came to a stop when a voice spoke to her from behind the counter. Reaching into her pocket, Xian withdrew a dirty paper that was her invitation to come here.

"My name is Xian and I guess I'm here to learn some skills?"

That's exactly what the slip said, but being so young and unsure of many things, her tone wasn't at all confident.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

Is that how the Order proceeds these days? she thought, while seeing the slip Xian Xiao produced in front of her. However, there was only one set of skills Xian could possibly come here for: pyro/cryo. Which meant Varindar would then have to guide the paddy of the day to the hotel's kitchen with a menu in tow. Room service or on-site, it was the same menu. The hotelier must then realize that fetching ingredients into the pantry required her to know what the student would eat. With that said... the time has come to go into the kitchen:

"Would you please follow me to the hotel's kitchen?" Varindar told Xian, on the way to the kitchen, before asking a new question. "What would you like to eat from the menu?"

 

[Xian Xiao]

It wasn't that the Order treated Xian poorly, it was that she was unaware of the services that were provided. She was quite new to the Silvers and had only met a handful of people. If she had known transportation would have been provided, she would have taken that instead of hitching a ride and not being able to pay for it. The teen still had so much to learn.

"Yes, ma'am."

When Varindar asked what she wanted from the menu, the girl blushed slightly.

"None of these words are familiar to me..."

One of her weaknesses was reading. Xian could read, but it took a great amount of time and effort.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

It's not my place to provide you with literacy skills: there are other people who can help at the temple, Varindar thought, while realizing that Xian Xiao was struggling to read the restaurant menu. However, from the choice of the meal, the rest of the lesson would depend on it. And it went further than the ingredients alone... Plus she had her own food to cook, too. For simplicity, she was choosing from the same choices as the paddy, to whom she would orally list them in the order of when it had last been a daily special. Yet, in a busy kitchen, there only was limited space for them to operate in,especially in the busy hours.

"The specials of the day are as follows: pho soup, karkan ribene and tuber sauté. However, since the karkan ribene is a grilled meat, should you choose it, please say how you would like it"

 

[Xian Xiao]

The girl wasn't asking for Varindar to help teach her how to read, that wasn't a thought in her mind at all. Xian only stated the obvious and that she couldn't read any of the words on the menu. Luckily the woman went ahead and ordered food for both of them. When she asked how she wanted her grilled meat to be cooked, she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Cooked? What more is there to know?"

Hopefully, it was becoming clear to Varindar that the girl really wasn't very wise and a lot to learn still.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"When people talk about meat grilling, usually one is talking about the inside of the meat: common ways to cook meat are rare, which take the least time to cook and is reddish in the center, medium, which is somewhat pink in the center and takes more time to cook, and well-done, which is brown in the center takes the most heat to cook"

Donenesses. A heated debate in many a restaurant that do grilled meat. Some people (or races even) claimed that one shouldn't cook well-done meat, while others claimed well-done meat was the healthiest way to go around eating meals such as a karkan ribene of the variety Xian Xiao was about to eat. Also, doneness was highly variable from a restaurant to another: one's rare was another's well-done. As for Varindar, she preferred the pho soup among the three choices for a main course as it related to the daily specials. For now, Varindar was busy fetching broth, brisket, noodles as well as onions, scallions and cilantro, so as to cook her own meal for the day. Luckily there was enough of the mushroom red wine gravy to have Xian's serving of it set aside. But she couldn't, in good conscience, go fetch the ingredients for the side dishes of the karkan ribene before the matter of the doneness of the padawan's meat is settled.

 

[Xian Xiao]

"All the meat I've had, which was very rare, was always well-done! If that helps."

Suddenly even less confident, the girl almost seemed to wilt a little into herself and become smaller than her 5'3" body. She watched as Varindar gathered certain items and slowly came out of her shell and started asking questions.

"What is that green thing you're holding?"

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"The green items I am holding are vegetables, called scallions and cilantro respectively"

To many a Jedi, gourmet dining came as a surprise to them, and Xian Xiao was just one of them. However, she was willing to accept that Xian's karkan ribene would be well-done. With that said, a piece of raw spare ribs was presented in front of the student onto a cutting board. Meanwhile, Varindar slices the greens into small pieces for use in the pho soup, with the noodles at the bottom of the bowl, brisket superimposed and then the vegetables, that is, the onions, scallions and cilantro. And then, after the cold broth is in the bowl...

"The first thing that pyro is about is to heat objects by making the objects' molecules dance. The molecular dancing tempo is called a temperature. Sometimes, while pyro or cryo is used, the temperature will plateau for a while, but once the temperature starts moving again, the object will usually be in a different phase"

 

[Xian Xiao]

The teen listened to the answer given to her by Varindar and nodded. They didn't sound very good and she didn't want to try them. Not having had much meat in her few years, that is what she wanted. Some meat was set in front of her and she reached out a hand to touch the raw flesh.

"It's cold. Why is it cold and not cooked?"

Of course, that was why she here and the question was pretty much answered right away. Listening to what the other Jedi was saying, she nodded and looked at the cold slab sitting in front of her.

"Not a problem. That's not how I do it though. Maybe I do..."

Shaking her head, the girl looked at her meat again and saw a flame within it to start warming it up. This was something easy for her and didn't take much work or trying at all.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Since you are a beginner in pyrokinesis, it will take longer for the spare ribs to be well-done: you are on the right track"

As far as Xian Xiao was concerned, Varindar feels like the student was on the right track. Of course the spare ribs were marinated beforehand, so the flavor was already present. Meanwhile, she was busy cooking the pho soup with the minced scallions and cilantro by using pyrokinesis on the broth. Sure Xian wouldn't become a gourmet chef overnight but she also moved the cloches around so that the food would remain warm while the cryokinesis portion of the lesson was underway. With that said, she also summoned the ice-cream menu, which really was just a subset of the dessert menu, and stood ready to go get the cream and other ingredients.

 

[Xian Xiao]

"Beginner? Lady, I've been doing this for years!"

Having spent time on the streets, Xian had needed to learn how to warm up her food and sometimes for others too. Granted none of the food had been this high of a quality, the girl never expected to be in this kind of situation. Sitting in a fine-dining kitchen and cooking her own food.

Her ability to work with the elements was quite strong. So this particular task was quite easy for the Padawan. Maybe it was a good thing, she could multitask at this point. Any other skill she would probably have a difficult time accomplishing more than one this at a time.

The meat next to her was warming up nicely and was starting to smell really good. Her stomach growled at the thought of eating it.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Since you have been doing this for years, I suppose the next portion of the lesson would be easy to you also, from a Force perspective"

Now that Xian Xiao 's karkan ribene has been cooked properly, the padawan's side dishes were being loaded onto the plate, such as tubers and red wine mushroom gravy. And then that serving was placed inside a cloche that was to be used for serving the hot meals and keeping them warm. So hopefully the student of the day would be able to get a complete gourmet meal from Varindar. The question being: what flavors to get to go along with the cream? She ate amaretto when she last taught cryo inside the kitchen, so another flavor was called for. As far as she was concerned, she would be ready to go along with whatever the student would pick.

"With that said, are there specific flavors you would like for your ice cream? Amaretto, blueberry, chocolate, cranberry, lemon and lime, muja fruit, orange, pistachio or vanilla?"

 

[Xian Xiao]

Nodding when Varindar said the next step would likely be an easy one as well, there were many things the girl still didn't understand fully. Watching as her cooked meal was covered and taken away, she really wanted to try at least a bite of it. Her attention quickly returned to the other woman and she listened to the choices.

"CHOCOLATE!!!"

Some of the other flavors she had never heard of, but chocolate was always a good choice.

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

With that said, Varindar went ahead and fetched Skor cocoa powder for Xian Xiao and, of course, the orange juice for her own ice cream. And, in two separate bowls of cream, she stirred the flavour earmarked for each of them, prior to presenting the chocolate one to Xian. However, while she knew what happened when temperatures plateau in pyro/cryo, she didn't know in much detail about the mechanism behind the plateau. One thing was for sure, though: other Jedi could count on Jess when it comes to thermodynamics.

"Cryokinesis is about calming molecules down. As with pyro, sometimes your object will plateau in temperature for a bit, and start to lower again afterwards. Now you can try to do it on the cream"

 

[Xian Xiao]

The young teen watched closely as Varindar stirred the flavoring into the cream and handed her the bowl for her chocolate ice cream. Almost sticking her finger in to it to taste, Xian decided that wasn't something she should do. Listening to the woman again, she shook her head.

"That's not how you cool something down. You blow air on it. Like this."

Lifting the bowl to her mouth, she gently started blowing her breath across the top of the already cold cream.

"This is already chilled though so that didn't work as well I had hoped."


Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

Blowing air on an object one wanted to use cryo on didn't work when there was no air. However, calming down molecules worked even in the absence of air. Now that Xian Xiao did, in fact, turn the cream into ice cream, the ice cream bowls were put in their own cloche for when they would be served to them. With that said, it was time for the two of them to get a table for two. In a somewhat busy time, it was not obvious which table to pick.

"The time has come to eat"

 

[Xian Xiao]

Her breathing on the cream had worked better than she actually thought and the bowl was taken from her.

"I thought...oh."

The woman told her it was now time to eat and the girl jumped up. Looking around, she didn't see any place for them to sit in the kitchen."

"Where?"

Varindar Asyt

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Follow me please" Varindar told the padawan.

The dining room. Many tables of different sizes, with Tiffany lamps on the walls, as well as Yurb clari-cristalline chandeliers on the ceiling. Of course Varindar would know which tables aren't booked yet, and were suitable for two. Only then would the waiter be able to serve the meals they just cooked in the kitchen using the Force, under cloches. However, as much as some of the off-world guests would think that a single waiter for the whole party is not luxury dining, to Xian Xiao it would be as good as it gets. Only after they got a table would an organic waiter be able to get to them with a cart containing their cloches in tow.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Since the lady had told Xian to follow her, she did since it was time to eat and they would be taken to a table. Her eyes were wide as the teen gazed around at the dining room around her.

"This is a very nice place!"

The girl said this as she took a seat at the table they were taken to. Being waited on almost hand and foot was not something she had happen to her before and she liked it. Probably more than she should have, but this was wonderful for her.

Varindar Asyt