Private How Not to Burn Dinner

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre slid a few of the sliced vegetables into a small bowl, keeping the onions separate so their juices wouldn't overpower the rest. She watched him work as he finished the last cuts—still a bit uneven, still a little rough around the edges, but far better than his earlier attempts. And more importantly, done with effort rather than brute force. That alone earned a quiet note of approval in her gaze.

When he looked up at her with that eager, almost boyish brightness in his eyes, she couldn't help the soft smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Slow down, Kallous," she said gently, wiping her hands on a cloth before stepping closer to the grill. "The next step isn't fire. It's discipline."

She reached out with a pair of long tongs and shifted one of the glowing coals within the bed, nudging the cluster into a more even layer. The heat shimmered upward in rippling waves, the soft crackle punctuating her words.

"A grill isn't a battlefield you charge into. If you rush, it punishes you."

She motioned him forward with a tilt of her head, inviting him to stand beside her so he could feel the difference in temperature as she adjusted things.

"First, we make zones. One for searing. One for steady cooking. One for letting the food rest if it threatens to burn."

Her gloved hand guided his wrist, showing him where the hotter side naturally formed, how the coals shifted tone from bright orange to muted red, how the air changed from biting heat to a softer warmth.

"Food is like people," she added with quiet humor. "If you put all of it in the fire at once, it panics. It burns. But if you guide it—give it space to breathe—it becomes something worth serving."

She released his wrist and handed him the tongs, letting him feel the weight of the next step.

"Now you try. Shape the coal bed. Slowly. Think less like a warrior…" she paused, eyes glinting faintly, "…and more like someone coaxing a story out of heat and patience."

Her smirk was small but unmistakably teasing.

"After that, we season the meat. And then—your first real test."

She stepped back just enough to give him room, but stayed close enough that her presence remained steady behind his shoulder.

"Show me how well you can listen."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

Kallous took a second to wrangle his eagerness to get started. He hadn't been raised to control himself, and even when he'd started trying to do exactly that it was not a battle that he won all the time. Still he was here to learn so he followed along with her instructions as she went. Paying close attention to all the advice she was giving him.

She handed him a pair of tongs, and told him to shape the coalbed. And he immediately got to work doing exactly that.

This part wasn't unintuitive. They wanted an even, easy heat that was as uniform as it could be. So obviously the coalbed likewise needed to be even and uniform. And so he did that, using the tongs more as a prod than actually grabbing, though he did grab if needed, and began to smooth the coalbed out. As he understood it the searing would be done simply by putting what was to be seared closer to the coalbed, not necessarily by having one part of it be hotter than the other.

After a few moments spent evening out the coalbed, and fanning it where needed, he let out a pleased sigh, happy with his work so far. Then he glanced to Iandre for her judgement. "Any notes?"

Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre stepped in beside him, her boots crunching softly against the gravel as she watched him shape the coals. His eagerness was almost tangible—a bright, focused energy she could feel radiating off him even before the Force caught its edges. She let him work, let him settle into the rhythm of it. Only when he straightened and looked to her with that earnest, almost puppy-like anticipation did she move closer and crouch beside the grill.

"Not bad at all," she said, her tone warm and encouraging as she used her own tongs to lift a single coal and set it back down in a different spot. "But let me show you something."

She drew one hand through the air above the grate, feeling the heat curl and shift in uneven pockets.

"Right now, you've made a perfect cooking bed…if this were a flat pan." A faint smile touched her lips. "But grilling over open heat works a little differently. Think of this as three parts, each with its own job."

She shaped them with a small gesture of her palm:

• the left third,
• the center,
• the right.

"Your searing heat needs to be a concentrated mound—piled coals, not spread coals. You want it ferocious, on purpose. That is where the steak gets its crust."

She nudged a pile together, demonstrating: coals deeper, stacked, glowing hotter from the compression.

"This middle section?" She smoothed it just enough to tame the heat. "This becomes your moderate zone. Not resting, not raw—it cooks the meat through without burning."

Finally, she moved to the right side of the grill and scraped it nearly clear.

"And this," she said gently, "is your safe zone. No coals directly beneath it. This is where the meat comes to breathe, rest, or dodge disaster if you realize you've gone too fast." A quiet laugh slipped from her. "Every good cook needs a retreat point."

She rose again, offering him the tongs back with a light brush of her fingers along his.

"Try reshaping it with that in mind. Sear. Cook. Rest."

Her gaze softened with quiet amusement.

"And yes—for searing, you absolutely want that pile. Let it be the dragon's breath, not the whole battlefield."

She stepped slightly aside to give him space, watching him with the calm patience of someone who had trained soldiers, medics, and Force-sensitives alike.

"Go on," she murmured. "Let's see it."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

It would seem... that he was entirely wrong.

Well... it had to happen sooner or later. And at least this was wasn't the most egregious it could have been. It was something that made sense to him, and if it was wrong it was wrong. He'd never done this before, so he wasn't too upset with himself for it. He paid attention to her corrections and noted them down to keep in mind. He'd assumed that the variance in cooking heat would be determined by distance from the coalbed, though it also made sense that more coals would produce more heat.

He nodded along thoughtfully, rewiring his thought processes to follow this new logic he'd learned. Big hot, small hot, no hot. Easy.

"Alrighty." He mused aloud as he took the tongs back and looked more carefully at the coalbed that Iandre had constructed. "Let's get this show on the road then."

He took a few extra seconds to look the coalbed over, make sure that any excess flames caused by the shifting of the coals died down to managable levels before finally returning his attention to the meat itself. It was time to season the stuff insofar as he understood. Now... this he had absolutely no insight on. And it was plain to see, as the gears turning in his head were practically audibly screeching from the effort he was putting into his thoughts about what to do next.

Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre watched him work with quiet amusement, arms loosely folded as he reassessed the coalbed with a care that hadn't been there a few minutes earlier. She didn't interrupt while he made his adjustments, letting him arrive at its shape himself, because that part mattered more than getting it perfect.

When his attention stalled at the meat, though—when the pause stretched just long enough to make his uncertainty obvious—she stepped closer.

"Good," she said, approving without ceremony. Not the result, but the process. Her tone was calm, steady, the way it always was when she was teaching rather than correcting. "You fixed the heat. That's the part most people rush and regret later."

She leaned in just enough to glance at the spread of spices, then back at him, one brow lifting faintly as she caught the expression on his face. Not mocking. Not unkind. Just observant.

"Seasoning is where people tend to overthink," Iandre continued, reaching out to take one of the containers and setting it aside. "You don't need everything. You need intention."

She picked up another—salt—and held it out to him rather than doing it herself.

"Start here," she said. "Enough that it looks like you meant to do it, not so much that it's the only thing you'll taste. From there, one more thing. Pepper, or whatever smells right to you. Cooking isn't about precision at this stage. It's about restraint."

A slight pause, then, softer. "And if you get it wrong," she added, meeting his eyes briefly, "that's still useful information. No one learns this by getting it right the first time."

She stepped back half a pace, giving him space again, hands folding behind her back. "Go on," Iandre said. "Show me what you think it should taste like."

Kallous

 

[Kallous]

Well... this had the makings of a cataclysm.

She essentially had simply handed him the spices and said with a smile "You've got this!" With the input of "make it look like you know what you're doing".

If she hadn't prepared all of the spices ahead of time and had them ready, and if Kallous were in charge of the spices used and how, the chances of an accidental mixture of napalm were too far above zero percent to be safe. But, they had been prepared ahead of time, so obviously there was no way Kallous would accidentally cause some sort of fatality like he normally did.

However, this did not prevent him from mucking it up when trying to do it correctly.

So with the salt in hand he approached his victim, and sprinkled some onto the steak's surface. Then he added some pepper. Then some additional spices that had been provided, with the clear concern that he might accidentally set the meat on fire. Miraculously... it survived. For now. In his caution he likely underseasoned it a little bit in terms of quantity of each spice, and might have used one too many spices in terms of variety, but at least it wasn't gaining sentience.

yet...

"Okay... uh... what next?"

Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre watched the process with a stillness that might have read as scrutiny to anyone who didn't know her better, but there was no tension in her posture—only quiet attention. She noted the care in his movements, the hesitation before each addition, the way he treated the spices less like flavor and more like volatile compounds waiting to react. It was careful. Earnest. A little overthought.

When he finally stepped back and asked what came next, she leaned in to inspect the steak herself. There was a pause. Then a soft breath of amusement escaped her—not quite a laugh, not quite a smile, but something close enough to both. "It survived," she said first, as if that alone deserved recognition. Her eyes flicked up to him briefly. "That already puts you ahead of a surprising number of people."

She studied the surface again, tilting her head slightly, then reached out—not to add anything, but to gently press two fingers into the meat, testing the give and the tension beneath the surface. "You were cautious," Iandre continued, calm and even. "Maybe a little too cautious. But that isn't a failure. It just means you'll know what to adjust next time."

She stepped aside and gestured toward the grill, toward the hotter bed of coals. "Now it goes on the hot side," she said. "This is the part where you stop fixing it and let the heat do its work. Sear it. Don't move it right away. Let it tell you when it's ready." A beat passed, and then she added, dry but not unkind, "If it starts to look alive, we reassess."

As he moved to comply, she didn't crowd him. Instead, she watched the grill for a moment, the low crackle of coals and fat filling the space between them. Only then did she speak again.

"You'll know," she said at first, then corrected herself with a faint, knowing tilt of her head. "But only after you learn what to listen for." She crouched slightly so they were closer to eye level with the grill, one hand resting on her knee.

"First—sound," she explained. "When the meat hits the heat, it should sizzle. Not scream. A steady, confident sound. If it goes quiet too soon, the heat's too low. If it smells sharp or acrid, you've waited too long." Her fingers lifted, hovering just above the steak without touching it—"Second—sight. The edges will change color first. You'll see the surface darken and tighten, and a little moisture will bead on top. That's the heat doing its job." She finally looked up at him—"And third—resistance. When you nudge it with the tongs, it will release on its own. If you have to fight it, it's not ready. If it slides easily, it's time to turn."

There was a brief pause, then a quieter addition, almost wry. "This part is patience. Most people fail there." Iandre straightened again, meeting his eyes with a steady, encouraging look. "So don't hover. Don't panic. Listen, watch, and wait," she concluded. "The steak will tell you when it's ready—long before I do."

Kallous