iron chef will one day be set in space

[umuh]

CHARACTERS: Bella Swan & ( ??? )
LOCATION: Passenger Quarters | A Kitchen
WARNINGS: Not all food is liable to be edible? None right now. Will be edited if applicable.
SUMMARY: Bella attempts cooking with what's available. Hey, it's all good for calming down and thinking, right?

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[umuh]

Bella turned her head toward Big Macintosh, grimacing in a prelude to an answer for his question. "I think it's bacon," she said, voice betraying the degree of her uncertainty. "Dehydrated something or another. Space food."

Wavig it around, she set it back down on the counter gingerly. "I found it around here, along with the rest of things." Nothing fresh in any particularly appreciable manner, but she could work with what she had. "I hear there's some kind of garden around here, but not if anything's... um, edible in there. I wonder if there is. Seems a waste, right? Being in space and having a decorative garden only."

Good for oxygen/carbon dioxide exchanges, but not really practical past that. Or something. Bella wasn't up and up on her space garden designs.

"I mean, think of the weeding alone. Did you want any pancakes?"

Abruptly switching topics, partly fearing she might hear more on the pony nature Big Mac liked to believe he had, she looked up at him and half-smiled. "No promises on how they'll turn out, but it shouldn't be too bad." She paused. "I think."

[umuh]

"Uh," Bella said, or rather didn't say, not sure she wanted any help. It was more a matter of what she was used to. One person in the kitchen got things done: two tended to get in each other's way if they didn't know each other well.

It was a decently large kitchen, on the other hand. "Think you can handle beating the batter until it's smooth?" She needed to get everything in the bowl first. Afterward she could fiddle with the skillet and figure out how fast this range heated up.

"Bacon?" She reminded herself that he had the whole horse-y thing going on for him. Maybe he was a vegetarian? "It's... meat? From a pig. Not sure if this stuff ever was, to be honest, but it's supposed to be."

[umuh]

Bella couldn't hold that stare for long, face right back to bright red. "So is everyone from where you're from a vegetarian, or is that just you?"

Nevermind that it was mostly mumbled, but Bella wasn't going to apologize for something that had never been her invention in the first place. Why did she feel like she even had to? It's not like she'd pulled out marshmallows and started talking about how they used to be made out of ground up horse hooves or something.

"You're not vegan, are you?"

He probably wouldn't want the pancakes if he was.

[umuh]

More and more sure that Big Mac was in fact some kind of vegetarian, considering his other peculiarities, Bella did her best to nonchalantly drop a kitchen towel over the bacon. Out of sight, out of mind?

"Vegetarians usually don't eat a lot of meat. Or any, if I know some who still eat fish, maybe chicken once in a while. Vegans also tend to avoid cheese and eggs and things like that." Animal products in a more general sense.

"Apples?" She thought she'd seen something like that, but -- oh! "I saw some apple butter, that might work. There's also a few cans of blueberries, some peaches, I think I saw a pineapple can or two."

Speaking on these, she glanced toward the shelves she thought she'd seen them on. Bella almost missed his questioning look, but having caught it, did what she could to be reassuring. Her smile was more genuine, a touch amused. "Don't worry. The bacon won't be going anywhere near the pancakes." Outside the stomach at least.

[umuh]

Then he wasn't vegan. Bella relaxed a fraction, getting the rest of what more or less passed for properish ingredients into the bowl, ready for stirring. "When did you lose the farm?" she asked, recalling something about small farms going financially bust due to the corporate farms throughout the states. She didn't know much about it, in fact that was about the limit of her awareness, but it seemed possible.

"Canned peaches aren't so bad. Nothing like the fresh fruit," she added with a smile, small and understanding, "But pretty good, and the syrup with them is nice. Kind of sweet, but nice." Fruit in general was sweet, and pancakes could benefit from the flavor contrast.

She watched him manipulate the can opener with amusement, if she held off on saying anything for now. He'd probably figure it out. Maybe he was kind of Amish? Did the Amish have... those sorts of fetishists? "Do you guys have cars where you're from?"

[umuh]

She smiled up at him, far more genuinely, when he set the can down. How careful he'd been, and how victorious he looked, was endearing in a kind of gangly young animal way, which was at odds with his apparent age. Then again, she was probably laying on the animal metaphors too thickly, as confused as these 'ponies' made her.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry," she said, voice falling at the end as she blushed again. She'd misunderstood, and it was her own fault. Making sure the heat was on, and the skillet was heating up, she tucked hair behind her ear (stupid stray tendrils) before answering.

"Um, not unicorns. We've got myths about unicorns, they're supposed to be white, the one horn, deer like or horse like or sometimes scaled. It depends on which part of the world you're looking at, I guess. We've got lots of ponies," she added, not sure she wanted to know what he thought of that. "I rode one years ago. Those kind of things where someone leads a pony in a circle and you hold on and try not to fall off."

If it's not terribly exciting, and Bella had been worried that she would end up falling off and getting walked on. Horses tended to put their feet down on top of her feet, as if neither one of them could figure out how to get out of the other's way.

[umuh]

Bella couldn't help her expression while he looked her over -- the disbelief was readily apparent. "Ponies hold up pretty well," she managed at last. "Shetlands do."

If she wasn't sure he'd recognize any particular breed, since he hadn't put any one name to himself, his sister, or their friend Rarity quite yet.

By the time he was mentioning baby dragons, Bella gave up the last pretext that this could pass as a normal conversation. Easy enough to follow on her decision to take it all at face value and just keep on rolling.

"No dragons on good old Earth," she said mildly, smiling again. The skillet was almost ready. "No talking ponies either, at least not in our language. My language. English."

Her tripping up and clarifying what she meant specifically ended with her nabbing the bowl and pouring out enough of the batter to make a decent sized circle. It left a mess on the lip of the bowl, just enough to trickle down the side, but otherwise wasn't remarkable.

Now to see how consistent this stove burned! "Do dragons and ponies really get along? There's no problem with... dietary conflict?"

[umuh]

"Dragons actually eat gemstones?" Sure, it fit in with the mental image she had of dragons doing some kind of precious gem hoarding, right along with precious metals and possibly a few virgins, but as far as eating went, those virgins were supposed to be higher up on the list than the gemstones themselves. Right along with knights, sheep, and possibly moose. "That's... new. Do they stay pretty small?"

She had something that was mostly a spatula in hand, getting it under the pancake once it hit bubbles coming through the top. Time to flip it over! Most the time she managed to do just fine when it came to the kitchen, at least anymore. Thankfully, this was one of those times. The pancake flipped without flying out of the skillet or deciding to break in half or otherwise make a mess of itself.

Tiny victory, but it felt incredibly normalizing in this place so far outside any of her norms.

"I've been cooking since I was pretty young," she admitted, wondering when she'd really taken the majority on to herself. "My mom is a decent cook, though she comes up with some interesting ideas for meals." All code for the fact her mother could cook, just often came up with things that ended up being inedible due to flavor clashes or half-thought through mix-ups. "I wanted to help out."

Even more code for wanting to make sure her mother stayed consistently fed, just like taking over the bills to make sure her mother paid them on time, just like much of the rest of little around the house chores being taken on by Bella so things would run smoothly. She'd never resented her mother for any of it, in fact often felt closer to her, if in a more protective, mothering sense. "I've always enjoyed it. It's relaxing, in a way?"

First pancake done, she scooted her spatula under it and brought it out of the pan and onto a plate she had at ready.