Steel Chef 2007 - Part Two: Full Steam Ahead!

[faetan]

WHO: Ranma Saotome, Tatewaki Kuno, Abel Nightroad, Vash the Stampede, Monkey D. Luffy, Nita Callahan, Dizzy, Ukyo Kuonji, Jam Kuradoberi, Akane Tendo, Sanji, Souji Tendou, Shinji Ikari, Unsleeping Bride
WHERE: Floating Restaurant Baratie, East Blue
WHEN: Sunday, January 21st, 2007
WHAT: After meeting the chefs and the judges, it's time to get down to business! The cooks are a whirlwind of frantic energy, gathering ingredients from the normal stocks, and some brave souls even chancing a tussle with the bonus ingredients.


As soon as the bell sounds, Souji pours some water in a pan, then raises his hand in the air. Something shoots out from under the spectators, a metallic bug of some kind, in the form of a very large, red kabuto beetle. It lands in Souji's hand and he slaps it onto the belt at his waist. The buckle-bug says "HENSHIN" and little hexagons of metal flow over Souji's body, leaving a suit of bulky looking armor behind.
He pulls a strange looking gun/axe thing from his pocket and begins to stroll towards the Octopus in it's tank. Instead of firing though, he grabs his belt buckle and flips the horn of the beetle to the side. His armor bulges at the seems, the belt flaring with energy. "Cast Off," he whispers before pulling the horn all the way. His armor explodes off, shooting directly at the Octopus to try and stun it.
From the center, where he stands, he rises, clad in a different, much less bulky suit of armor. A horn rises from his chest, the joint near the chin of the helmet and snaps into place, dividing what was once a visor into two, bug-like eyes. "CHANGE BEETLE" The belt says, the eyes flashing and the gun changing into a sort of long, yellow/silver knife. He's not done yet, but wants to see now if he's stunned the mammoth cephalopod or not. Yes, it's Kamen Rider Kabuto vs. Tonight's Bonus Ingredient.

Nita Callahan does spend some time looking at the bonus ingredients. Stuff, eh? She likes stuff.
About two minutes later, she comes back with some choice Onyxia meat cuts, and gets to work...but not on the meat! The meat goes into a cooler for a little bit longer. Nita is dealing with the things that take the longest first, and that means her dessert. It seems to be something to do with a pie shell; fortunately, 'unbaked pastry shell' is something one can reasonably expect to find at a cooking competition. She lines it in foil and puts it in the oven before digging out more ingredients, such as apples and spikes.
Nita eyes the fancy apples (or, well, the Special Ingredient) apples for a few moments, taking one back with her.

Song Bird breaks into action with a start-dash that seems almost uncannily swift. She sees other people going towards the octopus, and so she changes her direction; she gets several of the Special Ingredient Apples, as well as three of the six cans of Coca-Cola.
That's the normal part.
The stranger part is when she hovers over the box of broken glass, finally dashing back over towards her station to drop off her ingredients and pick up a bain-marie, which she fills with a mix of quarter-sized fragments and long, thin shards.

Once the call is made the first thing Sanji does is turn on the range to get things heated up as soon as possible and puts pans on. After that's done he heads for the ingrediants table. He doesn't rush but remains calm about it all. Though he's not entirely sure what he will and won't use just yet, anything that looks like it has potential is gathered up in a tray he carries along with standard ingrediants he knows he's going to use. Once back at his station he pours some oil into the pan and opens and scrapes vanilla beans, dropping them into the mixture. If he's going to get three dishes done in an hour then he's going to have to multi-task all three at the same time to be sure they're prepared by the end. Looking through the stockpile of things available to him, chocolate is brought out. After breaking off a piece and giving it a taste, he smiles in satisfaction at the quality and puts it into a different pan to begin melting. With that happening the pirate decides to check out some of those ingrediants he brought. The blue jelly is eyed and a knife is taken to cut a small piece. Well, no telling unless you try it! That small bit is put into his mouth and sampled carefully. "...." Where did this stuff come from anyway? A glance goes in Souji's direction as things start getting wild. It wouldn't be the Baratie if things were peaceful.

Akane jumps! GUN SHOTS?! Oh yeah, THAT'S real good for the nerves! She furrows her brow and rolls up her sleeves, grabbing a knife in each hand. Where to start? She looks a little frightening, stalking around her small space and looking for all the world like she's about to start killing things. She notes that Sanji's turning on the stove, so that seems like a good idea. Boiling water. Who knows when she might need it? ...Soup! SOUP! There's no better appetizer than a hearty bowl of soup! So what goes in soup? Just about anything, right? ...Why is she grabbing a bottle of maple syrup?

Jam has chosen to isolate herself from the other competitors, working more or less in seclusion due to the number of meals she'll have to prepare in perfect unison.
And her preparations seem to be fairly simple at this stage. As soon as the word is given to commence, Jam makes a break for the five-spice powder. She'd planned to use some anyway, but she's curious to see what kind of effect this "special ingredient" would have. It's a minor deviation she feels she can live with -- the others would just botch up her perfected, pre-calculated formula and might lead to a critical disaster. Her planned recipe is tested, it's proven, and by gum, it's going to win her all three competitions as far as she's concerned. But she can still be civil! "Best of luck, other competitor!" They'll need it, as far as she's concerned!
Her first act, upon returning to the counter, is to get a few pots of rice cooking. Washing, rinsing, tossing into her steamer -- she dispatches the tasks with mechanical efficiency.
Afterwards, she stirs the five-spice powder into a special marinade sauce. Breaking out some pork shoulders, she rubs in a light marinade, then tenderizing the meat with a series of rapid, nigh-imperceptible palm strikes. It might be hard to identify them as palm strikes if she weren't also making the sound, 'Hup! Hup! Hup!' with each blow. No need for tools here!

The gun shots don't bother Shinji, despite being sort of a jumpy guy, because he's fought soldiers in a war and so he's kind of used to the noise by now. That thought disturbs Shinji, but he tries not to dwell on it. Shinji Ikari then just sort of...looks at Chef Kamen Rider. He has no idea how to react to that.
So he doesn't, the Third Child instead heading over to pick up some of the MYSTERIOUS spice, thinking the color makes it look savory enough to go well with his appetiser plan, a generous portion of the Dragon Meat...Shinji is a kind young man so his definition of generous still leaves plenty for everyone else...and a few apples. Heading back, the Third Child sort of blinks at the choice of the broken glass. ...OH! It must be sugar glass, duh. Phew!

And they're off. After a few moments of blinking at the gunshot as starting bell, Dizzy now quickly moves to gather up a handful of tomatoes from the special ingredients table--gotta make sure she gets some before they run out. Once they are deposited at her station, she now gathers up a series of regular ingredients: fettucine pasta, mozzarella cheese, basil, butter, milk, chicken breast.... Well, it's a bunch of things, all relatively normal.
Quickly, she returns--again pausing to stare, this time at Souji as he henshins into an armored figure (well, this is the multiverse, can't be helped--and gets to work. First, the appetizer.... Tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and prosciutto ham get sliced up carefully. An expert eye may detect that the slices are not completely even, but just barely so.
She now stacks the slices--tomato at the bottom, then ham, then mozzarella cheese, and then topped by a basil leaf--and arranged on a plate. Carefully, she pours a small amount of olive oil and basalmic vinegar on each stack to enhance the flavor, and finally finishes up by placing basil leaves around the edge of the plate for the sake of visual appeal, along with more splashes of olive oil to stick them in place.

Song Bird sets out a saucepan and pours in the Coke swiftly, letting it fizz as she sets out the knives, flour, water, eggs, scallions, and sundry other spices she will need shortly. She takes a few moments to put everything out - which promises for quite a chop fest in a few moments.
She mixes in a bit of roux with the Coke before setting it on low heat. She bends over to dig out another bowl, and holds up a blowtorch with momentary puzzlement.
Then she grins, before getting out thicker cornmeal. After this, she picks up the knife - and pauses to bow her head, saying something cryptic and prayerful for a moment.
She starts chopping. Her hand moves fast, almost flickery with a hint of blue-white light; scallions and apples mix together in a dish, the knife is wiped, and she starts chopping up garlic and herbs to put in a dish with some olive oil.

MIGHTY OCTOPUS, DESTROYER OF WORLDS, glances over at Carne as his gun goes off. It ponders eating him in its deep, Cthulhoid mind, but then it's being attacked! By..a...the hell...
Armor flies in! Tentacles busily whack it away, too busy with its limbs to counteratt--oh wait look there's an ink gob heading right for Kamen Rider Kabuto. Don't ask how it gets that kind of range. It's complicated.

Akane savagely assaults her cuttingboard. Bits and pieces of the wood fly off as she hacks a full head of cabbage to pieces. "RAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!" she roars, slicing and dicing, and hurling the pieces into the pot. She cooks angry. Back and forth she dashes, from ingredients to pot, adding more and more to the mix. Lumps of tuna! Paprika! Miso! Maple syrup! Olive oil! ...But why does the olive oil have a picture of a car and a wrench on it?
WHO CARES! It goes in the pot! Potatoes, with the skin still on. Whole carrots! Where did the cutting board go? ...She didn't throw the chunks of cuttingboard into the pot, did she?! Oh judges...you poor things.

BING goes the bell! Ukyo casts a quick glance at Akane, squelches her sense of growing horror, and refocuses her attention on the range in front of her. The ingredients already stocked in front of her are really all she needs, but it wouldn't hurt to get a few extra things. Flipping the range on, she sets pot on to boil, then grabs a pan and dabs a bit of oil in the center to let that heat as well. Stepping out form her area, she heads over to the table to select the five-spice powder as well as the creamy white sauce which she -thinks- is mayo. Maybe. She unscrews a jar on the way back to her station to sniff at it cautiously, then sets both to the side; one each for two different dishes. The appetizers and dessert will take the least amount of time, thus, it is the main dish she begins working on, combining an assorted number of vegetables into batter and starting to fry that up on the grill - from the roars of rage coming from Akane's side, Ukyo is starting to have second thoughts about picking her station there. Good lord.

After watching to see if his Cast Off armor attack does anything to the Octopus, Souji decides not to waste time more time fighting this monster than he has to. He's got water to boil, crab to shred and vegetables to chop. He has no time to mess with reticent ingredients. Slapping the side of his belt, Souji says "Clock Up" and to the other competitors, he'll blur and seem to vanish.
In actuality, he's speeding up his own personal temporal locality, in other words... he's moving so fast compared to everyone and everything else that he seems to not really be there. Dodging the ink blot easily and even slicing it in half so it doesn't hit anyone behind him, Souji runs into the pool. Only, he's moving so fast, he doesn't run -into- the water, he runs -over- the water, his knife slashing back and forth to try and take off two of the massive, waving tentacles. He's going to leave some for his fellow chefs if he can and leave the Octopus alive. He's considerate like that. God Speed Love.

Sanji eyes the blue jelly a moment longer. Hello? Flavor? Well, it does add a certain thickness, so he decides to go ahead and slice a little and add it to the simmering chocolate to thicken it up. In the meantime while things are simmering on the stovetop he takes out his trusty knife and lays veggies on the cutting board. Small potatoes are sliced into cubes, onions are also sliced, and celery is chopped with a quick hand. One of the large tomatoes he saw on the other table and lifted and he gives it a smell. Well, it looks and smells like a tomato, even if it's big. So he decides to cut some of that and start dicing it up as well. Those are set aside for now and next comes the food processor where he starts to add different ingrediants to make a sauce. Again he gives one of the special ingrediants a taste. Some sort of creamy mayonnaise stuff?

Placing a pot of oolong tea on the burner, Jam then places the tenderized meat onto a cutting board, chopping it up into tiny pieces. Shuffling the pieces into a wide pan, she then lets the chopped meat marinate for a few moments while she commences preparation of the appetizer. Jam's hands are once again a blur -- peppered by a light series of dog-like yelps as she as a few dozen shrimp are halved and de-veined in quick, efficient motions. An arcane mixture of egg, green onions, chili sauce, and other unmarked ingredients is mixed in a bowl. The meal begins to take shape as gyoza, Japanese-style potstickers, though one peculiarity is that Jam is separating the meal into two distinct work areas. One set is a neutral color, the other a bright, distinctive red. Once the potstickers are rolled up, she sets these into bamboo steamers for a while -- once again, keeping these separate.
Only then does she start working on another set of pork meat, the same rhythmic 'barking' sound from before accompanying her chopping and grinding now. Egg rolls, perhaps? ... She looks up and sees armor and tentacles flying, before forcing her eyes back down. "This no competition, this =circus=..." she mumbles.

Bulbasaur was minding his own business when BANG! The gun goes off and causes the pokemon to jump and look around. "Bulba?" He then goes to look towards the armor and tentacles flying and... He just hopes that none of the humans will do that to him.

Nita is still busy with dessert first. She's melted butter in a skillet and added apples and brown sugar; she's now keeping it nice nad mixed up to let the apples soak.
Once that's started to cook, she goes to her appetizer. This involves some extremely large onions, which she cuts into fourteen petals each; not quite all the way through, but enough to let her spread them open. She seems to be judging how big the gap is, as if she was going to put something else inside.
She probably is, this IS a cooking competition.

It's a pace Ukyo's more than a little used to, if the smirk on her lips is any indication. She focuses only on preparation of the dishes, completely in the zone, as it were. Multiple circles of batter on the gril, Ukyo grabs a handful of chopped cabbage, daintily tossing it onto each of the servings, accompanying it with pork slices. Next she tosses some yakisoba noodles and cracks some eggs onto the grill separate from the okonomiyaki, adding a little more batter on top of the ingredients cooking in the pancakes. "HA!" The bowl is placed down, and she draws a pair of spatulas from her bandolier, flipping one okonomiyaki after the other. By this point the noodles and eggs have fried, and then they too, are added to the mix; on plates the noodles are laid, followed by the okonomiyaki topped with egg. Grabbing the jar next, she seizes her brush in hand and slathers lightly across the okonomiyaki - no 'To Ran-chan, with Love' on hers though! Not this time at least.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the audience there is a large dumpling. No wait, scratch that. It's a -person- in a dumpling costume, with holes cut for the face, arms and legs; but even with that it's difficult to move. Said person is waving 'Go Ukyo!' flags, and 'My Dumpling of Love will Win!' "Yay Ukyo-sagwaak!"
Ukyo's wrist did not twitch slightly, and she is not responsible for the spatulas that were sent flying into the audience, nearly taking off poor Tsubasa's head as they -thunked- into the floor. But at least it shut him up!

"Azeh azeh azeh," Song Bird says to herself, which is probably something like a mantra. (In Old Realm, it means 'painful death', but who knows such things?)
Chopping is done! There is another faint flicker of light as she sorts everything out, spinning the steel knife over her fingers easily to catch the bright lights of the stadium. She keeps that hand working as she uses the other to mash the rough cornmeal in with enough water to make it somewhat doughy.
She tosses the knife into the air, leaning up on the balls of her feet to catch the tip of it between her white teeth, glancing over to the judges for a moment before yanking out a drawer to reveal a half-dozen small game hens, which are tossed onto the work space and promptly coated in the herb and garlic mixture, followed by the cornmeal dough...
Then she starts to put broken glass on each of them, on the outside of the dough. She places the shards carefully, into a heap at the top of each hen's meal-covered breast. She estimates - takes a shard off of one, tosses it into the garbage, breaks one off with a neat and swift motion...
Then she reaches down to pick up two things from beneath the counter. The blowtorch -- and strips of leftover blue plastic packaging?

After adding the mayo stuff and some mustard into the food processor he starts the emulsion and with the strained oil flavored with vanilla bean it's slowly combined in the mixer. Satisfied once it's thoroughly mixed he scoops everything out into a bowl and puts the whole thing in the fridge to chill for awhile. He won't get back to that until later. Seeing as the chocolate is simmered it's removed and also poured into a bowl and left there to cool off on its own. At first Sanji reaches for a filet of beef but pauses and eyes the dragon meat instead. Well it's there for a reason. Maybe it tastes good? He hopes. Daringly he cuts off a piece of the meat and pops it right into his mouth. Yes, RAW! To sample the texture and flavor of the cut. Things sure are lively! Sanji won't likely get bonus points for a flare in cooking. Actually he goes about the whole process rather casually and methodically.

Well, then, the appetizer was done. That was quick and easy. Next up for Dizzy...well, it's still relatively simple, all things considered. Still, it's at least a bit more complex in execution. First--a pot is placed on the stove, full of water, and set to boil. In addition, the grill fires up, and she places the deboned chicken breast on it, which immediately begins to sizzle. Next, while keeping a watchful eye on that, she melts cream cheese and butter in a saucepan. The broccoli and bell peppers...well, this is where having sentient wings come in handy.
Necro pops out and happily begins slicing them up--though the first couple of cuts have to be discarded since he's just whacking at them randomly. A quick word of rebuke and instruction from Dizzy later, he is a little less enthusiastically slicing them more carefully and evenly. Dizzy nods, looking pleased, while she turns over the chicken breast on the grill, and Undine sprouts an arm to grab the fettucine noodles and drop them in the pot now that it's boiling.

There is a flaw with Souji's plan. It is a simple flaw, one that really anyone might miss if they weren't paying acute attention.
This is a Boss Monster.
Souji's knife sinks into one of the tentacles, but does not slice all the way through. The other sinks beneath momentarily, avoiding the blow. The Octomama, TERROR OF THE DEEP, does really have the ability to evade, but as one of its tentacles is sliced up, it hisses, and then whips out its tentacles, potentially send Souji careening halfway across the arena if he trips or gets smacked.

Slowly, but surely, Akane's surroundings fade to black. She's in the zone. This is her chance to finally shine as a rising star in the culinary world! ...Okay, perhaps not, but she does find that she's starting to enjoy herself. She leaves the evil-smelling soup on the back burner where it burbles noxiously, turning instead to the refrigerator to see what she can find.
W-whoa. Is that filet mignon...? Akane hesitates, feeling almost guilty at having access to such an expensive cut of meat. (Carne, for certain, begins to cry when she reaches for it, because he knows it's going to meet a terrible, terrible fate.) But what should she do? She can't just grill it. It might taste fine, but where's the creativity? Where's the culinary genius? (Hint: It sure isn't here.) Selecting six of the steaks, Akane slaps them on a broiling pan and begins vigorously seasoning them with rock salt, garlic, soy sauce, and MSG. Wh-whoa there, how much salt does one /need/? There's just one more thing these prime pieces o' beef need.
Bacon. So she fills a pot with water, waiting for it to boil, before adding strips of juicy bacon. ...She's seriously boiling bacon. Oh! The humanity!

Souji, still in Clock Up mode for another few relative seconds decides that he's going to have to truly get serious here. If he's fighting a boss monster, he'll just have to pull out a finishing move. While still sped up, he taps the first of three buttons on his belt.
ONE
Then the second.
TWO
Then the Third
THREE
Then, he drops out of Clock Up mode, his belt saying "CLOCK OVER" But his belt is sparking, a spark that travels all the way down to his leg. He was already leaping when he came back to regular time, using the water as a stable platform. He brings that Leg Forward and pulls on his belt at the same time.
RIDER KICK!
And, if he can connect, he'll deliver a kick so powerful it can kick THROUGH steel plate, blow his enemies into pieces or kick a car halfway across a city block. Plus, it's got the added bonus of being electrified and powered by his burning sense of justice... and his desire to win.

Bride puts out two pans of oil, one with olive and the other with a lighter mix. And speaking of lighters, she leans in with the blowtorch, carefully lighting it against the burner that's already simmering the simple Coca-cola reduction. She then reaches up to turn the vent on at full blast.
Even so, when she starts turning the blowtorch onto the glass - letting it melt and run along the thick doughy breading and allowing the fragments of plastic to melt and run as well, mingling in with the glass and forming threads of cerulean and sapphire - there's a few whiffs of plastic fumes. Nothing catches fire, but it does smell a bit chemically, although the vent yanks nearly all of it off and up.
Besides which, she isn't Akane. After doing the first two hens, she has it down to a science and uses the other hand to bring out a baking pan.

By this point, Jam's nearly done preparing her egg rolls. Shee starts feeding these into a pot of oil. She pauses one moment to unpack some shahe fen noodles from her ingredient cart, then ushers those noodles into a fresh pot of water, bringing it to a boil.
Only then does she turn to a platter prepared for her. She scallops lettuce, arranging it into something of a wave pattern -- upon which she arranges her prize appetizers, the completed gyoza into the pattern of a giant-sized shrimp. Red gyoza serve as the outer shell, while the white gyoza constitute the lighter underbelly of the shrimp pattern. All in all, it's a quite attractive arrangement!
The chef finally puts her devoted cook face on pause, walking up to the judges with the platter, the teapot, and a bright, exuberant smile. "Red one is very hot..." she cautions, "Is best you eat together with white one." She allows the judges to pick their own, before filling each of their cups with the oolong tea.
How does it taste? Well... the red ones are fiery hot, but if taken as suggested, the white gyoza should perfectly counteract the spice. It should be an... interesting taste!

Satisfied with the taste of the meat, Sanji cuts the dragon meat into eight ounce filets and puts them onto the range grill to start sizzling. Pan #3 on the stovetop is brought into play now that the other two were put aside. He's going to have a tower of stacked pans and dishes by the time he's done! Butter goes into the pan and as it's melting over medium heat some of those sweet onions that were cut earlier are added. As an after thought, one of the apples which looks pretty safe are taken and he starts to dice it, skin and all, and it goes into the pan with the butter and onions. The whole mixture begins to sizzle and caramelize as a sweet scent fills the air. As he's pouring in a little rum he takes a couple of moments to tilt his head and admire Jam's dress. *cough* Mellorine~

Shinji Ikari cooks! Quickly! He is kind of harried but he's used to one or the other of the two amazons he rooms with going "DINNER, NOW." and him having to have it in a very close approximation to "now" lest he be horribly punished in some terrible way. A wok is on the stove, and a pot of soup broth is already started. The Third Child's confidence is more the problem here, as he often pauses to fret or just quietly freak out at SO MANY PEOPLE WATCHING HIM and the fact that he will inevitably screw it up because he sucks and is horrible and no one even came and why is he HERE?!
Shinji takes a deep breath, stops his hands from shaking, and gets to cutting the Dragon Meat into careful strips with one hand, while rolling up the dough for the croissants with another hand. It's an old family technique he likes to call, 'God, no, Misato, don't cook, I can handle it!'

With the sauce base now melted, Dizzy pours in a small amount of milk and adds minced garlic and salt and pepper. This is left to simmer while Undine-arm stirs it with a wooden spoon on occasion. Meanwhile, the chicken breast is just about ready; thus she takes it off the grill with tongs, placing them on the cutting board. "Necro, remember what I said," she says, faintly admonishing. Necro looks put out, but heeds his mistress and slices up the chicken carefully. Hey, at least he gets to play with knives today.
Soon, the chicken is cut up into small cubes, still juicy but not undercooked. These go along with the bell peppers and broccoli in the thickening sauce, where Undine continues to stir slowly. This should let the flavor of the sauce infuse the meat and vegetables. Meanwhile, the pasta should be finished cooking--Dizzy takes the pot off the stove and proceeds to drain it by pouring the lot of it into a colander in the sink. Steam rises in a large quantity; Necro returns to wing form to fan it away. So far, she does not appear to have looked around at anyone else at all--she is focusing pretty much on her own duties with furious concentration, to make sure she gets it all right.
Well, that sure as hell did it.

Souji's kick smashes RIGHT THROUGH a tentacle, and if he's fast enough he can even grab it!
He may, however, want to run away VERY FAST because that is one pissed off octopus, I tell you what.

One down, two to go. The water has come to a boil by this point, and Ukyo gathers pork, shrimp, and vegetables close, using a knife to chop all into smaller up pieces. Each bit is being used for filling, tucking mashed shrimp into one wrapper, pork into another, vegetables into still another. Taking the second bonus ingredient, she pinches some of the five spice powder, adding a little to each of the gyoza before she seals the dumplings on the wooden tray to boil the dumplings.
Perhaps it's a good thing that she's relatively clueless to the Horror of Nerima cooking beside her, or the strange fellow fighting a boss monster. Appetizer and main dish finished, Ukyo hums merrily over the sound of of disaster beside her - setting to work on the next dish. Should she use another ingredient? Those blue jellylike things.. Ukyo has no clue what those are. But they -are- pretty. Still, prettiness is not a factor in cooking, and as she's fairly sure that those aren't any kind of strawberries, she ignores them. Those apples look tasty though. No bonus points for her this round ~sigh~.

Nita Callahan looks askance at Kamen Rider Cook about now, because she has a break in her cooking.
Then she goes back to work. Apples are doing whatever they're doing. The meal takes about fifteen minutes so she can do that last... Nita works on making a batter, apparently going to fry things.
The things are, in a few moments, revealed to be onions, as Nita busily batters them. Once they're battered, she starts dicing some other things and ground beef, broiling it to go off to the side and turn into chili. Delicious chili. "I need more hands," she mutters to herself.
The apples look about done, but Nita barely has time for that right now; she takes them off the heat and lets them cool, replacing it with a saucepan with milk and egg yolks and vanilla. This was not one of her better ideas.

Song Bird puts the birds, in their custom-shaped glass jackets - suitable for later use if one happens to have a bird of the exact same dimensions - onto the baking pan after placing a grille in it to catch drippings. She turns the oven up hot and jams it in!
Those have to sit for a while and roast, and as such she turns her attention first to the sink, to rinse off her hands (and take the knife out of her mouth). She looks to the Coke-sauce in the offing, and starts forming the scallions-and-apple pancakes, kneading the dough with white, strong fingers and rolling it into long cylinders that she coils around into a spiral shape.
She also turns on the pan with the olive oil in it, to get it ready.

Coming down, Souji grabs the giant tentacle and hits the side of his belt once more. Yeah, it might be cheating, but it's just for escape at this point. "Clock Up." And, he's hit the water and run back to his place. By the time the belt says CLOCK OVER, he's split the tentacle in two, leaving half of it on the BI table for the other chefs to use. His armor vanishes and he sets to work actually cooking.
Using a regular knife, he chops the severed tendril into pieces, while he warms up the Takoyaki grill. After finishing the chopping, the young man stirs his batter and starts a pot of water to boiling. He's not going to lose this, nor is he going to transform again. He wants to win fair and square and doing anything to jeapordize that would be unacceptable. He does sample a bit of the raw octopus though, wanting to make sure it's not like Giant Squid and too full of ammonia to be edible. That would be a terrible error on his part to not check that out.

This was both cute and quite interesting to watch. Abel smiles as one of the contestants came up with the food and inhales deeply. "It smells quite wonderful, Little One." He states towards Jam and nods and goes to pick out one of the red ones, taking the girl's advice with an smile and tries it with the white gyoza. He blinks in surprise the taste and nods at her. "Thank you, Little One." Hmmm.... Quite interesting taste.

Bubble bubble, toil and trouble, beef burn and bacon bubble... Akane removes the boiling bacon from the burner and snaps it off, peeking inside the pot to see how it's faring. Er... She's pretty sure bacon isn't supposed to be limp and slimy. Or green, for that matter. Hm. Maybe she'll get points for irony. No matter! She wraps a slice of bacon around each cutlet, and jams it under the broiler. That'll help it cook super fast, while she gets to work on dessert!

Final touches are put onto the sauce glaze that's simmering and as it's doing so Sanji sprinkles salt over the sizzling dragon meat. And with his main course on the rise he turns back to the chocolate mixture. Since it's relatively cool, he slices biscotti cookie bread and dunks each one into the soft chocolate. A spoon is used to make sure the bread is thorougly coated before each is set on a rack to drip dry and let the chocolate cool over it. Everything else going on around him is for the most part ignore. Mostly because his player can't read that fast! But he'll look forward to seeing everyone's creations when they're done. Right now he focuses on his own. With Pan #4 set onto the stovetop to begin heating up he goes over to select some mushrooms. The purple ones are eyed but they sure look.. intimidating. And with mushrooms being such a dangerous food at times, depending on the type, he doesn't think he'll risk it and stick with two types he knows, portabello and chanterelle. Those are sliced and diced.

Soon, the fettucine noodles are all laid out on a large, flat dish. The chicken and vegetables are also finished cooking in the saucepan. Dizzy now takes the saucepan and carefully pours it over the bed of noodles. Chicken alfredo! The white sauce on white noodles are given a ready splash of color by the green, red, and yellow bell peppers, along with the green chunks of broccoli. The chicken is largely hidden within, as it did not darken too much from the grilling, save for the regularly spaced browned lines. With care, Dizzy places capers and parsley over the dish to complete the look of the dish. There, then, is the main dish.
Now, for dessert...hopefully there's enough time! It's close to the end of the hour already. To that end, Dizzy quickly grabs some heavy cream, a whisk, and a mixing bowl. Necro meanwhile starts the cutting job again, dicing up some maraschino cherries and candied orange peel.

Normally, Jam would spend a bit more time marinating her pork. But with a one-hour time limit, she's got to go for smaller portions -- hence the meat being the way it is. The hard work has mostly been conducted already, what with the meat all tender and such... but there's still plenty to cook! Cucumbers are diligently sliced, and expertly arranged even in this preparation stage, as the noodles cook along. Every so often, Jam looks up to the judges, pleased to see their expressions as they devour her appetizers, but for the most part she's focused solely upon the task at hand -- preparing her meal!
Once the noodles are done, she retrieves the pan of marinated meat, spreading it out onto a freshly oiled cutting board. Dousing the meat with oil, she... stops, taking a step back from the counter, and smiles. One finger is held aloft -- and the blink of an eye later, her long dress flutters into motion, a fiery rush of flame erupting from her leg as she sweeps her foot right after the marinated meat! The flames continue to roil even as the woman lands upon her feet in a flourish, hands held to either side as the flames dance higher and higher. The presentation may have been neglected earlier, but no longer! While the flames dance, she starts working on batter for a sponge cake.

Dessert! Akane loves desserts. Who doesn't? But what should she make? For a moment, she considers cookies. She's practiced on cookies a great deal in the past, but for some reason, she could never get it right. She glances over her shoulder, briefly spotting Ranma in his judge's chair. No. Not cookies. It's got to be something really special. Something really divine! Like cherries jubilee! Everyone liked fancy desserts that were on fire, right?
.../Right?/ And what could possibly go wrong, combining Akane's cooking with fire?
Immediately the girl begins throwing cherries into a saucepan. Unpitted cherries, for that matter. And some sort of alcohol is supposed to be drizzled on them, right? But what? ...Perhaps this small can of beer?

Song Bird mashes down the pancakes with the palm of her hand, rolling out a half-dozen of the small things; she sets them to fry, the smell much merrier than the previous hint of melting plastic. She whistles to herself as they sizzle, and mixes up some finer dough. She considers, then, just how to do it...
She glances at one of the empty Coca-Cola cans, and the logo within. Her eyes widen and her lips draw back in a faint grin, before she uses her OTHER hand to dig out some red bean paste and a tube of pastry cream. The nascent dumpling-like puffs are filled, first with a layer of the red bean paste, then some of the cream, then more of the paste...
THEN she has to pause to flip the pancakes. She must be sweating! Is that a bruise on her forehead?

Mushrooms are diced with an alarming speed and tossed through the air to land into the sizzling pan where they instantly begin to brown. Some garlic is crushed, diced, and tossed in along with them. Sanji takes hold of the handle and begins to flip the whole of it, letting it topple over itself while he puts one hand into his pocket. Satisfied that the garlic is well incorporated, he lets the pan sit and takes up a full lobster. At least it's already dead! The head is cut off with a crunch of shell and the back is cracked open so he can extract the meat with a flip of his knife. Once the meat is out he cuts it into bite sized chunks and puts the meat into a bowl, the same bowl many of the veggies went in to earlier. A piece of bread is also cut into bite sized chunks, splashed with olive oil and seasoning, then put right into the oven to start toasting into fresh croutons. A glance goes to the restaurant clock, but it looks to him like he has plenty of time. Casually the dragon filet's are turned over on the grill. In a moment of distraction he looks over and stares at Akane's cooking technique since she's nearby. "....." Well, she still looks cute while she's doing it at least.

Glancing up briefly, Ukyo frowns to herself, resuming work. Main dishes finished; check. Appetizers finished; check. Which leaves finishing off the dessert. Wrapping the strawberries with anko, she sets them to the side, then starts making the dough with two different types of flour and some sugar. The dough is then placed in a steamer, giving Ukyo the time to get a breather, wishing she had a glass of water. A flour covered hand is raised, swiping across her brow and making a powdery white track across her forehead. A few minutes later she takes the dough out, kneads and stretches it, then separates pieces in order to wrap them around the strawberry and anko ball. There. Done! And not a bad job if she said so herself. And she does.
Now it's just the presentation of the dishes; The okonomiyaki rests in the center, sauce painted into a little design on the front, with a smaller plate beside it, containing the steamed gyoza, pale white and a contrasting the red of the strawberry sweetcakes, arranged like a cute little flower. Out of curiosity, she finally comes out of the cooker's high, glancing to Akane. "...." Oh god. Please.. no Not fire. Akane, we don't wanna burn the place down, for the love of god. Poor thing.

Souji Tendou chops up some spring onions and a bit of radish, drops in the well-diced Octopus meat and pours the batter carefully into the round indentations on his Takoyaki grill. He'll check each and turn it to make it perfectly round as he has to but in the meantime, he's making a sauce of soy and sugar to go with it. While the sauce simmers, he's shredding crab meat and dumping bamboo shoots into his boiling pot of water. He lost a bit of time wrestling with the Bonus Ingredient and needs to make up for that.
So, leaving his flying Kabuto Zecter (the bug part of his belt) to fly around and distract the Octopus if it seeks revenge, he turns his Takoyaki to ensure an even brownish exterior and a light, fluffy inside to the little balls of cephalopod-laden goodness. Knowing that dessert is important as well, he opens up a drawer and pulls out a sweet potato, then six eggs. Cracking the eggs, he puts them in a mixing bowl along with a few diced vegetables and stirs. Soon, he has a nice mixture of egg, vegetable and crab meat which he pours onto a hot skillet coated in olive oil.

Nita Callahan is going insane over here. Saucepan done, Nita removes the syrupy cream mixture and pours it into the removed-from-oven pie shell, letting it cool.
Time to be desperate. She looks left. She looks right. Nita bends down and whispers to the pie, (It would be a lot more convenient if you set now instead of in about two hours - ) The apple-cream pie sets in about thirty seconds. Nita, who looks like she's just gone jogging now, smiles, and sets it aside to finish cooling the normal way.
That done, Nita goes back to her onions. They need to get fried. She removes the chili topping from heat first, then goes about deep-frying the onions in their fancy batter. Fortunately, it only takes about two minutes to fry one of these, and she has a big enough fryer to do all four at once.

Jam's flames dance on for a while, aided by the occasional application of more cooking oil, but all good things must come to an end. The wind from one quick chop of her arm is enough to quell the flames. Turning the meat with long chopsticks, she lets it simmer for a while, before moving to dole out eight bowls of noodles. Adding the cucumber, she then arranges the meat on top, making for a rather =large= bowl of marinated pork, upon wire-thin rice noodles. And just in case that doesn't sit well -- she adds a trio of egg rolls to each bowl for aesthetic completeness. Striding confidently out to the judging table, she places a bowl before each judge, smiling broadly. "Is hoping you enjoy Char Siu and Shahe Fen dinner." Curtsying properly, the Chinese beauty returns to her counter to finish her dessert.

Shinji groans, lightly, but spends one of the Man Points he had saved up from his brief moments of awesome over the last year to push himself past his normal wussing out limits. He doesn't think any of the judges would be vegetarian...Shinji frowns. Wait. What about? Shinji frowns at the Dragon Meat...is it like pork, or like chicken, or beef? Cruuuud. Shinji thinks quickly, grabbing a seperate pan and throwing a few strips on to sizzle, while he swiftly washes his hands and gets to work on the dessert.
The frosting isn't hard. Just some sugar, some blending, wooooah, and some chocolate. Peeling apples is hard. Fortunately, the Third Child has had a lot of practice with knives recently; his eyes contract slightly, something he hides with a deft lowering of his bangs over them as he practicly /rips/ into those apples.
Really, it's kind of brutal. What did the apples ever do to him?

Dizzy quickly whips the cream into stiffness. Thus readied, she folds in sugar, chopped cherries, the orange peel, and a dash of lemon juice. That is then set aside, while Undine fans over it. Wait...she's using Undine to cool the mixture? Is that allowed? Well...the judges will have to speak to that. Besides, to do this dessert properly, it'll take half a day, literally, to chill in a freezer.
While that question is pondered, Dizzy proceeds to take some vanilla ice cream--which she had sitting out for the past half hour to soften--and mixes almonds and almond extract into it; they blend easily. This mixture is now spooned into another bowl and pressed against the sides. Basically, it's being used as a mold. That done, the cooled whipped cream mix then is carefully placed into the center.

Dook dook dook dook dook! CRACK! Dook dook dook dook dook! "There," Akane pauses to wipe the sweat from her brow, grinning proudly at the cherries bobbing in a sea of beer. That should be enough for the flambe part, right? But maybe it needs something creamy to go with it, a hint of dairy. Whipped cream, and cream cheese, blended together! Yes, that's what she'll use! (So why is she taking out the jar of mayonnaise instead?) She heaps big glops of the mayonnaise into the mixture, smiling happily. It sure looks pretty! And it'll probably taste wonderful on warm gingerbread. ...Ah, she doesn't have any! Pumpernickel looks like gingerbread, though, so she'll go with that. Ah ha ha ha, she's going to do so well! <3

Shortly after Jam returns to her own station, Ukyo is next to approach the judging table with her tray. Even though Ranma is supposed to be impartial, he'll give her a good score, right? /RIGHT/? "Enjoy, courtesy of Ucchan's!" She chirps, setting her entries down and flashing a grin. But she doesn't want to go back to her station. Akane's starting to scare her. . .but go back she does.

The main course served, Jam returns to preparing her dessert. It... start innocently enough, as the chef had started preparing sponge cake earlier. Withdrawing the cake from the oven, she starts slicing it into squares. What is she planning? Well... just wait and see, once the judges are done with their meals!

Sanji reaches into the fridge for that long forgotten creamy mixture he made earlier. Now that it's chilled it's scooped into the bowl with the potatoes, veggies, and chunks of lobster meat. Taking up a spoon he begins to turn the mixture over, fully coating the meat and other ingrediants together to create a cool tasting lobster salad. Plates are set out and each one gets a helping of the salad, along with a garnish to complete the first dish of three! But dish number two is not far behind. More dishes are set out, one for each judge of course. Red and green peppers are taken from the group of ready vegetables and he begins to cut them, rounding them with his knife like one would peel an apple and in a similarly spiral fashion to create a spring of the skin. Those skins are carefully entwined, green and red together, then set onto the grill to roast for a minute. Except for the Chairman himself, Sanji doesn't expect any of the judges will want to bite into a pepper raw.

Song Bird is reaching the point where she has to start plating. She sets it all up on a broad tray, apparently working with ambidextrous ease. The plates she uses are plain white china and plain black lacquered wood - it's rather stark, but perhaps she likes it that way.
The pancakes are moved to smaller black plates after a quick patting to clean off excess oil, and she moves the 'soda dumplings' into the lighter oil to crisp up. She increases the heat on the cola-sauce; the flame flares for a moment with a hint of a groan, but settles down afterwards.
After this, she wraps her hand in one towel and yanks out the half-dozen hens, setting them on the counter to cool for a moment. She has to pause to figure out just what she's doing - and twists the cooking towel around in her hand, tying it quickly over her forehead. Almost there, she thinks, with another toothy grin.

Pulling each of the twenty or so Takoyaki he's made off of the grill, Souji sets them on a small plate with a tiny bowl in the center and a single bamboo skewer though each of the small balls. Into each bowl, he pours the sweet soy dipping sauce and then cuts a tiny radish for each into the shape of a flower, floating that atop the dipping sauce for the judges. So, his appetizer is at least finished now.
Going back to the main course, he prepares the sweet and sour sauce to go over the top of the crab omelet, testing it to make sure it's not too sweet and definitely not too far the other way. The Omelet itself almost finished, he divides it into five portions and puts it on four plates. The large part of four carrots are carved into a close approximation of a rose and set down along with two mint leaves each to simulate the leaves of the flower, a green bamboo shoot for the stem and little chips of darkest chocolate to form the thorns. Now, all he has left to finish is the omelet sauce and his dessert.

Now all that's left for Akane is to serve the dishes. Six bowls are set on a tray, and ladled with the foul soup. She sets a Saltine cracker on top of each one, admiring the effect it has. Should she taste it first to see if it's edible? Of course not, what are you thinking?! This is placed on the small serving cart, and she steps back. Now to retrieve the filet mignon! ...Why is it so black? And small? She was pretty sure they were at least a good four to five inches in diameter when she put them under the broiler. Now they're no bigger than a fifty-yen piece. ..... Oh well. Gourmet food is supposed to be tiny. Undeterred, she sets each 'delicacy' in the middle of a plate, and arranges some raw vegetables around each one for added color. Funny how the green bacon hasn't changed much...
And now, for the grand finale! The dessert! Akane approaches the saucepan of boiling bear, mayonnaise, and cherries with a lighter in hand. By the powers, RUN. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES.

Fried onions, check. Chili, check. Pie, check.
"Oh crap! Steak!" Nita stops half-relaxing and runs, not walks, to the place where she hid the dragon-meat steaks. Gathering all of the pices of meat, she cuts off some attractive-looking cuts and goes back to her pile of spices. There she mixes chili powder, oregano, cumin, dry mustard, salt, ground pepper and cayenne pepper into a rough pile - she doesn't have time to be neat - and rubs each of the steaks down with them, setting them to grill once that's done.

Sanji takes the roasted peppers and sets each onto a plate, then picks up a filet of dragon carefully between two tongs. Each is slid into place inside the curly spring shaped pepper decoration. Curly just like his eyebrow! *cough* Once each filet is plated in the same way, he takes the pan with the sauce he had created containing the rum and drizzles it over the steaks carefully. Seeing as his mushrooms are finished browning, he slices the tails off of portabellos and puts each head onto the grill to roast them up. With that going on (multi-tasking is your friend!), he sets Pan #5 onto the stove and pours in the best quality chocolate sauce he can find. Uh.. blue milk? Well so long as it tastes like milk he uses it to smoothe the sauce out. And seeing as croutons are done those are taken out and carefully added to the lobster salad. Whew! Things are coming down to the wire! The back of his arm brushes over his brow.

The final stretch! Song Bird thinks; she likes the prospect of 'final'. She moves the soda-dumplings into the simmering sauce after they've gotten golden-crispy, letting them sit for a moment as she eyes the hens once more.
She picks up the knife - and starts saying "Azeh" again. She murmurs it a few times, and then aims six swift, brutal chops down the middle of each hen, splitting them...
Splitting them so that the plastic/glass 'shell', the cornmeal coating, and the herb rub part as well, leaving a sliced and perfectly-cooked hen sitting in a uniquely shaped container. She moves them onto the plates.
The dumplings are easier; she fishes out two for each judge and pours some of the sauce over them. THEN - she goes to wash her hands briefly, before hauling everything forth for presentation.

And once more Dizzy hands the bowl of ice cream and whipped cream/cherries/orange peel filling to Undine, who now sprouts into her human form. She takes the bowl in both hands and concentrates--and twelve hours of freezing are compressed into about a minute. Don't get to close, it may feel uncomfortably cold near her. Dizzy repeats this entire process of molding and freezing with a few more bowls to make sure that there is enough spumone for all the judges--and for a number of the audience as well.
Here, then, is Dizzy's entry: ham, tomato, mozzarella and basil for the appetizer, chicken alfredo as the main dish, and magically-chilled spumone for dessert. And just in time, too! There's only a few minutes left. She steps back, taking off her hat and wiping her forehead, looking just a bit tired.

Jam's true machinations for the sponge cake reveal themselves, as she arranges the squares upon each of eight plates into a small 'fort', leaving the center lower. =In= the center, however, she places a dollop of ice cream, and a smaller layer of sponge cake on top to seal off the 'fort'. Atop the fort, she decorates a small ring of cookie crumbs, and on top of that, she mixes chocolate syrup and... is that Jim Beam?
Must be, for she's wheeling the desserts out to the judges now. She places the plates on the edge of the table nearest her, cautioning, "No is eating yet. Not quite done!" The final preparation seems to be a small 'flag' of cookie crumb atop each little fort -- at which point Jam walks to one end of the table.
She pauses, there, closing her eyes and taking a breath. Readying herself, she smiles and raises her hand. "Announcing Jam Kuradoberi special dessert -- Flame on Iceberg!"
What flame? Well... an instant afterwards, Jam dashes towards the table and =leaps= into a jumping kick, screaming with all her might, "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!" But more importantly, a trail of flame is left in her wake, as the flames ignite upon each delicious dessert, the 'flags' and rings of cookie crumbs smoldering to a light crisp, leaving the top layer of dessert deliciously browned, and the upper strata of the spongecake slightly firm.
"Bon appetit!" announces Jam, curtsying once more with a flourish before stepping away from the judging table.

Shinji Ikari returns to lightly sniff the meat. Thank goodness stir fry is quick, yeah? Hrm..."Okay, so it's more like pork." Shinji mutters, glad to have thought ahead. Watercress, broccoli, snap peas, and a variety of other veggies hit the wok, around with the rest of the dragon meat strips which are lightly oiled, brushed around some, and left to simmer while Shinji gets to work on...
...the appetisers! Ikari sniffs the soup-done!-and quickly ladels out five bowls, putting a coissant on top of each one. Shoving them in the oven, Shinji gets back to work on his cake, dipping the apples in a cinnamon-sugar mixture he prepared and what the crap.
"Um. Miss Tendo? I...don't think mayonnaise lights, um, well!" Shinji is a decent guy, and remembers the time Misato tried to make Mayo Jubalee for the Fourth of July, and therefore feels compelled to warn the female Tendo.
He doesn't have much time, however, and gets right back to work, carefuly spicing the stir fry while he's cooking and, after a minute, taking the now-baked crossant-bowls out of the oven. Finally, Ikari shoves the chocolate-apple cake into the oven, slamming the door shut and phewing with exhaustion. Almost done...

Chopping the sweet potatoes into small, bite-sized chunks, Souji lightly fries them on a clean griddle along with some clear vegetable oil. In another pan he mixes water, soy sauce and sugar, stirring it until the sugar begins to mix and make the entire mixture sticky. Then, he adds the sweet potatoes to the mixture, stirs until they are nicely covered, divides it onto give plates then lightly coats the entire dessert in sesame seeds. For an added, personal touch, he takes five small chocolate bars (imported from Switzerland) and carves them into the shape of little Kabuto beetles, adding cinnomon candies for eyes. Then, finally finished, he brings all of his selections to the judges and waits.

Sanji takes each roasted portabello off the grill and adds it to the plate where the dragon filets are resting. From the pan the mushroom salad is taken and spooned on top of each portabello, using the wide roasted mushrooms as plating for this dish. Finding a white truffle vinagarette under the counter he opens the bottle and drizzles it lightly over the mushroom salad. On the top of each island of salad goes a special decoration he brought. Toothpicks, each one waving the Mugiwara Flag! And so that completes the main course! Now on to dessert. The chocolate sauce is eyed, stirred, even taste tested... before he takes a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and pulls the cork off with his teeth. Some of the wine is poured into the chocolate mixture and it's all stirred again.. while he samples the wine for himself.

The sudden flare of energetic fire in Jam's passing gets Song Bird's attention, and she briefly glances over at the amazingly-haired young woman. She raises one black eyebrow and puts her on a mental list.
But then everything is ready, and it's not getting hotter. She brings the dishes over - one full setting for each judge and an extra for either further examination or for honored ancestors.
Her appetizer is savory-sweet scallion-and-apple pancakes; the main course is game hens prepared with garlic-herb rub and packed in cornmeal and specially-prepared glass, bisected neatly (and safely!); the dessert is red-bean-and-pastry-cream dumplings in a Coca-Cola demiglaze.

Once the steaks are grilled, Nita gets to the preparation stage. Steaks go on a plate - unfortunately she didn't have time to make much in the way of side dishes for it, so it's just the herb-spice-dragon-steaks. The fried onions are opened up, each filled with a hearty helping of chili; might need a forka nd knife for that one. And the dessert, well, the pie almost stands on its own; Nita didn't have time or patience to make ice cream to go with it, but fortunately it doesn't need it.
She brings it all out at once. What she can't carry floats behind her like a flock of slightly confused birds, or possibly balloons on invisible strings.

Almost time! Sanji makes some final touches, roasting marshmallows of all things and setting them on top of plated biscotti bread. On top of that goes the chocolate sauce he had put together and finally, he roasts some coconut shavings in a pan and dollops it all off together to create a new kind of s'more. And while things are settling down he pours himself another glass of the wine. He thinks he needs it for the judging. At least for himself! Not to mention a cigarette.

Akane looks up at Shinji. "Hm? Oh, it's fine!" she beams reassuringly. "I'll be sure just to light the beer, I don't think it's supposed to burn for very long. Nice job on the croissants, those look delicious." She doesn't mind giving a compliment! In fact, she's feeling very relaxed and confident now that it's coming down to the end. The bread, warm and slightly crispy, is laid out on plates. So all that's left is to set the cherries on fire and--
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!
"AHHHHHHHH!!!"
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!"
"FirefirefirefireheeheefireFIREfire!"
Akane leaps back in surprise, now covered from head to toe in black soot, and smelling strongly of beer. Er. At least she's alive? Eh heh heh! She ladels some of the flaming mess onto the plates of bread, and steps back, heaving a deep sigh. There. Done!

Shinji's turning blue. Why?
Because icing a cake and serving up a stirfry at the same time is /hard/. The Third Child is well aquainted with the kitchen, however, which is why he knows to duck to avoid the inevitable eruption of fire from Akane's corner of the room while putting the last touches on his cake and quickly pouring the stir fry from the wok to the plates. He pulls out some soy sauce that he procedes to gently squeeze on the stir-fry in vaguely happy shapes, plops the soup "bowls" on his tray, and finally remembers to take a breath.
"It's...not very good, but, um, I hope you enjoy it." Shinji mutters, rubbing the back of his head and pulling on his apron nervously.

DING DING DING!!! The bell clangs loudly, signalling an end to the cooking competition. "Allrightallrightallright!" Carne announces loudly, holding up his hands. "Time's up! Please bring your dishes to the judges if you haven't done so already, and the judges will review each chef's dishes one by one. Scores will be written down, and passed to me."
There does seem to be a brief flicker of a shadow from the Chairman's place, as small portions from the cook's dishes are wheeled into the back. Zeff has to try them too, don'cha know.