Farscape Potluck Ficathon fic: "Kitchen Chemistry - The Elementary Remix"
Author's Note: Written for cretkid, my first attempt at a remix fic. The original story is here. My thanks to kernezelda for the beta, and to kazbaby for organizing the ficathon.
Setting: Season 1, after "Through the Looking Glass".
Rating: G
Kitchen Chemistry - The Elementary Remix
"What'cha doing, Crichton?"
John looked up and saw Chiana swaying across the center chamber towards his corner of the table. "Cooking," he replied, returning to his careful measurements.
"Doesn't look like it to me."
John had to agree; his current project looked more like a chemistry experiment at the moment than any culinary endeavor. "I'm trying to figure out how to make Grandma's biscuits right."
The young Nebari tilted her head, nose wrinkling slightly. "You mean those tasteless lumps you made after..."
"After Moya played dimensional Twister? Yeah. The stuff I used didn't work so good, so I'm looking for some different ingredients." He waved his hands at the bowl containing a white powder. "We've got a decent grain flour, so that's not the problem."
Chiana nodded in recognition; the powdered substance was one of the ship's staples, used in almost every meal.
John chuckled ruefully as he continued. "Unfortunately, every time I try describing buttermilk on a commerce planet, the vendors just look disgusted and walk away. So I settled for this stuff." He pointed to a bottle filled with a yellowish-white liquid. "I think it'll work better than what I had last time...tastes a bit like milk to me, anyway."
"So what's all this?" Chiana asked, waving at the rest of the jars and vials on the table.
Crichton picked up a covered dish filled with a congealed white substance. "Last time I used some filtered grease from a roasted meat dish D'Argo made, figuring it would work like lard does at home, but it just didn't have the right consistency. Zhaan showed me this stuff called lutra oil. It looks about right when it's chilled down into a solid, so it may work better."
Chiana smiled coyly. "I know a few uses for lutra oil, Crichton, most of them much more interesting than cooking," she offered in her typical sultry tone.
John, determined to ignore her come-ons, set down the cold lutra grease and waved his hand at the half-dozen small vials of powders and crystals. "This stuff is the key, though. Part of the problem with those biscuits was I had no leavening, so they were way too dense. I'm trying to make something like baking powder. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the chemicals involved, and Zhaan didn't have the ones I did know. I need an acid and a base, non-toxic, that react with each other to produce a gas. Zhaan gave me some things to try."
Chiana watched, feigning interest as she gradually invaded John's personal space, while the human tried his best to ignore her and continued to mix small amounts of the powdered substances Zhaan provided. Finally making a decision, he added some of the powders to the flour. He then mixed the solidified lutra oil in, just like Grandma taught him, though he had to use his hands since Grandma's pastry cutter was nowhere to be found. Finally came the 'milk', the part John was most concerned with. He stirred it in and kneaded until the dough started to feel about right.
While he cut the dough into biscuit-sized pieces, Chiana picked up the empty bottle and sniffed the residue of the 'milk'. "Crichton, what was this stuff, anyway? It smells familiar."
"Don't remember. It isn't really milk, I know that. D'Argo picked it up on the last commerce planet, said it's a plant sap of some kind...contal-something."
"Kuntala?" Chiana sounded a bit nervous.
"Probably," John replied. "Why?"
"I don't think you should have mixed that with the lutra oil...stuff's kinda touchy, and I think they don't react well."
John looked down at the perfect dough and saw no evidence of a problem. "Looks okay so far, but if they don't turn out, I'll try again with something else." He placed the last piece of dough on the platter and walked it over to the cooking unit -- what Aeryn insisted on calling the "re-hydration unit", since it did that too and that's all she ever used it for.
"Crichton--" Chiana called tentatively.
"Don't worry, Pip, what's the worst that could happen?"
As he slid the platter into the heated chamber, there was a flash of light and noise, feeling of flying, and a thump that ushered in darkness.
When the lights came back on, everything was fuzzy. Where was he? What happened?
He heard voices calling his name. He heard his last name; Coach called them by their surnames, must've taken a hit. He recited the elements, "Ohsee-alfie-ca-mig-nah," just like Coach had told him; the man had insisted that if he had to have a science geek on the team, he'd use it to his advantage.
The voices sounded uncertain. Had he not said it right? Maybe he was more out of it than he thought. He tried again, trying to enunciate clearly. This garnered another voice, even more strident and worried. He repeated the phrase over and over, his mind getting clearer with each repetition, until he managed to open his eyes and remember where he was. The football field was gone, over a decade in the past and who-knew-how-many light-years away. Instead, he was surrounded by his shipmates...his friends.
But what had happened? Why was he on the floor, why did everyone look so worried?
Why did his head hurt so much?
"Ow."
He looked up at the smoke-filled room and remembered his biscuits. And Chiana's warning. "I guess those things don't mix, do they? Should'a listened to Chiana."
For the next few minutes, he endured Zhaan's solicitous examination. "Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?"
"Ohsee-alfie-ca-mig-nah," he replied, still feeling a bit nostalgic. This, of course, confused the others, so he had to explain the source of the phrase. Looking over Aeryn's shoulder, he saw the ruins of the cooking unit.
"Wow. I did this? Damn." It looked a bit like the results of his first -- and last -- experiment with crystalline iodine back in college; he smiled at the memory of that prank.
Hearing another voice querying, he turned back to see Aeryn glaring at him. "He'll be fine," she asserted, shoving him back into the wall and walking away.
John looked around at the others, confused. "What'd I do to piss her off?"
No one seemed to have an answer. Pilot called from the clamshell, "Commander, are you well?"
"Yeah, Pilot," John assured him, struggling to his feet and fighting the dizzy feeling. "I'm all in one piece. Can't say the same for the cooker here, though." He wandered over to look at the damage, and pulled a twisted scrap of metal that had once been his biscuit platter out of the wreckage.
"I will have the DRDs begin repairs immediately."
Chiana wandered into his field of vision and paused to pat his chest, sending up a cloud of flour and dust. She laughed and flounced away, leaving John bemused. He turned to look at the bottles and vials still sitting on the table, strangely untouched by the disaster. "Back to the drawing board, I guess."
Setting: Season 1, after "Through the Looking Glass".
Rating: G
Kitchen Chemistry - The Elementary Remix
"What'cha doing, Crichton?"
John looked up and saw Chiana swaying across the center chamber towards his corner of the table. "Cooking," he replied, returning to his careful measurements.
"Doesn't look like it to me."
John had to agree; his current project looked more like a chemistry experiment at the moment than any culinary endeavor. "I'm trying to figure out how to make Grandma's biscuits right."
The young Nebari tilted her head, nose wrinkling slightly. "You mean those tasteless lumps you made after..."
"After Moya played dimensional Twister? Yeah. The stuff I used didn't work so good, so I'm looking for some different ingredients." He waved his hands at the bowl containing a white powder. "We've got a decent grain flour, so that's not the problem."
Chiana nodded in recognition; the powdered substance was one of the ship's staples, used in almost every meal.
John chuckled ruefully as he continued. "Unfortunately, every time I try describing buttermilk on a commerce planet, the vendors just look disgusted and walk away. So I settled for this stuff." He pointed to a bottle filled with a yellowish-white liquid. "I think it'll work better than what I had last time...tastes a bit like milk to me, anyway."
"So what's all this?" Chiana asked, waving at the rest of the jars and vials on the table.
Crichton picked up a covered dish filled with a congealed white substance. "Last time I used some filtered grease from a roasted meat dish D'Argo made, figuring it would work like lard does at home, but it just didn't have the right consistency. Zhaan showed me this stuff called lutra oil. It looks about right when it's chilled down into a solid, so it may work better."
Chiana smiled coyly. "I know a few uses for lutra oil, Crichton, most of them much more interesting than cooking," she offered in her typical sultry tone.
John, determined to ignore her come-ons, set down the cold lutra grease and waved his hand at the half-dozen small vials of powders and crystals. "This stuff is the key, though. Part of the problem with those biscuits was I had no leavening, so they were way too dense. I'm trying to make something like baking powder. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the chemicals involved, and Zhaan didn't have the ones I did know. I need an acid and a base, non-toxic, that react with each other to produce a gas. Zhaan gave me some things to try."
Chiana watched, feigning interest as she gradually invaded John's personal space, while the human tried his best to ignore her and continued to mix small amounts of the powdered substances Zhaan provided. Finally making a decision, he added some of the powders to the flour. He then mixed the solidified lutra oil in, just like Grandma taught him, though he had to use his hands since Grandma's pastry cutter was nowhere to be found. Finally came the 'milk', the part John was most concerned with. He stirred it in and kneaded until the dough started to feel about right.
While he cut the dough into biscuit-sized pieces, Chiana picked up the empty bottle and sniffed the residue of the 'milk'. "Crichton, what was this stuff, anyway? It smells familiar."
"Don't remember. It isn't really milk, I know that. D'Argo picked it up on the last commerce planet, said it's a plant sap of some kind...contal-something."
"Kuntala?" Chiana sounded a bit nervous.
"Probably," John replied. "Why?"
"I don't think you should have mixed that with the lutra oil...stuff's kinda touchy, and I think they don't react well."
John looked down at the perfect dough and saw no evidence of a problem. "Looks okay so far, but if they don't turn out, I'll try again with something else." He placed the last piece of dough on the platter and walked it over to the cooking unit -- what Aeryn insisted on calling the "re-hydration unit", since it did that too and that's all she ever used it for.
"Crichton--" Chiana called tentatively.
"Don't worry, Pip, what's the worst that could happen?"
As he slid the platter into the heated chamber, there was a flash of light and noise, feeling of flying, and a thump that ushered in darkness.
When the lights came back on, everything was fuzzy. Where was he? What happened?
He heard voices calling his name. He heard his last name; Coach called them by their surnames, must've taken a hit. He recited the elements, "Ohsee-alfie-ca-mig-nah," just like Coach had told him; the man had insisted that if he had to have a science geek on the team, he'd use it to his advantage.
The voices sounded uncertain. Had he not said it right? Maybe he was more out of it than he thought. He tried again, trying to enunciate clearly. This garnered another voice, even more strident and worried. He repeated the phrase over and over, his mind getting clearer with each repetition, until he managed to open his eyes and remember where he was. The football field was gone, over a decade in the past and who-knew-how-many light-years away. Instead, he was surrounded by his shipmates...his friends.
But what had happened? Why was he on the floor, why did everyone look so worried?
Why did his head hurt so much?
"Ow."
He looked up at the smoke-filled room and remembered his biscuits. And Chiana's warning. "I guess those things don't mix, do they? Should'a listened to Chiana."
For the next few minutes, he endured Zhaan's solicitous examination. "Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?"
"Ohsee-alfie-ca-mig-nah," he replied, still feeling a bit nostalgic. This, of course, confused the others, so he had to explain the source of the phrase. Looking over Aeryn's shoulder, he saw the ruins of the cooking unit.
"Wow. I did this? Damn." It looked a bit like the results of his first -- and last -- experiment with crystalline iodine back in college; he smiled at the memory of that prank.
Hearing another voice querying, he turned back to see Aeryn glaring at him. "He'll be fine," she asserted, shoving him back into the wall and walking away.
John looked around at the others, confused. "What'd I do to piss her off?"
No one seemed to have an answer. Pilot called from the clamshell, "Commander, are you well?"
"Yeah, Pilot," John assured him, struggling to his feet and fighting the dizzy feeling. "I'm all in one piece. Can't say the same for the cooker here, though." He wandered over to look at the damage, and pulled a twisted scrap of metal that had once been his biscuit platter out of the wreckage.
"I will have the DRDs begin repairs immediately."
Chiana wandered into his field of vision and paused to pat his chest, sending up a cloud of flour and dust. She laughed and flounced away, leaving John bemused. He turned to look at the bottles and vials still sitting on the table, strangely untouched by the disaster. "Back to the drawing board, I guess."