WHOSE CUISINE REIGNS SUPREME? [OPEN]
Characters: Cooks, judges, spectators, and of course the MC
Content: WHO WILL BE THE NEXT LIGHTNING CHEF REIAL?
Setting: A field just outside of town, scattered with pavilions.
Time: Around mid-morning
Notes: As was mentioned in the OOC post here, each cook and assistant team will have a thread for food preparation. If your assistant is ICly ( Read more... )
Content: WHO WILL BE THE NEXT LIGHTNING CHEF REIAL?
Setting: A field just outside of town, scattered with pavilions.
Time: Around mid-morning
Notes: As was mentioned in the OOC post here, each cook and assistant team will have a thread for food preparation. If your assistant is ICly ( Read more... )
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Due to the large number of military in the audience, Angel had given herself a bit of a makeover. Not anything too drastic, just enough to throw off suspicion. Her beret was off, her bangs were pinned back completely, for once, and the rest of her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, held in place by a pair of chopsticks and decorated with pins that happened to look like sushi rolls. She was also wearing a small pair of librarian-style glasses that she normally reserved for reading in order to obscure her distinct case of heterochromia.
"I do," she replied calmly. "My assistant will be the lovely and talented Anthy Himemiya, also from the Serenity." Angel looked over her shoulder towards her chosen assistant, to see if Anthy was going to come forward to say something into the MC's microphone. If she did, Angel would gladly step aside.
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Though she had noticed Angel's change of appearance, it did not occur to her that Angel might not want to be recognized. Anthy herself did not particularly want to be recognized, but it was too strange to think both of them might have reasons. Thus Anthy's long hair was bound neatly up and covered with a cap so that the color was not noticeable, and her small red tattoo was covered with powder. She had her own glasses on for more mundane reasons, while she didn't wear them most things, she did use them for reading and sometimes cooking. She hoped to look innocuous and unnoticeable next to the pretty Angel.
Then it was back to Angel she turned, waiting for the first instructions.
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With that, he hurried off to set up the remaining competitors.
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She explained to Anthy, "We can't start preparing food until the start signal, but there's nothing stopping us from taking a look at what ingredients they've provided us. There should be plenty of fruit and grain," she noted - the former would compliment the romantic, flowery atmosphere of the festival, the latter would provide a strong, comforting base to their food - "but I doubt they gave us many actual flowers to work with."
Hopefully she was mistaken in that. The beautiful color and delicate appearance of flowers was easily imitated, sure enough. But the lovely fragrance and subtle flavor of flowers would be more difficult to evoke without using the real thing.
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There were classic dishes that were prepared with flowers, certainly. Stuffed and batter fried squash blossoms, various sweets made with roses, violets and lavender. Salads served with fresh nasturtium, calandula, pansies and borage. But would the judges deduct points for preparing for sticking with well prepared classic dishes? Did you need to add a twist? Or....
Anthy was glad Angel was the one who had to make those decisions.
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She began searching through the pavilion - and ended her search only a moment later, having quickly stumbled on a large basket filled to the brim with flowers. They were all edible, and every last one was already cleaned and separated from the stem.
"... well. I guess I was wrong." She gave a pleased smirk. "Good. These should work nicely."
Specifically, there was a nice selection of plum blossoms which caught her eye. It would have been better if they were candied, but nonetheless, they would add a stunning visual element to the dish.
With that, she was content. She continued to look around the area anyway, making sure not to touch anything to ensure the crowd that she wasn't getting started with cooking yet. But as soon as that MC was finished talking...
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She leaned over slightly to inspect the blossoms, noting they way the had been prepped. She had supposed it was to be expected, after all, it was a flower festival and even the cooking contest would be aimed towards entertaining the festival goers, who might want just that. After all, most attendees wouldn't be elite chefs interested in the more esoteric nuances of cooking. It would probably just interest them to see how the flowers could be prepared.
"What shall we do now?" she asked. She was ready to start working.
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First, it should be noted, there was a great deal of sweet, confectionery ingredients that would allow a master to create a gorgeous cake. She barely glanced at these. While there was a great deal of room for creativity and artistry in cake decorating, it did not fit her idea of the Hanami Festival.
Instead, her attention was focused on the fresh, natural ingredients that had been provided. Ripe fruits, fresh spices, a jar of golden honey. On one shelf there was a large, gnarled ginger root was begging to be peeled and grated. She couldn't look in the ice box, but she could be certain the contest had provided plenty of milk and eggs.
But what really brought her idea together was turning her attention to the equipment: they had been provided with an ice-cream maker. That was going straight to the top of their list of priorities. They would need all three hours ( ... )
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With that, she set to work peeling the ginger. The skin was thin and fragile, meaning there was no need to use a knife or peeler. Instead, she pulled out a spoon and used the tip of it to scrape off the skin, leaving the flesh of the root almost perfectly untouched.
The skin was discarded, and Angel set to work grating the actual ginger root. There was probably more than she needed here, but better to have too much than too little prepared for this. Besides, the rest could be worked into something else, if they had enough time. Tea, perhaps.
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When Angel had washed her ginger she washed her eggs carefully. It wasn't mentionable in polite society, but Anthy did know what could be on a freshly laid egg from time to time. While she was no country girl, Ohtori Academy did have agricultural classes, and Anthy had participated in some of the livestock ones as well as the horticultural ones. After all, gentry should know how to instruct their laborers. Theoretically.
Finding what she needed, she cracked the eggs and separated them, yolks in one bowl, whites in another. Fortunately, the eggs were fresh and of the best quality, the yolks firm and more orange than yellow. On the 4423 Anthy had been exposed to cheap factory-farmed eggs. The yolks of those were pale and watery, and broke much more easily. As the cities became more crowded, apparently they were becoming more popular.
Now she waited for Angel's next instruction.
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"Now, we'll be needing... let's see... six cups of cream and two cups of milk. Get those together in a saucepan. I'll be adding this ginger as soon as I'm finished with it."
Which hopefully wouldn't take too much longer. It wasn't difficult to grate ginger, but she needed at least half of a cup of it, which took a bit of time to prepare.
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