fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Was anyone looking slightly worried about the pantry ingredients and refrigerated chests Anakin had hauled out the park? Good. You should be worried. There were also three cooking stations set up, and three stacks of terrible, eye-searing shirts in front of Anakin.

Someone stop him from watching food competitions shows into the early hours, gang. "Today will be a cook off!" he announced far-too-loudly through the megaphone. "As always you will work in teams. Your teams will be divided into pairs and as that pair you will work on an appetizer, then tag in the next pair to complete a main dish, and finally your third team pair will make a dessert!"

That seemed too easy.

"You will be bound together like a three-legged race."

There we go.

"And while the food supplies are overwhelming in the choices available to you, the only equipment you have will be what you would find in a typical college freshman's dorm, or in the home of a recently divorced man. Listen for your names! Don't use your powers!"

TEAM CHEESE
Belle & Lana
Kamala & Miguel
Eleanor & Rey

TEAM SHRIMP
Stark & Boc
Steph & Liliana
Stewart & Raiden

TEAM HOT DOG
Lydia & Arden
Watts & Beaker
Vi & Don

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lydia nibbled rather delicately upon the corner of the Dorito, and then her face...did a thing.

Look, she was English from the year 1810. Even her time in the Caribbean had not prepared her for this. "That is...that is certainly a lot of flavor!" Give her a moment. She studied the chip, turning it over in her fingers and ignoring the way the flavor dust got all over them. For now. "Perhaps we could make some sort of cold salad, to be served in small scoops upon the individual chips?" She might not be able to cook, but she was a gentleman's daughter. She knew how to entertain, which was not an irrelevant skill set.

Edited 2024-05-29 20:01 (UTC)

"That's kinda what I was thinking!" Arden said. "A cold salad or maybe some kind of dip? And if they're arranged neatly on a plate, we'll get points for presentation?"

Ahhh, presentation. The 'class participation' grade of the culinary arts.

"Oh, yes, I'm certain we can make it look nice!" Presentation mattered! If the food looked bad everyone would talk as much shit about you as if it tasted bad. "To the pantry!" Lydia declared, and attempted to start in that direction without remembering that her and Arden's legs were tied together.

"Yes, to the--WHOA!" Arden windmilled a bit in the air as her foot was dragged out from under her. "Lydia! Tied!"

So sorry if she grabbed onto you, Lydia, in an attempt not to topple.

"Sorry!" Lydia cried as she likewise grabbed hold of Arden to prevent her from going down (and taking Lydia with her). "So sorry! I forgot!"

"We're good, we're good!" Arden said, because if she said it enough, it had to be true, right? "Uh, maybe we count time? Like right, left, right, left?"

They were gonna be almost to the pantry by the time their time ran out.

"Yes, but--quickly," Lydia suggested. They had to get something on the plate. Lydia knew that even without having seen Chopped even once.

"Agreed agreed!" Arden said, as they hobbled - quickly! - to the pantry. "I really think I hate the Dean, you know? Like, I'm really pretty sure that he's an evil sadist."

"I would try to put a curse on him, but I don't know if it would take," Lydia confided. "I suspect he's some kind of evil wizard." Just look at that cloak, Arden. It swished suspiciously. "Oh!" She held up an avocado. "We had these in Sainte Josephine. It's green and buttery on the inside." In case Arden didn't know what an avocado was. "I believe it would go well with the chip?"

"Guacamole!" Arden said. "Lydia, you're a genius! We'll make smashed guacamole! I can put the guac together if you'll work on the presentation?"

She started snatching things off the shelves: tomatoes, cilantro, cumin, limes, red onions, jalapenos, adobo, pepper, garlic cloves.

"Okay, this should be good!" Except they had no way to carry all this stuff back, save for their arms which seemed dangerous. "Lydia. I'm gonna need you to hike up your skirts so we can put all this stuff in them."

Do it for the win, Lydia.

Lydia looked for a moment like she was going to protest, then she remembered they had to win and started trying to disentangle her skirts from the bindings on their legs. When she got enough of the outer layer free to hold it out for Arden to put things in, she did so. "Right. Let's go." And hope that no one was blinded by the unmitigated English paleness that was Lydia's legs.

Arden maybe did have a moment of oh my god, girl, for the love of melanin, get a tan, but she kept that to herself and just dumped everything into Lydia's skirts so they could hobble back. "We got this," she said. "We definitely got this. We're not even using a lot of the equipment, so we should be good!"

She was going to pick up that paring knife and scream.

At least he'd given them a paring knife...?

Lydia was definitely struggling on the way back with trying to make sure she didn't drop anything while keeping her hobbling in time with Arden's, but they made it. "I'm going to start selecting the best of the chips," Lydia said. "If you need me to do something else, just tell me, and I'll...I'll do my best." She made no promises.

And a Swiss Army knife. Maybe that could also? Be good for something? Somehow?

Arden picked up the paring knife, set it against the jalapeno, and gave it an incredulous stare as it just pushed the skin of the pepper inwards. "You gotta be fuckin' kidding me, she groaned. "How the fuck--?"

You know what? She was gonna pull her phone out and do a quick internet search for how to sharpen a knife without a sharpener. And it turned out? The internet was fucking magic. "Lydia, hand me that coffee mug?" she asked.

The knife wasn't all that sharp after she'd slid it against the bottom of the coffee mug a number of times. But it was sharper and that was what mattered.

Time to start chopping.

Lydia was busily looking up plating ideas on her own phone. "Do we have any crab?" she asked. Look who was getting all gourmet up in here, although as she pulled her nose out of her phone she realized, "That would probably necessitate a trip back to the pantry. Let's not do that."

"Yeah, I definitely didn't pick any out, sorry," Arden said. "Hey, can you pass me that weird metal spoon? I think the angle it's bent at makes a really good masher..."

"Oh, yes, of course," Lydia said, and handed it to her. Look at her, she was helping! By handing Arden things and arranging chips on the one plate, but still: helping!

There was chipping, there was slicing, there was mashing, and squeezing, and seasoning. Anthem then?

There was guacamole.

"Are we spooning it onto the chips? Or leaving it for people to dip?" asked Arden, frazzled for time.

Dean Skywalker, you dick.

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 29, 2024

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