Out of the Frying Pan And Into the Fire

[Varindar Asyt]

Although she didn't like to admit it, it took forever to get a loyalty card filled, and the restaurant had to record a Loyalty Card Expense as well as a Loyalty Card Liability, while being mindful that, unlike stuff like weapons, meals cannot be inventoried, and hence no such thing as a Premium Inventory. And yet today would likely be the day where the final hole in her loyalty card will be punched. Depending on what [member="Sofiaya Kaluchi"] wanted to eat, she will have the same meal. I hope that Sofiaya wants something simple for her pyro/cryo lessons, and also a seventh option on the dessert menu was given: ice cream, she thought, before waiting for the new padawan at the Crown Nebula's main entrance well after the lunch rush hour was over, but before check-in time. Yet, like these 20 orphaned Jedi that once rented rooms here that she had for guests, it was likely that Sofiaya never saw the insides of a five-star property, hotel or restaurant. When she finally could see her through the hotel's main entrance, she greeted her before she could be brought inside the hotel's kitchen for the pyro/cryo lesson of the day. Hopefully she will like Sofiaya's cooking because they will be eating partially based on their cooking.

"Welcome to the Crown Nebula Hotel. I trust you came for a free lesson in pyrokinesis and cryokinesis; however, if you came here to rent a room, the hotel is full for tonight"

 

[Sofiaya Kaluchi]

Sofiaya walked in, briefly admiring the property before following [member="Varindar Asyt"] into the kitchen. She'd only stayed in a hotel twice, with her parents. It had been fancy, but nothing like this.

"Uh, yeah, thank you," she said with a slightly awkward smile.

The blonde Zelosian felt like this meeting had an air of taboo around it, at least for a Jedi. But her master wouldn't be finding out, so what's wrong with learning some new skills.

She hadn't had any fancy food for almost two years. She also wondered why they were practicing on food. Hopefully whatever they were having would be good. She looked at the menu, seeing ice cream and her eyes nearly bugged out. She was quite partial to the frozen confection, although sugar made her species drunk. Maybe that's why she loved it.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Let's have some salt-and-pepper calamari then"

Varindar thus proceeded to take [member="Sofiaya Kaluchi"] into the kitchen, not suspecting, in fact, that the student of the day was a Zelosian and hence she had to be mindful of any sugary ingredient. She had to choose a recipe that contained as little glucose as possible for a main course, then. Luckily there was very little glucose in a salt-and-pepper calamari; the locally-fished squid was already washed away so she could prepare the batter upon entering the hotel's kitchen. Which amounted to dredging the squid pieces into the batter for later inclusion into a pan of oil. But when the two of them arrived at the kitchen, there was no oil pan ready so Varindar had to summon the pan and the can of frying oil by telekinetic motions. Once she was ready to give her explanations and instructions to the Zelosian, she was, in fact, preparing the batter by pouring water into a flour mixture called tempura, and, once that was done, dredging the calamari in the batter would be taking place once the oil was, in fact, boiling. She had a clear game plan in mind for the pyrokinesis portion of the meal, and, as a cook, she had to be mindful of the recipe's complexity, while keeping some red wine, sesame oil, garlic, white pepper, onions and peppers for later.

"The thing with pyrokinesis is that you're using the Force to make the molecules dance faster, and the dancing tempo is called the temperature. Sometimes you hit a temperature plateau where the stuff ceases heating up for a bit until it starts heatng up again; typically, when that happens you're either melting or boiling something. You will learn later that cryokinesis is the reverse idea, whereby you're instead looking at calming down molecules. With that said, heat up the oil until it boils"

 

[Sofiaya Kaluchi]

Sofiaya was fairly good at cooking from being expected to make her own meals as a child. Salt and pepper calamari sounded good, and she couldn't stop the fancy dinner party flashbacks, that her parents would host. She'd always have to cook some stupid lavish meal, then go to her room while random rich adults streamed into their mansion, dancing to 'sophisticated' music and acting like they wanted to be there. She never really minded. After she cooked she could go to her room, watch TV and read. She blinked quickly, drawing herself from her reverie when [member="Varindar Asyt"] began to talk. She nodded. It made sense. Sofiaya hadn't finished school, but she'd always found science intriguing. Sofiaya wasn't used to using the force that much, but supposed it couldn't be that hard. Dancing. Not something she did often. Or at all. She knew the gist of it, though. She concentrated on the air around the pot, not exactly sure of what she was doing and tried to make it dance, focusing on spiraling motions. She opened her eyes, not realizing that she closed them and saw that she'd succeeding in making the oil bubble. A little.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"The oil has heated up some but it's not hot enough yet to place the tempura squid in it: you could make the oil hotter if you focus on the oil. One more thing for the future, if you're using pyro for cooking: if you use pyrokinesis directly upon a food, such as a potato, or bantha steak, the end result would be very much like oven-baking it"

[member="Sofiaya Kaluchi"] did, in fact, make some headway into making the oil suitable for frying the squid in tempura batter, which also contained a tablespoon of red wine; just that it was Varindar's turn to use pyrokinesis on the other pan, used for cooking what makes a salt-and-pepper calamari, well, more than just calamari. She began with pouring half a teaspoon of sesame oil so that the other ingredients won't stick to the pan once it's over. The hotelier started by adding garlic and ginger; she knew that time was of the essence when stirring those items and time was short to then put the green, red peppers and the onions, all of those being diced in a food processor beforehand, in the pan in question. Of course, I'm nowhere near as good a cook as an executive chef in a 5-star restaurant, but I did cook here in my early days here, before I was transferred to front desk. Now I'm doing her a favor, she thought, while she put the vegetables into a separate bowl so that it can later be sprinkled over the squid once it's fried. Once the squid is ready, then it would be their turn to put salt and white pepper.

"Once the oil boils, you can then drop the squid into the oil pot"

 

[Sofiaya Kaluchi]

"Okay," the teenager responded.

Sofiaya focused on the oil this time, a bit more confident than she was when she first tried. The oil bubbled a bit more. It was weird, trying to move individual molecules. But together. Kinda like the order, she supposed. Many people working toward a common goal. Maybe she would be staying. As she continued trying to heat up the oil, it seemed like it wasn't working for a few seconds, then all of a sudden, it was boiling quickly. It looked like she could add in the squid now, so she slowly levitated it into the bowl, careful not to splash the hot oil.

"What now?" she asked [member="Varindar Asyt"].

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Now, put in the battered squid into the oil, and don't forget to split those into two plates and then sprinkle the salt and white pepper"

With that said, there was a table specifically earmarked for them in the restaurant, so that they could eat the stuff with the proper service they would be expecting from a five-star restaurant. Also, [member="Sofiaya Kaluchi"] would likely want the proceeds of the next lesson to be served alongside the main course once the meal would be ready to serve at the table. So, with that said, she distributed the vegetables onto the plates, as a bedding for the squid, and then she looked at the reserves of powdered ice cream. Sure it made the ice cream easier to churn and easier to adjust, just that few complaints were voiced about the ice cream by restaurant guests, but guests that would be complaining about ice cream typically would find the main course better than the ice cream has been. For simplicity, she would simply be having the same flavor as Sofiaya is having.

"Just for the second phase of the lesson, which ice cream flavor would you like? Once that phase of the lesson ends, then we can get a seat at the restaurant table"

 

[Sofiaya Kaluchi]

Sofiaya followed the instructions carefully, dividing the squid into two plates and adding the salt and pepper. She wondered where they were going to be eating. She watched [member="Varindar Asyt"] prepare the vegetables until she noticed the powdered ice cream. She didn't really mind it, it tasted okay and was gloriously sugary. It'd been a while since she'd had sugar. Naturally, most Jedi tried to keep her away from it and desserts were a luxury she rarely had time for when bounty hunting. You can't really go hunting intoxicated. Chocolate was definitely one of her favorite things, and she hoped Varindar had some.

"Chocolate, please," she responded with a slight smirk.

 

[Varindar Asyt]

"Yes; in fact, it's a common flavor among people who wanted ice cream"

In fact, it's important for Jedi to not only gain the Force-tools of self-reliance, but also to maintain morale; Jedi with morale problems tend to be more vulnerable to the call of the dark side. Now Sofiaya will actually know how good a cook I am, she thought, while realizing that it was the main reason why Silvers hosted so many social events. True, her life as a five-star hotel general manager did, at times, overburden her, but she had to do everything in her power to get the hotel operating in full. Plus she was lucky that there were no covenants attached to her loan, refinanced at her old bank, that are ratio-based: these were nightmares for hoteliers. Just that, once the meals were ready, they were put under cloches, kept in reserve until the cryokinesis lesson was over. Now that the flavor was chosen, the cryokinesis part of the lesson was now to begin in earnest, with the contents of the powdered ice cream bag to be shared between both cups before she was to do anything with it. So that they could, in fact, get the ice cream done, with the new set of instructions to be given out to [member="Sofiaya Kaluchi"]:

"Cryokinesis is about calming molecules down, the reverse operation of pyrokinesis, with the same caveats. Now that you have a grip on pyro, you have an idea of how to reverse it; please try to do so on the powdered ice cream in the cups"