Posted by Civilian Char’les Harv (Officer’s Mess Chef) in A Day With Koro

Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in A Day With Koro

Posted by Commander Shedda Mal’athar (Executive Officer) in A Day With Koro
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

“You try again. Kitchen magic, like anything worth doing, takes practice. Sometimes you might not get it just right, but you keep working on it,” Shedda told him. Not that she thought this particular day was going to get messed up. Harv would not let any food that wasn’t perfect out of his kitchen. Unless he was tormenting her.

Cmdr. Shedda Mal’athar, Executive Officer

“Exactly. You cook it again until you get it right.” Harv said. “And soon you learn to trust your other senses. Smell… sight… hearing… all of these come into play, Koro. A good chef can tell you when a roast is done to the desired temp just by the smell coming out of the oven. Or when bread is done just by the color of it.’

Harv, Chef

“Wow!” Koro said, his eyes wide. He reached out cautiously and touched the fish again and it was much less squishy. “I think it’s done?” he said to Harv.

~Koro

Harv touched it and said “Good, Koro. Well done. It’s not quite finished, but you always want to pull it off the heat a little early. Thing will continue to cook a little while they cool.” He took a spatula and, with Koro’s help, lifted the fish out and set it on a cutting board. He then pointed to the pan. “See all that stuff on the bottom of the pan? That’s a whole lot of flavor. So how do we get all that flavor out without using water, do you think?”

Harv, Chef

The preschooler screwed up his face as he lifted his gaze towards the ceiling, briefly lost in thought. Finally, he looked back at Harv. “We scrape it off?” he said,

~Koro

“Pretty close, actually. But you don’t want to just scrape it off… you might damage your pan. So we do something called ‘deglaze’ the pan. We use a liquid to kind of loosen it up so it comes off and then we add that liquid to our dish. Here, watch.” Harv grabbed a large green bottle from nearby and poured a generous amount of white wine into the pan. After a few moments, the brown remnants of the seared fish began to come off the bottom of the pan. Harv whisked and stirred for several moments. “Okay. Now those veggies we cooked earlier? Let’s dump them in here, shall we?” he asked. He helped Koro move the vegetables over and pour them into the steaming wine. “Now we let this simmer for a bit. Simmer means very low heat for a while. And while that goes, we will make some bread. Sound good?”

Harv, Chef

Koro nodded eagerly. “How do we make bread? And why can’t you use water to degaz… deglaze the pan?”

~Sair Songz, CNS

Harv said “You can, but water does something called ‘diluting’. That means it makes everything weaker… like the flavors. And since we all like for our food to have flavor, we use things like wine or stock or things like that to add flavor.”

While Koro and Harv were deglazing the pan, Shedda’s com went off. She stepped out of the kitchen to handle whatever was needing her attention.

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Harv watched her leave out of the corner of his eye, and the turned his full attention to Koro. “Now then… a lot of people don’t like wine because it has alcohol in it. Alcohol is an adult drink, not for kids. But when you heat up liquids that have alcohol, the heat cooks it off so there isn’t any left in the liquid. That is called ‘chemistry’. And if you are going to be a chef, you need to know chemistry. How things work with and against each other.”

Chef Harv

Koro was distracted though and only took in part of what Harv was saying. He frowned. “Where did Shedda go?”

~Koro

Shedda stepped back in, “I’m right here, Buddy. Someone had a question for me, and I didn’t want to mess up the magic you are learning from Chef Harv.” She walked over to stand beside him. “So what did Harv tell you about chemistry?” Shedda had been listening at the door even as she had taken care of the brief interruption.

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Koro brightened when Shedda returned. He wasn’t used to people just walking away and while he liked hHarv, he had only had just met the chef. Shedda was a safe person he knew.

“Ummm, ahocol cooks off?” He frowned. “Acohol?” He clearly had heard some of what Harv said, even with his distraction.

~Koro

Harv looked at him for a moment and then knelt down in front of him. “Lad, listen to me very carefully. I know you are young, but there is no better time to learn a few things. First and foremost, if someone is speaking to you? You listen. People will respect you far more if they know you think that what they say is important to you. Two, there are a few places you may go that you need to stay focused. Kitchens are one of them. Kitchens are not the same as a classroom or your living room. They are filled with things that can burn, cut, or make you sick if you don’t pay attention. Okay? So from here on, me and you are like this-” and he took two fingers and pointed back and forth between his and Koro’s eyes, “-, right? All eyes on the work.”

Chef Harv

Shedda nodded, “Harv’s right.” She walked over and hunkered down to his level. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but kitchens can be dangerous. It was important that people that shouldn’t be in here not try to come in.” She touched his arm, “I promise I won’t leave even if you can’t see me. But I also promise I would never let you stay with someone I didn’t trust, okay?”

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO

Koro’s eyes welled with tears. This was all very Serious and given how everything lately was very Serious (even when Mira tried really hard not to make it so), he couldn’t help but feel a lot of things right now. He nodded to both of them. He knew Shedda wouldn’t tell him things that weren’t true, and he knew he had done wrong with Harv but he also didn’t know what that meant now. “Do I go home now?” he asked softly.

~Koro

Shedda couldn’t answer that, it was Harv’s kitchen. She hugged Koro, and looked at Harv over the boy’s head. “It’s alright. We just want you to be safe. You’re doing a good job.”

Harv’s head tilted slightly to the side and he looked at Koro with a confused look. “Home? Kiddo, there is still soup to and bread to make. Besides, didn’t I tell you that now we get to get messy?” and he smiled a warm smile and reached forward and tousled his hair. “C’mon. I’ll let you hit the XO with flour.” and he stood up and led the boy back towards the long metal table.

Harv

Shedda snorted, “Just so long as you don’t try to shove me in the oven and bake me with the bread.”

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO