The cook-off

“Are you looking forward to the challenge?” Benjamin asked his friend. Ethan was one year older and aside from music they had very little in common, but he considered him to be one of his best friends. They were both students, Benjamin studied for a profession as a creative arts therapist and Ethan aimed to be a music technician. And they had decided to try and win a prize in an entertainment show, live on television. In every episode five duo’s had to complete a challenge, these duo’s were randomly picked out of the many teams that had signed up for it, and the winning duo would win a prize. There were a total of ten challenges, each with new prizes. What prize that was wouldn’t be revealed until the live-show started.

So far there had been two different obstacle courses, two quizzes and one challenge in which the teams had to build a model glider out of the materials provides and the team that covered the most distance with their model had won. And today fate picked them to compete.

“Yeah,” Ethan said with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I wonder what task we’ll get.” He lit the cigarette and blew out some smoke. They still had ten minutes before they had to go into the studio and start their next challenge. “I hope it’s something like an obstacle course or building something. I’m not smart enough for a quiz.”

“All you need to do is know everything I don’t and we still have a shot at winning a quiz,” Benjamin replied optimistically.

Ethan shook his head, but couldn’t stop himself from grinning. He wasn’t nervous, but having Ben with him made feel even better about the outcome of the challenge. And if nothing else they’d have a great time together.

 

Ten minutes later they stood in the studio with the other participants. The two hosts, a standard male-female set in a glittery outfit, walked up to the teams.

“Today we’ll have a cook-off!” the blonde woman chirped excitedly.

“What the hell?” Ethan replied, silencing her before she could continue. “Cooking? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No,” the charismatic male host replied. “We’re not kidding. Today we’re cooking! And racing! One of you will have to collect the ingredients from the supermarket down the street and the other has to cook a hot meal without any assistance from your team-member.”

“God no,” Ethan groaned. Why, out of everything this challenge could be, did it have to be cooking? He’d much rather dive in a stinky mud pool covered by mosquito’s to collect a key than to do this. At least he could run to the supermarket and let Ben do the cooking, Ben loved to cook.

“And the cookers will be…” the female host began overly excited as she pointed to a screen.

Ethan looked at it, praying to God his name wouldn’t appear on that screen. “Oh hell no!” he exclaimed when his name was revealed as the cook. “I don’t want to do that!”

The two hosts looked at each. “Do you want to forfeit your chance at the prize?” the male host asked. “Because today that will be…” a drumroll sounded in the back, “a multimedia extravaganza! Two laptops, two draw pads, two mp3-players and credits to buy ten songs online! A complete set for each winner!”

Ethan stared at prize and let out an exasperated sigh, he knew this was one of the prizes Ben had hoped for and to be honest, it was one of the better prizes. He certainly could use a new laptop while Ben had been looking around for a draw pad and he didn’t have a laptop yet. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll cook.” He spoke the words with so much disgust he got a frown from his friend, but with one look he warned him not to say anything.

The curtain lifted and revealed five cooking stations, for every participant one. A panel of judges sat at a table and were introduced by the hosts, one of them was a famous food critic, one was a famous television chef and one was a respectable restaurant owner. They would elect the winner of today’s challenge.

Ethan stomped over to his cooking station, followed on a more leisurely pace by Benjamin.  He looked in the cabinets under the table for cooking materials and threw a cooking pot on the gas stove.

Benjamin leaned against the steel top. “You don’t seem to be looking forward to this.”

“You think?” Ethan snapped as he opened the drawers one for one to see what tools they had and slammed them shut again. As the hosts requested the cooks would write down their ingredients so the runners could gather he grabbed the pen and sheet of paper that had been provided and scowling he scribbled down some ingredients.

“I take it you don’t like cooking,” Benjamin stated as he watched his friend make the ingredient list.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Ethan growled and put down the pen. “There, collect that for me. You’re fast, just get me those things and we can get this over with.”

Benjamin nodded and walked over to the hosts, where he waited for the others to gather too. The hosts explained that the faster they would return the more time their cooks had to prepare their chosen food, because the time to cook would start the second they left the building. And when they were back they had to create a desert by the recipe of the famous chef who’d judge the cook-off, those ingredients were present at the cooking station and would be measured by the cooks in their absence. That was when the female host chirped a ‘good luck!’ and the male host pushed a button that started a digital counter at the wall.

Benjamin and the other four runners grabbed a straw basket and sprinted away. He would have liked the cooking bit, but running was certainly one of his strong suits. Admittedly, making deserts wasn’t his favourite part of cooking, but he didn’t mind. He certainly didn’t mind as much as Ethan seemed to mind cooking in general. He soon got some distance between himself and the others and entered the supermarket first. He didn’t pay any attention to the camera man filming it all. As he walked through the store he collected the requested meat, potatoes, carrots, bell peppers, onions, garlic and spices. After that he hurried over to the beer section to get bottle of dark beer. He had seen how much Ethan wasn’t looking forward to this, so he wanted to make him wait as little as he could. He noticed two other runners were walking through the aisles, desperately searching for what their cook had written down, but the two others were done collecting too. He ran back to the studio, but made sure to not shake the beer too much.

As he ran over to the cooking station of Ethan he glanced at the countdown quickly, he had no idea how long the preparing time was of what Ethan wanted to make, but to his best judgement they had enough time.

“I’ve got everything,” he announced as he put the basket on the steel worktop and the bottle next to it.

Ethan grumbled an answer and he unloaded everything. Without a word he started to peel the potato and carrot with short and fast movements, as if he wanted to mutilate them rather than peeling them.

From the other side Benjamin glanced at Ethan, but soon brought his attention to the recipe of the desert he had to make. Just like Ethan prepared his meal, Benjamin started preparing the custard he needed for the desert, all the ingredient were there and he trusted Ethan had measured everything correctly. He heard Ethan curse at a bloody onion, as he referred to it, and ask why it always had to be such a pain to peel them. That was a pain he knew, onions always made his eyes water too, but he felt it was best to just let Ethan get it out of his system without him interfering. After a while he decided to break the silence between them. “Why do you dislike cooking?” he asked as he glanced aside.

“I hate it,” Ethan grumbled. “I’ve lived by myself for almost a month now and I don’t cook. I eat bread or microwave meals or take-away meals. Unless I eat at my parents place or at a friend’s.”

“So, do you hate cooked meals?”

“Of course not!” Ethan snapped. “I just don’t like making them. The feeling of raw meat is disgusting, preparing potatoes or vegetables is dirty work, the scent of baking lingers and can get in your clothes and hair, you can cut or burn yourself.” As he explained he continued cutting everything with angry movements. “If you do something wrong you can get sick or the food tastes awful and you wasted time and resourced to have made it. Don’t forget it’s boring, but if you go do something else and lose track of time you end up burning everything, again wasting resources and time. And there are so many dirty dishes for just one plate full of food.” He chopped up the final bit of carrot and looked at Benjamin. “And every time I had to cook back home my brothers always had remarks about, it was never good. Never.” He grabbed the meat and started to slice it, the expression on his face changing to disgust when he touched the raw meat. “There was always something wrong. Either it wasn’t cooked enough or overcooked. The taste was never good, too salty, not enough salt, you name it, they could always think about something to say. And still they made me do the cooking when mom wasn’t there! ‘You still have to practice, you do it’. Or ‘we don’t have time, you do it’. Or whatever other excuse they could come up with. And I never wanted to, but what do you do when you’re the youngest and your father if off drinking somewhere and your mother is not there to do the cooking.” He grabbed a kitchen towel to clean his hands and threw it down again. “I really, really hate cooking.”

“I see,” Benjamin said, but Ethan didn’t seem to wait for an answer from him.

Ethan threw the knife in the sink and put in some butter in the cooking pot, where he waited for it to heat up. When most if the bubbles had vanished he threw in the sliced meat. Some droplets of fat splashed up and landed on his hand. “Damn it!” Ethan continued cursing as he shook his hand. “This always happens!” He stomped over to the basket to get the spices and returned to the stove. He looked inside the cooking pot, looked at the counter, in the cooking pot again and sighed. It didn’t take him long to tap his foot on the ground and let out another annoyed sigh. If he could will the meat to get brown enough he would, but cooking took time. That’s what his mother always said. Cooking takes time. And he was never good with waiting, it frustrated him. Finally the meat brown enough he added water and had to wait again for it to finally boil. After that he added the potatoes and a couple of minutes later the carrots. He continued with adding onions and garlic.

After everything boiled for a couple of minutes, Ethan added the spices and some beer to it. When he decided it was enough he put the bottle to his lips and took a sip. The male host wanted to comment on it, but decided against it when he saw the daring glare coming from Ethan.

 

When the time was up the judges came forward to taste the meals. They didn’t hold back when they gave their remarks about either the cooking process or the taste, but they kept their final verdict to themselves.

Ethan stood next to his pot with crossed arms, looking extremely unsatisfied and bored. Unlike Benjamin who was all smiles and happiness, something Ethan just couldn’t master. He only looked briefly at the judges when they arrived and barely listened to the remarks they made about the cooking process. He couldn’t care less. When the chef mentioned he was worried Ethan might have added too much beer he shot the man an angry look, but refrained from commenting. The best part about the cook-off was drinking that beer.

Then the judges proceeded to taste the stew. It was silent for a moment as they looked at each other.

“What?” Ethan asked curtly. “Too much beer? Too much spices? Too few spices? You can tell me, it’s not like I’m not used to comments like that.”

“No,” the food critic said. “This is delicious.”

“Whatever,” Ethan grumbled.

“It really is,” the tv-chef agreed. “I’d like the recipe of this.”

Ethan just looked at him and shrugged.

A curious Benjamin walked over to taste some of the stew himself, there weren’t any rules against it after all. After putting a spoon in his mouth he blinked twice and looked at Ethan. “It really is delicious,” he said. “I thought you said you hate cooking.”

“What? I’m not allowed to know how to make one dish properly because of how I feel about cooking? Screw you, Ben.”

In the end the decision of the judges was unanimous, while Benjamin’s desert wasn’t perfect, they loved Ethan’s stew and they declared them the winners.

“Aren’t you happy?” Benjamin asked.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Ethan sighed.

“Do you want to go for a drink tomorrow and celebrate our victory?”

Ethan shrugged. “Fine with me. The Old Oak, at four?” The Old Oak was a bar they visited often, so it wasn’t a surprise when an affirmative nod came from Benjamin,

 

The next day Benjamin walked over to the Old Oak and saw Ethan sitting at a table on the terrace with two pints on a table. He walked over quickly, but slowed down when he noticed how unhappy Ethan looked. “Hey there,” he said as he went to the table. “Everything okay with you?”

“Does it look like everything is okay with me?” Ethan grumbled.

“What happened?” Benjamin sat down and looked at him.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“The results of the live-show are all over the internet and in newspapers! The underdog won, the reluctant cook beat everyone else with his ‘amazing’ stew. The food critic loved it, the tv-chef wants the recipe, reporters smeared all that out in their articles. Everyone talks about it, damn it! That bloody food critic posted a column about my meal in one of the best newspapers of the country, praising it!”

Benjamin couldn’t recall anyone talking so outraged about being praised for something.

“It’s just food, there’s nothing special about it,” Ethan continued, “but people who read his column and value his opinion already contacted me on my social media. And the newspaper called, they got so many positive reactions to the column and the article about the show they want to do a damned interview with me. And the television chef was on the radio this morning, telling about how surprised he was by what I produced, because when he saw me working he didn’t see a cook in me. The DJ thought it was a neat idea to call me to invite me to join their conversation about it, but I hung up. I didn’t want to. I don’t care about it, I cooked yesterday and that’s it. I don’t want to be bothered with anymore, but people can’t leave me alone about it!” He slammed both fists on the table and he leaned forward. “I got family asking me why I never told them I could cook and want the recipe, I got cooks who contacted me because they want to know the recipe so they can make my ‘amazing’ stew. I get held up on street by strangers to tell me how much they enjoyed the show, enjoyed watching me cook and how I deserved the price. They didn’t even taste it! Hell, they just want to talk to me so they can tell their friends and family they met me. And to make matters worse, I got called by a women’s magazine for an invitation to cook this stew with the ladies and they would devote an article to it!”

Benjamin listened to Ethan’s rant as he drank from the beer, he wasn’t quite sure what Ethan hated most: cooking or being called by a women’s magazine about it.
“I don’t want to cook!” Ethan continued in a heated voice. “And now people do nothing but bother me about my cooking! I swear, the next stranger who walks up to me and comments about the show yesterday, I will punch them in the face.” He grabbed his glass from the table. “Even if it’s a woman!” he added before gulping down some beer. “I got praise and requests for the recipe the entire day. I wish people would just leave me alone!”

“I’m sure it will pass,” Benjamin began, but he stopped when Ethan glared at him. He cleared his throat before he continued, the next one to be punched could easily be him if he said the wrong thing. “Look, fame like this usually only lasts until the next sensation comes along. Just wait it out.”

“Wait it out?! Damn it, Ben, I want them to stop now! I should never have cooked on that stupid show! I don’t want to be reminded about it every bloody minute of the day!” He downed his beer and gestured to the bartender for another one. “I don’t want people to know me or remember me about a stupid stew anyone could make, I wish they would care about my music, about our music like that. But they don’t, hardly anyone knows we even exist!”

Benjamin had to admit Ethan had a point, the small band they had with a third friend was barely known. It was hard to get anyone to hire them for an event, so mostly they just played for the fun of it.

“If only it had been a music challenge, we would win that with no problems and then I wouldn’t have minded the fame. I would have loved to break through with music. But no, it had to be a cook-off.” He pulled a face as he spoke the last word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I really don’t want to hear anything about it anymore. I think I’ll go to the mountains for a couple of days.”

“But you hate going to the mountains.”

Ethan scowled and grabbed the beer a waiter brought to him. “Not as much as this,” he growled before taking a sip.

 

*** © Mariska Bekker ***