Vanilla

Thirty Six

A/N: I hope you're all doing okay ;-; it's now a semi-lockdown over here so I'm mostly stuck at home too. I am no longer provided the writing luxury of pleasant reading rooms or libraries, Starbucks or quaint little cafes, and dealing with four walls is hard but! If anything, I am most aware of the strength and size of the human mind that extends far, far beyond any wall. 

Walls are internal. That is all.

Enjoy!

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[Violet]

I stared down at whatever we had on the table and almost at once, couldn't believe I had the gall to pick someone who had zero grasp of complementary flavours or even the concept of food. Granted, Park wasn't my first, second, or even my third choice when it came to partnering up for any sort of duo contest. Landing someone with the same level of expertise with savoury dishes as I did with sweets wasn't easy, and with Tenner's absence for the past three weeks and number two being another yellow, Cox had been my next best bet.

Watching him take his dish to the judges up front wasn't the most pleasant experience. Right next to him was Park with his lacklustre gnocchi that screamed 'subpar' in presentation, fragrance and overall first impressions. Frankly speaking, none of the judges looked a tad bit impressed by either of them which was, like, a relief since it sort of meant we had this in the bag. Glasses boy wasn't going to produce some miracle dessert that could beat anything I made, anyway.

"We'll start with Team A's gnocchi."

The female judge in the middle was the only one I couldn't put a name to. The one on the right was Chef Marseille's wife, some food journalist from the Times and the one on the left was the dean of a rival school. I'd seen him once at a cocktail dad hosted over the summer break. His son was pretty decent but he'd butchered the word rendezvous and I can't possibly date someone without basic conversational French in their head.

Park was a third-year. Yet, he'd almost made his gnocchi with just flour and eggs so naturally I was like, what? No one makes gnocchi without potato, everyone with common sense knows that. How else is he going to get that light and fluffy texture? And does he really think he can beat anyone with flour and eggs? Wow.

If I hadn't told him to add fresh beetroot juice for that natural colour and flavour, he'd be serving the judges his last meal or something. A single glance at whatever Cox had made sort of confirmed this either way—their dish was a contender. There was nothing the judges could find fault with.

"The texture of the gnocchi is something I'd have in a restaurant. Good job on that." Marseille's wife has common sense. "The colour on it too, is fantastic. I like the sweetness of the beetroot. It compliments the butter sauce and gives the whole dish a very natural look, with the edible flowers too."

The rest of them sort of agreed. I say sort of because they didn't seem to have anything else nice to say and were wiping their mouths, loading their pistols. Already, the guy from the rival school was shaking his head with the worst kind of smile on his face.

"Julia. This is not gnocchi." Wow. He was picking at his plate. "This is food for a rabbit. It's tasteless. Bland. Did you even season this?"

I was the one who'd reminded Park to lay off additional rounds of salt and pepper. One, two cracks was fine but more than that would've messed with the edible flowers and, wow, if some dean of a culinary school didn't know that, he's... he's kinda stupid. Yes, I was offended.