Deja Ortega: Oddsbreaker Page 14

  “Well, I f-found out that some of the inmates w-were hoarding torran p-peach pits for the arsenic in them. Th-they planned to poison the w-warden and s-some g-guards in an escape attempt.”

  “Peach pits. Huh.”

  “Sí. And s-so I tried to blow the whistle. But n-not before the bad guys stomped on me.”

  “I see. Well, I’m glad the detention bot found you when it did. How are you feeling?”

  “Muy mal. About as you’d expect,” he added. “I’m up for double knee replacements in a few days. Sh-should be q-quite the adventure.”

  “Oh, Papá. I’m so sorry. I’m sure they’ll do a splendid job, though. GJC doctors are the best in the biz. Even old Tina wouldn’t be able to match them,” she said, referring to the physician who used to be part of their troupe.

  “N-no. I imagine n-not. Mija, don’t worry. I’ll be f-fine. You just concentrate on whatever you’re d-doing. And…g-give your f-friend my thanks.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I already thanked him, don’t worry.”

  “Should that worry me, Deja?” A sly smile settled on his face.

  “Um,” she stammered. “No. Of course not.”

  “If you say so.” He yawned.

  “Ah, I’ve kept you up too long. Get some more sleep, OK? Te amo.”

  “Te amo.”

  “Sleep well. I’ll talk to you again as soon as I can.”

  “B-bueno. Adios, mija.”

  Before the sun had crested the horizon, Deja found herself wide awake with her head stuffed in a black sack. Yet her heart wasn’t spasming in fear. Instead, she was just curious. This was all part of the competition. Sitting in some kind of moving vehicle alongside some other contestants, Deja tried to keep track of the turns and stops but soon gave up. All she could tell is that they had been traveling for about two hours.

  At last, the vehicle halted, and someone opened the doors with a creak. A voice spoke in front of her. “Give me your hands, please, and step down.” So she did. Someone gripped Deja’s hands and helped her step out of the vehicle. She waited for the hood to come off, but no one removed it. Instead, she was prompted to place her hand on someone’s shoulder and follow behind with slow steps. They wound this way and that, with Deja straining to hear anything that would clue her in on where they were. At last, her guide stopped and said, “Good. Stand right there and wait to take off the hood until we give the signal, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” she said, adrenaline revving up for whatever battle lay ahead. She soon heard others being given similar directions. Must be a group challenge! she thought.

  “Welcome, one and all, to the first team trial of the Ultimate Chef of the Galaxy!” Deja recognized the voice; it belonged to the show’s host, Chub Dornack. “Cheftestants,” Chub continued, “please remove your head coverings! The fun is about to begin!”

  Deja reached up and pulled off the sack, blinking in the bright light. She and several others stood in a huge factory of some kind. Holocams and spotlights were trained on the cluster of contestants, which included herself, Chefs Boyar, Glass, and Gaskón plus a Rekloran chef who was unknown to her.

  Chub, the teal Vinadroan, stood next to a massive wooden box, which was hooked to a series of ropes that led to a large crane. What’s under there? It’s gotta be something awesome! Deja mused.

  Chub gestured to the enormous container. “Under this crate, chefs, you will see your next culinary challenge! On three, we will reveal the food that you and your team must recreate as faithfully as possible. One, two, three…” The crane lifted the box, and Chub said, “Behold, I give you, guntlegracci!” As the crate rose up, Deja glimpsed a giant, sausage-shaped tube of meat that was over seven feet long and probably weighed in at one hundred pounds. Whoa!

  “Yes, folks, it is the premium meat product known for its superb taste, high fat content, and challenging preparation that all originated right here in the Vinadroan town of Guntlegrella! And all of you together must make one guntlegracci sausage in just nine hours using some spectacular wild boar. In this round, we have the following chefs: Chef Bastian Boyar, Chef Riva Glass, Chef Louis Gaskón, Chef EvaLynn Dubois, and Chef Geckuano Skal. Will you all collaborate for culinary perfection? Or will you fight and then fail? For this challenge, you will choose a team captain. You have five minutes to decide!”

  Deja and the others soon hustled into a tight little circle. Bastian spoke first. “I’ve made plenty of guntlegraccis in my day. Does anyone else have any experience with them?”

  “Me,” Deja said. “I’ve helped make the Italian version of the meat. It’s known as ‘mortadella’ back on Old Earth. I know ratios and so on. I’m also good with machines.”

  “Great,” Chef Boyar replied just as Chef Glass tried to interrupt him. “No, just listen. I want to be team leader. I have home court advantage here. We will succeed if I am captain.”

  Skal said, “Fine by me,” while Gaskón just nodded. The porcine chef looked a bit off color, probably because they would be cooking with pork, which he didn’t eat.

  “Agreed,” Deja said. Chef Glass opened her mouth then closed it again.

  With that, they lined back up in front of Chub, who said, “Ahh, we have a decision. Who is the lucky leader?”

  “I am,” Chef Boyar said.

  “Excellent. You now have nine hours starting…now!” Chub declared. He clapped and five mobile holocams buzzed around the group of contestants.

  “OK,” Bastian said as they huddled again, “I want Gaskón assembling the spice mixture. Dubois, you help him with the portions of each spice. Then carve out the belly and back fat—about twenty-seven pounds. You and Gaskón need to chop one-third of the fat into quarter-inch cubes for show pieces. Cut the rest into big bits for the grinder. Then stuff it in the blast chiller until we’re ready to grind it.”

  Deja and Louis nodded. Bastian turned to the other two teammates. “Glass, measure out two pounds, nine ounces of guntle nuts and five ounces of whole peppercorns. Both ingredients need to be cleaned and blanched. When you’re done with that, measure out nine cups each of red wine and water and put those fluids in the blast chiller.

  “Skal and I will select about sixty-three pounds of choice lean meat and cut it into rough hunks for the grinder. Glass, you can help us with that when you’re done with the other tasks. OK, everybody, let’s get to it!”

  “Yes, chef!” they all answered.

  “You okay, Louis?” Deja asked when the other chef failed to move.

  “I…I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just feeling a bit out of sorts.”

  “I understand.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and he smiled a bit.

  “Thanks. Now help me figure out what spices we want and in what quantity?”

  “Yep,” she said. “Let’s go.” She let her hand drop from his shoulder, and then they both turned to dash toward the large pantry. Inside, she saw huge jars of so many spices it made her breathe in sharply. The scents of all the spices caressed her like a long-lost lover. Brushing those feelings aside, she grabbed a data pad on a nearby table and started scribbling out measurements and figures while Gaskón commented over her shoulder, making a few additions and corrections.

  “OK, since we are working with about ninety pounds of meat, I figure that we will want the following amount of spices: one pound, eleven ounces of salt; two-point-five ounces of curing agent; five ounces of white pepper; one-point-two-five ounces of coriander; three-point-eight ounces of garlic; two-point-five ounces of anise; two-point-five ounces of mace; one-point-two-five ounces of caraway; and two-point-five ounces of holante. Whew.” She paused, tallying that up. “That’s just over three pounds of spices!”

  “Indeed!” said the other chef.

  “Here, double check my figures and start assembling the mixture while I go butcher some fat.”

  “Will do.” He took the data pad from her. She sprinted to the meat locker, red-and-silver hair billowing with her movement. There, Bastian and Geckuano were alr
eady hewing out hand-sized blocks of lean meat and shoveling the growing piles into metal wheelbarrows. For a moment, she marveled at the immense amount of meat and fat in the freezer. How many wild boars died for this? I’d better not mess this up!

  The left side of the meat locker held row after row of fatty meat on hooks. She grabbed a nearby cleaver, sharpened it, and set to work, carving off fat with efficient yet artistic strokes—sort of like sculpting a marble statue in reverse because she wasn’t discarding the pieces she carved off.

  “How are you doing?” asked the cheerful Chub through the holocam flying near her shoulder.

  “Just fine. Busy, though.”

  “OK, carry on!”

  Before long, even in the cold air, sweat poured down her face and across her chest and back. She panted a bit as she labored, pausing only long enough to check the weight of the belly and back fat that she’d collected thus far. OK, I need another five pounds, then I’m good. At that point, Louis appeared, followed by a separate hovercam.

  “Where do you need me?” he asked.

  “Over there,” she pointed to a nearby metal table piled with glistening fat. “Start chopping all that up into quarter-inch cubes and putting it in the bowl. We need nine pounds.”

  “Got it.” Gaskón trotted over to the appointed station and selected a knife. Naturally, he first sharpened the knife with a few quick strokes. Then he began chopping up the show fat. Meanwhile, she finished hewing out enough belly fat and wiped her brow. Then she joined him, standing on the other side of the stainless-steel table.

  “We can do this. You can do this,” Deja told the chef, whose pink skin still looked a bit pale.

  “I won’t let you down,” he said, eyes focused on his hands, which were busy mincing up the lard into lovely little chunks.

  “It’s looking great,” she encouraged him, now also chopping up ounce after ounce of fat into quarter-inch pieces. Before too long, Deja stopped him. “Let’s get this weighed,” she said. Louis carried the bowl over to the scale.

  “Nice,” he said when the numbers flashed on the scale. “We’re only off by less than a quarter of a pound.”

  “Yep. You finish dicing the rest that we need, and I’ll start chopping up about eighteen pounds of fat into rough hunks for the grinder.”

  Just as they separated, Chef Glass appeared, running into the meat locker so fast she might as well have had a Felxian cat chasing her. The older chef ignored Deja and Louis, heading straight for Boyar and Skal’s station. “Where are we at with the meat?” demanded the woman.

  “Just need another thirty pounds or so,” Boyar said.

  Eyebrows arched, Chef Glass said, “That much? What have you two been doing all this time?”

  Deja glanced over, somehow not surprised. The gall of that woman! Bastian straightened and glared at Chef Glass, his large ears folding back a little. “We’ve been working just as hard as you, chef. Don’t start making trouble now.”

  “Oh, ho!” said Chub suddenly through one of the airborne cameras. “Do we have a fight brewing here?”

  Bastian looked up at the device and frowned. “No, we are having an adult conversation. The only thing we’ll be brewing is a victory.”

  Chef Glass harrumphed but didn’t say anything further. Instead, she began carving up the remaining meat into grindable hunks and tossing them into one of two wheelbarrows.

  “All right,” the host’s disembodied voice said. “Keep up the teamwork. Let’s see what Dubois and Gaskón are up to!”

  “We’re hacking up the fat, sir!” she chimed in. Deja wiped away more sweat with the back of her sleeve as she and Louis worked.

  “Mind your fingers!” advised Chub.

  “Thanks,” she and Gaskón said.

  “Louis, can you throw the show fat in the blast chiller?”

  “No problem. Be right back,” he said.

  After he returned, they spent a good ten minutes chopping the lard into rough pieces. As they were about to weigh it, Chub himself strolled in.

  “Pray tell, how much fat did you reap?”

  “Hopefully about eighteen pounds for grinding,” Deja answered as Gaskón moved the wheelbarrow onto the scale.

  “Well, you’ve done it! You’ve got just over eighteen pounds! Nice precision, folks!”

  “Oh, yeah,” Deja said joyfully, then high-fived her partner. Shifting her attention to their captain, she said, “Chef Boyar, shouldn’t we blanch those pieces of show fat before they’re incorporated into the ground meat?”

  “Oh, yes, quite right,” Bastian replied. “Good catch, Chef Dubois.”

  “Thanks,” Deja replied, smiling. “Gaskón, that diced fat should be chilled enough. Put this batch of lard in the blast chiller. While you’re there, grab the show fat and meet me at the stove!” she yelled, already headed out of the walk-in cooler to the area where she could find the water-boiling station. She found a few enormous, self-heating pitchers of water not far from the meat locker. The oddsbreaker pressed the buttons that would get the water boiling in under three minutes. Louis soon joined her, bowl of cubed lard in hand.

  “Shall I get some ice water ready?” he asked, setting down the bowl.

  “Well, well, well,” Chub said as he strolled over with two holocams in tow, “what are you working on now?”

  “Just going to blanch the fat so it is better incorporated into the meat emulsion,” Deja replied. To her partner, she said, “Yes, get some ice water ready and a large colander.”

  Louis rummaged around the cabinets and found a bowl for the ice and a colander for the fat. “Be right back,” he said. When he came back with the bowl partly full of ice, the boiling water was ready to go. He put some cold water in the bowl of ice and plunked it into the sink; they’d use that to quench the fat after blanching.

  Wordlessly, while Chub chattered on, the two contestants worked to put the fat in the strainer, pour a cascade of the boiling water over the cubes of lard, and stir them around a little. Steam billowed up, making her and Louis sweat. After only about a minute or so, Deja plunged the colander down into the ice water. Steam erupted again, but not as much.

  “Whew!” the host declared. “Looking hot!”

  “Oh, always,” Deja said with a smirk at one of the cameras. “Let’s get this in the blast chiller with the rest of the fat,” she told Gaskón. When they had done just that, they met up with the rest of their team to plan the next crucial few hours.

  “OK,” said Chef Boyar, “we’ve put the meat in the blast chiller. It will take a precious thirty minutes for the meat and fat to get cold enough to put it through the grinder the first time. I’m setting a timer. Dubois, I want you with me. We’re going to do a maintenance check on all the equipment. Gaskón, you’re going to get the spice mixture loaded in the food processing machine. Join Dubois and I as soon as you’re through. Skal and Glass, I want you to clean up the mess we’ve left behind. And do it fast.”

  “Yes, chef,” they all echoed, though Chef Glass didn’t say it that loudly.

  “Dubois, let’s check the grinder first.” So they did. After poking about a bit, Deja didn’t see anything wrong with the machine’s innards. Bastian flipped on the “chill” function for the grinder so that it, too, would be ice cold when grinding the meat and fat.

  “Does everything look good?” asked the porcine chef as he approached.

  “So far, so good,” the oddsbreaker affirmed.

  After that, Deja messed around with the sausage stuffer and food processor but found no issues. Those machines also had a chill feature, which Bastian activated. And, as far as Deja could tell, the sous vide machine—a giant, heated water bath—checked out, too. All the while, Chub kept narrating their actions and the holocams kept darting around them getting all the action from multiple angles to be edited and aired later. Deja swiped at the sweat on her face with an already-damp sleeve, and Bastian did the same.

  Right then, the timer Chef Boyar had set went off, and they all rushed to get
the meat and fat from the blast chiller. Geckuano and Bastian each hefted a large wheelbarrow and wheeled them out to the grinder while Louis, Riva, and Deja grabbed some special shovels and followed in their wake. Before long, the crew had shoveled about a quarter of the meat into the grinder, which was grinding away using a six-millimeter plate—until the contraption made a loud shriek and ground to a halt.

  Everybody swore, but no one as loudly as Boyar. “Chef Dubois, didn’t you say this equipment looked ready to go? What’s wrong with it? Fix it. Now!”

  Blood rushed to her face at the tone of his voice. She did not like being spoken to like that. But now wasn’t the time to quibble about management style.

  “Uh oh,” said Chub. “It appears that the team has hit a rough patch. Will they be able to troubleshoot the machine in time?”

  Flipping off the power to the grinder, Deja grabbed a nearby stepladder and pulled it over to the giant apparatus. If she didn’t figure out what was wrong and fast, the whole challenge could be lost. “I’m going in,” she said, then opened the main hatch to the motor.

  “Oompf!” Deja gasped, pulling a belt back into place with her oily hands. “Yeah, that ought to do it,” she said, then punched the power on. Besides the belt, she had found a few gears that had loosened during operation. She wiped her hands on a towel, praying inwardly. Come on, come on. Work, gravgummit!

  In a cacophony of grinding metal, the grinder powered up and began extruding pulverized meat once again.

  “Yessss!” she shouted as the others yelled, too.

  It took only about thirty minutes to grind sixty-three pounds of the lean meat, which Louis then wheeled off to the blast chiller. The meat had best be refrozen a bit before they ground it up even finer.

  “Now for the fat,” Boyar instructed, and he, Deja, and Louis shoveled in the eighteen pounds of primo lard. It oozed out of the grinder in practically no time. “Skal, get that to the blast fridge,” Boyar said. The copper-scaled Rekloran stepped in and wheeled away the extruded fat.