Into The Orchard

IV

- Mrs. Apolonia is a pimple compared to Gordon Ramsey, I assure you. - Bobby laughed as he finished baking us French pancakes. - I've heard such comments about my cooking that nothing can make me... how shall I say... - The cook scratched behind his ear and started pulling on a tunnel type earring with his fingers for reasons unknown to me. - Nothing is able to "make me sad". - He said that last word in an extremely sarcastic way.

The new cook' s bold comment was met with approval in the form of Buck's, Aurelia's, Pyra's and of course my own laughter. Only Myra, as usual, reacted nervously looking in different directions to see if anyone was eavesdropping on us.

Over the past few days I have been keeping a close eye on a new employee of the Von Rostovs. Every day after breakfast Bobby Brown went for a workout that involved running outside. He didn't go anywhere without his huge headphones, which he used a lot. Running, headphones. Cooking, headphones. Walking to the pantry, headphones. He also never stopped the music he was listening to. It was mostly rock music, which he listened to probably as loud as possible. When he was in company, he would take off his giant black headphones and place them around his neck. As I expected, Bobby chose not to wear the chef uniform that Apolonia was trying to force him into. He walked around his workplace dressed as loosely as possible. He usually wore sweatpants arranged in such a way that you could see his underpants. He also liked to wear a sleeveless shirt with a rather large round neckline. This was because his entire body was covered with colorful tattoos and Asian inscriptions in places. Surely, he wanted to show them off, after all, he tattooed them for something. I personally thought that these tattoos were far too many. They covered part of his neck, both arms and his entire chest. I had no idea what the situation was with his legs and stomach, but I guess I didn't want to know. Subjectively, I think the boy would be handsome if only he would go back to his natural hair color and take out that horrible tongue piercing. The tunnels were okay, the tattoos basically too, but like I said, there were too many of them. I also noticed that Bobby when he's alone and has headphones on his ears, he spins incredibly in place to the music he's listening to. I thought maybe it would be nice of me to offer him a dance lesson, but after that it occurred to me that after all, the boy is dancing to music for himself, maybe to focus on cooking? The new chef was the kind of a looser who let everything flow and didn't care about anything. In official situations, he could behave with dignity and respect. However, in private, without the "elders" of the Von Rostovs, he said whatever came to his tongue. He was not particularly vulgar. Sometimes he slipped out a curse word, but he did this very occasionally. Certainly not because he was holding back. Bobby simply did not have a habit of swearing. What I still liked about him was that he could defend any dish he made to Apolonia. This one had been opening her maw so often since the cook showed up that Aurelia started taking notes of the words she was saying. She joked that she was doing it so she would never again forget the way her grandmother spoke. To be honest, the old woman was taking the brunt of it. Every day since the boy showed up, she called the cook to her table. She would ask him several questions at a time, why something tasted the way it did, why it looked so weird, or why it "didn't cook normally." Bobby was always happy to answer Apolonia's questions with a smile on his lips. He was not afraid of the old woman, and although she was not once unpleasant, mean, and rude, Hyena was always able to argue his culinary decisions in such a way that Apolonia was limited to saying at the end, "Tomorrow you have to do something else, because you will pack up and lose your job. I knew that Apolonia's grandmother liked the food that Bobby prepared. However, the woman would not admit it for anything in the world. She was looking for any excuse she could to make Gregory send the cook away. Unluckily for her, everyone in the house liked Hiena's cooking. Bobby often served amazing food in terms of visuals. Once he served us some cold dessert with white clouds of something like smoke rising from it. Another time, we got a spicy shrimp soup that looked like dishes served to the gods of Olympus. What impressed me most about it was that Bobby didn't stress about anything. He did what he was supposed to do with pleasure and a smile on his lips.