A Full Course Meal (ziam)

/3/The Appetizer

/3/The Appetizer

The script for the next part was always the same, and Liam could recite it from memory. The host, Ted, took his place besides Liam's station, and briefly explained to the contestants and to the viewers how the competition worked.

Four Chefs. Three courses. Appetizer, entrée and dessert. They would get a basket of mystery ingredients per round, and the dishes had to be cooked using all of them. After each round, the judges would taste their dishes and decide which one was the worst and consequently which Chef would be chopped, based on taste, creativity and presentation, until only one Chef remained. The winner would take home a ten thousand dollars prize. Simple enough, right?

The mystery ingredients of course were always unconventional things. There could be anything in there; strange exotic fruits, disgusting premade food, candies, savory ingredients for the dessert round, or sweet things for the appetizer, really anything. The ingredients got crazier and crazier each season, but they weren't actually impossible to use. It was just a matter of having some knowledge when it came to food and knowing how to mix flavors to make them work together.

Ted announced that the first round was the appetizer. He instructed the Chefs to open the baskets and remove the ingredients one by one, placing them on top of their stations. Liam made an effort to focus on the task at hand, instead of thinking of Zayn. He tried to prepare his mind to work as fast as possible once the ingredients were known. That was key. He needed to think fast. He needed to keep his eyes on the prize.

The four Chefs opened their baskets simultaneously, and took the ingredients out in the order Ted recited them out loud. Lamb ribs, rainbow chard, cherry moonshine and a pretty gross looking loaded baked potato, already cooked. What the hell...

While Ted's voice explained how much time they had to cook, Liam's brain already started planning. Thinking. It was a relatively easy basket, wasn't it? Nothing too crazy, no flavor he wasn't familiar with. His job was now finding a way to make a dish including those ingredients, using his knowledge to come up with something actually original and delicious to stand out.

It took him a few seconds, because of the stupid burning desire to look at Zayn was distracting him and because the first few ideas that popped in his mind were all too simple. That wouldn't work. He had watched the show enough times to see many Chefs get chopped because they couldn't come up with a smart way to use what they were given.

Just as Ted gave them the green light to start, Liam figured out what he was going to do. Resolutely ignoring the judges table and the comments they always made out loud while the contestants cooked, he left for the pantry to find ingredients. When he arrived, the other three guys were already there, scrambling to get what they needed. Niall had his head deep inside the huge fridge, and Harry and Louis were giggling while they shouldered each other, fighting for spices.

Liam had no time to pay attention to what anyone else was doing, or even to try to guess what they would cook. He went straight for the herbs, grabbing a few that would pair well with the lamb. He grabbed Dijon mustard, ginger, olive oil, and then he beelined for the spices rack once it was free.

He chose what the needed, one, two, three small jars, fuck, the time seemed to fly while he chose a good mix of flavors, imagining the combination in his mouth, wondering if Zayn would like them. He wasn't used to spicy food before him, but then he began experimenting with the flavors Zayn always talked about in his show and now he had found a lot of magic in that world. It was stupid, maybe, but in his mind, he would be happy if he could make a dish that impressed Zayn, or at least pleased him.

Once he had everything he needed and could carry no more, he carefully walked back to his station, trying not to lose anything along the way.

The plan was simple. Crazy as it sounded, the tricky ingredient in the basket was the stupid baked potato. So many boring things could be done with it, so Liam decided to do something interesting with it instead, hoping the other guys worried so much about their ribs they forgot to make the potato special.