A Nightmare's Fate

The Cooking Master

Chapter Twenty-one: The Cooking Master

Opening the door, he dances through the hallway like he's a rock star. "What happened to your parents?" he asks, now realizing that they aren't here anymore.

            "They left early . . . thank God for that; I don't want them here when my house burns up in flames."

He laughs with a shake of his head as he walks into the kitchen while I follow behind him. "All right, we're doing this slowly. Do ya have a cook book?" he asks as he stops midway in the kitchen.

            I think for a moment to remember the places for a cook book. "Yes, I do,” I say as I move towards the back of the kitchen where the stove is and look inside the cabinet while digging around to find the large book of recipes. Once I get it out, he smiles with a nod and comes towards me.

            "Let's start with something easy . . . how ‘bout tacos?"

            A thought reaches into my mind and I furrow my eyebrows at him. "Are we going to eat all of the food that we're going to make?"

            With a sly smirk, he says, "Just a bite. I'm supposed to be the judge; haven't ya seen the show Chopped? The judges take a bite or two out of each entry, so as a judge, I will do the same. And you will taste it too," he winks at me.

            A sigh escapes my nostrils as I look for the pans while he heads to the fridge and grabs out the ingredients for tacos. I start the stove and he gives me the meat and I put a quarter of it into the pan and let it sizzle. I go to the island where the lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, and salsa stay. While dicing the tomato and lettuce where there is only enough for one taco for each of us, I grab out two tortillas and another pan while putting some cooking oil on the metal. After a few moments, I notice bubbles emerging from the oil.

            "You put the tortillas on," Errik instructs as I gently cover half of the pan with the tortilla. "All right, take it off. Quickly now." He snaps his fingers as I take the soft tortilla and put it on a plate, practically breaking half of it.

            "Should I do another one?" I look at the plate in dismay, sad that I let him down.

            "No, but that one is yers." He chuckles evilly.

Rolling my eyes, I do the same with another tortilla, except this time, I don't break it. "Yes!" I say in happiness.

            "Good job, and now ya need to mix the meat." Errik gives me a beaker and a spatula. I use the spatula to mix the ground beef while putting in some taco seasoning I found in the cupboard. I use the spatula again and do what I did before and wait a few more minutes.

            Errik motions towards the radio in the corner. "Ya still have one of these?"

            "Yes, I do. I like things from the olden days," I say as he turns it on.

Burnin' Love by Elvis Presley comes on and he starts bobbing his head towards the music.  "All righty; the meat is a nice brown, so what ya want to do is grab the beaker," he pauses as he hands me a cup. "And put the grease in the cup." Getting the grease into the beaker and into the cup is pretty tough. Most of the grease likes to stay near the meat, but I try my best to get all of it. "You might want to tip the pan over and get the grease out that way," he suggests and I do what he says.

            "Now we put our food together, right?" I ask and he nods. We each take half of the meat and use the other ingredients to put on our taco. Taking a bite, the food is weird like a bad taste. "It's . . ." I begin to say.