DragonEater Cooks

Episode One

The show's presenter, a young red dragon in a sleek motorist's jacket, walks into a well-lit kitchen, furnished with high quality cooking amenities. He turns to face the audience.

"Welcome, viewers," he begins, "to the first episode of DragonEater Cooks! This RoyalRoad-hosted fictional show deals with cooking that is both delicious AND healthy, brought to you straight from DragonEater's very own kitchen."

The presenter gestures at the kitchen, which is fresh new and has clearly never been used before.

"Yes, dear viewers!" he continues. "This IS the very kitchen in which DragonEater makes his legendary chicken soup every week! And by the way, the recipe of the legendary chicken soup will be revealed in a future episode of this show. So if you want to know what it is, stay tuned. For now, let us welcome DragonEater!"

DragonEater enters the kitchen. He looks quite handsome, but the exact details of his appearance are a bit fuzzy – it seems the production team had decided to leave his looks up to the imagination of the readers – I mean viewers. DragonEater turns to the audience and bows.

"I am very happy to be here today," he says.

"We're also happy have you on the show!" replies the unnamed presenter. "So tell us, DragonEater, what are you going to teach us to make today?"

DragonEater smiles at the question. "Today I'm going to show you and the audience the food that I actually made for myself today. It's easy to make, down to earth, and extremely delicious. Oh, and healthy too!"

"That sounds exciting. Why don't you start by telling us what you made for breakfast?" asks the presenter.

"Well, for breakfast I made mini pizzas! The recipe is very simple," DragonEater says as he heads over to a table, on which the ingredients and a cutting board were prepared ahead of time.:

"For the ingredients," he says, "you are going to need two slices of bread. I use rye bread or flax bread, because I'm a bit of a 'health nut', but any type of bread would do just fine. And I guess it doesn't have to be two slices if you are making it for more than one person. Anyway, aside from the bread you are also going to need half a tomato, origanum, a can of sardines, and a wedge of mozzarella cheese."

As he is speaking, DragonEater picks up the tomato and a knife, and starts cutting. "First, cut the tomato into very thin slices. Place them on top of the bread slices. Cut the mozzarella into slightly thicker slices, and place them on the pizza. Then add sardines, a small sprinkle of salt, and quite a bit of origanum - but not too much!"

He picks up the mini pizzas and heads over to the oven. "Now all you have to do is place them in the oven, set the temperature to 180 degrees..."

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"That's 356 degrees farenheit, for our American viewers..." the presenter adds helpfully.

"...wait ten minutes, and you're done! Quite simple, isn't it?" DragonEater finishes. He takes the pizzas out of the oven even though it has clearly not been ten minutes. Somehow, they still look like they are ready. He offers one pizza to the presenter, and takes a big bite out of the other one. "Mmm… Delicious, isn't it?"

The presenter, meanwhile, struggles to eat the pizza - it gets stuck in his claws, and hot cheese can be seen stuck in the dark spaces beneath his red scales. Seeing that DragonEater is waiting, he awkwardly takes a bite and licks his claws clean.

"Uhhh- Yes, of course," he responds quickly. "It's veeery delicious. Hahaha. Anyway, let's not get delayed on the pizza. Tell us, DragonEater, what did you make for lunch today?"

"Excellent question," DragonEater replies. "I made beef stew! It's a recipe I made up myself, by mixing together some different recipes. I'm actually not sure it's a stew. Maybe it's actually more like a soup..."

As he rambles to himself, the presenter looks at the camera, mouthing the words 'worst cooking show ever'. Of course, him being a dragon with a very different jaw structure to humans, the audience has no clue what he's trying to say.:

"...but anyway," DragonEater continues, "it sure is tasty! Alright, let me tell you the ingredients. For DragonEater's beef stew, you are going to need: a pack of beef brisket cubes, a butternut squash, a leaf celery, an onion, some dill, some carrots, a broccoli, and spices - specifically, cumin and paprika. For those in the audience who have only ever bought spices in those premixed packages labeled 'chicken spice' or 'barbecue seasoning', I would like to note that for best results you should get the spices separately. Also the paprika should be labeled 'sweet paprika' or just 'paprika', but not 'hot paprika'."

DragonEater approaches a big pot, which he places on the stove. He pours cooking oil into it.

"The preparation steps are quite simple! Simply fry the beef cubes together with chopped up onions in a pot. When they start to brown on the outside, add 2-3 cups of water, the rest of the vegetables (after you cut them into a few large pieces), a tablespoon of paprika, 1.5 tablespoons of salt, and a teaspoon of cumin. Then leave on the stove on medium-low heat for 1:30 hours, and the stew is ready!"

Not even a minute passes, and the stew seems to be ready. Ah, the wonders of editing. DragonEater tries to offer some of the magically-ready stew to the presenter, but the latter refuses, claiming that paprika causes him to breathe fire involuntarily. DragonEater takes a bite out of the stew, and seems to love it. "Soooo delicious," he exclaims in satisfaction. "Alright, that is all for today! Thank you everyone for joining us-"

"Wait!" the presenter cuts in. "You haven't told us what you eat for dinner!"

"Oh, that's right! Well, tonight I'm actually planning to eat honeyed dragon shank, with a side of-"

"Did you just say 'dragon shank'?" the presenter interrupts. "I've never heard of that dish before…"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm planning to eat. It's a European dish."

"Interesting. Is it like an extremely lavish lamb shank or something? A shank that only a dragon would eat?" the presenter asks.

"No, silly," DragonEater replies, "it's the shank of a dragon."

"Th-The shank of a dragon?" the presenter sounds shocked. "An actual dragon? Do you mean that-"

"Yes," says DragonEater with a pleasant voice, "I do mean that tonight -" DragonEater picks up a butcher's knife from the countertop, "- I am going to eat YOU!"

"Wait!" The presenter cries out as he stumbles backward in horror, bumping into the camera. It falls to floor and the screen turns black. "No, sto-" the dragon begins to say, but it is too late. Although the screen is dark, some members of the audience think they can hear his lifeless body dropping to the floor.

Something hits the camera, and the television set crackles with static noise: kchhh kchhhh pfffffff...

And then, silence.