Settled on her comfy bed, Varyna turned on the holoscreen. She should really be using her break time to research Mr. Adventurer/Chef/Idiot/KremelGrandma, but she didn’t have the energy today. Besides, she was still waiting on a response from Faren and Quoppi—the two who might actually be able to find something. So instead, she flipped to a random cooking show and watched a familiar figure fill the screen.

“Hello! My name is Levi Athan, and I want to extend a warm welcome to my kitchen,” the tall, muscular man said. He had short, gray hair and warm eyes.

The camera panned out to show the kitchen around him, a much warmer, cozier space than Varyna had seen in weeks.

“Today, we’re going to be making something really special,” Chef Athan continued. “This is a traditional birthday meal from my home planet of Hamarin. I hope you all enjoy it with me!”

He began grabbing food out of the cupboards, glancing back over his shoulder to address the camera.

“For those of you wondering, no, this isn’t to celebrate my birthday. Actually, my daughter’s birthday is coming up and as I thought about what to make for her, I remembered this meal. I haven’t had it since I lived on Hamarin. I’m hoping she enjoys it as much as I always did.”

He chuckled.

“I hope I enjoy it as much as I remember, too.”

Setting some containers on the counter closer to the camera, he turned and faced the audience again. “Now I’m going to be fair and warn you all that this is on the more complicated side of the scale.”

He turned back to grab a few more containers, then returned to the camera.

“Now the name of this dish is Celebration Hash.” He held up a hand. “I know. I know what you’re thinking.” He pitched his voice differently. “Hash isn’t a complicated dish, Chef Athan. My grandmam’s been making hashes out of every meat available on the market for decades.”

His chuckle was drowned out by the sound of the audience’s loud laughter. “Well, this hash isn’t really a standard hash. Just bear with me, friends. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

He turned back once more, adding to the already impressive collection of bottles, jars, and boxes on the counter.

“Yes, this takes a lot of ingredients. But if you’re going to go all out for a meal, birthdays are the time to do it, right?” Chef Athan asked, flashing an amused smile.

He reached forward and began introducing the ingredients. “Okay, so every meal needs a meat. As least one. This particular hash calls for three meats. First, we’ve got some nice, fresh kechin meat here. I’m using boneless, skinless thighs because I like the dark meat.”

He set the package of dark meat down and lifted another full of familiar, pink meat. “And of course some cured prak. Kechin and cured prak is a really great combination. Hard to beat, in fact.”

Chef Athan returned the prak to the counter and lifted another familiar meat. “And our final meat, bacon.” Laughter sounded from behind the camera and the chef smiled. “Because no celebratory dish is complete without bacon.”

Next, he lifted a bag of green leaves. “My personal favorite vegetable, spach.” This time a groan sounded from the audience.

“I know, I know. It’s not the most popular vegetable. But I’m telling you, this and brocky are the two best vegetables to really carry flavor. You’re doubting me, I can see it in your eyes.” He glanced around at the audience behind the camera, then stared straight at the camera. “But I promise, you won’t be disappointed.”

He set it down. “Now no hash is complete without some carbs, of course. Some of you may be expecting me to use prootas.” The audience laughed again. “Yes, I’m usually pretty predictable and I do love prootas, but… not this time!” he exclaimed, lifting a bin of white powder.

“The secret to Celebration Hash is homemade biscuit dough. We’ll get to that in a bit. Note that I’ve got my butter here softening as well for that dough.” He lifted a block of yellow, wrapped in white paper.

“Two last things to bring it all together. Cheese,” Chef Athan said, lifting a package of white cheese. “And a can of pre-made kechin cream soup.” He held the can up in his other hand as the audience laughed.

“Yes. It wouldn’t be a true hash without cheese and some kind of canned, cream soup, right?” he asked, making them laugh even harder.

“Now that I’ve introduced all the ingredients, it’s time to get started. You might all be worried that this is going to take a long time with so many ingredients to put together, but it’s actually a lot easier than you’re expecting.” He set the cheese and soup down and lifted the package of bacon.

“The bacon actually goes on later, but I like to save on oil and cook the kechin in the bacon grease. It not only saves money, but it also adds some of the smoky, salty bacon flavor to the other meats.”

As he spoke, he took some large scissors and cut open the clear wrapping around the bacon. Taking out the raw strips of fat-streaked red meat, he began cutting pieces into an empty pan.

“You can use a knife to do this, I just find scissors much faster. And who doesn’t want to save time in the kitchen?”

Once he had the bacon cut, he washed his hands and moved the pan to the stove near the camera, then turned on the heat.

Chef Athan pulled out a cutting board and set it on the counter. “While that cooks, I’m going to get the kechin ready. You can use any cut you want. Breast works just as well as thigh. You don’t even have to start with a boneless, skinless, cut, so long as you don’t mind cleaning it up yourself.”

He set the first thigh on the cutting board and grabbed a large knife, which he used to slice it. “The goal here,” he explained, looking back up at the camera for a moment, “Is to get it into bite-size pieces.”

He worked in silence for a minute, quickly breaking all the kechin down.

“I wish I had knife skills like that,” Varyna murmured, admiring the even pieces that he had so quickly chopped.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Now that we’ve got our kechin ready, it’s time to prep the cured prak,” Chef Athan said, stepping to the sink to wash his hands again.

While he scrubbed with soap, erasing the raw meat germs, he looked at the camera and spoke. “You know, I’ve had a few argum- debates with my producers about washing my hands on camera. Those of you who watch a lot of cooking shows, you’ve probably noticed that most chefs cut out hand washing scenes.

“I admit, it’s not exciting to watch, but I want to make sure that when someone cooks along with me, they remember good hygiene. Nothing is more dangerous than a cook who doesn’t exercise proper hygiene practices.”

He finished rinsing off the soap and dried his hands, then stepped forward with a small spatula and stirred the sizzling bacon pieces. “I’ve left these on low heat so they don’t burn while I finished up my prep work,” he explained, stepping away and pulling out another cutting board. He held up the cured prak, then sliced open the package with a clean knife. He quickly cut the large, pink chunk of cured prak into small cubes.

“So, we’re going for even smaller than bite-size with the prak,” he said as he worked. “We want the kechin to shine. It’s kind of the star of the dish. The prak and the bacon are really just here to lend their support.”

With the prak done, he washed his hands again and gave the bacon another stir. He turned the heat up. “Now that we’ve got the other meats prepped, let's get this bacon cooked.”

The screen cut to him removing the bacon and putting it on a plate with a paper towel so some of the grease would drain off.

“Now for the kechin.” He lifted the cutting board and slid the raw kechin pieces into the pan. They sizzled as he carried the board to the sink and washed his hands again.

“We’re going to keep the seasoning simple here. Peppin and salt, a little powdered harvic. If you’re feeling fancy, you can cut up fresh harvic and cook it with the kechin, but I’m keeping it easy today.”

He sprinkled the named seasonings over the meat and stirred it all together with a clean spatula.

While the kechin cooked, Chef Athan pulled out the spach and put it in a strainer to wash it. “We want to make sure we’re using clean, fresh veggies. I also like to look through a bag of spach and make sure there are no wilting or soggy leaves,” he explained as he did just that.

Setting aside the clean spach, he gave the kechin another stir. “Everything is coming together nicely. Once we’ve got the kechin cooked, we’re going to just heat the cured prak through in the same pan, then we’ll get going on that biscuit dough.”

He did as he had said, cooking the cured prak for just long enough to get it heated, then setting aside the meats and pan.

Chef Athan moved to a different counter and the camera switched so it was facing him again. He pulled out the bin of flour and began measuring into a bowl.

“You can really use just about any biscuit recipe here, so if you have a favorite, use that. I start with 2 cups of flour. Then I add a couple spoonfuls of sugar. Even though this is a savory recipe, giving the biscuits a little sweetness will complement the saltiness of all the other ingredients.”

He mixed the flour and sugar, then added some salt and a small scoop of white powder from a little container.

“I’m adding this rising powder to make the biscuits fluffy,” he explained, mixing the dry ingredients again.

“Now for the butter.” He unwrapped the golden brick and plopped it in. He took a utensil Varyna had only ever seen on cooking shows, a pastry cutter, and began using it to cut the butter into pieces while at the same time mixing those bits of butter with the dry powder around them.

Once the butter was cut up, he pulled out an egg.

“I use one egg and ⅔ a cup of cold milk now to turn it into a biscuit dough. If you were going for a pie dough instead, you could just leave out the rising powder and add a little cold water at this point.”

He cracked in the egg with one hand, poured in the milk with the other, then plunged his hands right into the dough.

“Since it’s a softer dough, you can mix it with a spoon if you prefer. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty so I’m just going to hurry and knead it together. Be careful though. With doughs like this, you don’t want to overmix. Just enough to get all the flour incorporated.”

Once he had the dough together, he washed his hands and set the dough aside.

“We’re so close. Just one last thing. We’re going to shred the cheese. Obviously, you can skip this step if you buy pre-shredded, but I like the freshness of cheese that I shred myself.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a shredder and unwrapped the block of cheese. Placing the shredder over a bowl, he made quick work of a third of the cheese block, then set it all aside.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Assembly time!” He exclaimed with a wide, cheerful smile. The audience laughed and cheered.

“We start with a standard baking pan here, size 25 by 35 cm. Now you can layer the different ingredients in the order of soup, spach, kechin, then prak, but I find it easier to mix it all together first.”

As he spoke, he grabbed a good-sized bowl and poured in the creamy kechin soup from the can. He then added the spach, the kechin, and the prak. Taking a large spoon, he stirred it all together.

“We’re going to save the bacon for the top, so it doesn’t get soggy,” he explained, motioning to the plate of cooked bacon bits still waiting at the side.

“Once it’s all mixed together, pour it right in.” He poured the creamy, chunky mixture into the pan and spread it with the spoon into an even layer.

“Now the cheese.” He lifted the bowl of shredded cheese and took handfuls, sprinkling them evenly over the top until the bowl was empty.

“And we can’t forget our biscuit dough.” Chef Athan grabbed the bowl of dough from the other counter. “Now if you have a thinner dough, you might be able to spread it. Since my dough is thick, I’m just going to drop small spoonfuls over the top and try to get it covered as evenly as I can.”

He did as he said, concentrating on the dough in silence for a minute while he plopped small bits of dough on the top. He finished and set the bowl aside, then picked up the bacon.

“Finally, the bacon.” He sprinkled it generously over the dough.

“Now since we’re putting the bacon on top and we don’t want it to get too crispy, we’re going to cover this. We’ll uncover it for the last 15 minutes to let it get some color on top.” As he spoke, he took thin metal sheeting and placed it over the top, bending it down to keep it attached to the pan.

“Time to stick this hash in the oven,” he said with a wide smile. The audience cheered again as he took the pan and slid it into the oven.

“We bake it at 175 degrees for for 20 minutes, then we’ll take off that cover and bake for another 15,” he explained as he set a timer.

The screen cut away and came back to a shot of him pulling the metal sheeting off. “Now set another timer and pop it back in,” he said as the camera panned in close, taking in the bubbling top of the hash.

He slid the pan back into the oven and the camera cut away again. This time it returned to a shot of the timer going off.

“It’s finally time,” he exclaimed. The audience cheered as he pulled the pan out of the oven.

The camera zoomed in on the browned biscuit and crunchy bacon with small spots of the bubbling hot insides showing in between.

“Now we’re going to cut into it and give it a taste.” Chef Athan took a spoon and scooped a large helping of the hash onto a clean plate. The insides were thick and gooey, filled with chunks of kechin and cured prak and green pops of color from the wilted spach.

The melted cheese stretched and the biscuit dough on top looked light and fluffy. The bacon bits were darker, but not burnt.

Varyna felt her mouth water at the sight of the delicious hash. She could almost smell it through the holoscreen. “This was a mistake,” she murmured as she watched Chef Athan take a bite of the steaming food. “Now how am I going to choke down Hxlt’s cooking?”

She shook her head and turned off the show before she could watch him distribute the food to the audience for their reactions. She didn’t need any more reason to be unsatisfied with the food available in the headquarter’s kitchen.