Chapter 5: Trial by Fire (and Explosions)
And that's the story of how I got my cutie mark. Isn't it a gem?
Maybe you can see why I was so desperate to get out of my rut and back in my groove. Creating just feels so good. I feel like I can do anything at all when I'm in that mode. When that's cut off from me, I feel empty and impotent. And frustrated. Almost like I'd gotten my horn knocked off... I'm really glad that I've still got my horn, by the way. That kind of punishment isn't totally unheard of, but it's for crimes a few orders of magnitude worse than mine.
Topic, topic, what was my topic... right. I'm really a bit excited to get to this next part. For the first time in months, I'd been inspired again. Not to boast, but an inspired me is a sight to behold.
After I left the archive with my notes and another fine combing (I never know how much to tip security for this kind of thing) and served up the royal lunch, I began my culinary quest.
First order of business was to gather the supplies. This was a proof-of-concept, so I only took ten pounds of alfalfa seeds from the pantry. Then I searched the cupboards to find a comically large glass mixing bowl (can't have been cheap to commission that thing) and fetched my largest mortar and pestle from my apparatus stockroom. Some ponies would just call it a closet, but I find it helps to be precise. That, and it gives me an excuse to say apparatus and feel all science-y. Don't judge me.
With all of that and my notes on my test kitchen counter, I set to work pulverizing alfalfa seeds.
*Tink*
*Crch*
*Crnsh*
And then I glanced over to my notes and remembered that the bowl needed water in it.
"Crispidy! Crunch! Would you two fine colts please get over here to the test kitchen and fill this bowl to about three quarters to the top?"
Two rather portly young stallions zoomed into the kitchen, saluted, and got to filling it from the tap (cisterns are wonderful things) as I continued to crush the seeds.
A perk of being the royal chef: underlings! I've got a couple of lesser cooks serving under me, ostensibly to expedite food preparation. Kind and eager as my personal minions are, I don't quite trust them with the delicate stuff. I wouldn't let Crunch within a mile of a souffle, and Crispidy couldn't get the baking time for cookies right to save his life.
They're still useful for plenty of things, like brute labor or keeping a pot stirred, but I do all of the delicate work. As I've always said: If you want something done right, do it yourself.
They finished loading the bowl with water and levitated it together back to me just in time for me to plunk in the first batch of crushed seeds.
"Thanks, boys! Now get back to work. I'll call you again when I need you."
Another salute and they were off. It is good to be the boss.
I kept up the crushing and plunking for a few more minutes until I'd finally broken down all ten pounds of alfalfa seeds and submerged them in the bowl of water. Then I covered the bowl with a towel and left it, satisfied I'd have everything I needed to begin experimenting with frying on the morrow.
I went through the rest of the day after that, barely controlling the urge to burst into song (I did hum profusely, though), and went to bed with a mind simmering with new culinary possibilities.
After the royal breakfast was served the next morning (salted scrambled eggs with mayo on toasted old oat bread, in case you were wondering), I trotted back to my test kitchen to check on my experiment.
I was disappointed with the results.
Upon yanking the towel off of the bowl and getting a good look at its contents, I vented my exasperation.
"Oh, COME ON!"
My door was still open, so my two assistants zipped in front of me, looking nervous.
I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. "Don't you two worry. It doesn't concern you."
They slunk away, visibly relieved.
What had me so put out was what was in the bowl, or really, what wasn't in it. Where I had expected at least a good half-inch deep of oil ready for frying, I found a gossamer-thin layer partially covering the water. At least the rainbow of colors the film made was pretty.
This would not do at all. It was high time to come up with a plan B, so I got to thinking:
'Think think think— If I can't get any actual oil, what can I get that's like an oil?
'What's an oil like? It's slippery, and it has a high boiling point. And it's a liquid.
'Slippery, slippery, I feel like that's important... What else do I know that's slippery?
'Soap! But you can't eat soap. You get the trots from that. I should know, I'm a chef. What else is slippery that you can eat?
'Animal fat! Some ponies eat the stuff straight, and they're not dead yet. Though how they can do that without gagging is beyond me. Animal fat is slippery. Slippery like oil. Animal fat isn't a liquid though—unless you heat it up!
'Now where can I find some at this hour? Animal fat is not quite the King's cup of tea, so I don't have any on hoof... The soapmakers! They use the fat to make soap! Maybe that's why it's slippery? Who cares, I have a fat supply to appropriate!'
And then I was off to appropriate myself a fat supply for testing.
"How much do you want for ten pounds of fat?"
"We ain't a weight loss clinic, missy," he smugly snarked with a smirk.
I rolled my eyes.
"I'll ignore that comment. You see, I'm not looking to sell fat, I'm looking to buy it. So I say again, how many bits would make a strong buck like you willing to part with ten pounds of fat?" When negotiating, flattery always helps. "I wouldn't want to keep the king waiting, after all." A bit of implied threat is generally a plus as well.
Or maybe it was because he'd just called me fat. My memory's not perfect.
"For you? Four bits!" Not sure whether the accompanying widened eyes and sweat drop were from a mildly attractive mare flirting with him, or from realizing he'd just insulted a servant of the King. I didn't particularly care which it was.
With my well gotten gains, I trotted back to the test kitchen to begin my experimentation in earnest. First thing to do was find something to fry... but what did I want to crispify on the outside while leaving its insides only mildly cooked? Maybe some kind of pastry? But there are so many things that could go wrong in making such a relatively complex food. Chicken? Probably not a good first trial either. Too high a chance I'd fail to cook it all the way through and then everypony could get sick. Best to stick with a simple egg for the time being.
Conveniently, I still had the basket of eggs from that morning's breakfast.
I gathered together my materials:
*Basket of eggs
*Medium saucepan
*Crock o' lard
*Bucket of water
That last one may strike you as odd, but I've found it to be a necessary feature in my test kitchen. I've got a bit of an infamous relationship with fire that I almost deserve.
I've never been a pyromaniac. Though I know a useful spell for igniting flammable things (very handy for firing up a stove or a furnace) and I have an affinity for spells that involve warming things up, I have little more desire to torch things than the next pony does. I just have to be a little more careful than most when I'm steamed.
As if you've never willed something frustrating to burst into flame.
Anyhow, while I have a close-to-standard love for fire, fire just really loves me and wishes to profess its undying devotion to me far more than is appropriate for polite company. That's the best explanation I've come up with, at least.
It's the reason why there's a test kitchen in the first place, really. For some reason or another, my cooking experiments lead to more fires and explosions than half of the royal alchemy department's efforts put together. Because of this, my test kitchen is made of sterner stuff. Every surface is made of metal or hard stone, and everything's been enchanted for extra strength and fire resistance. Apparently they used the same enchantments they put on the guards' hazardous environment armor, which I suppose is pretty cool.
In short: Fire loves me, so I need to keep a bucket of water around to give it the old cold shoulder. Incidentally, the bucket seems to work pretty well on Pierce, too. And now that I had all my supplies ready, I could get this show on the road.
I lopped a chunk of the lard into the saucepan so it would be about halfway full and sparked the stove to life to get it melting.
It started to smell good after a minute. Being a chef used to trying everything under Lanthanum's golden sun, you acquire a lot of acquired tastes. With my experience, I bet I could cook a coney that would make an avowed vegan's mouth water. As long as I didn't tell her what animal both it and the fur lining my parka had come from, at least.
Now I had a pot of presumably very hot liquid, and a basket of eggs. I'd figured I'd fry up the egg like I would ordinarily boil a hardboiled egg: plop the egg into the hot liquid, shell and all, and wait a few minutes for the yolk to harden sufficiently. Except the hot liquid in this case would be hotter and cook it faster, and hopefully I'd get an egg that was just a little runny in the center.
Things did not turn out that way.
*SPRACK*
That's my approximation of the sound of an exploding egg. Had my ceiling above my stove been made of wood instead of steel and stone, I'm fairly sure there'd have been eggshell shrapnel embedded up there. It would have found a way to catch fire as well, I'm certain. As it stood, I got hit with a spray of hot grease and second-hoof shrapnel.
Luckily, my ridiculously fluffy coat of hair protected me from the worst of it. Note: if you're not a fluffer like me or my dad, make sure to wear something while frying. The hot grease spattering everywhere when you cook something with water in it (i.e. anything you'd conceivably be cooking) is murder if you don't.
This was off to a smashing start...
Unwilling to be deterred by a minor explosion like that (I deal with worse fairly regularly, after all—that one wasn't even big enough for anypony to nudge a concerned snout through my door), I revised my tactics and moved on.
The egg was thoroughly mangled, mushed, and otherwise ruined by the explosion, so I pulled it and its fragments from the hot grease with a slotted scoop. No mean feat, I should say, since there's nothing already-slimy foods coated in an additional layer of grease like more than to slide through the slots. Things got much easier once I commissioned the royal jeweler to make a fine mesh scoop from silver. But I digress...
This time around, I cracked open the eggs before dropping them into the hot grease. I'd noticed the spattering from last time whites touched liquid grease, so I was prepared and had my head away from above the pan when the plume of steam and rain of grease erupted. Some still got on me, though, and it was hot enough for the heat to get through my coat and make me yelp.
"YIPE!"
Still not bad enough for anypony to burst through the door and spring to my aid. Sometimes I wondered if the palace denizens' jaded natures would result in nopony noticing if I were to be spirited away, kicking and screaming, by a band of bat-winged, slit-eyed pegasi intent on eating and/or ravishing me. And then it turned out they'd be the ones throwing me to the demons, so no worries on that front... Screw Fate and his sense of humor.
I waited until the grease-spattering died off and then checked on the egg. Well, what used to be an egg. What remained of it looked more like one of Crispidy's abortive attempts at baking. There was smoke, too, now that I think of it.
So I took the time to scoop out my second attempt at egg-frying, dashed down to the alchemists' stockroom, and accosted Outta Stock for some eye protection. I was going to keep an eye on my eggs if it meant the end of me, so help me Lanthanum.
"Hey, Spicy! What brings you to my humble workplace?"
"I've been doing some experimentation down in my test kitchen, but things have gotten a bit dangerous and I could use some protection."
"Knowing your reputation, I don't think we have what it takes to outfit you properly. The palace armory is that way," he dryly drawled as he gestured down and to his right.
I rolled my eyes.
"Your wit is so sharp, I'd gladly steal it and use it to chop up alfalfa. Anyhow, it's nothing quite that serious, Stocky, I just need some safety goggles. Nopony wants a repeat of January, after all."
"Got that right," he said as he shuddered a bit and floated over my goggles. "Good luck! Do try not to blow up the palace this time. I kinda work there."
I sighed in exasperation.
"Thanks, Stock. I'll keep that in mind as I mix up my world-ending brew and make sure it spares the palace. Wouldn't want to put you out of the job, after all," I droned as I slipped on my alchemical splash goggles. "Later!"
And then I turned and dashed back to my stove and the pan full of hot grease. I hadn't realized something important about hot grease yet. You see, water can only get so hot before some of it boils away, keeping a pot of water's temperature capped at its boiling point. Problem with grease is, it's boiling point isn't nearly as low as its flash point. I figured this out as I dropped in my third egg of the session. I expected the spattering. I didn't expect what the grease droplets did next.
*FSHHOOM*
“Fire! Unholy horse apple juggling mud ponies, IT'S ON FIRE!”
I think I took it fairly well. You'd surely have said much worse if something caught fire that really shouldn't have. Quick-thinking mare that I am, I flung the bucket of water at the conflagration.
This was not my brightest move.
Another thing I'd neglected to consider is just how much hotter burning grease can get than water's boiling point.
*KOSHHHHHHHHE*
That is the sound of very hot grease hitching a ride on a rapidly expanding steam cloud. While on fire. In a flash, a brilliant plume of golden flame erupted from my sauce pan and bloomed outward. It would have been quite pretty, really, except that I was standing too close to really appreciate it. It didn't help that this was me and my kitchen being engulfed in flames, either.
I'll cut the suspense and say that I lived through that event. Huge surprise, right? The flames mostly hugged the ceiling and I wasn't too close to the stove, so I got out of it with some relatively minor coat and mane singeing. Sure am glad I was wearing those safety goggles. On the bright side, at least the explosion put out the fire in the pan...
It was a shame about my coat, though. I'd been growing my mutant hair out a little to see how I looked with the extra fluff, and I had been liking the results. Was getting to be a small nightmare to comb, though, but that's what palace servants are for! I may have been a little leery at the thought when Princess Topaz first hired them (All denizens of the royal palace must remain fabulous!), but I'll admit that having somepony to help with your grooming was something a girl could get used to.
What I was meaning to get at, was that I'd had to get my hairlike coat cut down by about an inch-and-a-half after the day's ordeal was over. Wasn't over yet, though. I still had myself an egg to successfully fry, and I would not be denied.
Note: A grease fire & water explosion is still below the interestingness threshold at which anypony will bother to check if Amber Spice is okay.
I'd learned something important. Namely, don't EVER leave hot grease unattended. It tends to catch fire when you do that. Also, don't use anything that'll explode (which includes water, apparently) to put out a grease fire. Once I'd recovered sufficiently from being blasted, I put out the stove and trotted back to the alchemists' stockroom.
"Back again so soon? Did you find your goggles unsatisfactor—eeyow! You're looking less like Amber Spice and looking more like Coal Briquette. Dangit Spicy, I thought I told you not to burn down the place! Are you okay?"
"It's nothing a trim won't fix, so I think I'll pull through. Almost needed a haircut anyhow. To be fair, you never told me not to burn down the place. You only told me not to blow up the palace, and as you can see, I've done an admirable job of that."
"Well, glad to see you're more-or-less in one piece. How's the test kitchen looking?"
"Place has a new coat of grease, and the ceiling's a bit blacker than usual, but it'll still serve fine."
"As much as you love our chats, somehow I don't think that's why you're here. what're you looking for this time? Is it my fiendish good looks?"
"Not looking for your fiendish good looks, no. Maybe you should check the lost and found? Normally they empty it about monthly, but it might be stuck to the bottom of the bin."
And cringe. Score 1: Amber Spice!
"What I'm really looking for, though," I continued while smiling smugly at my little victory, "is whatever you alchemists use to put out interesting fires, particularly really hot ones involving flammable fluids. The incident that dyed my coat a new color involved flaming grease so hot it made water explode on contact."
"So you've found a way to make water explode? That's a real alchemical achievement! Maybe you should consider a career in the labs? Bwahahahahaaa—!"
Spicy: 1, Stock: 1. And there went my lead.
Once the uproarious laughter had died down to the occasional sputtered snort, he finally got around to being helpful. Let it never be said that Outta Stock is irredeemably snarky and cruel. Only irrepressibly so.
"Really though," *snrk* "we've actually got something here that should help with that. Making that kind of fire that would be dangerous to throw water on isn't actually all that rare in the labs, so we keep some buckets on hoof that are filled with something a little less volatile: sand!"
He floated a rather large bucket of sand to me from below the counter.
"If you ever run into a flaming liquid, just dump this sand on it to put it out."
"Thanks, Stocky!' I chirped as I grasped the bucket with my levitation. "I'm gonna go back and try again now. I've got a good feeling about this next test run!
"And no more explosions today, I promise." And with a wink, I giddily pranced back to my test kitchen with the sand bucket in tow.
This time I wasn't about to let fire get the best of me. I had a new weapon in my arsenal for when things got out of hoof, but I figured I'd repurpose an old one as well in the name of prevention. It's loads easier to cook food some more rather than to try and unburn it, after all.
My brewer's thermometer. It's amazing how overengineered these things are to handle extreme temperatures, but they'd better be for how much they cost. Keeping an eye on the grease's temperature would not only warn me of when it'd catch fire, but it'd also let me know how hot I was cooking my eggs. The plan was to wait until the grease climbed to over 235 degrees Fahrenhoof (23 degrees above water's boiling point) and then plop the egg in for high temperature frying.
I clipped my thermometer to the inside of the pan so that the grease would come up a bit past the mercury bulb and slopped another block of fat in there, then I fired up the stove again.
When the grease came to temperature, I added the egg with a satisfying *spssh* and watched it solidify for a couple of minutes while keeping an eye on the temperature. Watching both of these with grease continually spattering on my goggles wasn't easy, but an occasional wipe from my fetlock helped a lot. That and my facial fur's protecting me from the hot grease made me thank Lanthanum once again for my ridiculous coat, while the grease itself made me thank Topaz herself for showers. I'd thanked the servants and the barber too, by the time I'd gotten all cleaned up from this ordeal...
Once I was satisfied with the egg's opacity, I put out the stove, fished the egg out of the pot and onto a plate, and placed the pan on a rack to cool. I was not about to have a repeat of the last time. It was still a lot squishier than a hard boiled egg, but that was the point of the exercise, after all.
A couple of minutes passed as I waited for the egg to cool down, and then came the moment of truth: would this technique produce food that was worth all the explosions, burns, and strange looks it had taken to get this far? There was only one way to know, and so I levitated out a knife, cut a bite out of the white and yolk, and floated the yellow-orange-dripping yellow-orange and white wedge to my mouth and bit down on it.
"Needs some salt..."
So I sprinkled some salt and tried it again.
"Mmmmm— You know what this would go great on? Toast!"
So I galloped off to the royal baker and procured a loaf, galloped back and sliced it, and then stopped.
"Huh. It's never been all that easy to cook toast evenly, and now I've got this pan filled with hot grease that can cook it on all sides at once... Let's fry it!"
I fired up the stove, heated the grease hot as an oven, and plinked in a slice of bread. A few minutes later, it came out black and landed in my growing pile of charcoal. I hadn't expected to get it right on my first try, anyhow, so I'd brought extra bread to spare.
I levitated in another slice, this time keeping my telekinetic grip on it. This time I checked on the toast by floating it out of the hot grease about every 30 seconds.
I'd repeat the process, watching the bread gradually get to the color I wanted, until...
"Perfect! Golden brown, just like Daddy!"
I put out the stove and let the toast drip dry and cool down a bit, and then bit it.
"A bit too... greasy." In case you've never had grease in your mouth, it gives you a kind of slimy, scuzzy sensation that sticks to your tongue, your teeth, and the roof of your mouth. Yeah, not quite sure why I'd expected anything different for something cooked immersed in grease. This called for a slightly different approach.
I still didn't want to make toast the conventional way, but bathing it in hot grease didn't seem to yield good results either.
Then I got to thinking:
'What's wrong with the conventional method? Uneven and slow heat transfer from fire to food. That's why I use water or grease to speed up and even out heating. What's wrong with frying it deep in grease? The bread soaks up the grease and then tastes like a crunchy, grease-sodden sponge. Now if I had just enough grease to heat a side of the bread slice evenly, maybe it wouldn't soak up too much... It might even be a little soft in the middle... Well maybe I should do that!'
So I did that. I got out a new, shallower pan and added just enough grease for it to come up about a quarter of the way up a slice of bread. Then I brought it to temperature on the stove (I'd already moved the other pan full of grease onto the cooling rack, by the way) and added the bread slice. To keep the bread evenly browned, I flipped it about every half-minute until I was satisfied.
Then I lifted it from the pan, let it drip dry a bit, and bit down with a delightful crunch.
"Ahh– now that's the good stuff. Just the right amount of grease to make it taste fine."
And fine it tasted. Still, I'd made this toast with a specific purpose.
"Eggs!"
The egg I'd cooked was still sitting there, but it had gotten cold. It still tasted okay, and tasted even better on the warm fried toast, but I figured I needed to taste the combination when both foods were warm to see their full glory.
One of the talents you develop as a cook is multitasking. I can cook several dishes at once and have them all finish at the same time, so two at once wasn't such a big deal for me. It still looks impressive to passersby, though.
I fried up an egg and some toast and plopped the egg on the toast, added a few dashes of salt with a flourish, and took a big bite of egg on toast.
It was glorious.
"Mmmmmmh– This shtuff ish delicioush!" Gulp. "But does it just taste good to me, or is this recipe a keeper?"
That really was an important question. I can't count the number of times my... eclectic tastes led me to appreciate one of my creations way more than the average pony would. Exhibit A: Tear Beer. What I required were test subjects. Pony test subjects.
I quickly fried up another pair of egg & toasts, then poked my head out the door and bellowed "Crispidy! Crunch! I need you two to come sample the fruits of my labors, stat! I must know whether my new creation is fit to touch the royal tongues!"
*Zzzip*
And there they were. Crispidy was looking a bit more enthusiastic than Crunch. And by a bit, I mean while before he'd been looking nearly as depressed as I had been when I was stuck in my rut, where then his face was lit up like a torch gem. I'm fairly certain that a chance to sample my new culinary creations was why he took the job in the first place. Hay, the stallion had even proposed to me a couple of times in the past.
I'd shut him down each time, though. Thing is, I didn't really know the guy and a workplace romance would have been terribly awkward for all involved. That, and he creeped me out a little.
"Here you go, boys. Eat up, and tell me what you think!"
Crispidy dug into his with gusto.
When he resurfaced from his state of bliss he exclaimed, "Marry me, oh food goddess!"
"I'll take that as an ‘it's wonderful.’ So, what do you think of it, Crunch?"
Since he noticed Crispidy wasn't dead yet, he looked at the proffered egg & toast with a now somewhat less incredulous eye and took a bite.
*CrunchCrunchCrunch*
"Mmmh. Could maybe use a little less... grease on the eggs? Still, this one's a keeper for sure," he said as he magically lowered a set of ear muffs each onto his and Crispidy's ears.
"EUREKA!"
Did I mention that my test kitchen has excellent soundproofing? They told me it was to help me concentrate and that the explosions that seem to follow me might have had something to do with it as well, but sometimes I wonder...
Once the echoes had died down and Crispidy and Crunch had removed their earmuffs, I dismissed them and set to work on one more egg & toast. This one I set on a plate and brought with me to the alchemists' stockroom.
Crispidy, I'm pretty sure, would gladly proclaim my divinity from the mountaintop even if I gave him a sculpted mound of horse apples and told him it was a new creation of mine. While Crunch isn't exactly prone to exaggeration and doesn't worship the ground I walk on, I can't trust him to value honesty more than he values his continued employment. That's why I had to get an outsider's opinion from someone unafraid to call it as he saw it. That's why I needed Outta Stock.
"Stocky! I need your help figuring out if today's string of explosions has produced something worth the trouble. I tried it out on my lackeys and they seemed to like it, but you know how lackeys are. Oh wait, you don't! And I'm not sure whether I should gloat over or envy you."
"I may not be overlord material like you, Spicy, but I would make a smashing higher-level minion. I'm competent, I'm unlikely to try and backstab my glorious leader to steal the spotlight, I am the local crown prince of snark, and I've got this nice shiny void where most ponies keep the bucks they give. Also, everypony loves me!" he finished while rearing up.
"Yeah. I'll keep your name in mind for when I finally mind-control-poison the royal family and take the throne for myself. Who knows? I could always use a court jester."
I blew him a raspberry.
"Still," I continued, "I need an honest opinion on this new dish I dreamed up. Preferably before it freezes over, as it apparently tastes best hot. Also, magical heating would cost you extra."
"But you aren't charging me anything for this in the first place, you nag."
"I'd charge you ten bits to warm it up, and that's because I'm feeling nice. Now come on and take a bite before it cools!"
"Okay, okay I'll eat it," he said as he levitated the still warm egg & toast over.
*Crunch*
"Mmmmh! Say, Spicy. I do believe you're on to something here!"
The clever stallion cleverly levitated a clever pair of earmuffs onto his clever head of cleverness to keep his clever-maker cleverly safe. Just in time, too, the clever devil.
"WOOHOOOO!"
I'm fairly sure that blast temporarily deafened several relatively nearby patrolling guards and cleaned all of the snow off of the palace roof.
Also, there may have been a victory dance going on. I'll spare you (and myself) a description, but I'm sure Outta Stock would tell you all about it if you gave him half a chance.
"Well, glad to see you're now officially out of your rut," he replied coolly after stowing his tactical earmuffs. "So, what kind of fancy pants name are you going to call it?"
''I'll call it..." I'd actually not given that subject much thought to that point. I was too busy creating to bother with mundane details like what to call something. Still, I'm not bad at thinking up stuff like that on the spot, provided my muse is feeling cooperative.
"Well, whenever I cook it for reasonable folk, I'll just call it 'Fried Egg over Toast.' When royals talk about it, though, they'll call it something in Fancy, like "Pain Grillé a la Oeuf."
"A pretentious name for a simple meal from a pretentious pony. I love it!
"What is this frying thing you mentioned? It sounds intriguing. Is it how you managed to keep the egg yolk all liquidy in the middle?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. Frying is a cooking technique similar to boiling something in water, except you replace the water with hot grease, which doesn't boil so much as get really really hot because science. You know science, right?"
"Yes, Spicy, I know science," he sighed as he shook his head.
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"You know science, right?"
1963375
Yes I know science
Awesome chapter but uh... " teat kitchen"? thinking you meant "test" but Y'know I don't judge
I'm gonna go fix that now. Stupid qwerty keyboards...
Know? I am science.
And everyone knows it isn't science if nothing exploded.
Eurgh, that picture's awful, where in Tartarus did you get that thing?
1963375
s.spynet.ru/uploads/images/0/4/1/9/6/4/2010/12/07/8cfb604ac6.gif
1965813
Idunno, really. I think I got some bum off the street to draw it for me in some kind of crayons...
Silliness aside, thanks for the art.
I was wondering how quickly it would take Amber Spice to create a BLEVE in the kitchen with her new found frying recipes.
Good thing they have not discovered the really nasty stuff that will burn sand, brick, and asbestos
Love the story so far!
Keep up the good work.
1967138
Ah, a fellow chemistry geek and (possibly) cooking enthusiast! There needs to be more people who just want to watch the world burn in a coffee cup calorimeter.
While I am acquainted with ClF3, I'm glad to say that I haven't worked with the stuff. Stuff was too hardcore for the nazis to use as flamethrower oxidizer. If I recall correctly, the best safety equipment you can use with it is a good pair of running shoes...
ahhh, greese fires.
those bring back the most wonderful memories of cooking classes when i was lil....
how i made a greese fire when cooking carrot cake, i'll never know.
heh heh
Great ch Bugsydor!
keep 'em coming!
>>O>~
That's ok, Amber Spice, it happens to all of us. The first time I tried to make pasta, it caught on fire.
1967643
Well you are half way correct; I love cooking (and brewing too - it's cooking dang it!), but my current employment is about as far away from (direct) chemistry as you can get without getting into Liberal Arts. Nevertheless, I do enjoy humorous anecdotes and tales about cryogenic fluorine superoxidisers and liquid rocket fuels.
Back on topic
One minor critique; I found the onomatopoeia and narrative action words difficult to parse without punctuation.
Two examples from chapter 5:
I guess it just comes down to personal preference since Chicago and MLA do not mention anything about onomatopoeia. (At least I do not think they do. It has been a while since I have had to crack their covers). IMHO those phrases, especially the in-line ones like above, need something (italics, *punctuation*, etc...) to differentiate it from the rest of the narration and preserve the flow of thought.
1973201
Yeah, it's been on my mind as well.
Originally I was going to have those things put in a slightly different font, but then I realized Fimfiction couldn't do that... Wouldn't stop me from doing that in the GDocs version, though.
Then I thought of putting the onomatopoeia in italics, but then I realized that I was already using those for Spicy's thoughts and for general emphasis. Then I thought of putting them in bold, but then I realized that that looked dumb. Underlining is right out.
Maybe if I put them in a different font on GDocs and put them between pairs of asterisks on Fimfiction like so:
*snrk*
The grease flying everywhere reminds me of one of my first stints in the kitchen. My friend never did forgive me for that shot to the face. Anyway, it's nice reading your new chapters instead of stuff I read in google docs. As I've said before, I kinda like this alternate universe idea you have going on. It's original and is actually plausible unlike some of the ones that end up going far out there.
It's like he knows....
2014071
Well, you haven't seen the last of him, either. Here's hoping he's still lovable in the coming chapter!
THATS EXTRA HERESY!
2105587
Nah, the EXTRA EXTRA HERESY is saved up for the subsequent chapters. And the EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA HERESY will be in the sequel.
Glad to get a comment from the Commissar himself.
Definitely liking the story so far!
Now if only something having to do with 'Heresy' would happen, my viewing life would be complete!
1973201
Ok, finally got around to fixing all the onomatopoeia to be consistent. I'll be uploading a new chapter tomorrow, too.
I did this with a citronella candle we'd been throwing sticks into until the entire thing was engulfed in flames.
Of course, I knew something amazing was going to happen, so I was grinning as I announced "And now to put it out!" and flung the cup of water straight into the pit of burning wax.
The 30-foot tall pillar of fire was breathtaking!
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Unexpected results can often be the Best Results.
Spicy isn't just a chef.
She's a mad food scientist and this combination of tropes is a rare, precious gem!
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Thanks!