One piece ONE SHOTS

Day 4

Zoro

~{You're point of view}~

It's was the annual cooking competition which is televised each year, it's always before Christmas and everyone loves to watch it and see everyone make their own food for the show.

Each year, everyone who joins the competition will be told what to recreate, but you're allowed to make you're own twist to it. The prize is obviously money, like any competition that's televised.

I was lucky enough to be able to join in this year as contestant and not someone who's watching the show. I'm so excited right now, I want to prove myself to everyone and show how good I am with cooking!

So here I am on stage with a pretty good amount of contestants this year, ready to be told what to recreate.

-"Hello and welcome everyone! Here are our new contestants this year, this year we we're able to get the double amount of contestants and here's the reason why! Our marvelous judges, wanted to have a twist to change things up! So they have decided to have everyone pared up by a partner by random and see how they'll cook!" My stomach dropped at the pit of mu stomach once I hear everything the announcer says. I'm going to be paired up with someone? Someone who I do not know? Oh god this'll go really bad.

-"And for the prize money we have decided to also double that amount so the two contestants that are paired up and win the prize will be able to split the money!" Right, the prize money. To be honest I don't really care about the prize money, but at least they took that into consideration.

-"As for the food creation's, you may pick anything you want to make, but I must be a desert and the desert must either be a cake, a pie, or some cookies that are different than you're usual store bought ones!" Well, that's going to be interesting with negotiation with some of the groups.

-"Now for the real fun to begin! The partners you're going to join up with is quite simple, you're all going to grab a piece of paper in this box here, the number on the paper will be who you're partnered up with. Once you obtain your paper wait to find your partner with the same number on the paper! Have fun!" Once the lady announces the rules for the partnership we're going to have to do, she then takes a white box and places it on a table and lets everyone to go and grab their paper.

Once I get my paper I look at the number to see whom I got. I got number "4"

I look around to see a person who would have the number four one their paper, but because I was one of the first to collect my paper, I had to sadly wait a little longer.

After about 5 minutes passing by, a man with short green hair walks up to the colorful Christmas themed box, an sticking his hand inside and taking out the same plaster white paper. Once he opened it, I could faintly see the number inside, which was the number five. But number five has already found her partner. 

One of the staff members apologized and asked for anyone whom hadn't found their partner yet to come by. It made sense to why they did that as only 13 of us comes which helped a lot for anyone whom we're trying to find their partner. Of course everyone else except me had finally found their partner. 

Since I was the only one without a partner now, the staff member was happy to find out that at least that the man with green hair has a partner and that I wasn't alone either. Luckily it was only the paper inside the box had fluke and nothing else, 'cause that could've gone a lot worse. 

-"Hello." I say, trying to start a conversation with this quiet man.

-"Hello." He quickly responds.

-"Do you have any idea's to what we should bake with or o you have any preference's?" How about I just cut to the chase.

-"Anything with booze inside." 

-"Is that allowed?" I say, not wanting to break any rules.

-"What if it isn't?"

-"Well we shouldn't do it then."

-"Who cares."

-"You do realize this is a competition right?"

-"Your point is?"

-"Well I would like to win."

-"So let's go with something with booze inside and how about we just surprise them."

-"...fine." I sigh, as I see the man I'm partnered with smirk at his 'victory'. "I do know a pretty good recipe for a desert with booze inside, it's called Browned Butter & Bourbon Blondies."

-"I'm good with that." the man nods in approval.

-"By the way, what exactly is your name?"

-"Zoro. You?"

-"(Y/n)."

Since we're both a little bit behind with the timer we rush our way through to start baking immediately. I go rushing for the ingredients and Zoro's task is to prepare the tools we'll be using, such as a whisk, a pan, preheating the oven always, and more. Once I rush back Zoro had already beat me with finishing everything. It almost felt like a competition with just him. He's going to drive me nuts isn't he?

Once I set the ingredients on the counter, I give instructions to what we should start with, which was melting the butter in a pan on the stove. Which I give Zoro that task as it isn't difficult to do, just keep and eye on it and stir a few times until it turns into a amber colour. 

My task is to put the walnuts on a baking sheet and put them into the oven to bake and to cut into pieces. Also because that's super easy and it's going to take a bit of time as well, in the mean time I'm also going to do the batter.

Once Zoro finishes with the butter and sets it aside, the walnuts also finish baking and it was now his task to cut the walnuts. Zoro seemed to be quite happy that he was going to cut something in the kitchen, which made me worried, but holy crap is he skilled with a knife and good to know to never piss him off when he has a knife in his hands.

As I mix the wet and dry ingredients, trying not to over mix and add in the extra ingredients inside, until we get to finally put in the baked walnuts (and the booze which is bourbon. Zoro even pours himself a glass of booze too.)

I put the batter into the pan and evenly spread the batter so it can cook evenly, and then just let it actually bake with what time we have left. I hadn't realized how much my anxiety level raised while trying to bake this desert and it was nice to finally have a break and let myself breathe. It seems Zoro felt it a bit too, as he didn't look so tense either.

While Zoro's having a drink and while we wait for the desert to bake, we chat a bit and actually get to know each other. He's a pretty nice guy to be honest, just a little bit more reserved. 

Sadly our conversation was cut short as we only have about 5 minutes left on the timer and it was rush time again, as we check how the baking is going an gladly knowing that our pastry didn't undercook or overcook and taking it out for it to cool off and cut it into squares (Which Zoro did). With the timer running out and us handing our pastry to the judges. 

They we're surprised to know that there was alcohol inside, but didn't punish us for putting it inside. Overall they did like the uniqueness of the desert and would have it again. Which I would say is a win for us as we made this with a little bit less time than some others did.

-End-