Evolve.

14 - Food is Love

QIAO picked herself off the floor and walks away from me and back to the center of the room.   

"Okay, now that we are all calmed down, we may begin." 

It seems that she has switched back into the strong, stern woman that we first met rather than the grateful, vulnerable girl had previously made a brief appearance in her.

"Your first task," She commanded, "is to cook my afternoon meal. Whomever is successful at quenching my hunger will move on to the next round. The worst fifteen will be eliminated and sent home."

Perfect! I absolutely adore the culinary arts, and this challenge should be a breeze for me. Cooking used to be therapy when Chryssa's cruel treatment ruined my mood. I would cook, bake, blanch, brew, boil, braise, stew, toast, poach, grill, saute, deep fry, toast, sizzle, and brown anything...you name it! 

Of course, cooking also brings bad memories of my father's death. After all, he was killed after Carrie poisoned the meal that I made for him.

Don't think about it, I remind myself. Ever since my father's lifeless body was found in the modern day, I can't stop hating myself for killing him - even if it was a plot hatched by Chryssa's evil mind.

No, I cannot do this forever...I need to escape again and delve into cooking.

On a brighter note, the girls all look pretty smug about this challenge and I don't blame them; I'm very smug about this challenge. Apparently, every girl in this room has an eloquent knowledge of domestic cooking. 

That is until Qiao's familiar brash face came into the picture.

"However!" She calls, "Winter is coming so our ingredients are few. Some of you may not reach the ingredient table as quick enough as the next girl. Therefore, many of you will not have enough to cook what you usually would at home."

For a moment, I saw looks of fear in it's purest form. Girls were internally panicking because they were not prepared to improvise if they did not have enough ingredients.

Me? Nah, I've done this a million times...

Let's just see what Qiao will do next.

Oh-kaaay...she is looking at me  at this very moment. It's a bit awkward considering that she practically just got on her knees for me. I hope the other girls - such as Jia and An - don't think that I'm getting special treatment. 

Then, Qiao loudly announces, "Before we start, I want Liu Mei to be the first to pick her ingredients."

Great, now the girls will definitely think that I'm getting special treatment! Jade is probably already plotting my murder as we speak. Damn it!

I don't say anything, but my actions definitely say okay when I walk towards a wooden table with an assortment of varying if not limited ingredients. I take what I can but only what I need, and the whole time, there are fifty pairs of eyes studying my every move and probably trying to figure out what my deal was.

In particular, Jade was giving me the evil eye.

For a good reason, I suspect the girls are using telepathic links to communicate with each other but they choose to leave me out of it because that would explain a lot. Like why, everyone seems to know everything while I understand nothing. 

Then again, I was born in the late 1990's not the early 1760's! How am I supposed to go through this when my only knowledge about the palace life came from all those historical TV shows? Aggghh!

Calm down.

I breathe and carry all the basic Chinese ingredients with me: a few cups of rice, a bit of soy sauce, fresh fragrant ginger,  dried mushrooms, fermented black beans, a bundle of bok choy, a whole white fish, etc.. 

What can I make? 

Perhaps, a marinated steamed fish with fresh vegetables in rice. That would be fun, especially if I could just make the flavors explode in Qiao's mouth through various spices. She'll be blown away with mouthwatering traditional Chinese food.

Well, at least I thought so until I look to my left and right.

Everyone else is making some rice dish involving their meat of choice! I'm won't be standing out anytime soon. Now, I need to think about what will help me...

Let's see...rice can be made into cake, noodles, balls, pudding (okay I shouldn't) and...pizza.

Rice pizza! I know! It sounds weird, but hey...all I would have to do is replace flour with rice and voila: a regular pizza made from a rice base. There's nothing to it. Besides, if the Italians took their pasta from China, then I can take their pizza just this one time.

Although, I didn't have any traditional Italian ingredients, all of my ingredients would "Chinese-nize" the dish. It was something but maybe I could get some more stuff from the ingredient table.

Wrong. 

"I'm ruined! There are no more vegetables, fish or noodles!"

Suddenly, a girl was on the floor hysterically crying. I recognized her as one of Jade's minions who was laughing at me the other day. All of her pretty hairpins were falling off her head as the servants tried to pick her up.

She kept desperately crying about not having enough. I think she meant enough ingredients to make a proper meal. Poor thing.  "Take her out." Qiao simply ordered, and the girl was carried out by the servants.

Ahahahahaha! One of Jade's minions was gone, and good riddance! Jade and her friends didn't have wonderful personalities. I'm ecstatic that Jin won't married one those dense, ignorant and heartless girls!

Oh no. Don't tell me that I actually care for Jin! Great...

Anyways, I should start the challenge before I start developing feelings for Jin. 

...

sure you can complain about historical accuracy all you want, but the rice pizza will not budge :)

lol i'm determined.

& what? an intiation process that determines whether a girl is qualified to be a palace wife, what?

see ya soon

-ashley mei

btw happy 15th birthday to me! I share a birthday with Mickey Mouse :)