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The first night they were all too tired from their escape from Taris to do anything organized for a meal. Fortunately, the crew discovered that Davik had kept the ship well stocked. The hold was stocked with reheat and rehydrate style quick-serve meals, standard emergency rations, and ingredients to make proper meals. Everyone opted for reheating the quick-serves.
The next day, Arielle decided that she was going to cook and see if that would help her get to know the others on the ship. She couldn't actually force everyone to eat together, but she could make the main compartment a welcoming space for people to join in if they wanted to.
Her opening strategy was making sure she produced enough food for everyone, cooking a dish that filled the whole ship with its aromas, and then sitting on a couch tearing into it where people could see.
Mission and Zaalbar were the first ones out to see what was going on. "What's that?"
"Chek-root pancakes with a savory hrushi dipping sauce," Arielle said, gesturing to the plate.
"I've never heard of any of that." The Twi'lek sniffed the air deeply. "Can I try some?"
"Sure," she said, gesturing at the plate.
Zaalbar scooped up one of the slices and bit into it. He snorted and rumbled.
"Big Z likes it," Mission said helpfully. She took a piece and dipped it into the sauce, then took a bite. "Oh, these are really crunchy!"
"Glad you like it."
"Don't you normally serve chek-root cakes before dinner, instead of as dinner?" Carth asked.
Arielle jumped. She hadn't seen him standing by the door. "That's right. I've got a grain and meat stew on the burner. But these are great appetizers. Do you want one?"
The soldier walked in and took one, eschewing the sauce. "Not bad," he observed.
Just 'not bad'? You were a little more excited about my cooking on Taris, she thought sourly. Maybe he just didn't like that dish. Or maybe the ship is too crowded and it’s affecting his mood, she thought after a moment, trying to be a little more charitable about it.
Mission asked Carth a question about the ship, and he answered. The conversation happened between bites of the meal. Zaalbar stayed silent but was eagerly devouring. Ten minutes after the cooking was done, she'd gotten more than half the ship's complement out and socializing. Only Canderous and Bastila remained in their isolation. She could work on that.
Over the duration of the hyperspace trip, Arielle fell into the role of chef. It was a challenge, but one she enjoyed. Cooking a meal to appeal to everyone was hard, given the diversity of tastes on the ship, but she tried her best. Making a dish that made someone else happy mattered to her. It was her way of finding a little moment of shared understanding and rapport, making a connection that would turn her shipmates from ‘strangers she picked up on Taris’ to actual friends. Everyone had to eat, right?
She thought Canderous would have eaten anything, given that he was a mercenary. As it turned out, he had some pretty strong opinions about food. Namely, that spicier was better, that more meat was good, and the less said about grain stew, the better. (Although he was wrong for disliking her grandmother’s special recipe.)
Carth seemed happy to eat anything, probably because even her less-successful meals were better than soldier's rations. At least he appreciated her family’s special dishes. She also figured out that he had a sweet tooth, and made sure to not forget dessert.
Mission liked the chance to try new foods, even if she wound up disliking the dish of the day. The Twi’lek was also the most likely person to help out in the preparation, even if she skipped out on the cleanup. Teaching Mission was a lot of fun. It reminded Arielle of her own childhood and working in the family kitchen. “Everyone loves a person who can cook, and you won’t starve if you find yourself on some deserted planet,” she advised.
“When are we going to be on a deserted planet?” Mission asked.
“You never know,” she said with a shrug.
Arielle wasn't sure what Wookiee cuisine was like, so Zaalbar was more of a puzzle. At least he seemed content to fend for himself if he didn't like the main meal. Like Canderous, he went for meat-heavy meals, and he loved the roasted vegetables she put together one night.
Bastila always thanked her and seemed happy, no matter what the meal was. It was politer than Arielle expected from the brash young Jedi on which the Republic had pinned all its hopes. She was the one who would help with cleanup, humming softly under her breath. And sometimes she’d take extra dessert when she thought nobody was looking at her, but she wouldn’t admit to it. It was oddly endearing.
Besides being an excuse for bonding time, it was fun. Arielle liked all the little steps of preparing food: getting the ingredients, chopping and measuring, and having to keep an eye on everything at once, like browning meat in one pot, while tending the vegetables or starch in another, and making sure the sauce didn't burn in a third. The only part she didn't like was putting it out onto plates to be displayed and served. The solution to that was to let everyone serve themselves out of the cooking pots.
As far as she was concerned, cooking might look like chaos from the outside, but she found focusing on the little tasks that made up the bigger task to soothe her mind. It was an exercise in focusing on small details (how to best spice the sauce) while also keeping the bigger picture in mind (the whole dish when it was done). Cooking put her into a state that was part distraction from her troubles and part active grounding in the world.
Sometimes, people asked what she got out of being the main cook. She tried to explain the flow state of cooking to them, deciding to gloss over the feeling of emotional satisfaction when people were happy with the meal because it was ‘too mushy’. Only Carth really seemed to get what she meant. Well, at least even if they didn’t understand, they still appreciated her.
There were times when cooking wasn't calming. Times when it triggered images in her head that were contradictory, confusing, or just didn't seem right. That would unsettle her, knock her out of flow, and sometimes doom the dish.
One of those times happened when Mission stopped by to ask her about where she'd learned to cook the spiced noodles. She'd tried to answer, but found herself paralyzed by conflicting images in her mind.
She was younger and in a small kitchen, an older woman smiling encouragingly as she patiently stirred a pot of grain stew to incorporate the herbs she'd just shaken in. "You'll make a great chef -"
She was sitting at a long bench with some other children under the watchful eye of two older men in robes, slicing up vegetables and floating them over to a pot -
" - as long as you don't burn the stew. It's the foundation of a good meal," her grandmother cautioned as she smiled at her granddaughter.
"Arielle?" Mission prompted.
The human shook her head and wondered why it felt so fuzzy all of a sudden. She'd learned to cook from her gran on - on... Mental static filled her mind. She couldn’t remember her gran’s name. A sharp surge of fear skittered through her.
Where had the image of the older men and the children come from?
Deralia, came to her mind. Grandmother Lerrin, on Deralia.
How had she forgotten that?
"Grandma Lerrin taught me," Arielle said.
"You okay?" Mission asked her.
"Headache," she said.
The Twi'lek gave her a look that somehow managed to combine curiosity, concern, and suspicion. But instead of saying anything, she held out the bowl in her hands, asking, "Is this chopped right?"
"Looks good," she said, taking the bowl and dumping the vegetables into the pan. "Another 5 minutes and it'll be done. Thanks, Mish."
"I'll let Big Z know," Mission said, ducking out of the room.
Arielle stared down at the sauce, trying to recall what she’d seen of the robed people at the table. It must have been one of Bastila’s memories, she rationalized, an artifact carried over from their Force-link. So far, it had only affected them at night, bringing their minds together and showing them strange visions.
Perhaps it was bleeding over into the daytime, and they were sharing more mundane recollections about day to day life. Maybe Bastila had seen her and her family at the same time. At least they were nearly to Dantooine. Surely the Jedi would know what to do about their link. Everything would turn out fine.
A bubble in the sauce swelled and popped, splashing warm liquid on her. She yelped and turned her attention back to the food before it was ruined. After all, the crew would never forgive her if they had to eat rations tonight because she burned something. She dumped the meat into the skillet to start browning.
In a few minutes, Mission came out of the port room, Zaalbar and Canderous following behind her. “I’ll get Bastila and Carth,” she said, scampering up towards the cockpit for the last two.
“What’s for dinner?” the Wookie rumbled.
“Sauteed nerf with brualkii and pasta in kaprang sauce. Just need to sautee up the meat and it’s done,” she said. She kept chasing the meat around and stirred in the brualkii.
“Brualkii?” Canderous said, wrinkling his nose. “At least tell me the sauce is spicy.”
“If it doesn’t knock your socks off, I’ll make you something else. But I bet you’re going to love it.”
“Big words,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Hopefully not too spicy,” Mission said when she came in.
“There’s the spicy janran pepper oil in a tube over there. I put some in the sauce for the flavor and then you can add more to your taste.”
“Thank you for that,” Carth said.
“Mission, can you start plating noodles? Once the meat is done - which it almost is -” she added, “it’ll be time to eat.”
“Good. I’m starving,” Bastila said.
As Arielle watched the inhabitants of the Ebon Hawk settling into chairs around the table, she felt happy. It was a strange little rag-tag group they’d put together on Taris, but it was starting to become a unit she cared about. Whatever happened when they got to Dantooine, she hoped they’d stay in contact.