Steam Bun Shuffle (Roia)

"Well then, I guess I should show you to the sous-chef." Chevalier walked over to the far back of the kitchen to a short man, standing at a height of no more than 5'2", who was prepping what looked to be halibut. Chevalier stopped in front of the short man and exclaimed, "Oh Ludovic, we've got a great Minstrelian chef here to help us out for the night. If you could show him around and get him acquainted with the kitchen that would be lovely. I've got to go make sure everything is going well in the dining room, but don't be afraid to come find me if you have an issue." With that Chevalier walked through the kitchen and out into the dining room, we could hear him yelling about a centerpiece, but we both pretended to ignore it as Ludovic started talking. "Well I assume you have a working knowledge of Minstrelian cuisine." I retorted back quickly with, "Yes, I worked as a chef there for a couple of years at the request of my mother. I learned a lot from my head chef during that time." Ludovic looked back at him and said, "All right then you'll have to follow me back to the head chef's office, as you'll need the recipes. I would assume you would also like an apron." With that last word Ludovic cut the last of the halibut fillets into their six ounce pieces. He then proceeded towards a door in the far back left corner of the kitchen; he pulls out a key and opens the door.

The inside of the room is decorated almost as decadently as the dining room itself. Ludovic walks over to the desk and pulls out a small recipe card box and opens it; after a while, he pulls out seven small cards and said, "These are the items we will be serving tonight, please become acquainted with them well. In regards to how tonight will work, you will be expected to work in the manner that I usually do, which will require you to jump from station to station as each of the item's is coming up to be served for the banquet. Your job is basically to make sure that everything gets made properly and on time, I feel that having you do this will be particularly productive with tonight's lack of staff. We only have three other chefs tonight, so we will only have three courses in production at a time. Luckily the only items that require a large amount of time have already been started during our prep time. Here's the apron, I suggest that you take off your vest and tie and roll up your sleeves, otherwise you'll probably start to sweat quite a bit and stain your shirt." With that Ludovic left the office, with Alistair following closely.

After they exited, Ludovic locked the door again and walked towards a much taller man, much taller than Alistair in fact, he had to be at least 6'3" if not taller. He was washing what looked to Alistair to be wild mushrooms. Ludovic stopped in front of the man and the man turned all of his attention to Ludovic, stopping what he was doing, which Alistair thought was mostly out of a sign of respect, but maybe also out of an inability to multitask well. Ludovic began, "This here is Sebastien, he is one of the line cooks. His first station this evening will be the hors d'oeuvre. I'll be getting everything ready for the expedition tonight, so get acquainted, but also get some work done, because we open in thirty minutes." Sebastien very obviously became nervous at the thought of opening in thiry minutes. Alistair looked at Sebastien and said in a reassuring manner, "Don't look so nervous, it'll be fine. Oh, I'm Alistair. I've been charged with the duty of helping each of you at each station when it's time for your dishes to be made and served. So, based on the recipe cards I've been given you must be making the warm camembert with a wild mushroom fricassee." Alistair looked at Sebastien with a kind and honest face, so as to help aleviate some of the nervousness that Sebastien had so obviously shown when he was told that service would start soon.

Sebastien looked at Alistair with a sort of unassuring charm that showed he was still nervous and said with a bit of a frog in his throat, "Y-yes, that's right. This is what we'll be starting the banquet off with. They decided that this was a dish that was difficult to mess up, and being that I'm the newest member of the kitchen with the least amount of experience, they gave me the hors d'oeuvre, which was pretty nice, since I don't have to do the fish or the main dishes, which are pretty complex. Although my second station is the meat course, which will be difficult, so I'm glad that you're here to make sure everything goes well." Alistair looked at him and gave him a reassuring smile. Alistair couldn't help but think to himself that Sebastien was just a little adorable in his lack of confidence, though of course he didn't show this feeling to Sebastien, so as to keep up a professional air about himself. Alistair finally says, "So, we should probably get to work on the hors d'oeuvre then, since we'll need it to be ready to serve very early. Let's see here, the card says that we need to bake the vacherin mont-d'or for a bit, as well as the walnuts, and of course we'll need to make the fricassee." Alistair could see Sebastien getting paler as he was listing off the components of the dish.

Alistair decided to continue on, despite the fact that Sebastien was getting increasingly nervous. "Well maybe you should stick the walnuts in the oven to roast for a bit Sebastien. For the walnuts it doesn't matter that you roast them in advance." Sebastien sat in front of Alistair, still taking it all in, the color started coming back to Sebastien's face and eventually he replied with, "Oh, right. Sorry, I'll get right on those walnuts." Alistair smiled at him and went over to a set of lockers in the back near the office. He found an open locker and started taking off his extra clothing. He removed his tie and vest; he noticed a chef's coat on a hook near the locker that was about his size, so he also took off his button down shirt and put the chef's coat over his undershirt. He put all of his clothes in the locker and closed it. He walked back over to Sebastien as Sebastien was washing the mushrooms again. He walked up next to Sebastien and said, "Don't forget to get your mis en place ready before service starts. The way things are going now it might take you a little while, and we've only got another 15 minutes before service starts." Alistair saw Sebastien get nervous at the sound of service starting soon again, but it was much more contained than earlier.

Sebastien started to get his mis en place in place, he was choppping the mushrooms, mincing the shallots, mincing the sage leaves, and cutting the sourdough bread. After finishing his mis en place he looks at Alistair and says, "Okay, this is much easier than I had thought it was going to be. I was really nervous about this earlier, but I'm starting to think this could go off without any issue. To be honest, tonight's my first night working here and as soon as I heard that most of the staff was sick on such an important night, I almost passed out on the spot! I mean, I haven't even been trained yet and now I'm one of only a handful of chefs working on such an important banquet. It really freaked me out." Sebastien looked at Alistair with insistent sincerity. Alistair looks bad and grins a bit, then he responds with, "It was kind of obvious, but you're doing well now. Just make sure you time everything correctly. Oh, it's five minutes until we open. As soon as those doors open you'll want to get the vacherin mont-d'or in the oven and the mushrooms sauteeing in a pan with some walnut oil." Sebastien looked back and said to Alistair, "I'll absolutely make sure of it!"

Five minutes later, Chevalier comes back into the kitchen and says, "It's time for service to starts, are we ready?" Ludovic looks up at him and goes to the front of the kitchen right at the front with all the dishes around him and says to Chevalier, "All right, we're ready. Feel free to open the doors for service." With that Chevalier happily left the kitchen and made his way to the front door. He told the door man that they were open for service, and with that not a minute later customers began to pour in by the bundles. When all of the banquet guests had arrived a waiter came to tell us to begin. With that Sebastien pulled the vacherin mont-d'ors out of the oven and with a final seasoning of the fricassee sent out the hors d'oeuvres with great ease. Alistair was rather surprised at how confident Sebastien had become under the pressure of the banquet. Since the hors d'oeuvres were now served and it did not appear as though any of the guests were meaning to send it back, Alistair turned to Sebastien and said, "You better get on the meat station, that meat will need to be in the pan as soon as the soup goes out." And with that, Sebastien hurried away to a far back area of the kitchen with duck breasts laid out everywhere, just waiting to start on the meat.

Alistair glanced around the room looking for the soup station, he probably should have asked Ludovic where it was, since it was his next station, but soon he noticed a station with an enormous stock pot and decided that that must be the soup station. He noticed that the man at the station was older than Sebastien and seemed more confident as well. The man had to be at least 23, while Sebastien could be no more than 17. Alistair walked over to the now assumed soup station and presented himself to the man. "Hello, I am Alistair, How are we looking on the..." Alistair was quickly flipping through the recipe cards before he found the soup, "Oh, a turtle consommé! I haven't seen a consommé since I left Minstrel. This ought to be fun."

The confident looking man at the station looked at Alistair with an appreciative grin and started, "My name is Antoine, I'm the saucier of this kitchen. They chose to leave me in charge of the consommé, since it was very important not to mess it up, as it takes hours of preparation to make. The consommé is basically finished, I just need to get the turtle prepared with the vegetables. We made a turtle consommé with a few turtles and their shells, and now we will be pan-searing some turtle and serving it with some sautéed vegetables in the turtle shell, with the consommé ladled over top." Alistair was a little surprised at how good Antoine was at his job, but it was to be expected of course, because Antoine was given the all important job of saucier in a Minstrelian kitchen. Being a saucier in a Minstrelian kitchen was tantamount to being the sous-chef's right hand man, making a saucier the de facto third chef in the chef ranking, right below the sous-chef and head chef.

Antoine looked at Alistair with a small grin and said, "Feel free to take over if you want, but honestly this is fairly simple and easily handled by a saucier, so if you want to go to the next station to make sure that the fish is done properly from start to finish, then feel free to do so." Alistair could tell that Antoine didn't feel he needed any help, most likely out of a sense of over confidence, but still Alistair remained professional and replied with, "No, if it's alright with you I would love to stay if for nothing else than seeing the abilities of this kitchen's saucier." Alistair looked right at Antoine with a sort of sincerity that seemed a little false, but Antoine couldn't call him out on it, so Antoine simply replied with, "All right, suit yourself then. This'll be done in about 5 minutes."

With that, Antoine pulled out what appeared to be pieces of turtle meat, cut into small strips. He quickly put them into the pan with a fair amount of butter in it to sear off the turtle. As the turtle was searing, he quickly julienned various vegetables, such as green bell peppers, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Antoine quickly threw all of the julienned vegetables in to sauté with the turtle, as the turtle had already gotten a nice sear on it. After a minute or two he turned down the heat to sweat the vegetables in the pan with the turtle for the reminder of the time while also basting all of it with the liquids in the pan, mostly butter, but there was also meat juices from the turtle and also some liquid from the vegetables.

Alistair could see that Antoine was extremely talented as a chef, probably more so as a saucier, so he just sat and watched as Antoine completed the consommé so quickly and delicately. Before he knew it Antoine was done and the consommé was sent up to the sous-chef to be examined, and then it was ultimately sent out. Unsurprisingly none of the guests sent the dish back. Alistair could tell that this saucier was quite talented and should be watched closely; after all, how else are you supposed to learn unless you observe talented people? Alistair looked at Antoine with a smirk and said, "Alright, good job Antoine. I'll be onto the fish station to meet the last chef. I'll see you later in the service I'm sure." Alistair started to walk over to the young woman in kitchen who looked to be around Alistair's age, as Alistair walked closer he could see that she was brewing with confidence in her cooking, but not the sort of overconfidence that Antoine held.

Alistair was eventually right next to the woman and said casually, "Hello, I'm Alistair. I'm here to help you with anything and to make sure everything gets sent up properly and on time. Having looked through the recipe cards I can only assume that at this fish station you are preparing the braised halibut provençal." The woman looked up casually, while also still watching the halibut closely while it was sitting there in the oven. She started to talk, without taking her eyes off the food in the oven, "I'm Veronica, one of the line cooks. Since you've already seen the recipe for the halibut, I don't need to say anything about it except that I just put it in the oven about six or seven minutes ago. It should be ready in ten to twelve minutes."

Alistair looked at Veronica, she was just brimming with confidence, not that sort of overconfidence that Antoine had, but it wasn't close to the sort of underconfidence that plagued Sebastien either. She simply knew that she could get done what needed to be done, without any ideas about being the best at it. Alistair felt a bit refreshed by this taut sense of confidence that she held. He looked at her, while trying to hide his happiness with her demeanor, and said, "Well then, I guess I'll just observe, as it seems that you have got a handle on things here. Just let me know if you need anything." Veronica looked at Alistair, she was a little surprised at how he had reacted to her forwardness. She wasn't used to being shown this sort of professional courtesy just after an initial meeting.