If You Can't Stand The Heat...by lilscout
Summary: This idea was born out of reading so many other writers reference Callie's cooking skill. Well, what if Callie really can cook? Maybe she's a kick-ass line cook at a top Seattle hotel and Arizona is the newly hired Pastry Chef. Bon Appetit!
Rating: So far, just a T.
A/N: This is my very first attempt at fan fiction. I was a chef for many years, but that seems like a lifetime ago. So while I tried to describe and identify things as well as I could, please forgive any errors you may find in the descriptions. I hope you enjoy the story!
Disclaimer: The lovely and talented Shonda Rhimes owns all these great characters. I'm just playing with them for a while.
Chapter 1 - "The Starter"
"Sloan!"
Callie barked at her best friend who was standing and sweating over the large industrial grill four feet away. "I need that filet now, goddamit! The risotto is done!"
This statement was made with all the emphasis an ER doctor might place on demanding more blood "now!" before his patient dies. To Callie Torres, bad-ass first line cook at one of the best hotel restaurants in Seattle, it might as well be the same thing. She hated screw-ups, and right now all she could think about was that she had ninety seconds to get her perfectly cooked white truffle and asparagus risotto out of the pan and onto the waiting dinner plate before it started to turn into goo. Tasty goo, but goo nonetheless.
"Mark!" she barked again.
"Relax, Torres. I got you covered!" Mark Sloan was "in the weeds" and loving every minute of it.
Callie never understood how he managed to remain so calm and collected under such immense pressure five nights a week. He seemed to float through every shift with a grin that oozed confidence but was never conceited. Even though they agreed to put an end to their sex-buddy thing over a year ago, she found that it brought them closer together as real friends. She trusted him with her life, and she knew he felt the same.
Mark finally finished poking his finger at the large piece of expensive meat, grabbed it with his tongs, and turned in one quick fluid motion to place it on the waiting plate. Torres caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and spun around as well, managing to deposit the cooked rice into the centre of the plate just before Mark placed the piece of meat down onto it.
Mark leaned over to Callie and asked, "Who the hell orders a ten ounce filet well done, anyway?" Callie smirked at him and focused her eyes back down to the stove top, already on to the next orders.
Sous-chef Miranda Bailey was only partially paying attention to the interaction of her cooks right now, mostly because her anger and frustration was currently focused on the hapless, and helpless, brand new busser who hadn't taken the time to memorize the table numbers yet. Too many plates were making their way out to the wrong patrons, and therefore being returned needlessly back to the kitchen.
She had had enough. Anyone who judged the diminutive sous-chef based solely upon her physical size was in for a wake-up call. If commanding respect could have been measured in height, Miranda Bailey was ten feet tell. There was nothing she did not know, food wise anyway, and she could literally kick ass on the line better than anyone Callie had ever met. The subtlety of her palate was just as equal and opposite as her gruff demeanour. Miranda had no time for incompetence and was single minded in her goal to allow only the highest possible quality to make it past her and into the restaurant. She wanted a Michelin Star just as much as the Chef did, maybe more.
And now, this idiot was causing her cooks to have to repeat items, forcing them to fall further behind. This was causing displeasure among the paying guests who now must wait longer for their food, and it was really pissing off her staff.
"You!" She growled at the young man, her eyes seething with anger and disgust. He turned to look but, wisely, did not approach the sous chef. "You have exactly ten seconds to get the hell out of my kitchen!" She paused, making sure to enunciate each syllable. "If you even dare to show your face around here tomorrow, you will have not only memorized the tables, you will also know the entire menu...by heart, and I mean every single item, down to knowing exactly how many grains of salt goes into the cassoulet!" She glared at the frightened young man. "Do you get me?" He simply nodded his head once at her, and turned to scurry away.
Bailey turned her attention back to the "pass" and without skipping a beat, resumed calling out orders as if nothing had even occurred. Callie and every other cook within earshot smiled knowingly to themselves as they continued to produce food at a thunderous pace. At some point in each of their careers they had all stood in the exact spot as that young man tonight, in a different kitchen maybe, but still feeling small and stupid and almost naked while the chef or the sous-chef berated them in front of the entire staff.
Actually, Callie thought, the kid got off kinda easy. At least he didn't have a plate thrown at his head! The brunette smiled widely and said to no one in particular, "God, I love this job!"
...
The next afternoon, Chef Richard Webber was sitting at his desk, phone in hand, listening to his friend on the other end of the line.
"Look Richard, technically I shouldn't even be telling you this, but I don't think it's going to come as news to you that your restaurant will never earn a rating with Michelin as long as your pastry department continues as is."
The man paused, waiting for the backlash that didn't come.
"I know how badly you want this," the man continued, "but it's just not going to happen until you decide to make a change." Webber didn't argue. He had no reason to. He knew Pastry was failing him, and by letting it continue, he was failing the hotel. Richard simply thanked the man for his frankness, and hung up the phone.
He sat quietly for a moment, then hurriedly grabbed the receiver again to make another call.
...
Arizona Robbins loved the weather in L.A., but that was about all she loved anymore. She was beginning to think that if she had to cater to the ridiculous whims of just one more botoxed, vacuous, and diet-obsessed celebrity, she would actually literally kill someone. OK, maybe she wouldn't go quite that far, but each day she would ask herself why she continued to stay in a place that made her so very miserable. She hated being unhappy...it just didn't come naturally to her. She was a flagrantly unabashed optimist, in a town full of cynics.
Yet, there she stood again, inside one more stranger's kitchen, adding the final details to a giant two foot by two foot fortress castle cake complete with working gingerbread drawbridge and blue crystallized sugar moat, marzipan crocodiles and all...for a kid turning the ripe old age of two. Arizona loved kid's parties, almost as much as she loved making the cakes for them, but this was bordering on the obscene.
She winced as the yelling that began in the adjacent room made it's way into the kitchen. Unhappy parents, screaming at each-other in front of her as if she was invisible. Arizona had been the unfortunate witness to far too many scenes like this one since she came to work in L.A.
This is a happy occasion, she wanted to remind them. Their son was turning two years old, and he was happy and healthy. That was all that mattered wasn't it? She kept quiet though. To open her mouth would be a mistake. For as much as Arizona Robbins, acclaimed pastry chef, was respected and admired for her skill and imagination in cooking circles, today she was simply "the help".
Just as she was contemplating the best way to remove herself from the situation, the phone in her pocket began to ring. She carefully put down the colourful and delicate pulled sugar flags she was holding, and, saying a quick "excuse me" to her still screaming and oblivious clients, left the room.
Moving down the hall, she pulled the ringing phone from her pocket. She paused, glancing at the area code on the display screen. 2 0 6, she wondered, who could this be?