Zack´s super awesome cooking-show!
Pilot episode
Guest of Honor: Angeal Hewley
The show´s introduced by drum rolls and a few pictures of the host grinning widely into the camera with various kinds of prepared nourishments that only vaguely resemble plastic food. The music reaches its climax and the final shot of Zack wearing a white chef´s cap that sits 'playfully' askew on the catastrophe he calls hair. A white apron is wrapped around his SOLDIER uniform and he winks into the camera with a wide, toothy grin.
An over-dimensional logo wobbles into the picture all of a sudden, blinking and glittering madly, announcing that it is now time for "ZACK´S SUPER AWESOME COOKING SHOW!" and gives half of the audience an epileptic seizure.
The intro stops and your usual TV-cooking show kitchen set, stuffed with fruits and cooking equipment and shit, is presented in a warm light that´s supposed to calm the audience after their seizure. If they could, the producers´d spray tranquilizer and appetizer through the TV but ShinRa technology isn´t that enhanced. Yet.
The camera´s stock still and fixed on the scenery that is utterly empty so far. The seconds pass by without anything spectacular happening except for the mako contaminated fruits and vegetables gently glowing in the spotlights. Just then, the camera flickers and zooms onto a half hidden figure that sways back and forth behind the counter, sticking out its rear with fervor and intensity.
It´s then that a hiss is heard and the figure flinches but suddenly jumps up from behind the counter to enthusiastically wave into the camera, scratching the back of its head with the other hand. Then the man who is recognized by the audience as the same guy that grinned at them during the opening, sheepishly points with his thumb to the point where he came up from and tries to save the day with a nervous, "Sorry, sit ups, in-house championship´s coming up..."
Then he straightens though, looking very professional as he tries to reach inconspicuously for his chef cap from under the counter and put it on without anyone noticing. He fails spectacularly, of course.
"Hello and welcome to Zack´s super awesome cooking show!" The host introduced with a little sign at the bottom of the screen as 'Zack Fair, amateur chef extraordinaire' is welcomed with lots of convincing artificial enthusiasm and clapping from offcamera.
"Thank you, thank you," Zack holds up his hands, his grin still wide and sparkling, but the 'audience' keeps rooting to the point where the chef starts to look a bit dismayed and laughs with barely hidden embarrassment. "Now really, I am not that awesome, haha."
The clapping and "WOOOOOT"-ing stops abruptly.
Even more awkwardly, Zack blinks but then nonchalantly distracts from the moment by clearing his throat, forcing his boyish, charming grin even wider and rubbing his hands energetically.
"As I said, ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, welcome to the premiere of my very own cooking show!" He is interrupted by another surge of frenetic applause that stops as suddenly as it started and lasts a maximum of two and a half seconds.
Zack ignores it professionally.
"Tonight we are going to cook something!" He stares into the camera, brimming with exuberance.
" …... YAY!... …..I am sure that there was a hell of a lot more introducing to do but I forgot my cue cards and I'm having a black out so let´s just skip the boring stuff, okies? Anyway, as I was saying we´re going to cook something tonight as obviously this is a cooking show, MY cooking show to be exact, and it´s going to be absolutely awesome! And for this very first episode, I managed to get a very, very special guest for you," he lowers his voice to an almost whisper, sounding very mysterious the way he stretches out his arms as if he´s going to perform a most difficult magic trick. His fingertips accidently bump against a violently red tomato that rolls off the counter in slow motion and explodes into a bloody mess on the floor, vegetarian intestines flying everywhere, but he ignores that as well and pushes the remaining carcass of the tomato away with his boot. Luckily Zack doesn´t believe in bad omen anyways. This is going to be a GREAT show!
"He´s a very precious friend of mine and a great mentor. Everything I am, I became thanks to him, so please give a hearty welcome to my friend, Angeal Hewleyyyyy!" Zack shouts the last words and drags them ooooooooon, as he excitedly gestures with both arms to the left.
The applause breaks out for a moderate amount of time this time and then fades away beautifully, but no guest enters the stage. Zack pokes his arms to the left side of the screen again and gives a strained grin as if he could force his guest out this way and the applause starts again. After a few long agonizing seconds, finally another man strolls into the picture, positioning himself next to his sweating host who has finally dropped his arms and instead lays them around the stern man´s shoulders. Applause stops abruptly.
"Hello! Welcome Angeal Hewley! I am glad that you could come!" Zack beams like a whole army of laser pointers and it seems that he has to restrain himself hard to not bounce up and down in unadulterated, raw excitement.
"Hello to you too, Zack Fair. Thank you for the invitation," Angeal replies blankly, unmoving, staring into the camera without blinking for at least five minutes.
Zack claps his hands together and rubs them. "Sooooo, you brought us a recipe! I bet the audience is just as excited as I am to know what we are going to cook tonight. So, what are we going to cook tonight?" His heavy, expectant gaze bores into Angeal´s skull. The older man is still busy freezing the camera with his creepy stare of doom but then a jerk jerks through his body and he finally guides his intense blue eyes towards Zack.
"We are not going to cook anything. We are baking." His words are accompanied by a big basket he suddenly heaves onto the counter. "Apple pie."
"Apple pie..." Zack repeats, trapped in boundless awe and hanging on Angeal´s every word as if they were succulent, warm little apple pies themselves. Oh this is so the best moment in his life, ever! He´s here, on TV with his idol, and all the world can see it! His mom is watching and his girlfriend too and now they can finally see for themselves what an honorable and great man Angeal is instead of only listening to Zack´s endless bragging and hymns of praise! Apple pie!
"Yes," Angeal says quietly, seemingly relaxing a bit as his stiff shoulders slump. Maybe he doesn´t feel so much out of place anymore, trapped in a set stuffed with tupperware and plastic lilies.
"It is my great, great, great grandmother´s recipe and traditionally, it was handed down from generation to generation."
"Oh..." Zack´s mouth shapes a perfect round little hole as he keeps staring at his proud mentor. Then he remembers that he actually has to anchor a show and grins into the camera. "I love apple pie! Doesn´t that just sound awesome? It does, doesn´t it? Everyone loves apple pie! Apple pie is good! Now, Angeal, what do we have to do?" Expectantly Zack turns back to his guest, hands on his hips.
"Well Zack, first we need a few ingredients," Angeal replies and fetches a white apron that has been prepared for him and pulls it over his uniform. He takes his time to arrange it orderly and neatly, smoothing out the wrinkles. Then he reaches into his basket and one after another, he summons various items. "Flour, sugar, salt, butter, cinnamon, shortening, nutmeg and most important: apples."
Zack nods enthusiastically, his wagging tail almost visible.
"First we´re going to make the crust," Angeal explains, calmly laying his hand on a pack of flour.
"What do we need to do that?" Zack asks curiously. "Can I do something too? I want to help, I wanna do something too! Can I help? Please?"
"You can." Angeal replies graciously and only slightly patronizing, pushing the flour, salt and sugar into Zack´s direction. "Get a bowl and measure two and a half cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Stir it and add half a cup of the butter but break it into little pieces beforehand. Add 5 teaspoons of shortening as well and mix them, then add 8 teaspoons of ice water. Mix all of that until the dough holds together; add a bit more water if necessary. Then turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, knead it together and divide it in half. Flatten each half into a disk, wrap in saran wrap and cool it a bit, then roll out one of the disks until you have a circle that´s about 12 inches in diameter. Put the circle in a 9" pie plate, trim any extra dough from the edges with a sharp knife." His words have become clipped and sharp, resembling barked military orders more than instructions for a recipe.
Nevertheless Zack listens intently and gets ready for work. He is hunched over the ingredients when Angeal suddenly hollers at him out of nowhere "Maintain some attitude will you! You must not forget about your honor and dignity as a SOLDIER even while baking apple pie!"
"YESSIR!" Instantly Zack stands straight to attention, saluting much to his mentor´s satisfaction, who nods approvingly. "Now, begin your task."
As the puppy begins to tear open packages of flour and sugar with manly, military precision and aggression, Angeal glares into the camera like a man on a mission.
A mission to kill.
"Meanwhile I will prepare the filling. I need 2/3 cup sugar, ¼ cup flour, half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg and cinnamon, a pinch of salt, two tablespoons of butter and 8 medium sized apples."
He grabs one of the violet, oddly-shaped apples and holds it up for the camera to zoom in on it.
"I will now hack slash kill- I mean peel, core and slice those special apples," the SOLDIER first class announces and reaches for a frighteningly big kitchen knife that he wields expertly and at an even more worrisome speed. A slice of apple splashes against the camera and slowly skids down, leaving a thin foamy trail on the lens.
That causes Zack to abandon his task and curiously look over the man´s shoulder, inspecting the oddly colored fruits. "So those are special apples? What´s so special about them? They look strange..."
"They are not strange." Strictly, Angeal pushes away the puppy´s fingers that have sneaked up to snatch away a slice of apple. "Those apples are special indeed. They are Banora white apples or dumb apples as they are lovingly called by the locals," he informs generously.
"Awesome!" Zack is in awe, again, but that doesn´t keep him from trying to steal a slice and this time, he succeeds. Or maybe Angeal lets him. That´s how awesome Angeal is and Zack hopes his mom saw that. Whatever the case, as he chews on his dumb apple and Angeal starts to mix his own bowl of sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt, a thought hits him.
"So since these apples are so special, I bet our audience is dying to know where you bought them, so they can get them as well!" Ah, isn´t he just such a clever and attentive host? Never forgets his mechanically cheering audience from the tape. Zack bets that Angeal, his mom and his girlfriend must be secretly proud of him. He is managing so well and he isn´t even really that into cooking! Actually he has never cooked before in his life! This is baking though, not cooking. Not that he has ever baked before... Seems like Zack Fair´s just a natural when it comes to almost everything. There´s no way he´s not going to be a hero sooner or later. Sephiroth, watch out! Zack bets that the silver haired General can´t even bake...
"I didn´t buy them," Angeal remarks off-handedly, seemingly concentrated on stirring his bowl and pulling Zack out of his glorious reverie. That reminds Zack that he has work to do as well and so he rolls out his disk.
"I 'borrowed' them from several unattended gardens."
The host stops in his task, smile frozen to his features, directing his gaze at his unfazed guest. "You mean... you stole them?" He gives a light laugh, as if his mentor has made a silly joke, because surely this can´t be true
"If you want to call it that," Angeal shrugs and snatches the pie plate out of Zack´s limp hands to fill it with apple-flour-sugar mousse.
"B-but-" Helplessly, Zack looks into the camera and when he doesn´t get any support from there, he turns back to Angeal, trying to save the situation himself. Children are watching! "Surely you can´t really mean that," he urges, nervously licking his lips and obviously hoping that Angeal will get the hint and play along to save his reputation… and Zack´s. "I mean, stealing is bad."
The other soldier just shrugs again and smears his creation with butter before he covers the top with the crust and seals the edges with practiced ease. "They are irrationally expensive and I am poor. And cheap." He arches an eyebrow and brushes some flour out of his beard.
Zack grows more and more desperate. "But Angeal," he whines, as he is pushed aside so that the man in question can reach the oven and shove in his criminal pie.
"Isn´t stealing dishonorable? Isn't it, isn't it?" Zack frantically bobs his head back and forth, eyes big and round, seeking affirmation so that his mentor´s integrity can be restored. He has told the world just how awesome and honorable and heroic his teacher and best friend is and now Angeal had to ruin it all and drop the bomb like that, making himself look like a law breaking, trespassing cheapskate (which he is, kind of...)! They are on TV! Children are watching! His mom is watching!
"It´s okay." Angeal makes a casual, dismissive wave with his hand before he sets the time on the oven and opens his mouth again to make it all so much, much worse even though Zack was profoundly convinced that this isn´t even possible. "As long as you spare your best friend´s parent´s apple tree, the other 300 people you robbed don´t matter."
Zack Fair, amateur chef extraordinaire, manages to prolong his mental breakdown for exactly the amount of time it takes him to fly over the counter, grab the camera for a close up of his nose and hastily announce, "Well, that´s it for today kids! Enjoy your pie, don´t listen to the bad uncle with the beard and I will see you next week... Maybe. But probably not. And Mom, this is not the Angeal Hewley I talked about! I swear! It´s... his evil twin brother! Thanks for watching!"
There is half a second of calculated, abrupt ear-piercing cheering and applause before the final credits are shown, consisting of a list of crew members appearing on the left side and today´s recipe on the right side that reads as followed:
Apple Pie Recipe:
CRUST (recipe makes one double crust):
2 1/2 cups white flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cold butter, broken into small pieces (Sliced with a sword leads to satisfactory results as well)
5 tbsp. cold vegetable shortening
8 tbsp. ice water (Under no circumstances can it not be ice water. It must be ice water. Everything else is dishonorable.)
FILLING
1/3 to 2/3 cup sugar (Note to self: Use only 1/3 when making pie for the puppy. He´s hyper enough as it is.)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (Use white flour. It´s opened already. Flour is expensive. You don´t need two different kinds of flour in one pie. No one does.)
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
8 medium sized apples (Caution: do NOT steal from best friend´s parent´s tree. This is dishonorable. Preferably borrow from grumpy old man across the street that doesn´t let you play 'Weapon destroys Midgar' in his yard. (What´s one or two broken windows to make such a big deal about?).)
2 tablespoons margarine (Use butter instead. Don´t buy extra margarine, it´s a waste. You still have too much butter from the crust left anyways. When I think about it now... You should rather buy a pie than bake one yourself. Baking is an economical catastrophe! )
tbc?
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or the cooking show, or the recipe. Seriously, I do not lie to you, even though it´s hard to believe, I know.
As with any pilot episode the reaction of the audience decides whether there´ll be a series or not, so review please ;)