Chapter 5 – Chef Vs Tardis
(Earlier that day)
/watch?v=2JdGWzkg1So
(Tardis' PoV)
"I just… need to put… the vinegar with the carrots and… mix the spices… before putting the… little croutons into the salad." Chef yawned in his sleep, unaware that he was half awake.
"But that's not the best way to make a proper salad with those ingredients." She said with a smirk, knowing full well that he couldn't tell she was there. "If you put the seasoning in too soon you ruin the flavor of the carrots and spoil the enhancement that the croutons add to the salad. Also you need to cut down on half the spices you put into it, because if you add to much you take away the flavor that the carrots add and all you have are the taste the lettuce gives. Which isn't much considering lettuce doesn't really have any taste. Unless of course it's lettuce from Xeron Five, the plant planet, but there aren't lettuce leaves from there aboard here."
"No idea… what you're... talking about… silly chef." He yawned; still asleep and thinking he was talking to some upstart chef recruit. "The lettuce… doesn't take away… any of the… flavors from the… spices…"
"Shows what you know about cooking my good sir, if you don't pour on all the dressings and everything else you put into a salad you can actually taste the lettuce itself." She said with another smirk. "I bet if you and I went head to head, I would easily trump any dish you could conceive of!"
"You need to be… taught a lesson… you little wannabe… five star chef…" He said, turning his head to face away from him, drool leaking from his mouth as he did so.
"Oh dear… now look what you've done, I've got to clean those sheets again!" She said with a roll of her eyes. "You really are a pain in the neck here. Celestia should never have brought you aboard me! Why you insisted on coming here is really something I don't understand. Ditzy is as good a cook as you are, she just needs help with the ingredients is all."
"Never… let anypony… especially a commoner… cook a meal… for her majesty Celestia…" He yawned in his sleep again.
"Just because Ditzy may be a common Pegasus pony, doesn't mean she can't cook a good meal." She said with a smile. "There's a reason why I took them both to Manehattan two years ago, and it wasn't just because of those nightmares The Doctor was suffering. It's because he can't cook to save his life!"
"Whatever…" He yawned.
"Oh I can't wait to show you whose boss in our little match today. I just wish you wouldn't take your loss so hard. At least your princess will get a good laugh." She said as she turned and left Chef's room, being careful to straighten his tools out in his suitcase as she did.
She wanted their fight to be as even as possible; it was only fair that his cooking tools be in order.
/watch?v=NWbIwSr3NmE
(Chef's PoV)
"What do you mean this contraption can cook better then me?" Chef said loudly to The Doctor, grateful that the Princess was not there to hear the audacity that their host had dared to say. "I don't care if you are our host Mr. Hooves! There's not a pony or being in this or any kingdom that can match my culinary skills!"
It was an hour after breakfast had been served and the Princess and their host's daughters were busy checking out the library again. While they were busy in the library The Doctor had brought up his contraption and told him what it did, or could do.
"Well it's a good thing then that I didn't say it CAN cook better than you." The Doctor said as he finished putting together what he called the 'ATCT', or the Automatic Tardis Cooking Tool. "I simply said it could probably do a better job of synthesizing or cooking meals even you can't cook. No offense was intended."
"Well you certainly offended me, how can this hunk of metal possibly cook a meal that I can't make!"
The Doctor put the little machine on the counter and plugged several wires into it before he responded. "Well how it does that is still a mystery to me, but what it does, and this is just because I've been experimenting mind you, but what it does is scan the materials used in any meal and then replicate that same meal only enhancing it and making it tastier."
"And how, pray tell, did you test this little contraption?"
The Doctor shifted his eyes and whispered, "Don't tell my wife but I've been using her muffins to test it." He said quickly. "The muffins this thing has made have turned out better ninety five percent of the time, but that doesn't mean I like its muffins better than hers."
"So what you're saying is that this thing doesn't actually make good food, it simply copies whatever you put in it?"
"That's the gist of it." He said with a smile.
"Then in that case this thing does not really cook!" Chef said proudly.
"Well it CAN cook; it just needs something to copy so that it knows what it has to cook."
"I bet that my cooking will easily trounce whatever this thing copies."
"Well in that case let's make it a competition!" The Doctor said with a smile. "Let's see who's the better cook, my Tardis or you Mr. Chef?"
"Please, as if it's any contest!"
(Three hours of cooking later.)
/watch?v=OrHNNZHhqyg
(Celestia's PoV)
"Alright my fellow ponies, welcome to the first ever Tardis Cook Off!" The Doctor declared as Celestia, Sparkler, and Dinky sat at the table with empty stomachs. "Today's contestants, in fact our only contestants are Mr. Chef, and my very own Tardis! Let's see whose cuisine reigns supreme in the galaxy!"
"Doctor do we really have to do this?" Ditzy asked. "I mean, what if Mr. Chef loses? The Tardis has how many recipes and cooking techniques stored in its computer thingy?"
"Fifty trillion to be precise Derpy, but since this is just another test run of my little food synthesizer, there's no reason to take this so seriously." He said cheerfully. "It's not like I can use this outside of the Tardis. It uses the same mechanism that the Tardis uses to transport food from the farm rooms into the refrigerator."
"Well enough of the formalities let's get this cooking contest underway." Celestia said eagerly. "You've got three hungry mouths to feed, and two of them are your daughters Doctor. You don't want to get them upset at having to wait too long to eat do you?"
"Of course not, so without further ado, introducing our first contestant… Mr. Chef!" He said, doing his best impersonation of a stage host.
They all clapped their hooves in applause as her chef brought out his three elaborately made dishes on a cart.
"On the judging panel is Equestria's very own Princess Celestia." The Doctor said, still impersonating a stage host. "Next up is Sparkler Hooves, big sister extraordinaire and mistress of taste testing. Finally Dinky Doo Hooves, filly of the Hooves family and princess of cuteness."
For the little cooking contest they were having Celestia and The Doctor's daughters would be the taste testers. The reason why Dinky was a taste tester was because she didn't need any big words to describe how good or bad something was.
Once he reached the table her chef took the first dish, an elaborate salad with a side of raspberry sweetened wine, and a glass of apple juice for Dinky and Sparkler. "This dish is a Butternut Squash, Lentil & Kale Salad with Tahini Dressing, clearly fit for any royalty!" He declared as he separated it into three dishes for them.
Celestia was the first to taste. "It's definitely a wonderful salad; I love how the squash compliments the salad alongside the dressing." She said as she ate the salad.
"Why thank you."
"The dressing definitely adds the flavor, the only fault that I have is that the lettuce itself does not add anything to the salad's overall taste." Sparkler said as she finished eating her salad. "Then again lettuce doesn't really have any taste to it… Yet I love what you did with the squash, it really accentuates the salad's overall flavor."
"I like this!" Dinky said as she drank her juice.
The next two dishes met similar reactions from Celestia, Sparkler and Dinky. They all agreed that her chef's cooking was spectacular. Now it was time for the Tardis' dishes to see how they stand up.
The Doctor walked in with three dishes, all of which were the same dishes that her chef had served them, but they looked slightly different. "Alright, since my Tardis lacks a voice I will speak for it and deliver each of its replicated dishes." He said as he put the salad out first and divided it for the three of them. "First up is the salad!"
Celestia ate first, and she noticed something quite intriguing about the salad that her chef's had failed to do. "I can't tell what the Tardis did, but I can actually taste the lettuce itself it seems." She said as she took another taste of just the lettuce to make sure. "I can tell the other flavors are there, the squash the dressing and everything else. But the lettuce seems to have adopted its own flavor."
"You're right princess, I can tell that there's not as much dressing on this dish as your chef put." Sparkler said as she finished her salad as well. "There's also a tiny bit less of the squash as well, yet reducing these ingredients seem to have enhanced the salad's overall flavor. I really do miss having as much of the squash though, that was my favorite part of the salad."
"Yummy!" Dinky chirped.
They complimented the remaining dishes and after a brief moment of discussing among themselves as to which set of dishes was better, they announced their verdict.
"With all due respect to both parties, we have no choice but to award the title of best chef too…" Celestia said with a smile. "The Tardis."
"What?" Her chef said in shock. "How can that thing beat me?"
"You have made marvelous dishes my chef, and I want you to continue serving as my head chef at the royal palace." Celesta said with a warm smile. "But in all honesty, did you think you could beat the Tardis in a cooking contest? She's been to hundreds upon hundreds of worlds, has more knowledge about cooking from different species and cultures stored inside her then you could ever learn about in fifty lifetimes! There's just no contest between you two."
After a few minutes of looking at his astonished face, they all just couldn't help but laugh at the sight of her proud chef humbled by what he described as a 'hunk of junk'.
Celestia felt somewhat bad about having to be blunt with her best chef, but she had to state the truth. In a contest he was no match for The Doctor's invention. Although she did cheer him up by saying that, she would never ever think of replacing him with a machine.
"But that doesn't mean I don't find it amusing watching him get beaten by one." She whispered quietly to her fellow judges. "He is very proud of his craft, a little too proud. It's nice to finally see him suffer a bit of humility."
This got another set of laughs from Sparkler and Dinky.