Alas! I do not own that Lord of the Rings!


The Fellowship was very close to the Mines of Moria when they stopped the next day. As they all set down their bags, an air of anticipation filled the air. There was only one person who had yet to cook.

"Well," Gandalf said, "It appears that we have no others who have cooked yet."

"AHEM!" The rest of the Fellowship said.

"We all had to do it, Gandalf!" Boromir snapped.

"Yeah, and so do you!" Frodo said. "Just be thankful you don't have to do it in a dress!"

Everyone snickered at Frodo's comment.

"That was a good one…" Sam said with a snickering fit.

"Come on, Gandalf!" The rest of the Fellowship said. "You have to do it!"

Gandalf sighed in defeat. "Very well… I shall cook dinner tonight. But none of you must watch as I cook! If you do, I swear that I'll turn all of you into something rather unpleasant!"

"See you later, Gandalf!" The rest of the Fellowship said, hastening away.

"You'll know when it's done; don't worry!" Gandalf called out to them and began to retrieve the items necessary to make his dinner.


"I wonder what Gandalf's making." Pippin said.

"What do you think he's making, Pip?" Merry asked.

"Perhaps he's re-heating leftovers!" Pippin said. "What do you guys think?"

"Perhaps he's making a potion that will incapacitate all of us or turn us into something unnatural as punishment for forcing him to cook." Frodo suggested.

"I don't believe Gandalf would do that." Aragorn said, hopefully. "Perhaps he's making another stew."

"Or maybe he's making salted pork!" Gimli exclaimed.

"Nah, he'd probably make a salad!" Legolas said with a smile.

"No, Legolas, that's you." Aragorn replied.

"Oh… Right!" Legolas said.

"I think he'll boil up some taters and turn a few rocks into some coneys!" Sam said. "And then we'll have a delightful stew!"

"Perhaps he's making a fruit salad." Merry said. "You know, with apples, grapes, and all kinds of other fruits!"

"Perhaps he's making a chicken filet with some steamed vegetables and an apple soufflé to finish it off!" Boromir said with a wistful smile.

"What's a soufflé?" Pippin asked.

"And what's a filet?" Merry asked.

"That's easy!" Sam and Boromir said in unison. "A filet is a boneless piece of meat and a soufflé is a dish that is made from a sauce, egg yolks, beaten egg whites, and a flavoring or purée, like one made of seafood, fruit, or vegetables, and baked until puffed up!"

Everyone stared at Boromir.

"What?" Boromir said.

"Well, we can understand why Sam knows about that stuff," Aragorn said, "but what about you? You're gastronomically inept! You shouldn't know anything about the definitions of cooking if you can't even make a stew!"

"I… uh…" Boromir said, his eyes becoming shifty. "I… um… spent a lot of time around the kitchens in Minas Tirith, okay? I used to watch the cooks make our meals! I picked up some of the terms!"

"And yet none of the skills." Merry said in an aside to Pippin, who broke down into a spasm of snickers.

Suddenly, they all turned around in time to see a firework go off from where their campsite was. It exploded in pretty colors of light and then it formed the following message: 'Dinner's ready!'

"Couldn't he have picked a more subtle way to tell us?" Aragorn commented.

"Who cares?" Pippin said. "I thought that we had already established that our chances of secrecy had been blown out of the water several times! Besides… dinner's ready!"

The rest of the Fellowship cheered and hastened to the campsite.


Gandalf was serving out what he had made when he heard a clamor approaching the campsite. The other Fellowship members emerged, whooping and cheering, ready for a wonderful dinner.

Gandalf glared at them and put a finger to his mouth. They all stopped and looked at him, confused.

"Secrecy!" He hissed.

Automatically, everyone's head went up to look in the general direction that the firework had gone off and then looked at Gandalf. They sighed and chose not to make any comment.

"So, what's for dinner, Gandalf?" Pippin asked.

Gandalf smiled and stood aside. He had conjured a large table with all kinds of foods stuffed onto it. Everyone's eyes widened and they charged at the table and began to stuff their faces. Gandalf joined them.

Everything was perfect and delicious. As everyone was eating, Pippin said, "I don't get it, Gandlaf. If you had the power to just summon all of this wonderful food, why didn't you just do so from the beginning?"

"Well, the answer is fairly obvious, Pippin." Gandalf said. "It's… um…"

"Yes?" Pippin prompted, eagerly.

"Huh." Gandalf said. "I guess I could have done that from the beginning. I just never thought of it. That reminds me of something… something important… something to do with giant eagles and the Ring…" Gandalf paused for a moment. "I got nothing!" Everyone gave Gandalf a strange glance. "Don't worry, though, I'll let you know when it comes to me!"

"Right…" They all said.

"Anyway, the best explanation I can come up with was that I was afraid of showing off my super-cool culinary skills!" Gandalf's glance flicked over to Boromir by chance, who began to sputter and choke on a piece of food that he had just started to swallow.

"Boromir, are you okay?" Aragorn asked, hoping that he wasn't.

"C… P… R…!" He managed to gasp out.

Aragorn paused for a moment, trying to work out the meaning of the three letters. Then, it dawned to him. "Oh my gosh! Boromir needs CPR!" Aragorn rushed over to Boromir and began to perform CPR. Boromir coughed up the bit of food that been causing him grief.

"Please tell me you don't need the kiss of life!" Aragorn said to Boromir.

"No, I don't need mouth-to-mouth." Boromir replied. "And even if I did, I'd rather die than receive it from you… or anyone else here!"

"What a relief!" Aragorn said.

A sudden thought dawned upon Boromir. "Hey, Aragorn. I didn't know that you were certified in CPR!"

"Oh, I'm not." Aragorn replied. "The hands of the king are the hands of a healer!"

"Oh, mercy!" Boromir cried out. "You just had to bring that up, didn't you?"

"Don't be ungrateful! I just saved your life!" Aragorn retorted.

"Well don't think that means you'll be in a position to do it again!" Boromir snapped.

"Well, who said I'd save your life again if I had the opportunity to?" Aragorn retorted.

"Settle down, you two!" Legolas interjected before the two could start a food-fight. "And enjoy the wonderful food that Gandalf has provided. And, Boromir, take smaller bites."

Boromir sniffed, indignantly and returned to eating. So did Aragorn.


After they had all eaten their fill of the delicious meal, Aragorn spoke up. "Well, now that all nine of us have cooked, we should cast votes to see who should cook for the rest of the journey."

"Right. So, how shall we vote?" Gandalf said.

"Let's just go in a round-robin and keep a tally of votes for each person." Aragorn said. "I'll keep tally." He took out a piece of paper and wrote the names of each member of the Fellowship on it with a quill he had on hand.

"Aragorn, why did you bring paper, a pen, and ink, on a perilous journey of secrecy?" Boromir asked. "I thought we were only supposed to bring what we needed. Otherwise, I would have brought my cookboo- I mean," Boromir cleared his throat. "I mean… my very manly book on sword fighting, which had nothing to do with cooking!"

Aragorn just gave Boromir a blank stare for a moment and then said, "Well, I'm documenting the journey! I had to rip out a piece of paper from my journey log!"

Boromir rolled his eyes. "Just hope that no spies discover it and take it."

"I thought we'd previously established that our secrecy had been blown out of the water, especially with Gandalf's display of summoning us to dinner!" Pippin commented.

"Oh… right." Aragorn and Boromir replied.

"Well, who will start?" Aragorn asked.

"I will!" Sam said. "I vote for myself!" Aragorn put a tally under Sam's name.

"I vote for Gandalf!" Frodo said. "And as Ringbearer what I say goes!" Aragorn rolled his eyes and put a tally mark under Gandalf's name.

"Promise…!" Sam muttered and Boromir began to reach for Gandalf's staff.

"Fine!" Frodo said, crossing his arms. "But, in the event of a tie, I still get to be the tie-breaking vote!"

"Whatever." They all said.

"I, too, will vote for Gandalf!" Legolas said with a smile. Another tally mark went under Gandalf's name.

"Gandalf!" Gimli roared. Another tally mark for Gandalf.

"Secrecy, Gimli!" Gandalf hissed. Gimli just rolled his eyes.

"I vote for Gandalf!" Pippin exclaimed.

"Me too!" Merry said.

"I vote for Gandalf!" Boromir said with a cheerful smile.

"I vote for myself!" Gandalf said.

"And I vote for Gandalf as well!" Aragorn said. "And with a score of 8 to 1, Gandalf wins!"

The Fellowship cheered for their new cook. Little did they know that their cook wouldn't be around cooking for long…


The story, as I said before, does NOT end here! Nope; it'll go on for a few more chapters! Yay!

Anyways, I'd like to thank all of my reviewers… so… Thanks!

Also, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

Please leave lots of reviews!