A/N: Wow! I got so many follows and favorites this week and it has made me feel so loved! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I'm glad you're enjoying the stories and keeping up with them and I hope to continue to live up to your expectations.
And now on to the next installment!
Spicing Things Up
Albasi's Diner, 2284.37, 2256 hours. Albasi came charging through the kitchen door, sending it swinging wildly. Se'tak had quickly learned that his boss' bark was worse than his bite. They got along well enough, the pay was decent and the work was relatively easy; and because he always kept his head covered nobody ever asked him about the ears. Se'tak found he rather liked the anonymity.
Still, as he stood by the sink drying out a bowl, he wondered what set Albasi off this time.
"…and they probably won't even remember in the morning! Well I'll charge them double," the boss grumbled. He pulled out a chopping board and knife then started grabbing armfuls of vegetables out of the stasis.
"Who are you charging double?" They were supposed to be closing up. Even the 'Terrible Trio'—their old regulars Jimiyu, Thabiti and Njau—had left for home ages ago. Another half hour more and he'd be back in the dorm putting his feet up too.
Albasi gestured angrily with his knife at the small opening between the kitchen and the restaurant. "Them, the drunks. They stumbled in looking for something to eat as I was about to lock everything up."
Se'tak frowned as he began putting the clean dishes away. "Why didn't you tell them we're closed?"
"Because they help pay the bills!" he replied. "They help pay to keep the lights on and give you a salary!" Albasi re-focused on his chopping. "I don't know if you've noticed, Se'tak, but people are not exactly beating down my door to eat here."
Oh he'd noticed—he even had a couple theories on how to improve things too but Albasi didn't want to listen. His boss was too set in his ways.
Take the kachumbari* he was making right now, for instance. It's not that Albasi was a bad cook but he used watery tomatoes and so little seasoning that it came out rather tasteless. Se'tak tried—very respectfully, he might add—to tell his boss that and almost got his head bitten off for his trouble. Since then he kept to his dishwashing.
But tonight…tonight he saw a unique opportunity. The care package from Mama was in his satchel in the corner with the rest of his stuff and he knew the pla-sfith* was in there because he'd asked her to send it; it was a Vulcan spice and the best way to describe it was a cross between salt and vinegar that made the bland cafeteria food bareable. Mama used it in her own kachumbari and he knew Albasi's dish would benefit from a dash or two as well.
His boss turned to the stasis unit again and groaned. "I need to get more ugali* from the store room. Can you…?" he gestured at the dish and jerked his head at the door.
"Sure." Se'tak wiped his hands down the front of his apron and tried not to look too conspicuous as he moved toward his bag. Grabbing the plate and the spice he sprinkled some over the kachumbari and walked out the door before Albasi had a chance to notice, slipping the jar into his back pocket before anyone could see.
The drunk young lovers—well, he assumed they were lovers based on the way the girl was sitting on the guy's lap with her tongue down his throat—were in a booth on the opposite side of the room. He could've turned green and sprouted a second head for all they noticed him, so Se'tak set the dish down without fanfare, told them the ugali was on it's way and went back to the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later the plates came back empty and Albasi was smiling at the credit chit. "Told you they'd pay double! And they didn't even notice!"
Albasi's Diner, 2284.40, 1302 hours. Se'tak was wiping down tables after the lunch 'rush' while the Terrible Trio argued from their table about their morning bocce game. As the disagreement reached a fever pitch and he privately wished all 3 would magically lose their voices the door opened and admitted 4 young women. All were nicely dressed—too nice for Albasi's, in his opinion. Maybe they were lost and looking for directions. Either way their presence got Thabiti, Jimiyu and Njau to instantly stop talking.
The girl in the rear of the group with her ponytail high on her head peered around her friends and grimaced. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Of course I'm sure!" her friend in front declared. The girl tossed her long black hair over her shoulder and strode on in. "This is where Rick and I came after we left the Coop, trust me." She started looking around as if waiting for service and caught his eye. "Do we just sit anywhere?"
"Uh, yeah."
They took a table near the window, the girl's 3 friends all looking around anxiously. One even took a small bottle of disinfectant gel out of her bag and rubbed her hands before offering it to the others. Se'tak rolled his eyes as he went behind the counter to collect some menus, then he left them to it as he went to the kitchen for Albasi.
He was sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen, reading from his PADD, when his boss stormed back in some time later with a nearly full bowl of kachumbari in his hands. "Not the same?! Not the same?! What does she mean not the same, I always make my food the same! And now she says she won't pay!"
Se'tak put his PADD down. "What's up?"
"Those silly little girls say they won't pay for my food! The stuck up one says it doesn't taste the same as the plate she and her boyfriend had the other night." He thrust the plate down roughly on the prep counter. "Hmph! What am I going to do with customers like that?"
As Albasi talked Se'tak tried to think back to the other night. The black haired girl could be the same one from 3 days ago but he wasn't 100% sure. Still...he thought. Eying his boss wearily, Se'tak debated over whether or not to come clean. "Ummm…"
Albasi's attention was on him in an instant. "Um what?" He instantly clammed up; he really needed this job and couldn't afford to be fired. "What do you know?"
The words tumbled out in the space of a breath. "I might've changed the recipe a little bit the other day."
"What?!" His boss' eyes flew open and he looked ready to throw him out on his ass in the street like the last dishwasher. "What did you do?"
"I just added a little spice…"
Albasi threw open the spice cabinet. "Show me!"
Se'tak gulped. "It's um—it's not one of yours. It's one of mine." As he spoke he slipped his hand in his satchel and pulled out the small, non-descript shaker. Albasi snatched it from him and immediately began examining it's contents. He opened the top and took a good whiff, recoiling.
"You put this in my food?! What is this?! If it's illegal…"
"It's not illegal," he replied somewhat defensively. "It's pla-sfith…"
"Plaza-what?"
Se'tak rolled his eyes again, growing suddenly impatient at this inquisition. "Pla-sfith. It's a Vulcan spice. My mom sent it to me; she cooks with it and I put it in most everything."
Albasi frowned. "And you thought it would be a good idea to put it in my kachumbari the other night without asking me first?"
He gulped hard. He was so getting fired. "Um…yes?"
His boss looked at the jar then back at him when an idea struck him. "Come here."
Se'tak hesitated. "Am I going to lose my job?"
"What? No, now come here." Albasi began spooning the kachumbari into a new bowl. "I want to try a little experiment. Sprinkle some of your spice on this and bring it back out to those girls. Tell them this one is on the house. Let's see what they say then!"
Albasi took a clean towel and wiped the edges of the bowl before passing it off to him. He took it in his left hand and charged out the door. The girls had been chatting loudly about their current misadventure and weren't kind in berating Albasi's.
"Cece I can't believe you wasted our time!"
"And the way you talked up the food, oh my G-d! Pigs eat better slop then that stuff!" They all burst out laughing.
"My blind bibi could make better kachumbari than that!"
"My blind and one-armed bibi could make better kachumbari than that!" The foursome burst out laughing even harder.
Se'tak sidled up to the side of the table. "Sorry to interrupt," he said loudly as he set the plate down. "Boss says this one's on the house."
"Eww, gross!"
Another girl rolled her eyes. "You have got to be kidding me. Like I'd willingly eat that sludge again?"
The original girl, Cece he gathered—the one that dragged them all in there—shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, might as well give it a try since it's free. You never know." She didn't sound convinced but she took a piece of ugali anyway and dipped it into the seasoned kachumbari. She locked eyes with him and they went wide as she slowly chewed and swallowed. "What did you do?"
"What do you mean?"
Cece shot him a dirty look. "I know you did something. It tastes totally different! Nadra, try this!" She thrust some of the kachumbari up under her friend's nose.
Nadra threw up her hands and bunched up her face. "No way!"
The high pony-tailed girl took the food out of her friend's hand. "I'll try." She bit into it and immediately closed her eyes and smiled. "Mmmm…"
The other two looked dubiously at their friends as they tucked into the food with gusto. The fourth one finally spoke up. "If you're pulling my leg…"
"She's not," the pony-tailed one said between bites. "This is good."
Soon the girls were gobbling it up, all except for the last hold out who stubbornly refused until the bowl was nearly empty. Nadra took a tentative bite and her friends watched her closely. Her expression was neutral the whole time, never once hinting at what she thought of the dish, until she finished. She looked right at him. "Can we get another serving of this please?"
Se'tak returned to the kitchen triumphant. "Well?" Albasi eagerly asked.
He smiled wide. "They want another bowl."
His boss stared at him completely shell-shocked for a solid minute, then moved mechanically over to the chopping board and started dicing. "I'm tasting this batch," he declared.
Se'tak stood on the other side of the prep station and pulled the spice jar out of his pocket. "Whatever you say, Boss."
Albasi loved the pla-sfith even more than the girls did, and when they left they must've told their friends because customers started pouring in—first in a trickle, than in droves. Se'tak ran out of the spice within 2 days and had to have his mother express ship some more as he couldn't find any to buy in the area. Even the Trio approved of the new flavor and that was some of the hardest won praise yet.
Based on the new success and the influx of clientele Albasi finally agreed to change a few things. First, he started experimenting more with his recipes, no longer satisfied that the old way was the best way. He didn't just add pla-sfith but chose other, more locally sourced spices too that he picked up at the open-air market; he even consulted with Se'tak on occasion and promoted him to part-time cook, teaching him and keeping him as an apprentice of sorts. Albasi hired a waitress too, his niece Visola, a part-time line cook, Birungi, and a local boy, Phomello, to help bus the tables and wash the dishes when Se'tak couldn't.
It was a whole new beginning for all of them.
* kachumbari = Kenyan dish of chopped tomatoes, onions, pepper, cilantro and lemon juice.
* pla-sfith = Vulcan spice that I made up
* ugali = Kenyan food, a semi-hard cake made of corn flour and water.