A Peculiar Harvest

Posted on Tue Sep 4th, 2018 @ 3:46pm by Petty Officer 3rd Class Tox Chara

Mission: A Majestic Affair
Location: General Mess
Timeline: MD 7 - Morning
1362 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Seductive smells of breakfast lured people into the general mess like a siren's call. Petty Officer Tox Chara inhaled the aroma delightfully as she walked down the corridor with an open basket bouncing on her hip. She turned into the mess, surprised at the number of people turning out for Chef's cooking. Over the past few days, more and more crew had been arriving and she wondered how close to capacity the ship was now. Everything was starting to feel alive to her.

She plopped the basket down on Patrick's clean stainless steel work counter. It will filled with greenery mostly, or at least that's what it looked like at first glance. "There you go. The first harvest."

"That's amazing," Patrick beamed at her, "what've you gotten for me?" He held up a bunch of greens that were unfamiliar to him. "This looks like andive but it doesn't smell like it, what are these?"

"Uh. Well.. It's kind of a long story and you're half correct. I'm still learning the seed replicator," Tox admitted as she unloaded the rest of the basket onto the counter. It was supposed to be cichorium endivia, but I accidentally cross-bred it with foeniculum vulgare. So... I think it tastes a little like black licorice. It's a little strong. Sorry! And I lost a whole row of that lettuce variety you asked for. I'm still learning everything."

"Licorice and andive, pretty odd combination but I'm sure I can work with it," he reassured the woman, "it's alright. Why don't you get the vegetables to the refrigerator unit?"

Food, it was one of those annoying necessities. It required Wilfred to walk to a replicator, though on his way to one he'd smelled this wonderful whiff of something and had followed his nose into the mess hall where he was now standing like a deer in headlights. He glanced around frantically, wondering where he would sit after he'd dished himself up. It would look pretty silly to take a tray of food out with him.

Seeing the man, Patrick waved him over to the counter. "Hey...you look a little lost. Can I help you?"

Wilfred started, someone appeared to be taking to him. "I uh, I'm just here for a meal. It smelled good and I was hungry." He shrugged.

Tox busied herself with the putting away the vegetables in the refrigerator and cleaning up the prep area as she went, staying out of the chef's way but wanting to stick around a bit because the Arboretum was such a quiet place this time of day that it was nice to be around a crowd of people for a bit.

"Well you've come to the right place then," Pat smiled, while grabbing a plate. "Eggs or Ham?" He added, "and I've got a variety of vegetables." He looked over his shoulder at Tox. "Fancy helping me?" He asked her.

"Ham," Wilfred said, a slight frown to his features as he watched these two strangers dishing him up a plate of food. It seemed unnecessary but perhaps that's how it was done here.

"Ham it is," Patrick smiled, while serving the food. "Feel free to come back for seconds, I've made plenty. And tell your friends there's fresh food?"

"Right," Wilfred said as he took the plate, still staring as if this were unbelievable. "Thanks." He fainlly said before carrying the tray off to the emptiest table he could find and eating very quickly to avoid having to converse with anyone.

Tox grabbed a raw carrot from the bounty of vegetables while she finished putting them away. It still had the greens attached, but she didn't seem to mind. "Okay, Chef Patrick. I'll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe some Arcturian honey beans?" She picked up her basket and walked around the counter to the dining area, shrugging. "They might need another week. I'm not sure."

She barely paused when she spotted an open seat next to Wilfred and went over and dropped into it, putting the basket on the ground nearby. "Hi, what's up?" she asked as she nibbled on the carrot.

Wilfred swallowed and began to cough into arm. When he was finally able to speak he looked over at the woman, curiously perplexed about why she would sit down with him and answered, "Just taking a break from work."

Watching the two, Patrick grabbed a plate for himself and joined them. "Honey beans will be good," he answered her, "how are the grains growing? Anything suitable yet to make into flour?"

Wilfred looked back and forth between the two of them. Clearly these people had not heard of him yet.

Tox chewed on the carrot a moment, finally swallowed, and answered the chef, "Not as well as I thought they would. No sprouts yet. Also, do you know how much grain I'm going to have to grow so you can grind it down and bake with it? I have no idea, but I don't have that much space."

"I guess replicated will have to do for bread then, but please tell me that somehow you can culture yeast?" Patrick looked over at Wilfred. "More?" he asked, gesturing at the half empty plate, "I've got plenty..."

"Oh no thank you." Wilfred answered still watching the other two converse on either side of him. He occasionally took a bite though he felt a bit self conscious about the other two occasionally looking at him.

"Are you sure?" Patrick insisted, "unless you didn't like it?" He managed to look worried as he studied the man. If there was one thing that could dent his confidence, it was someone telling him his food didn't taste right.

"Oh no, it was very good." Wilfred's stomach was starting to do flips though and he was certain that eating any more food was not the answer. "I'm full. Not as hungry as I thought I was."

"Oh..." Patrick smiled politely. "Well... if you change your mind." He looked over his shoulder, feeling far more comfortable on the other side of the counter than here, among people. "Do you have any favourite foods? Anything I could make you some other time?"

Tox hadn't really been paying attention to the awkwardness of the conversation. It all sounded like trivial background noise to her. She's whipped out her PADD when Patrick had asked about yeast, instantly curious about how it was grown and she was reading on the matter. "This doesn't sound too difficult," she told Patrick in answer to his question several moments before.

"Then we can make fresh bread," Patrick said as he stood up, "I should head back to my kitchen, I have to prepare for lunch. I'll stop by for vegetables later in the day." He nodded to Wilfred. "Let me know if you want me to make you something special."

"I'm really not picky," Wilfred answered him. "I'll pretty much eat anything that's put in front of me. Kind of how I was raised. Though, I'm not very anxious to try gagh. I like my food dead when I eat it."

"You're not the first one to tell me that," Patrick chuckled, his thoughts straying to the handome chief engineer who'd told him the exact same thing. "Don't worry there won't be any live food on any of my menus. It'll be mostly Terran dishes unless there are special requirements or requests from the crew."

"Good to know but I should probably get back to work. It was nice to meet both of you." Wilfred moved rather fast. He was up and had his tray in hand to return to the nearest replicator for recycling.

Patrick blinked as he saw the man disappear. "That was...peculiar," he murmured, looking towards Tox. "I'm heading back to the kitchen. See you later?"

Tox glanced up from her quick study of yeasts to notice Wilfred had already left and Patrick was leaving. "There's a lot of peculiar people aboard." She waved the chef off with her carrot.


Ensign Wilfred Wexler
Brig Officer
USS Majestic

Patrick O'Malley
Captain's Chef
pnpc Lhaes

Petty Officer 3rd Class Tox Chara
Botanist
USS Majestic
pnpc Murphy