A Gourmet’s Guide To The Galaxy - Part Two
30 Jun 2018Cernig10
As the jaunty, quickstep theme music fades along with the golden, cursive script title, the two hosts of The Gourmet’s Guide, Penny Richman and Jack Cernig-Dix, are seen getting out of a nondescript station taxi. He is in his usual Imperial businessman clothes, white cravat and brocade jacket, high boots and a silver-topped cane. She is wearing a long coat of thick, multi-colored Jotun Mookah fur over a clinging Tiegfries Synth-silk bodysuit based on a pilot’s Remex suit but far thinner and more revealing of form, bearing the Karetii Couture logo above the left breast. Small Cherbones Blood Crystals set in gold glitter on her earlobes. The pair smile at the hovering remote holo-v camera. “Welcome back,” Penny smiles directly at the viewer. “Today we are visiting somewhere that’s very special to me, the Olive Grove at Citi Gateway in the Inara system. We’re going to look at three of the most popular alcoholic ‘rares’ and sample some taste pairings to go with them.” She hugs Jack’s arm tightly, almost bouncing with excitement, and plants a chaste peck on her co-host’s cheek. “Thank you so much for bringing us back here, Jack.” he smiles back, indulgently, and gestures in front of them, behind the viewer. The camera pans to follow and shows an open entrance door, above which sits a green neon sign proclaiming “The Olive Grove” with three stylized olive trees above the words. Beyond the door there is a green-carpeted antechamber with a podium in the center and a dozen or so leather chairs off to the right. A demure Asian woman in a black pencil skirt and white silk blouse steps out from her podium and opens her arms with a grin. Penny whoops and lets go of Jack’s arm, rushing to embrace the woman.
“Suki! It’s so good to see you again! My, you look amazing!” Penny gushes as the other woman hugs her back. “This is Jack, my good friend. “Jack shakes the woman’s hand where it sticks out behind Penny’s back, grinning at his co-host’s obvious joy. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, miss,” he says, warmly. In the background, angry chants can be heard coming from a distance. Barely audible, they are something to do with ‘fair wages now’. Jack glances down the street, then grimaces and says ‘Perhaps we should go on inside?”
The scene cuts to the Olive Grove’s interior, a long room with a bar at one end, beside which is a pole-dancer cage. On the bar, three clusters of bottles and glasses sit ready for use. One set of bottles glows a neon green. Some of the small, circular, tables have had tablecloths thrown over them, and now covered self-heating trays of food sit on each. At the other tables and in the booths sit customers and the Grove’s girls. Some of the customers are women but most are men, some of them are masked, all look wealthy. The girls are uniformly beautiful, fit, and dressed in the sexiest of high couture. A redhead and a tall blonde are especially stunning, as is the pink-haired beauty behind the bar.
The drone camera takes all this in with one long pan, then zooms in to focus on Penny, sitting at a center table with an elegant brunette in a high-necked, long-skirted dress of scarlet silk with a slit up to the left thigh. Penny holds one of the woman’s perfectly manicured hands as she speaks. “I’m with the Olive Grove’s owner, Jemine Caesar. Jemine, thank you so much for giving us permission to visit you here.” The woman nods and smiles warmly, an open and welcoming smile, but her large and expressive green eyes are more guarded. Penny turns to the camera.
“For those who don’t know, the Olive Grove is the premier pleasure house in Inara, or even within fifty light years. We’ve been very lucky to be granted the opportunity to come here to film this episode, and you, dear viewer, should come visit too. Bring lots of money and make sure you smell nice, please.” She pops an enticing smile, flutters her lashes and licks her lower lip. “You’ll find the girls appreciate it if you make the effort.” She turns back to the Olive Grove’s owner. “Jem, what made you want to open the Olive Grove in the first place?”
Jem pauses in thought, weighing her response. “Well, obviously I thought I could deliver an unique experience, one that was very much in demand,” She replies, “But the real reason is that I’ve seen how some places operate, with their girls no more than indentured servants, none too clean and locked up when the house is closed, while the owners rip off their customers or tip off muggers to a drunken mark for a cut. I wanted...when I opened the Grove I promised myself that our customers and employees would be treated with respect and dignity. I think we do that, do it well, and it shows in customer satisfaction.”
Penny gives Jemine a look of deep affection and squeezes her hand. “I think you’ve succeeded wonderfully in doing what you set out to do.” She turns towards the bar. “And now, Jack, why don’t we get the tasting started?”
The camera viewpoint cuts to Jack Cernig-Dix standing in front of the bar, while the pink-haired girl pours glowing green beer into tall glasses. “Let’s do exactly that, Penny. We have three delectable beverages to taste tonight, and two food pairings for each. The finger-foods may use rare ingredients, but it’s easy enough to substitute more common ones for the rarities in these recipes, and anyone can make them, no matter the size of their kitchen. I made these up in the galley of our ship.”
“First up, the wonderful Gerasian glowing Gueuze beer. It’s made to an old-Earth recipe from a place once called Belgium, and is a wild-tasting beer perfect for seafood or strong cheeses.” Jack and the bartender begin to pass around glasses.There are slurps and appreciative sounds from the assembly as the beers are tried. Jack continues as he hands out small paper plates of food, “This beer really is the champagne of beers, as dry and acidic as the best vintage bubbly. The glow comes from a carbohydrate-rich plankton the brewers use in place of traditional wheat. We’ve paired it with little fishcakes made from Vacuum Krill, potato and fresh parsley, with a lemon butter sauce, or for those who want to compliment the funkier element of the beer’s taste, gorgonzola, stilton and goats-milk cheeses with grapes, cherries, apple slices and crackers made from Wheemete Wheat.” The camera pans around the room as the guests eat and drink, catching pleased comments. Then the view cuts back to Penny, obviously a little later as most of the plates and glasses are now empty.
“Secondly, we have Harma Silver Sea rum,” Penny reads from the label on one bottle. “Made to Captain Smolenski’s nine-hundred year old recipe, we blend a range of rare alcohols to produce a beverage any corsair would be proud to drink.” Two guests wearing domino masks and incongruous pirate hats they’ve produced from somewhere, shout “Yo-ho!” and Penny grins involuntarily. Putting a swing into her hips, she strides over to that booth with the first two shot glasses of the rum. “Do we have any real corsairs here?” she asks impishly. The biggest of the two men, a blonde viking with tribal tattoos on what can be seen of his face, seems a little nonplussed by her forwardness - but the one with the olive-brown skin, perhaps a sign of ancestry from somewhere around Earth’s Mediterranean, laughs as he accepts the drinks.The viewpoint cuts back to Jack just at that moment.
“This rum is a complex blend, a definite sipping rum,” he tells the roomful of tasters. “The spicy pepper and citrus notes make it perfect for pairing with white meats while the vanilla and coffee elements pair with earthier tastes like the traditional bar snacks such as peanuts and pretzels. Today we have both, with a twist. The first offering is minced Giant Snail from Irukama in a pastry shell with spinach and a butter sauce. Irukama Snails aren’t really snails at all but a type of mollusc indigenous to that world, and the meat from a single one takes up at least a whole cargo canister. They taste a lot like very tender, breast-meat chicken, and can be used in any recipe that uses white meat. The other delicacy we’ve paired with the rum is a bowl of honey-roasted Karsuki Locusts. They’re salty-sweet and crunchy, almost one hundred percent lean protein and utterly delicious. Try some, you’ll not be sorry.”
This time the guests and staff are noticeably more reticent about consuming the offered food pairings, although the rum itself is obviously enjoyed by all. Some refuse to try the snail at all, others the locusts, but those who do exclaim in pleasant surprise and begin trying to cajole their more cautious companions. The camera moves around, catching these scenes, then the view cuts back to Jack again.
“Lastly, and by no means leastly,” he begins, “There is an utterly amazing treat, the thirty-year old Eranin Pearl Whisky, bottled in 3300 to celebrate the system’s pearl anniversary of independence and getting rarer by the year. It’s a smooth and delicious Scotch style whisky, perfect with dark chocolate or dark meats. To pair with it, we have skewers of HIP10175 Bush Meat, onion, bell peppers and squash, grilled then smothered in a spicy barbeque sauce...then, for dessert, a dark chocolate and fresh cream gateaux topped with sweet Neritus berries. Enjoy!”
These offerings are met with widespread approval, especially the rich and creamy cake confection, and the room is soon full of happy sighs and murmured conversation as the three drinks loosen tongues. Again, the camera lingers for a minute or two, then cuts back to Jack and Penny, who has joined him by the bar.
“That’s all we have time for this week,” Penny says, “but join us next week when we’ll be in Cemiess system talking to one of its premier chefs about possible food and drink options at the reception for the wedding of the century, that of Princess Aisling Duval to Ambassador Jordan Rochester.”
Jack adds, “We’ll also be taking in one of the Imperial Gardens there, so don’t miss it. With that, we’ll say goodnight from the Olive Grove in Inara system, a house of excellent repute. Oh, and Jem, I’ll be leaving the extra bottles of all three drinks we’ve tried tonight as a thank you for your gracious hospitality” He bows off camera then turns back to the viewer. “Thank you, too, and goodnight.”
Taste Notes and Pairings
Gerasian Gueuze Beer is made from bioluminescent plankton and actually glows. It is a beer in the lambic belgian style, with a second fermentation taking place in the bottle. It pours with a small head and like all gueuze beers has a wild and funky taste, in this case with notes of sulphur, lemon, green tea and a hint of honey. The beer is sour with a bracing acidity, not at all hoppy and as dry as the finest champagnes. Best pairings: Wheemete Wheat Cakes, Baltah’sine Vacuum Krill.
Harma Silver Sea Rum is made from a blend of at least nine rare, molasses-based, dark rums matured in ex-bourbon casks. It has a deep golden color, and a nose of sweet molasses overlaid by citrus and pepper. The taste is warm and earthy; vanilla, coffee and brown sugar add depth and complexity under the spicy pepper and orange highlights, and a touch of coconut adds to the hint of bourbon in the finish. Best pairings: Giant Irukama Snails, Karsuki Locusts.
Eranin Pearl Whisky is a 30-year matured single-malt whisky. The ‘pearl’ in the name refers to the pearl anniversary of Eranin’s independence, not any ingredient or appearance. The nose is of beeswax and honey, with overtones of garden mint and rosemary. The taste is honey-smooth, with herbal highlights and the spiciness of gingerbread overlaying beeswax and toasted oak, which mellows to a long, warm, malted finish of iodine, cinnamon and liquorice. Best pairings: dark chocolate, HIP10175 Bush Meat.
Sample Menu 2
With the Gerasian Gueuze Beer: Breaded Baltah’sine Vacuum Krill fishcake with lemon-herb butter. Wheemete Wheat Cakes with a selection of cheeses and fruits.
With the Harma Silver Sea Rum: Minced Giant Irukama Snail en croute with butter, spinach and Gouda cheese. Honey-roasted Karsuki Locusts.
With the Eranin Pearl Whiskey: Grilled HIP10175 Bush Meat and vegetables, skewered, with hot BBQ sauce. Dark chocolate and Neritus Berries gateaux.
With many thanks to Jemine Caesar and Stryker Aune for allowing me to borrow their characters, Jem and Penny.