Chapter 1 – Pearl
Salt.
During my time at Le Cordon Bleu, I learned a lot about the subject.
I learned that salt was not only a flavor enhancer but that when used properly it reduced bitterness in food as well as increased sweetness, sourness, and the Unami profile. I learned the difference between cooking and finishing salts and how Hawaiian sea salt had a mild saltiness and hint of sweetness, while Celtic Sea salt was slightly briny.
I also learned about the magical properties of salt, such as using it for banishing witches, protecting against evil, and canceling bad luck. For example, one should always throw spilled salt over one’s left shoulder to cancel bad luck or risk hexing oneself.
While part of the curriculum, I never gave much credence to the mystical properties of sodium chloride. As a classically trained chef, my only interest in the little white crystals was how they made things taste.
Until now.
Now, I’d swear by the magical properties of salt, especially since it saved my life.
I’d been at the Baron’s compound for over a week when I discovered the pale-yellow crystals littering the garden path. Thankfully, my molecular gastronomy professor at the Bleu was diligent in his teachings, so I recognized the isometric crystals that made up Halite—rock salt. I’d gathered a few of the rocks,and brought them back to my room, but it took another few days before I’d worked up the courage for a taste test. Mainly because sticking my tongue to anything that belonged to the Baron seemed highly distasteful.
I remembered little about the abduction. After a day of hiking, I’d been debating the lack of merits of an aging body with my friends when a buzzing sound and bright light swallowed us whole. I woke up in a small sterile room and had only a moment to realize I didn’t need to worry about bad knees and a sore back any longer before a bunch of cat-looking aliens handed me off to a group of frog-looking aliens. A few days later, I ended up on the Baron’s planet, purchased to be part of his harem.
A harem.
Seriously?
Fate must have been laughing its ass off at that one.
Thankfully, Baron Oappo was off planet dealing with business, which gave me time to acclimatize to my current situation, including the watery, tasteless pablum served at every meal.
Aliens apparently didn’t believe in seasoning. It floored me to think that beings capable of interstellar travel and turning my sixty-something body back into its twenty-something gloriousness hadn’t discovered the tasteful properties of salt.
The other harem girls thought I was crazy for crushing up the small rocks and adding it to the protein slop fed to us three times a day... until I convinced a few of them to try it.
Word spread quickly, and soon, I had my own small kitchen set up in the area referred to as theharem wing.The girls helped me discover what plants were edible, and I began cooking not only for the harem but also for the guards.
When the Baron returned, it didn’t take long for the alien resembling Kermit the Frog to show up demanding a taste of the miracle I’d been able to work on the worst stuff on theplanet. After one bite, he smacked his wide, slimy lips together and declared that if I could make the protein pablum palatable, I belonged in the kitchen, not the harem. A couple of dinners later, he promoted me to head chef.
A wide decision on his part. I don’t know why anybody in their right mind would have bought me for a harem, anyway. I wasn’t exactly the fragile female type.
I was what most referred to as stout. Big boned, as my grandmother sweetly called it, but at 5’11, always carrying around fifteen pounds more than I should, I suffered no misconception about my body type.
My parents did.
My mother thought my statuesque appearance meant I’d have a modeling career. Sadly, though, I wasn’t thin enough for that. My father dreamed of a career in sports for me, but I proved way too clumsy.
Only my grandmother understood me. She recognized my love of food and affinity in the kitchen. It was my grandmother who taught me to cook and paid for my time at the Le Cordon Bleu. She was why my first, most famous, Michelin star restaurant in the Five Points area of Athens, Georgia bore the nameGrammy’s.
My friends, though... they were all lovely at sixty. I could only imagine how gorgeous Emmy, Daisy, Clara, Agnes, and Willa were after being run through thatyoung-againmachine. Every night, I sent up a prayer for their safety, and hoped that wherever they were, things weren’t too bad. The girls just needed to hold on... because I had a plan.
Especially since the Baron dragged me along to this space station to display my culinary skills at some royal’s birthday dinner. Hopefully, aliens had celebrity chefs just like Earth and this dinner would go toward cementing me as one. Once Iestablished myself as a chef, hopefully I could parlay that fame into finding my friends.
I glanced at my hands—always my best feature—long, slender fingers gripping the knife and effortlessly julienning an odd alien vegetable that looked like the baby of a carrot and a kiwi but tasted decidedly like parsnip. The knife was alien as well, a broad flat blade with a curved tip that made it look like it belonged in an Arabian Nights story, instead of the kitchen. But it cut as perfectly as my Shun classic chef’s knife. I turned the slices counterclockwise, then began cutting the matchstick shaped pieces in a brunoise fashion. I’d just finished with the alien parsnip and reached for the round purple thing that stood in for a carrot when she walked into the kitchen.
If she ever traveled to Earth, modeling agencies would fall all over themselves. Jala stood well over six feet tall, lithe, and graceful, with dark hair woven into thousands of tiny braids that flowed down her back. Her skin wasn’t smooth, but a short pelt that looked as soft as velvet in the creamiest color of wheat. Wide oval eyes held irises that shimmered like the sun in a deep blue sea over high sharp cheekbones and full lips.
Despite being so gorgeous it was difficult to look at her without scathing envy, I liked Jala. She was no nonsense and had bent over backward to help me set up the Baron’s kitchen here on the space station. Even though I knew some of my requests must have seemed strange, especially for creatures used to getting every meal from an odd-looking vending machine that took the building blocks of proteins, carbs, and sugars and turned them into something that tasted like plastic. The only thing I found disconcerting about Jala—well, about aliens in general—was that the translator thing in my head didn’t match up the sound to her mouth movements. The dialogue out of sync made me faintly motion sick if I watched too long.
“Are you well, human Pearl?” Jala leaned her slender hip against the metal prep table, smiling. A gesture that was slightly disconcerting due to her overlong canines. Today, she wore long flowing robes in a bright teal color that made her eyes pop.
“Very well,” I answered, not hesitating in my chopping.
