Intergalactic Summit

The camera drone flicks on, revealing a title card. In exceedingly poor penmanship, the title "Baking Buddies!" flashes on the screen to some chilled out, friendly sounding elevator music. The title card cuts away to a smiling Makoto, dressed in a soft pink apron and silly chef hat, standing in a slightly messy kitchen. "Hello New Eden!" the young Capsuleer begins. "My name is Makoto and today I'm gonna be your Baking Buddy! I sure am excited to be your Buddy, and I hope you're just as excited to be mine!"

Makoto gestures to her counter, grinning broadly. "Today, Buddies, we're gonna be making a nice angel food cake!" Yui holds up a finished angel food cake. "Now, this is one of my personal favorite treats. It's fairly simple to make, and has a very tasty flavor profile, with a really unique consistency! Almost anyone you make this for is definitely going to appreciate it!"

The video feed changes to a shot of the ingredients. "So, for today's recipe, we're going to need two cups of sugar, a quarter teaspoon of salt, a cup of cake flour, an even dozen egg's worth of egg whites, a third of a cup of water, a teaspoon of orange extract, and a teaspoon and a half cream of tartar!" the camera shows Makoto's slender hands picking each ingredient up, to show it off.

"Now, we're going to start by sifting about half the sugar with the salt and flour in a nice spice grinder!" Makoto demonstrates, carefully mixing the ingredients. "Now, we really want this to be super fine! So by all means, take your time! It's most important that this is made with love, and patience is a great way to express your love, isn't that right, buddies?" The camera pans back up to Yui, who winks. "Now that we've got this super fine mixture, let's go ahead and set it to the side for now, along with the rest of our sugar!"

"Now the next thing we wanna do," Yui begins, poking around her kitchen. "Is to blen- er, that is to say, whip the- erm..." she falls quiet for a moment as she searches several cabinets for a suitable bowl. "Is to whisk the, ah- OH! There it is!" Makoto retrieves a large glass bowl from the top shelf of one of her cabinets, standing on her tippy toes to get to it. "Aha! We wanna whisk the egg whites, water, orange extract and cream of tartar!" Makoto triumphantly puts her bowl down on the counter, and the camera drone focuses on it as she mixes the ingredients. "Now, we're gonna get this to a really nice consistency, and it's important to-" she picks up a large whisk from a pile of utensils near the ingredients. "it's important to keep a close eye on the mixture! But that's awfully boring, so while I keep an eye on things here, why not go check in on Mr. Banana?"

As Yui whisks, the camera pans away to a separate video of her snake, Banana, coiled up in front of a pastel pink backdrop on a counter, near a hand of... bananas. Makoto's voice can be heard, saying sweet and encouraging things to the wobbly little python, who mostly just wiggles his head. Simple xylophone music plays quietly in the background. "It's important to be nice to people and things, even if they maybe aren't as competent as other people and things! Look at Banana!" Yui coos. "Banana here is a ball python, but because he's so inbred, he's got a few birth defects. He was fed live prey before I got ahold of him, so his skin is all nibbled up and scarred." The camera gives a close up of Banana, who has a kink near the end of his tail and small scars on his body. "But once I got ahold of him, I got him all healthy and well taken care of, and now just look at him!" At this, Banana attempts to coil around the hand of bananas, but quickly loses his nerve and uncoils, bopping his head left and right. The camera feed fades as Banana rolls his head around on the ground, returning to Makoto in her kitchen.

"Alright, so now that we've got the mixture all foamy," Yui shows the camera her foamy bowl of frothy mixture. "So yeah, we're gonna put it into a tube pan. If you don't have a tube pan, have your interns get one for you!" Makoto laughs, moving her mixture into the tube pan. "You're gonna wanna bake it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes!" Yui opens her oven, pulling another tube pan out as she replaces it in the oven. "I actually have one already ready! Now we need to make sure it cools upside down for about an hour, then it'll be ready to enjoy! I'll be sharing my angel food cake with my mom! Who will all of you Baking Buddies be sharing with? I hope it's someone special, and I hope they appreciate your cooking! Great day, and great baking!"

The video switches to a multi-angle closeup of her finished angel food cake from earlier, before flashing her outro title.

Makoto takes her chef hat off, swiping a small amount of sweat from her brow. "Heheh, that was fun, huh Banana?" she asks, retrieving her snake from his nearby tank. Banana wobbles contentedly in response.

Banana is ADORABLE, Mr. Rova! Sh!

Does Banana ever get to eat things you make, Ms. Makoto? The cake looks so good....

If we run into a bunch of pink aprons at the next fancon we crash, I'm blaming Yui.

This is great! Are you going to teach how to make cupcakes?
P.S. I love Banana.
P.P.S. Seconding Ms. Qerl's question, do you ever make cakes for snakes? (Snake cakes?) With ingredients that are good for snakes?

I doubt you were reminded of any of that by a charming and good-hearted cooking show. Mr. Nitshexx, and wondered initially if you had chosen a thread at random. I would like to see more of Ms. Makoto's cooking. I would NOT like to see any more of your reminiscing.

The circumstances under which you make pizza are, and ever ought to be, your own matter.

I wasn't even there, Mr. Nitshexx. Go make a cake.

I hope not!

But I remember hearing about-- Maker, who was it? -- Tuulinen-haan and a bunch of others trying to compete in a look-a-like contest for themselves at a fancon some years ago, and losing. I think in Tuulinen's case, the winner had paid for a prosthetic jaw, of all things.

Evidently there are baseliners who are just that nuts.

That makes them sound like some kind of holo-reel celebrity. Are these baseliner competitors Gallente or any of the Federation client bloodlines?

Verin and I went to the fan convention as each other. The guy with the prosthetic jaw went as me - which was surprising, since I was a rookie capsuleer that year and getting facial modification surgery is kind of a big commitment. I believe I placed second in the Verin "Stitcher" Haakatain look-alike competition. Verin revealed himself as 'the real Stitcher' at one point, but the surrounding groupies each pointed out why he COULDN'T be the real Stitcher.

It was a good time, but Verin got kind of grumpy about it. I think he was glad when we left.

Oh! Misremembered the story. Apologies, Tuulinen-haan. Still, it makes sense to have you swap places...

And on the Watch thing, I think a lot of the reverence is because you're one of them, and very publicly so.