fandomtownies | Luke's Diner, May 23 (Monday)

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Luke's Diner, May 23 (Monday)

There were some mornings when she showed up at the diner and everything was normal. With the island in its current itinerant mood and the scenery across the causeway changing from week to week, 'normal' for Fandom was even more relative than it usually was, but that was sort of the point: 'normal' for Fandom was a constantly changing concept.

Still, Lacey didn't count on things like walking into the kitchen and finding a model volcano made out of bread, erupting oatmeal at a vigorous rate.

". . . not asking," she declared immediately, and headed back out to the front of the diner to leave that to the staff.

Today's Specials
Beef and Napa Cabbage Stir-Fry
Chicken Parmesan Burgers
S'mores Crepes

NOW HIRING - See Manager for Details
Saturday shift available

Luke's is open, and not in a terribly breakfasty mood today, it seems. Odd, that.

[OOC: Perhaps inspired by what happens when you try to cook steel-cut oats in a shallow bowl in a 1250-watt microwave.

. . . the OCD went where half the oatmeal did. :/]

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Once Ariel's dress had dried from all the rain, she decided that it was time to take a lunch break, especially since she had a very important question for Miss Burrows. So she closed the store for lunch and bounced over to Luke's.

"Hello, Miss Burrows!" she chirped as she went to the stool at the counter she usually took up when she came in on Fridays.

Lacey wondered for a moment if she could claim the deep fryer was out of commission due to erupting oatmeal, but she managed to wrangle up a cheerful expression anyway.

"Hi again!" That was totally a cheerful wave, not a flailing one. Hush. "What wildly off-the-wall thing can I do for you today?"

It was probably a good thing Lacey didn't mention that, because then Ariel would have wanted to see the carnage...and see if there were any unusable parts to add to her collection.

"Well!" Ariel beamed excitedly. "I was talking to Bod on Friday about deep frying a sandwich, and so I wanted to see if you could deep fry a peanut butter and jelly one for me!"

Lacey was never complaining about Brent's fondness for chili cheese dogs on the basis of nutritional concerns again. Ever again.

"I . . . could," she said slowly, hoping she didn't look too much like a deer in the headlights. "The jelly might, um . . . leak out in the fryer, though. Maybe if we sort of crimped down the bread around the edges, sort of like a hot pocket?"

[OOC: Ahem. Please excuse the limited icons until I re-up on paid time.]

At Lacey's suggestion, Ariel couldn't help her happy smile. "See, that's why it's a good thing I come in to ask for these things while you're working, Miss Burrows. You're so smart! I wouldn't have thought of that, but that'll probably make it extra delicious and easier to eat, too!"

"Probably hotter on the inside at first," Lacey felt the need to caution, all the while wondering why she was going along with this. Because she was a pushover, that was why, but nobody let her in on that. ""Oooh, and maybe a sprinkling of powdered sugar on top once it's done . . ."

[OOC: I FEEL WEIRDLY INADEQUATE WITHOUT A MILLION ICON CHOICES I RARELY USE. IDK.]

Ariel's eyes slowly grew wider at the thought of powdered sugar. "Ohmygosh," she said in an awed whisper. "Yes, please! That would be fantastic! I have to have one now, you know. And a big glass of milk, that I can dip it in. That'll help cool it down a little, and, besides, PB&J is really good dipped in milk."

As fun as crunchy foods were, there was still a lot to be said for the familiarity of soggy stuff for a mermaid.

"Cold milk, something hot and crunchy," agreed Lacey, who'd really just decided that when it came down to a choice between encouraging dubious culinary decisions and basking in enthusiasm for her efforts, she'd pick the ego-boosting option.

. . . subconsciously. She hadn't actually weighed all that out in any coherent way.

Still, she flashed a goofy thumbs-up. "That's always a good combination if you ask me."

And peanut butter and jelly were a lot easier to clean out of the deep fryer than Cheeto cheese powder. (She'd cried at the orange swirls floating on the surface of the oil. Shh.)

"Now the big question -- what kind of jelly?"

"Ohmygosh!" Ariel laughed. "How did I not even think of that? That's a pretty important question. Usually I do strawberry. Since seaweed jelly's pretty hard to find around here."

"Seaweed jelly?" Sure, mention these things around Little Miss Connoisseur of Frequently Underappreciated Exotic Foods, who was blinking a little bit in surprise. "That's . . . unusual, but I bet I could probably find someplace to order some. For now, though?"

Nobody should ever spread peanut butter and strawberry jelly onto bread with that much enthusiasm. Ever. And then slice the resulting sandwich neatly on a diagonal, crimp down the edges, and take it back to the kitchen with the look of someone on a mission. And yet.

Lacey's head popped up through the service window, and she called over the sizzling of the deep fryer (and occasional bubbling pop of oatmeal), "It'll just be a minute!"

The busboy, wearing a long-suffering look of I never ask any more, wandered out front to set a glass of milk in front of Ariel before heading over to clear a recently vacated booth.

"Thank you!" Ariel called happily to the busboy, then taking a moment to look at her glass of milk with pleased anticipation for the sandwich to come before she dug out her straw. She plopped it into her cup and called out, "Can I get a side of fries to go with it, too?"

Luckily the sound of the deep fryer mostly drowned out Lacey's whimper, but her voice still had a quaver in it when she called out, "Sure thing! No problem."

She'd just change out the oil really, really soon after this, and wish she could budget for a fryer with separate vats.

When she came back out a few minutes later, the two golden-brown triangles of deep-fried sandwich had been sprinkled with powdered sugar and artfully arranged on a plate with a drizzle of strawberry jelly and a whole strawberry garnish; she set the plate down in front of Ariel along with a plate of equally golden-brown, crisp french fries.

"Well," she said with a gesture that was half shrug, half helpless flail, "there you go. Bon appetit!"

Lacey, that phrase shouldn't sound so desperate.

"Ohmygosh!" Each time that phrase came out of Ariel, it seemed to gush out of her with more enthusiasm than the last time. "Oh, wow, this looks perfect! It's almost too good looking to eat!"

Really. Ignore that she was already taking a hold of one of the triangles and dipping it experimentally into the milk and going to take a bite before the sentence was even finished.

You know that proverbial carrot on a stick? People being this enthusiastic about her cooking was Lacey's version of that.

"No, really, I --" Oh, she was already going for the sandwich; Lacey settled for clasping her hands together and waiting with almost literally bated breath. "-- hope you don't burn yourself on it?"

Oh, gosh, the students weren't too litigation-happy, were they?

Just be glad Ariel wasn't asking you to deep-fry that proverbial carrot on a stick, Lacey.

"Hhhhhooooooo--t," she said, elegantly, after that first bite, with her mouth hanging open as if to cool it better; her hand was poised at her chin to catch any bits of deep fried sandwich that might need to evacuate. But she managed to take her glass and damn the straw as she took a big cooling gulp.

She settled back a moment with her eyes closed before she opened them up and let out a happy sigh.

"But goooooooood!"

"Really?" There were professional-grade camera flashes that could get inadequacy issues from the way Lacey's face instantly lit up. (While she not-terribly-subtly nudged the napkin dispenser a little closer to Ariel.) "Better reviews than the Cheetos?"

"Oh, yeah," said Ariel, her head bobbing in a nod as she picked up the sandwich again and blew on it a little before taking another bite. "Much better. This is, like, perfect!"

"You really think so?" Lacey asked hopefully. "Any chance of some kind of . . . mass market appeal?"

"Well, I like it," Ariel offered, between another bite, "and my Cheetos pizza took off pretty well. You should give it a try and see how it goes over!"

"Oh, gosh. Maybe I will!" Lacey decided with a nervous laugh. "Next week. I could name it after you . . ."

"Really?" asked Ariel excitedly. Oh, like she needed any other reason to think Lacey was great! She laughed, absolutely charmed by the idea. "Then you'll definitely have to use strawberry jelly, because then it would match my hair!"

"Good point," Lacey said, actually pulling a notepad out from beneath the counter to jot the recipe down, as if peanut butter and jelly sandwiches dunked in the deep fryer were complicated. "They need a catchy name, too. What do you think,?"

"Hmmmmmmmmmm." Ariel considered it while chewing on more of her sandwich, finishing up the first triangle. "Maybe....Ariel's Amazing and Awesome Deep Fried PB&J."

For a girl with a lot of imagination, she wasn't necessarily creative...

". . . I like all the A's?" Lacey said slowly. "I was thinking something that makes it sound like . . . a mysterious surprise. Really get people intrigued, you know?"

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Luke's Diner, May 23 (Monday)

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