It took Violet and Sebastian half a day to reach the rural area, which by the time they arrived, it was late in the night. The filming team was only coming in three days. It was Sam's arrangement for Violet to train Sebastian and head to the location earlier to get used to the setup and to prepare for something Sebastian had no experience with.
Sebastian had paid the house owner in advance for their extra stay and usage of her house, which she didn't mind at all. After all, there was always an empty room belonging to her son who was working in the city.
The next morning, Violet woke to her alarm at four in the morning. Sebastian, who was exhausted from driving the night before, couldn't wake.
"Wake up, hurry! I promise you can sleep as much as you want later in the evening! You must experience shopping for fresh ingredients!" Violet made a ruckus on him as he grumbled some gibberish, but dragged himself to sit up.
She pinched his cheeks before stealing a kiss from his lips. That was all it took to wake him instantly. When she wanted to run away, he pulled her back to face him and this time took a deep kiss with her. When they pulled apart, Violet blushed in embarrassment.
"So, this is how it is to wake you? Aren't you afraid that the crew members might be around or if the Grandma reports you to the tabloid?" Violet whispered.
"Vi, we are in the dark. It's not that dim either. No one would notice what we did. They can only hear what you yell." He whispered back as Violet chuckled.
"Quick! We are going to be late for the wet market!" Violet stood instantly and continued her ruckus as he rolled his eyes and groaned while being half-dragged to visit the wet market after he put on his usual glasses and wig.
It was his first time seeing live stock in their first form before being slaughtered. He had never known the wet market would be so busy in the early morning. Since they were in the rural area, Violet paid a lot of attention to the local ingredients she had never seen. She had been asking almost every vegetable stall how she could use the ingredients to cook a dish.
It took her a while to realise she should be educating Sebastian too. "Look here Sebby…" Sebastian hushed her.
"What?" She retaliated. "Phor Tat…" He corrected, and Violet understood he wanted to disguise even his name.
"Yes, yes. Phor Tat, when you cook the chicken soup, you will need celery, but I haven't seen any around. I think this Chinese celery works…" Violet said, while Sebastian, who was groggy and grumpy, groaned at the smell of the Chinese celery.
"Isn't that just coriander?" He backed away a little. His reaction surprised Violet because someone who likes chicken soup, coriander and celery should be their best friend, but on the contrary, for him.
"You don't like them?" She asked to double confirm.
"No! Eww, they are smelly!" He walked away as she chased him to tease him with the ones she bought earlier.
"Stop, Vi! Eww, no!" He ran away as they played awhile before another vegetable stall caught her attention.
"Come here, now! You need to recognise all of them for the show, Phor Tat!" She reminded him as she dragged him to the stall and introduced him to spuds, carrots and onions.
He was more acceptable at the dryer section of the market, but he would try to avoid wet spots and refused to join her in the seafood section. Violet had to skip there and headed straight to the poultry section instead.
"Here, come watch from afar. Pick a plump chicken…" Violet noticed his grimace from the wet section of the chicken stall. "Alright, Auntie, we want that one." Violet pointed at a mid-sized chicken with plump legs.
"How do we cook that?" Sebastian came closer to ask Violet curiously. However, before she could reply, he was terrified by the sound of the chicken being slaughtered.
"So, yes... That and then it's blanched, and she would chop them up for us." Sebastian fell back a little when Violet supported him.
"Wow, wow… easy there Phor Tat…" Violet supported his back. "Vi, I don't think I can handle this…" He blinked in disgust.
"Phor Tat, they won't ask you to slaughter one. The chicken will be on the table, chopped readily, but at the very least, this walkthrough is to give you an oversight, a holistic understanding." Violet explained before collecting the chopped chicken and paid for their purchases.
"How do you… How are you fine with it?" Sebastian was still dumbfounded when Violet led him further down the market to have some breakfast.
"When you are cooking all the time, that's normal." She said while looking at the various local delicacies. She had learnt that the town was famous for its millet porridge. She thinks it would be something light for Sebastian, who had lost his appetite. So, she decided to share a bowl with him.
She took the first bite before giving him the next. He didn't mind sharing the spoon, but he really was trying his best to swallow the spoonful of millet without thinking of the sight of the slaughtered chicken.
"Stop thinking about it! Now, open your mouth and think that you're eating stir-fried noodles!" Violet reprimanded him, who had something else catching his eyes.
"I… er… Can I have that instead?" He pointed at the grilled custard egg on the griller.
She instantly went to get them each two. As they tried the unique texture, it slowly made Sebastian regain his appetite.
"Hmm.. this is way nicer." Sebastian cooed. "Eggs are never bad, Sebby!" Violet cheered.
"Phor Tat!" He reprimanded, but Violet chuckled. "Yes, Phor Tat.." Violet didn't hesitate to stick her tongue out as they returned to the filming site and prepared the ingredients.
While prepping, Violet had a little doubt that his comfort food was chicken soup, but she could only oblige to the arrangements for now. She began to introduce him to the crockery in the kitchen. He knew some basic ones like the wok, pan, pots, but he was surprised to see a hammer in the kitchen, a meat mallet to be exact.
He thought it was for tools, but when he saw Violet pound some part of the chicken while chopping it and smashed a little garlic and onions for better absorption of the soup, he was astonished by the magic of working in a kitchen.
Violet nearly thought he was hopeless in the kitchen, especially when he was holding the knife upside down to slice or chop the vegetables, but once he grasped the basics, he was a swift learner. He learnt using the peeler and mastered peeling carrots and spuds really quickly. It was almost as though the kitchen was a new talent discovery for Sebastian.
"The stove…" Violet lamented when she looked at it. Sebastian smirked before going up to help her.
It was the only time he felt familiar because he had acted in many such scenes that he knew how to start a fire. Violet watched him put in some kindling to start the fire by using a few pieces of newspaper at the centre of the box before adding dry and small pieces of wood. He then lit them with a match.
Violet then wanted to add some huge logs, but he stopped her. "Vi! That would stop the burning!"
Violet stopped and put the large logs down. "Why?" She asked.
"Building a fire needs oxygen and fuel. The log is fuel, and it's a huge one. But it won't burn because there isn't enough heat from a match, Vi." He said as she watched the fire slowly grow.
He added more kindling to build the heat to burn larger pieces instead. "How do we control the fire since we could turn the knob on a normal stove, but here?" Violet asked curiously.
"Using the damper and the door. If you close the damper or the door, the fire slows down because there's no oxygen. Your fuel is also another factor. The amount, type and size matter. Don't overload the box with wood. Increasing the surface area with smaller wood burns faster." Sebastian explained solemnly.
"What an expert! Are you sure you're only an actor?" Violet joked.
"It's part of being a thriller job training, Vi," Sebastian explained
"Don't they use stand-ins for you?" Violet was surprised.
"It's always better if I were to perform it. It's more genuine." He admitted.
Violet smiled proudly at him. "Now, time to cook! Let's go!" She urged him, who was a little agitated with the idea, but knew he had no choice with the setup by his company.
Violet instructed him to add some water to the pot and the other ingredients bit by bit. Since it was going to boil for a while, they took turns to look after the pot while the other one went to freshen up. When it was Sebastian's turn to look after the fire, and Violet declared it was ready to be served, Violet let him add some salt while she went to get them some bowls. She wanted to let the house owner try too, but the moment she took a sip when she returned, she spat out the soup.
"Just how much salt did you add?!" Violet yelled at Sebastian, who showed her the half-bottle of salt left.
"Are you insane?! At most, you only add a couple of teaspoons to such a medium-sized pot! You're not acting now!" It was Sebastian's first time watching Violet being so angry at him.
"I'm sorry, Vi… I'm sorry…" He apologised guiltily while Violet quickly diluted the soup in another pot filled with water.
When she was done, she realised she must have been too focused on saving the soup that she appeared to be too harsh with Sebastian earlier. Despite his mistakes, she didn't want the soup to go to waste, and so was his effort. She scooped a bowl and approached his guilty self to try his first meal from his first kitchen adventure.