Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

We each had a slab of meat in front of us and I told them to trim down the fat and put them in a separate bowl.

"Make sure to be precise be- Tatiana, don't munch on them!" I suddenly saw Tatiana sneaking a piece on her mouth.

"What? The meat's calling for me!" Tatiana joked.

"We're preparing these! Don't just eat them all!" Rin pouted.

"Hngh~" Tatiana stooped her head low and then she tried her best to keep herself in check.

It took us a few minutes but I finished trimming the fat off on my first slab. I started pointing out the things that they missed and a few things they could improve upon.

"Tatiana..." I trailed.

"What? I'm not eating them!" Tatiana looked at me with widened eyes.

"I'm not telling you that. Don't use much force, trust the knife. It's sharp as it is, you don't need to apply more force." I continued.

"Thrust? What?" Tatiana tilted her head then Kaley snorted.

"Tatiana..." Rin and Cynthia were giggling.

"Trust! T-R-U-S-T! Trust! Not thrust!" I exclaimed.

"Ah~ I'm really not good at cooking..." Tatiana turned her slab of meat over.

"Well, we're having a little class now. Isn't doing this kind of thing kinda relaxing as he said?" Cynthia chimed.

"Hmm, I don't know yet. We have different ways to relax though, heh." Tatiana chuckled.

"And what do you mean by that? Hmm?" Kaley raised an eyebrow.

"You really want to know?" Tatiana chuckled.

"Oh boy… we're taking longer than normal..." I thought to myself while on my third slab.

"From what I observed, Rin is the most relaxed after she finished organizing and listing everything in her notebook. On Cynthia's case, it is while she's reading the comic- wait, manga, correct?" Tatiana said, waving her knife around.

Rin and Cynthia smiled because Tatiana was spot on.

"How about me and him though? Hmm?" Kaley chuckled.

"Hmm, I'm not too sure about you two yet. Well, as he said, cooking relaxes him but every time I saw him make something, he has this peaceful look in his face. But you… I think it's every time you remove your bra because your boobs are too- Whoa! Don't wave that knife around!" Tatiana took a step back when Kaley snapped at her while her knife was raised.

"..." Kaley was just pouting while looking at Tatiana.

"What?" Tatiana started on her slab once more.

"Hngh~ Well, you're not wrong..." Kaley was annoyed.

"Heh, I knew it." Tatiana chuckled.

"There are a few things I only know of though." I thought to myself.

"Then what about you? What do you do to relax?" Cynthia asked.

"Aside from having sex?" Tatiana said innocently.

"S-Sure..." Cynthia said helplessly while Rin and Kaley were shaking their heads.

"What do you guys think?" Tatiana smiled.

The three were in deep thought but I made a guess of my own.

"It's pretty obvious, right? You like putting things on your mouth." I added while on my fifth slab.

"Hmm, I guess I like sucking your di-" I immediately interrupted her.

"Not that!" I exclaimed.

"Eating their pus-" the three interrupted her.

"No! Tatiana!" the three exclaimed.

"What? I don't understand." Tatiana was confused.

"Ha~ It's eating food! Haven't you noticed yourself?" I said as I was wiping my knife.

"Oh, I guess you're right. I really love eating. Well, those other two as well." Tatiana chuckled.

"..." the three.

"A-Anyway, after you four are done with your slabs, cut them into very~ thin strips like this." I said as I showed them a few strips I cut from my cutting board.

"Wha- how many did your trim already?!" Cynthia exclaimed.

"Fifteen? You guys are talking to each other too much I finished most of it. The oven's not gonna fit all of them so we'll do them by batches." I replied.

The four started to be a little quiet as they focused on trimming their slabs of meat. I on the other hand sliced enough for a few trays and I placed them inside the oven in the lowest setting to dry them up even more. A normal one would take more than half a day to dry and it was a good thing we already have a few ready. I was just drying them up even more to be sure. I even cracked open the door of the oven so that there would be no moisture build-up while it was inside the oven.

"How long are you gonna put them in there for?" Kaley approached me.

"Just a little bit because they're dry already. I just needed them to be dry enough that when I bend them, they would crack." I replied.

"And after that?" Kaley asked another question.

"We're gonna use the food processor to grind them until they turn to fine meat dust. We have a lot here so we might also use the blender or I'll borrow another one from my aunt." I replied.

While they were finishing their slabs, I brought out a few pots and placed the fat we trimmed from the meat. I placed them on the stove over low heat as well right until all the fat has melted.

It would take time for everything to be ready but I felt Kaley tapping me.

"I'm done with mine, is there anything else I could do?" Kaley asked.

"I'm done too~" Cynthia added.

The last one to finish was Rin because she wanted everything to be perfectly trimmed. She even checked the other's work first before she told me she was done.

"Well, you could open a few packets of our dry ingredients first, and let's estimate the amount we would be putting into each batch." I instructed them.

"Hey, why aren't we using fresh ingredients though?" Cynthia asked.

"Oh, it would be better to use not only dry ingredients but also ingredients that have long shelf lives. We could use fresh ingredients but it could affect how long the final product would last." I replied.

"Oh~ I see. Are these the only ingredients we could use?" Cynthia asked, opening a few packets and placing them on a bowl.

"Not exactly, I did say I made spicy ones earlier. There's a lot of options to choose from and it all depends on how you want your pemmican to taste like. What I've tried adding before aside from the ones we are using were mangoes, bananas, apples, kiwis, grapes, pineapples, and various chilies. I've also tried adding different kinds of nuts and different kinds of spices." I replied.

"Could we use other stuff than honey?" Rin chimed.

"Other than honey? Hmm, we could try using caramel, molasses, vanilla extract, or other syrups." I replied.

"Oh! Can I make my own combination for a small batch?" Cynthia was excited.

"Sure, we could experiment with it but whatever happens, we got to eat it, okay? I'm not saying it would be bad but your first batch would be massively different from your 100th batch. Well, I'm gonna trust you with it because you've cooked before." I smiled.

"Okay! I'll try making something with pineapples..." Cynthia made a short trip to the basement.

We were talking for a while but the oven bell dinged.

"Oh, the first batch is ready." I stood up and checked the quality.

They easily cracked upon bending so I placed them all in our food processors. The food processors started to grind them into dust and while it was doing that, I started to strain some of the fat we were trying to melt earlier.

"Hey! The meat is all ground up!" Cynthia called me over.

"Can you place them in a bowl and mix it with the dry ingredients? We'll place the fat and honey later so mix them up well." I replied.

They all nodded though I still helped them with mixing all the ingredients.

"Oh yeah, about using fresh ingredients, will it be okay if we dried them with the oven too?" Kaley asked.

"Hmm, well… I think it would be okay. We'll use my dehydrator if we're pressed for time." I replied.

"Wait, you have something better than the oven? Why didn't we use it?" Tatiana asked.

"Heh, aside from showing you all a few ways we could make it, I would like to spend time with you all. It's nice to cook with people to talk to. Especially with people I'm really fond with." I said as I was mixing my batch.

"..." the four were silent.

"What?" I tilted my head.

"Nothing..." they all faintly smiled.

"O-Okay… can you guys pass me the fat and the honey? This is the last step in making it. We just need to place them inside vacuum-sealed bags and we're done." I said while wiping my sweat with a towel.

"Oh! Can we place them inside these molds?" Rin quickly opened the cabinets.

"Sure! Let's do it quickly while they're still soft. Let's use the rectangle-shaped ones so we could stack them later when we store them." I replied.

Rin washed them first before I poured the mixture inside the molds. Cynthia made a little run to my aunt's house to borrow a few more molds so we could shape everything. It didn't take long before each of them tried to make their own mixture but surprisingly, Tatiana made the best one out of all of them. She made use of her experience of eating a lot to determine which food combination would taste better. The three were in disbelief when I declared Tatiana the winner.

"Can we try a few more samples later? I want to taste the spicy one you made." Tatiana asked.

"YOU'RE ALREADY EATING ONE!!!" the three exclaimed.

"Oh, it's good." Tatiana chuckled.