Heating Up the Competition

Charlie B.

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Catch

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In a small town just outside Spokane, Washington, bored-out-of-her-mind Claire is sent an email from her boss explaining how she has been the subject of multiple warnings about not completing her work. Claire receives the sickening news that she has been fired. She shouts a string of obscenities, quickly shuts her laptop, and ever so calmly walks to the kitchen.
Her main concern at the moment is not how she will make rent, nor how she will buy food to eat, but instead what her mother will think of her. It will most certainly not bring the one woman she can never please joy to hear her daughter lost her job again. The only idea Claire thinks of is to provide something to soften the blow of her new unemployed status, something that involves making sure her mother sees Claire in a good light. She scrambles to think of a plan. Do her taxes? No, too personal. Make her coffee? Too small.

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Buy her something nice for Mother’s Day- Mother’s day is on Tuesday. What a spectacular idea! Claire shall give her mother a day to remember forever. Thinking she’s found the best possible solution to her predicament, she rushes to tell her father, whose busy schedule is accompanied by the sounds of John Coltrane playing from his antique record player.
“No. Claire, you do nothing but mess things up. Would you really be able to pull off an extravagant Mother’s Day celebration? Let me do it for you, I’ll give you some of the credit. Now let me get back to work. I have four meetings today before lunch.”
“Hey, I do not! I know I’ll be able to make it happen.”
With awe-inspiring support from her father, Claire makes a plan. She needs food to serve, the main dish, maybe a couple of sides, and she could always use a dessert. Claire has three days to make this Mother’s Day the best one her mother has ever experienced.

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Spark

Saturday, two days to go: Claire is off to the grocery store; she has written down every ingredient she could ever need the night before, and now it’s time to buy them all. However, with impeccable timing, right at the moment Claire saunters into the kitchen, she witnesses her father throwing eight shreds of yellow lined paper, her list, into the trash can. The most crucial part of her Mother’s Day preparation, buried beneath the coffee grounds and banana peels; both of which are meant to go in the compost bin. Her own father, determined to make her fail from the beginning, but despite his cunning attempts, she shall prevail! Claire has always loved cooking competitions.

Monday, one day left: Finally, having rewritten her paragraph of a grocery list and spent upwards of God knows how much money at the store, Claire is finally ready to start cooking. First, the side dish, clam chowder in a miniature bread bowl. All she had to do was peel and chop the potatoes, make the soup base, add it all together, and cook it. With her laptop out on the counter, Claire’s on the precipice of completing this massive task.
At that moment, Claire’s father walks into the kitchen, wondering what commotion he heard from his second-floor office. Claire has never been good at explaining her process, but she tries her best, gesticulating wildly hoping it will help with the clarity of her rambling as an unseen hand nudges the bowl closer to the edge of the counter and- *CRASH*

Ignite

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Monday, one day left: Finally, having rewritten her paragraph of a grocery list and spent upwards of God knows how much money at the store, Claire is finally ready to start cooking. First, the side dish, clam chowder in a miniature bread bowl. All she had to do was peel and chop the potatoes, make the soup base, add it all together, and cook it. With her laptop out on the counter, Claire’s on the precipice of completing this massive task.
At that moment, Claire’s father walks into the kitchen, wondering what commotion he heard from his second-floor office. Claire has never been good at explaining her process, but she tries her best, gesticulating wildly hoping it will help with the clarity of her rambling as an unseen hand nudges the bowl closer to the edge of the counter and- *CRASH*

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The bowl of soup Claire was just about to complete comes tumbling down the cliffside that is the kitchen counter. Claire looks at the clock. 36 hours left and she still doesn’t have a main dish. Her father chimes in, unsolicited as always, “It appears you’ve spilled something there. Maybe it would be wise of you to let me take over. If something like that happens again, I’m afraid I’ll have to step in.” More pressure is just what the doctor ordered.

The chicken takes an inordinate amount of time to cook. It spends forty minutes in the convection oven, is taken out to rest, then, spends an additional forty minutes in the oven to cook some more. And finally, if it’s not quite done, the bird goes back in the oven to broil for an additional half-hour. All this time adds up to one seemingly insurmountable challenge for Claire on Mother’s Day morning. However, she must prove herself to her mother and admittedly unhelpful father. 

Tuesday, nine hours on the clock: Her main dish is all that can save Claire now, a rotisserie chicken. Her mother’s impression of Claire rests on the wings of a rotisserie chicken. The process for her mother’s famous rotisserie chicken is not as simple as it may seem. The recipe begins with a raw chicken, Claire happens to use one bought from the Fred Meyer two blocks away, stuffed with lemon halves and whole cloves of garlic.

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The chicken takes an inordinate amount of time to cook. It spends forty minutes in the convection oven, is taken out to rest, then, spends an additional forty minutes in the oven to cook some more. And finally, if it’s not quite done, the bird goes back in the oven to broil for an additional half-hour. All this time adds up to one seemingly insurmountable challenge for Claire on Mother’s Day morning. However, she must prove herself to her mother and admittedly unhelpful father. 

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Fuse

Tuesday, one hour: 30 minutes remain on the one thing that can save her dignity. All she needs is this chicken to make her mother proud. All she can think about is the pressure of her mom’s cold stares and disappointed shakes of her head.
The timer dings, the perfect time for her father to enter the room. Claire goes to take the bird out of the oven. One last shot, this chicken is the one thing that can save her from absolute humiliation and a poor all-expenses-paid take-out meal from her father.

To the surprise and chagrin of Claire’s father, what comes out of the oven is a beautifully cooked, golden brown chicken. All of her plans worked out just as intended and just in time, as well. Both Claire and her father let out a sigh of relief and disappointment respectively, as the sound of the front door opening denotes the arrival of Claire’s mother and marks the beginning of what will soon be a spectacular Mother’s Day feast. As all the members of the Franklin family gather at the dinner table, Clair receives the one thing she’s been hoping for, “This food is wonderful, Claire, thank you!” 
“I’m so glad you like it, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day! So, there’s something I have to tell you; I got fired… again.”
“Oh, Claire, what are we going to do with you.”