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"When you think of a dish you want to make, you have to be very careful as to think about the entire dish." she would go on to say as Sayuri began to jot down notes on a notepad. "You not only have to think of the main part of your dish but also what you're going to put on the side and as garnish. These things make a dish complete." Reina told her that for the dish she was going to make today for her, she was going to cook steak with black pepper drizzled with a light cream sauce, a garlic and onion pasta , served with an appetizer of Caesar salad. For everything to work out perfectly, she would need to have all things planned out before she even started to actually prepare the food in the kitchen.

Next she would walk over to the kitchen cabinets, bringing out one large plate, one small bowl, two medium sized bowls, two spoons, and a small sized stainless steel container. "It's very important that you have everything ready before you start to cook. You're allowed to go get anything you may need in an event that you've forgotten but most of time you have to be prepared if you're working by yourself. If you have assistants, they can bring you what you need. But this increases efficiency." Sayuri noticed how much preparation was actually needed even before the actual cooking part of the preparations had started. Even though she had watched her sensei perform these steps in the academy school kitchen, having Reina do a one on one walkthrough made it easier for her to take in. 

"Next is the actual cooking preparations. Remember that each knife serves a different purpose in the kitchen and must be marked clearly because a knife used to cut raw meat can never ever be used to cut vegetables." She would ask Sayuri to bring the knife block that contained at least twenty seven different knives. There were little stickers on them that Reina explained she had put in case she forgot which knife was used to cut what. She marveled at the collection of blades and watched carefully. First she brought the onion and the tomatoes to the sink and washed the tomatoes with cold water and peeled the onion. She said that ingredients always needed a thorough was regardless of how clean she believed they were.

Next she told her that the actual preparation of the ingredients needed to be done in a perfectly planned order. Chefs always started with marinating the meat of the dish since the meat needed time to sit in the marinade so that all of the flavors would lock into it. Reina started with applying a little pinch of salt and pepper with a little bit of Dijon mustard and rubbed the steak in the marinade. Then she would let the meat sit in the fridge until she needed it when cooking time actually came. Then she would wash the cutting board that she had used thoroughly with hot water, because she had been marinating raw beef. She would move on to the dicing and chopping. 

First she was going to dice a clove of garlic and put the diced garlic into the extra small stainless steel container. She explained the garlic was going to be used for the pasta, which would be cooked last and so it needed a seperate container. Then she would cut the onion taking note that onions stung your eyes and would make you want to cry. But with practice the crying and stinging would get easier to handle. The chopped onions would be put on one side of the plate as well. Afterward, she would grind the block of cheese she had taken out and put the grinded cheese to one side. The remainder of the cheese would go back in the fridge as too long of an exposure to the outside air may damage and mold the cheese faster.  

The inside of the restaurant was small and dainty. It gave Sayuri a very warm feeling. The red paper laterns hanging from the ceiling offered decoration and lighting at the same time. She saw that the sitting arrangements were set up in a way that allowed but single customers and large group customers. Since the restaurant was not yet open for business, there were no other customers nor staff except for the two girls. The girl motioned her to sit at the large bar table wuth high yet comfortable looking chairs which she knew replaced the uncomfortable stools found in most bar places or restaurants that had a licence to sell alcohol to it's customers. The girl would then disappear inside the employee only area for a few moments, leaving Sayuri there just sitting.

She looked at the restaurant in one quick flourish of a gaze, taking in the design and the feel of the place. Even if it had yet to open, she could tell that it would be a great hit. If only this restaurant could be opened in Yukigakure. The girl would reappear a few moments later with a complete change in outfit. A white uniform with silver buttons replaced the overcoat and a tall hat would be placed on her head. It was a chef uniform! She thought that it was weird how the girl had the keys to open the doors of a restaurant that hadn't even opened for business yet. She smiled at Sayuri's obvious look of surprise and bowed to her, giving a formal introduction. "Welcome to Ichiban Sushi. My name is Nakamura Reina and I am the apprentice chef as well as the daughter of the restaurant owner. Another shocked expression would adorn her face.

Wait, this place was her family's?! She couldn't believe her ears. She was shock for quite a long period of time before she finally found the manners to bow in return, giving her her name. She felt oddly belittled in front of Reina, which wasn't much of a surprise. She was just an academy student while Reina was an apprentice chef and also a cooking nin for Yukigakure. "The reason I took you here today is because of two reasons. One, it's because I swe you having a rather tough time in that blasting snow--" Reina trailed off her sentence and Sayuri raised an eyebrow as to what the second reason could be. "--and because I want you to help me by trying a few of my dishes." She was going to critique a chef's dishes?!

Noticing the surprised look on her face, Reina smiled. It seemed as though she had anticipated something along these lines to be the response she would get. "I've had a little chat with Akito-sensei." she explained. Akito-sensei was the cook Sayuri had bothered every day at the academy to let her sit and watch in the kitchen. He was also one of her academy class teachers. As a former academy student, the fact that Reina knew him wasn't as shocking. Akito-sensei was a very nice man and very patient, two key things for being a sensei and a cook. She nodded her head and Reina continued. "He told me you've been watching him cook in the academy kitchen. Don't worry, I did the same too when I was a student there." she winked. Another raise of an eyebrow. The fact that she had spent time watching sensei cook was unexpected. She went on to say that she really hoped she could give her honest opinion.

Because she had just started her job as a cooking nin and also as an aspiring apprentice chef, she needed all the opinions she could get from all around to tweak her dishes to perfection. Or at least as close as possible. Seeing the sincerity she displayed, Sayuri agreed to be a taste tester although she was still wondering why she had been chosen. Of course there was more to it than that. But for the moment she would agree since she did want to try Reina's cooking; to hopefully learn from her.  

The road to Tetsu no Kuni, although a short distance, still proved to be much longer even with the help of the sailboat. She and Ren would ascend on Awayaka's boat and would begin to make their way to the mysterious country. She was secretly quite excited for what the new country would have to bring though also mindful that she would have to be careful on not stepping any tails of people like she had done in Hi no Kuni. Because she had chosen to do that, she had indirectly got herself chased off the land. She was certain that by now she was already on Hi no Kuni's blacklist, though she didn't quite mind so much. There was really nothing to mind. She had initiated a fight with one of their village's shinobi only to prove that her strength was not yet up to par to defeat the person. A Hyuuga had managed to draw a tie with her and seal her chakra. 

She was definitely going to go back there and make sure that she reclaimed her victory. Not only did it taste bitter that she had lost to someone from a different village, but she had indirectly disgraced her clan and her village while she did so. But from that time till now, which was barely a few days she had become much stronger. It was a revenge that she needed to take. Nobody was going to get out of winning against her. But that would have to have to wait until she finally got out of Tetsu no Kuni. She was hoping to get even stronger before then. It would make the victory she anticipated much much sweeter. An insane woman indeed. 

Ren told her that Testu no Kuni was extremely cold and always snowed. Immediately she was thinking of Yuki no Kuni. She wondered what differences were between the two countries if at all. Though she was still trying to grasp her scattered memories she had already regained much of it and the most that she remembered from the village and the country was that it was cold and snowed every other day. She nodded her head and her heart skipped a beat. It had been a little over a year since she had seen snow or felt the chill of falling temperatures. She kind of missed it. Ironically that was not what she had felt when she was a shinobi of the Yukigakure.

In about half an hour of sailing, the boat would sail to within meters of the large country. To Sayuri, the land seemed to be even larger than Hi no Kuni, which surprised her. She had thought that as a country of the five great shinobi villages, it was supposedly the largest. But now she was wrong. Ren mentioned that this country was very secretive and not a lot of people knew of it's location and it's existence. The only reason why he had known was because he had been asked by one of his passengers to take her there. He remembered the first time he had found this country. 

As the boat would near the shores of what would be Tetsu, she saw that it was really what Ren had said. The ground was covered with inches of snow, giving it a white beautiful landscape. She smiled as they approached. Even when they were still in the waters they could already feel the bone chilling temperatures of the country before them. It may be cold, to the point of being freezing, to most people but she was actually enjoying it. Perhaps she had become used to such coldness that it was refreshing. She awaited with a notion of anxiousness to explore the grounds.


{EXIT THREAD && HI NO KUNI}    

There was still a lot of work that needed to be done even though she was almost halfway into making the dish. The ice that was used for the cutting board was slowly starting to melt under the rising heat that was taking over the islands. This wasn't what she had expected. The sun's rays was also beating down on her and her movements being hindered by her injured foot didn't help matters at all. She was going to have to pick up the pace even more now or else the cut up vegetables would fall on the sand once the ice cutting board melts completely and all of her original hard work would go to waste. Then she would have to start again and she simply didn't have that time to. So what was she going to do? The ingredients had all be assembled, cut up and ready to use. So now the problem that came to her was the fact that she hadn't thought about building a fire beforehand.

She always seemed to forget something crucial which would end up putting more time to waste than she had planned. But no matter, if she could just get a fire up quickly, she may still have a chance. She secured the fish onto a stick and put it on the cutting board before hopping towards where the remnants of the fire had been from last night. She was going to have to start a fire on her own and sadly she had never quite done that before. Though there was something going for her as she was a quick learner and had seen Ren build a fire a couple of times before. With a little bit of maneuvering and trying, she would get a fire started within a few minutes. A small flame would start to appear. She was just on schedule!

She then would hop on her one foot back to the cutting board to finish the rest of the dish before she would have to bring the fish over to cook over the fire. The smoke was being wafted in her face as a wind began to pick up but naturally this wasn't much of a hinderence to the aspiring chef. What she would do now was grind the tomatoes and onions together on the board gently with the hilt of her ice sword, which was also starting to melt because of the heat. She certainly had not anticipated this. It only meant that she would have to work twice as fast to get what she wanted done before everything turned back to water. Grinding the two ingredients together finely, she rubbed the fish with the grind and then let it sit for a moment to allow the fish to absorb the flavors. If only she had aluminum foil.

But out here in the wilderness there wasn't much choice. She would then bring the fish by the fire with the stick as the skewer and start to cook it. The fish would take a bit more time to cook because the flame was still small. If she had thought of making the fire before starting to prepare the ingredients she would have already had a blazing fire going and it would take less time to cook. Since Ren had not yet come back from his wood chipping expenditure, she guessed that it was alright. She did take note of what she needed to work on for next time though; that is to say there was still a next time. She hoped that they would be able to get off the island soon. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the tropics but there was something about it that was rather different from what she had been used to.

The fish was already starting to turn a nice rich color when she turned it over, still having the meat meeting the fire. While she was cooking, she was thinking of the dish that they were going to have for supper. If memory served her correctly, she had seen that Ren's bag had a small little kettle or pot like thing that would be perfect for a stew. She also recalled commenting on it when she had first seen it, on the boat and he had told her that he always kept one just in case he got stranded on an island. He would still be able to boil up some hot water and maybe have a bowl of cup noodles assuming he had noodles. He was certainly stuck on an island now, she thought with amusement.

After she was finally able to hoist her body up the muddy slope she would sit for a few moments on the ground. It was great exercise for her. She would take her newly formed spear and use it as a walking stick to help her get herself back to the sandy terrain. By this time she has noticed that Ren was at the other side of the forest, still taking his time with chopping wood. That was what she had planned and it was good that she still would have a couple hours to herself. She quickly made her way towards where she had sat before and put down the vegetables she had gotten at the clearing. 

She now had two hours to prepare her stew before lunchtime would roll about. The sun wasn't as bad yet since it technically was still early afternoon. She limped towards the water and washed the ingredients in the chilling liquid. The wilderness was not a good place for vegetation to be sanitized. Since the food was going into people's systems, sanitizing the ingredients was very important. After a few thorough washes, she would bring the ingredients and put them on a cloth on the sand. This was the first time she would attempt to cook with insufficient equipment.

But her ingredients gathering wasn't done yet. She had collected all the vegetables she needed but was missing the meat. Now that was going to be harder for her. She would have to find rabbit meat. As she was just about to head back into the forest, she halted momentarily. On second thought stew was probably going to be a little too heavy for them to eat and it seemed like it would be perfect for a heart supper. Lunch needed to be a little lighter but still heavy enough to last them the afternoon. It would require a little more thinking.

It seemed as though her brain was naturally geared towards thinking of food. She was especially able to think of dishes even when she had limited resources. After a moment's thought, she would look at the ocean waters, glistening under the sunlight. Her new idea was going to be great! The spear she had created from before was still in her hand. Now she was able to act upon her pefect idea. Limping slightly, she would walk towards the waters of the ocean. She was going to make a fish dish which was evidently easier than that of stew.

She would bring a stick with her to lean on while her spear was used to catch fish. She had seen fish swimming around the waters the day before and decided that it would be more convenient given the time that was allotted for lunch and the fact that it was relatively uncertain whether she would be able to hunt for a rabbit. She dipped her feet into the water and waited patiently, certain that she would find fish that would become her prey fairly soon. Her stick hoisting almost all of her body weight she would stand in the ocean waters and wait.  

She would take a few steps forward, making her way to the long row of plants. She saw that whoever had been here before her and who she guessed had planted these vegetables here and taken every precaution into mind. Instead of finding a clearing that was up above, this person had chosen the clearing here. The elevation difference that she had noticed before was probably the main reason why he or she had chosen this particular place. The temperature was cool and there was enough sunlight that came through but not enough for it to burn the plants. Also the clearing was quite hidden where animals like rabbits wouldn't be able to get to it without some form of challenge.

She guessed the person had also taken into account the fact that here it was moist as compared to the dry atmosphere of the forest above. The rainfall here was quite substantial for adequate vegetable growth which explained the ripe and also growing vegetables. She paused for a moment before her hand gently touched one of the ripe tomatoes. For an isolated island these vegetables were like heaven on earth. She hadn't expected such luscious amounts of them before when she had first noticed the remnants of cucumbers from up above. Now she was able to go with step one of the plan; the crafting of her conceptual dish. She sat down for a moment, looking at the ingredients now in front of her.

They were all vegetables of course being that they grew on plants. She wondered if she could make anything delicious with just vegetables. After a moment's reflection, she found that having only vegetables wasn't the case. She recalled how Ren had hunted down a rabbit the first night they had landed here. There couldn't possibly only be one rabbit living here. So now she had meat and all the choices of vegetables available. Looking around, her mind started to come up with different dishes. Having lost her memory wasn't a very good thing since she no longer remembered what dishes she had made before while still in Yukigakure. She began to ponder the possibilities.

And that was when she figured out what she could cook. It was simple really. The ingredients before her eyes screamed at her the possibility. She was going to make a stew with tomato, onions, potatoes and carrots. Though she had not tried cooking rabbit meat in a stew instead of beef but she knew there was only one way to find out; to try it out. So then she would have to start with ingredient licking. With her experience in cooking, she was able to simple give the vegetables a little squeeze to see if they were ripe enough to use. In her mind she was detailing how big a portion she was going to make.

She would have to make enough for the both of them and also enough for them to last all the way to dinner. For her it wasn't that big of a problem since she was used to eating less but she guessed that for Ren it was going to be more of a problem. He was also the one who was responsible for the hard labor of chopping wood. She definitely needed to make sure he was well-fed. She would begin picking the vegetables off the stems, admiring their beauties even though they were planted in the middle of nowhere. A smile formed on her face. She was always happy to cook.  

She had been asleep for a little over three hours and would awaken to a streaming sun. It was certainly past daybreak as she finally her lobes to her surroundings. She found that it was already close to early afternoon and knew that she had slept way too long. Pushing her body up to a sitting position, she would look around her. The sand underneath her body was warm. She searched with her eyes for Ren. He was nowhere to be found and she knew that he had probably started working already. She had definitely slept too long. Her original plan was that she would try to cook a hearty breakfast for him since breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Well so much for that.

Her hand fumbled around for her crutch as she finally decided to go search for some ingredients. It was a deserted island and much of the ingredients that she normally used to cook were not available. She stood up rather clumsily, leaning her body on the crutch as she limped towards the forestland. She needed to get a move on if she wanted to have a chance of making lunch. But with the limited foods she had seen, it seemed unlikely that she could make anything. She made her way as quickly as she could to the forest, almost colliding with Ren as he came into the clearing with another bundle of chopped wood. He seemed revitalized after the night's rest which was a relief. 

He questioned where she was going and after a second's hesitation, she told him that she was going to look around the island some more. She said that she hadn't a chance to properly look at the place since yesterday's injury and wanted to make up for it. He nodded his head and warned her to be more careful. She made her way to the trees which made up the forest while he headed back to the sandy terrain to put down the wood and to take a rest. She has decided that she didn't want to let him know about her plans just in case her ingredients search wasn't successful. But she would need to go back to the steep muddy slope if she wanted to find anything other than berries. She also needed to hurry in case Ren came back before she could make it back up the slope.

With her injured leg, she wasn't able to go distances that she would have been able to otherwise. She sat down on the ground and slid down the slope carefully, her crutch close by her side. She would find herself back to where she had been the day before, at the trunk of that tree that had given her the bruise on her forehead. She stood up from the mud again and began her adventure on these new lands that made up another segment of the forest. She wondered how the slope came to be and who had been here before them. But that didn't matter at this point. What mattered was ingredients. Anything other than wild berries would do.

She began her search from the landing of where she had slid down from. The temperature around her had suddenly dropped a few degrees at least in feel. Looking up at the sky she noticed that the difference in elevation could account for the difference in temperature. The sun was giving her enough light even here though unlike up above it wasn't blazing in her eyes. Elevation was to be thanked for that. She didn't know what she would find, if anything at all that could be useful to her but she was glad to at least be able to find something to do to occupy her time.