The X-Project

Megan begins her first attempt at cooking macaroni and cheese with onions, and Meggan wanders in during the process. Meggan agrees to be Megan’s guinea pig for the duration.



Megan stood in front of the stove in the suite's kitchen, waiting for the water to boil. On the counter she had arranged a package of shell noodles, butter, an onion, a package of shredded cheese and some spices. It was a rare sight to see the pink-haired girl cooking anything that didn't involve the microwave. While she waited for the water, she fiddled with her phone to pass the time. She didn't want to leave the stove and accidentally cause a fire or something.

With the thought of a light snack in mind, Meggan ventured into the kitchen. She had briefly contemplated eating the entirety of the raspberry jam Klara had made, but it would probably go better smeared over a slice of bread. And while the thought of some of it poured over a bowl of cereal could be considered odd, she’d eaten stranger things in the past. She decided that might be one step too far, and a waste of delicious jam if the result wasn’t edible. Meggan hadn’t realized anyone else would be in the suite’s kitchen, and smiled at the other girl as she walked in.

"Hey Meggan," Megan said, putting her phone away. Small bubbles were beginning to appear in the pot of water. She opened the package of noodles and measured out a cup. "What's up?"

“Hey. Oh, nothing much right now,” Meggan replied with a small shake of her head. “I was just coming out to get a small snack, that’s all. You?”

"Trying to make macaroni and cheese. Lorna showed me yesterday," she said proudly. "Hey, do you want to try some when it's done and tell me if it came out right? I've never really cooked anything before."

That certainly didn’t require much thought at all. “That sounds perfect, actually,” Meggan mused with a grin. “I could be your lab rat. Or guinea pig. Whichever one gets the better end of the deal.” She was hungry, so why not? And she really wasn’t sure how macaroni and cheese could possibly go wrong…well, aside from turning into a lump of charcoal if it was left on the stove too long.

"Great! Hmmm...I wonder how many noodles to make?" The water was fully boiling now and she added in two cups of the shells. "Oh yeah, gotta start cooking the onions. Are you ok with onions?”

“They’ve never bothered me when they’re cooked. They’re okay.” Raw, it was another story. While she hated the odor, she could handle it when it was only a couple being sliced.

"I never thought of putting sauteed onions in macaroni and cheese before but it's really good. I'll just put a little." Megan cut the leftover onion half into a further half, and then carefully chopped the quarter into bits. She tried to do it the way Lorna had shown, but not all the pieces ended up the same size. The picked out the rough-looking ones and gathered the rest into a small pile. She tossed one into the pan to see if it had heated up. It sizzled a little.

"Oops, forgot to put in some oil for the onions." Megan cut a slice off the end of the stick of butter with a butter knife and transferred it into the pan, then picked out the lone onion piece before it could burn way ahead of schedule. "I guess it helps to do things in the right order."

Meggan waited for the other girl’s hand to be safely away from the pan before she asked, “So it doesn’t burn itself to the pan? Or is it for flavor?” While she might not be great at cooking, she was still interested in the process.

"Both. It will be part of the cheese sauce." Finally the butter melted into liquid, and Megan added in the chopped onion and checked to make sure the heat was on medium. "Creamy cheese sauce. That reminds me... milk." She turned and grabbed the pint of milk out of the fridge. She didn't normally drink milk, so she'd just bought they smallest size they had at the convenience store. "I hope this turns out right," she said as the stirred the onion bits around slowly. "If you had to eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would you pick?"

“Pizza,” Meggan decided, as she watched her stir. “You can always switch the toppings around if you get tired of one. Or make up a new type so you don’t end up missing something your body really, really needs. So you can get around the just one meal thing.” After a moment’s thought, she continued with a dubious grin, “Of course, if you miss any type of soup, cheesecake, or ice cream, you’re out of luck. It would only melt or spill and get everything soggy. So I’d hope it’s just one meal, and just one dessert for the rest of your life.” It was almost scary how much thought she had put into that. “What about you?”

"That's a good one. I never thought of how flexible pizza is before. Well, I really like breakfast foods. I think my ultimate meal would be fried toast with fresh fruit, scrambled eggs with tomato, a couple slices of bacon and potato cakes. It would be awesome for breakfast or for dinner. I would never get sick of it. Not a lot of vegetables in there, I guess, but I could have different fruit every day. Oh yeah, and you'd get to pick a dessert too. I'd have German chocolate cake. Although that doesn't really go with breakfast so I'd have it for tea every day."

Meggan grinned. “Oh, that sounds good.” After a moment’s thought, she settled on her pick. “For the one dessert, I’d have...cheesecake. Any kind, so that would take care of me being tired of one flavor. Because if I picked ice cream, I would have to have that, even in the winter.” She really didn’t want to give up dessert during the cold winter months. “I know I’d miss butter pecan ice cream, so I’d end up having butter pecan cheesecake instead. Alternating between that, and chocolate cheesecake.”

"Now I'm hungry for dessert," said Megan wistfully. The onions looked ready so she dumped in the milk and cheddar cheese. "Wow, cooking takes so long. Well, this is at least going to be loads better than the box kind of macaroni and cheese dinner. It better be." She had high hopes.

“It should be, with the fresh ingredients you have,” Meggan pointed out as she caught a whiff of what smelled good so far. “And, of course, no ancient box.” Please let them be right, and not have it turn out inedible. If something went wrong with it like too much stirring for too long, one of those ancient boxes she was putting down might be the only macaroni and cheese they would get.

The noodles were almost boiling over, so Megan turned down the heat a couple notches, but not before some foam spilled down into the burner.

"Oops... oh well, I'll clean it after I'm done." The sauce was getting thicker now, and in went the salt, garlic powder and pepper. She went back to the burner with the noodles and carefully pulled out a shell with the stirring spoon. "Ow... hot." Hot steam! She hurriedly flipped the noodle onto the cutting board to check if it was soft.

"So I guess macaroni and cheese is popular in America, and in Wales too, though we call it just 'macaroni cheese.' My Nain used to make it sometimes. She was British. I wonder if a lot of people have a lot of memories connected with foods?"

The noodles looked like they were coming along well, from what she could tell. “Probably. Like chicken noodle soup when someone’s come down with something? Or that crackerjack stuff that gets associated with baseball…but that one’s not really a meal.” With a small grin, she added to the list, “Pumpernickel bread for special occasions? Or just for a different kind of treat.”

"Oh yeah, and foods you only have around Christmas," Megan agreed. She poked the noodle with a finger and was satisfied with the squishy result. She flipped the heat off for the burner and carefully drained the hot water out of the pot, pouring it through the holes in the specially designed lid. "Though last Christmas I mostly ate desserts. I had Christmas dinner here at the school...the desserts were ace."

“Christmas dinner was in Berlin for me. I think desserts are almost always tasty at that time of year, wherever you are, though. That’s when the really good sweets are wheeled out.” They were usually the kind that weren’t made all that often, so you couldn’t possibly end up tired of them or dreading them. It was with a laugh that she admitted, “And, yes, I filled up on the desserts, too.”

Megan dumped the cheesy sauce into the pot with the drained noodles and stirred everything slowly together. It looked like macaroni cheese now! "It just needs a couple minutes to get formed into one cheesy, noodle-y mass now," she said happily, replacing it on the burner with the sauce pan had been. "And I am so going to want to get dessert after this. Is there something nearby, like an ice cream shop?"

Meggan got a quick whiff of still cooking macaroni. It didn’t just smell better than the boxed type--it was beginning to look one thousand percent better to her, too. It was making her stomach growl, so it had better taste as good as the aroma made it seem. “There should be one around here, yeah.” With a small shrug, she explained, “I usually just grab it straight out of the freezer, but an ice cream shop sounds like an even better idea.”

A couple more stirs and... "It should be ready," said Megan excitedly. She turned off the heat and pulled two plastic bowls with Chinese patterns on them out of the cabinet above. She scooped half of the macaroni and cheese into each bowl--they each ended up with quite a mound of food. "Now for the moment of truth..." She grabbed two forks from the drawer and handed one to Meggan. She took a hearty forkful from her own bowl and blew on it to cool it down, then took a bite...

Meggan took her own first small bite, savoring the taste. She paused to swallow, before giving the verdict to the other girl with a grin, “Oh…it’s delicious! Good job.” She returned to the bowl of macaroni and cheese for a few more moments, practically shoveling it in. Between the two of them, there probably wouldn’t be any left to save for later, if they kept eating at this rate. “I like it. It’s so much better than the boxed kind.” In this instance, at least, it was great to be the guinea pig.

"Yeah, I did it!" said Megan, beaming, wiping some cheese sauce off her chin. "Thanks! I'm glad I turned out OK and you like it."

“Loved it,” Meggan replied, pausing only to wipe up a small bit of cheese that had escaped the bowl. “And it’s really, really great for your first try.” Pointing at herself with her fork before she speared another bite, Meggan added with a playful grin, “If it had been me, I might have ended up overcooking it without meaning to. Not enough to start a fire, but just enough to mess with the taste. You got it right.” Charred would never be a good flavor.

"Yeah, I was worried about that. I tend to wander off when I'm waiting for my food to cook in the microwave, and even that can end badly. Like when my bowl of soup exploded all over the inside." She set her empty bowl in the sink and filled it with water. "After I clean up the dishes, want to go find some ice cream?"

“I really hope it wasn’t tomato soup, or it probably looked like a massacre,” Meggan said with a small laugh. She helped gather up an overlooked fork that was sitting nearby, in addition to her own bowl. With it being such a warm day, ice cream would be the perfect solution. “That’d be great. Do you need me to help you with the washing first?”

"It was bean soup. Almost as bad." Megan rinsed the noodle pot and set it in the dish rack to dry, but that didn't leave much room for the bowls. "I got the dishes if you want to dry some of them," she said cheerfully, looking forward to the cold ice cream.

Scraping beans out of the microwave sounded just as bad to Meggan. And there was bound to be that one little bean that got away, that you didn’t catch until the next time you cooked something. “Sure I’ll do the drying. I got this one,” Meggan agreed. She grabbed a nearby towel, before setting to work on the noodle pot. Getting that larger one out of the way first should help make more room. And with two people working, maybe they could finish even faster and head out for ice cream that much sooner.

It wasn't long before the dishes were done and the kitchen looked more-or-less like it had before. No drips of cheese sauce anywhere! "Although I am stuffed... I still want delicious ice cream," said Megan, grinning. "Ready to go?"

“Oh, yes,” Meggan agreed with an eager nod. She thought everything was back in the right place, when it came to the pans. If they weren’t, they were close enough that nobody would really notice. “I think there’s just enough room left in my stomach for it.”

"Yay, let's go," said Megan, drying her hands and then slipping on her shoes with the skulls and ice cream cones painted on them.