Stepbrother Bad Boy's Baby Boxed Set(25)

"Crazy" I said, finishing off my lo mein and going on to my half of the General Tso's chicken.

We continued talking, mostly about her and her work and her love of jiu-jitsu for the next hour or so, until the sun was down and the food was all gone. "Thanks for the dinner," Kimberly said as she polished off her third fortune cookie. She'd left the other one for me, happily enough. "Now, can I ask you a few questions."

"Shoot," I replied, laying back. My legs were starting to stiffen up, and my stomach was filled to the point of nearly discomfort. "I'll answer what I can."

"How do you feel about Krystal?"

The question stopped me in my tracks, and I looked down my body at Kimberly. She was sitting cross legged, her chin in her hands with her elbows on the table, looking at me with a look I hadn't seen from someone in a long time. It wasn't judgmental, but it was interested, and at the same time discerning. I knew I couldn't bullshit her, she'd see right through me. "Damn, you picked a tough one right off the bat, didn't you?"

"I'll admit it's a lot tougher than asking about what I do for a living, but I think you can understand why. No offense, but I'm not really interested in knowing how much you squatted today."

"Four fifty for four reps, last set," I replied, grinning. "But damn. What can I say?"

"That you're nuts about her, and that despite her being your stepsister, you have a major thing for her," Kimberly said. "I've seen it in your face and your voice the entire time you've been here, Julian. It's also why I think you're actually trying to change."

I grunted and sat up, keeping my legs in front of me to minimize the twinges of pain. "I'm not a good guy, Kimberly. As my buddy in Los Angeles told me before I came out here, I'm an *, although a seemingly charismatic *. If I were a good guy, I'd leave Chicago, and not tell her how I feel about her. I'd keep her from getting dirtied by my presence and my life. Instead, I'm here, and the most I can do is not put a move on her as much as I want to. So I'm all sorts of *."

"You're changing yourself, which takes guts and heart," Kimberly replied. "I wouldn't call that being an *."

"Yeah? Well being an * is in my DNA. I've been an * to every woman I've ever been with, and done more harm than good my entire life. If I hooked up with Krystal the way I wanted to, I'd just do to her what Johnathan Castelbon did to my mother and to me. I may be an *, but I do have my limits. I'll save her that pain if I can."

Kim sighed and stood up, going over to her computer. She tapped a power switch on her screen, and minimized what she was doing with her main program, sending it off to one of the other three screens, which went black. "I think it's time you learned this. Come over here."





Chapter 12





Krystal





"Allez Cuisine!"

Marc Dacascos was a lot smaller than I thought he would be, and his acting was hammy enough I could understand why he never really got much traction with his movie career past B movies and kung fu flicks. Still, with the clock starting, I put it all out of my mind, and sprinted up to the stage with Shannon. My first job was to help her get at least a few pounds of ground lamb, while she got the ground beef. It was a hamburger battle, and I was worried. For all of Shannon's skill and the Alinea team's abilities, ground meat was perhaps the weakest of our chances against the Iron Chef. Hell, the man owned a hamburger restaurant that was named the best in New York according to the Zagat guide!

"Get back, get that tartare going," Shannon said as I scooped my second double handful of ground lamb into my bowl. I could hear the tension in her voice, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. With one of the rules being that we had to have a gourmet hamburger up in front of the judges within the first twenty minutes, we were in trouble.

I got back to my station and scooped out the meat for my tartare, setting it aside to combine with the other ingredients later. Then I rushed over to the produce area of the stage, getting mint, lime, lemons, capers, shallots, and Shannon's secret, gherkin pickles. Shannon would add quail eggs later on top when they were on the plates.

One of the key differences between fine dining and home cooking is in your cuts. Your average home cook, when they read chop, starts going to town like a killer in a slasher film, often with as big a knife as their cutting board allows. While it's a lot of fun and gets the work done seemingly quickly, the result is inconsistent cuts, pieces of all different sizes, and tastes that vary.

A professional chef, on the other hand, cuts precisely, and knows exactly what chopped means. It's an actual measurement, with the industry standard being half inch pieces.

A fine chop, which I was doing, is quarter inch pieces. A mince is finer than that. You get the point. Also, we use just the right sized knife for the job. Since I was cutting mint, shallots, and other things like that, I worked with a small knife, not much larger than a paring knife, getting my cuts exactly what they needed to be.

I worked quickly before sautéing the shallots in butter. While a tartare is normally a raw dish, raw shallots or onions can be a bit abrasive for a lot of people. By cooking the shallots through, it added a nice hint of sweetness while still keeping the texture. Once those cooled, I mixed it all together, massaging the whole mass together into something that would be an awesome meatball if I cooked it. By adding the pickles though, it would be somewhere between a tartare and a cerviche, which is what Shannon wanted. I threw the whole bowl into the fridge to keep it cool while we moved on. "Chef! Clear!"