Chapter 38
1700 Words
The city of Los Angeles, with its colorful Christmas concerts and light displays, is more festive than any other city in the United States during the Christmas season.
But on Christmas Eve, in the kitchen of a French villa in Beverly Hills, a few gentlemen are preparing a traditional Christmas meal.
For a number of reasons, modern society seems to perpetuate the stereotype that internationally renowned chefs are mostly men.
But these busy gentlemen have nothing on the chef.
The success of this Christmas dinner is a bit of a risk--
Roast turkey has always been an essential part of the traditional Christmas table.
It was a delicacy that became popular with Americans in the early 1700s, when large numbers of immigrants from England arrived in the Americas.
But it's not easy to make, and luckily, Mr. Steven Rogers, the big-breasted sweetheart, had bought a roasted turkey beforehand.
Otherwise, these men would have blown up Margot's kitchen for roasting a turkey.
But it's not much better now that a prosciutto dinner is harder than asking these elite gentlemen to save the world, let alone deal with Christmas salmon.
You know, the prosciutto comes already smoked and sliced, so all you have to do is slather it in a homemade sauce and bake it in the oven for two hours.
Outside the window, the streets of Beverly are lit up with holiday lights, making the night so intoxicating that Los Angeles is almost a city that never sleeps.
In the kitchen, Mr. Strange, who is known as "God's gift to the surgical community" for his medical skills, is in charge of chopping all kinds of ingredients.
The trusty big-breasted sweetheart is handling the sweet sauces for the smoked food, and it's looking pretty good.
Ward helped by passing him honey or cherry pomegranate sauce from time to time.
Most surprising of all, surprisingly, was Bucky, who was skillfully preparing a Christmas almond pudding, almost like an accomplished dessert maker.
As for the last one, Mr. Tony Stark?
He was lounging on a kitchen counter barstool, his voice arrogant, "I decided to take charge of the all-important wine."
Strange, who had always been bad-tempered, wasn't as nice as the few remaining gentlemen, and poked his knife at the solid wood cutting board with a thud, "Mr. Stark, you might as well say you don't have hands or brains."
Tony Stark had always been the best at being obnoxious, like right now-
"Gee, you're a puzzler, don't you think red wine is important? In Christmas dinner, the meat symbolizes the flesh of Jesus Christ, and the red wine represents his blood, don't you think the blood of Jesus deserves to be honored? What ignorance to think that red wine is not important."
Strange smiled, "Since you hold Christian tradition in such high regard, how about following the traditional special way of drinking Christmas red wine? You will need a pot, I'm afraid."
The traditional way of drinking Christmas red wine, as mentioned by Bad Tempered Chic, is a bit special -
You need to add brown sugar, orange peel, cinnamon, orange kernels, raisins, and other ingredients to the wine, and then stir it over the fire while it warms up, and you have to be careful not to open the pot, and then finish it off by drizzling a bit of vodka over the top.
Tony Stark, on the other hand, probably wouldn't even recognize what cinnamon looks like.
Of course the Eyelash Wizard couldn't actually run off and cook the red wine, and he said, like an overseer boss, "When the hell are you guys going to put these things in the oven? I'm afraid this dinner won't be ready until the wee hours of tomorrow morning."
In order not to be swept off their feet, the five men obviously had to speed up their cooking.
But there's another dilemma on the horizon - the
Steven and Bucky, the most reliable of the bunch, were looking at the extraordinarily strange oven in front of them in disbelief, "How does this thing work?"
As two old popsicles that had been frozen for half a century, they were obviously not good at fiddling with modern kitchenware.
Strange held the cooking knife, his voice calm, "I'm only good at knife-cutting ingredients."
Grant Ward looked innocent, "HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D., only taught me fighting and undercover skills, no cooking classes."
Tech genius Tony Stark looked at the crowd with contempt, "Guys, you really don't know anything about life."
With that said he threw the sauce smeared prosciutto and salmon directly into the oven along with the pudding and proceeded to set the maximum temperature for two hours.
After twenty minutes Grant Ward couldn't help but speak up, "Without the smoked wood chips and equipment, shouldn't that salmon have been fried in oil? And those almond puddings, why did you throw it into the oven all together."
Tony Stark: "Why are you just opening your mouth now? I can already smell the burning."
Grant Ward shrugs his shoulders innocently, "You seem very confident, who would have thought to have even that much common sense."
Tony immediately yanked open the oven, but the portions of salmon were clearly beyond salvage and looked black and eerie.
As for the portions of almond pudding, it was surprisingly hard to tell what they were at all.
To make matters worse, when he got the salmon and almond pudding out of the oven and turned the oven back on, that one side of the glass door cracked with a thud.
Not an exaggerated explosion, but that side of the glass was visibly shattering and looked dangerous.
Tony Stark's quick eyes turned off the oven, but obviously couldn't save the brand new cooker from being scrapped.
The five gentlemen look at each other in disbelief: they almost blew up the kitchen? God, it's not going to be swept under the rug by Margo, is it?
A couple of them leaned over the door and stole a glance at the dark-haired classic beauty who was sitting on the couch, watching a talk show -
Jesus Christ, thank God she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.
Scientific genius Tony Stark could hardly believe that his entire life had been ruined on one of the most common household ovens?
The salmon and almond pudding had been a complete failure, the prosciutto would have to roast for at least another hour and a half before it was ready, and the roast turkey that had been bought in advance needed to be heated up in the oven.
But now the oven is a complete write-off.
So the end result of this long, busy dinner was - a total failure, which by the way almost blew up the kitchen.
Five minutes later, the culprit, Mr. Stark, came up with the solution -
"Jarvis, I need take-out dinner for six."
Twenty minutes later, by the roaring fireplace, Margaret was sitting at the dining room table, looking at the six-person cheeseburger and pizza in front of her with indifference.
"What happened to my kitchen?"
Tony Stark looked indignant, "After we got everything all set up, we were surprised to find a crack in the oven glass, it must have been a collision when it was being moved earlier."
The four remaining gentlemen of relatively sound personalities didn't say anything.
Margaret raised an eyebrow, "You're quite the lying liar, Mr. Stark."
The other four gentlemen, obviously not prepared to share the fire, munched on their cheeseburgers in silence.
Our Mr. Iron Man, on the other hand, is still being unreasonable-
His large eyes framed by long lashes were innocent and indignant, "I can't believe you don't believe me, you heartless woman."
Margaret looked at him with disgust, "Turn your face away, you're affecting my appetite."
Tony Stark: "......"
Big-Breasted Sweetheart, undoubtedly the kindest of these gentlemen, "Margo, it's my fault for failing this dinner due to my ineptitude with modern ovens."
Innocent Eyes Bucky spoke up next, "Steven and I do seem to be a bit out of touch with today's world, sorry, Margo, for almost ruining your Christmas Eve."
Grant Ward, the most good-natured of them all, followed suit, "How about I enroll in a cooking and cuisine course in my spare time, starting tomorrow?"
Even bad-tempered Kiki sounded a little apologetic, "I used to underestimate how difficult it is to cook ingredients, it literally gives me more anxiety than performing a surgical neurosurgery."
Tony Stark, who had been dead wrong just now: these devious and cunning guys! They're totally targeting me!
Margo, of course, isn't really upset that these gentlemen almost blew up her kitchen.
After all, there were countless joyous parties in Los Angeles tonight, whether it was a float show, a musical extravaganza, or a grand Christmas party, all of which were obviously a hundred times better than going into the kitchen and hustling one.
But they'd given up those easy means of passing the time in favor of presenting her with gifts and saying Merry Christmas.
Margo sipped a sip of fruity red wine, her voice calm, "Cheeseburgers are good too."
The five men instantly came back to life and looked at her with burning eyes.
--like six-year-olds in a huddle around Santa handing out gowns.
Margaret blinked, "I don't really have a present, much less a stocking."
Whereupon the eyes of these gentlemen began to grow resentful again.
Inexplicably, Margaret felt like she was spending Christmas with five little princesses
In the distance came the sound of church bells and the choir's melodious Austrian Christmas carols, as if full of forgiveness and blessings for the world.
And inside the villa, the fire in the fireplace is roaring, and the windows are lit up with brilliant colored lights, making everything this night look extraordinarily happy and peaceful.
Margaret's delicate red lips slightly curved, with a kind of girlish innocence moving, looks sincere and untainted, as if born to be God's favorite.
Her pure blue eyes were genuinely moving, "This is the best Christmas Eve I've ever had, I swear."
Five Little Princesses: she's so good looking and so good at coaxing people into doing what they want.
- Writer
