Page 35 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
“Wait.” Eng looked up from his magazine. “If she didn’t know you were following her, how is she supposed to know the steak is from you? Did you leave a note on it?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” I frowned. “She has to know it’s from me. I’m courting her. I gave her my teeth, gave her a Starbuck’s gift card, and am going to cook her dinner. Who else would be leaving meat on her doorstep?”
Eng shrugged. “A human male? Why do you think you’re the only one courting her? For all you know, there are a dozen males leaving meat on her doorstep. She probably has more meat than she knows what to do with.”
I was torn between a sense of panic and an urge to rip Eng’s head off and punt it out of the locker room. Thankfully before I acted on that last urge, Bwat spoke up.
“What are you going to cook for her?” he asked. “This is a very important moment in your courtship. Everything needs to be perfect.”
The panic grew, but I no longer felt like decapitating Eng.
“I’m not sure. She’s expecting a traditional orc meal, but I don’t know what the equivalent spices or meats would be here.”
Plus, there was the fact that I wasn’t exactly a culinary genius. We had orcs in our clan that were skilled at preparing meals, but most of us just went with the basics. I doubted Jordan would be impressed with the basics, and I really did want to impress her.
“Fikmakpie?” Bwat suggested. “I’m sure you could find an appropriate meat substitute, and I believe human root vegetables would work.”
It was definitely a tasty and very traditional orc meal, but there was one problem.
“I can never get my crust to be flakey,” I told him.
“How aboutMilowen?” he asked.
I frowned. “That’s not really a traditionalmeal.” The dried meat was an orc staple, but it was mainly used when hunters or scouts needed something portable and non-perishable to take with them. “I could cookSwakegastew,” I volunteered. It wasn’t the most sophisticated meal, but it was hearty and filling, and I’d prepared it enough back home that I was pretty sure the end result would be edible. “Although I’m not sure I can getSwakegahere.”
“They’re kind of like horses, but smaller,” Bwat said. “If they don’t haveSwakega, then maybe horse meat will do.”
I’d been to the food store many times since I’d arrived in Baltimore, and I’d yet to see anything beyond pork, beef, chicken, lamb, and an assortment of fish and seacreatures, but I could always ask the humans who I’d seen working in that area.
After making a quick list with substitution suggestions by Bwat, I headed out to the store. It still amazed me that humans purchased all their food at these places. Although Bwat insisted that many humans did hunt, I’d yet to see any of them bringing a kill back home to the apartment building I shared with at least a hundred humans.
The stores themselves were beyond anything we had back home. They were huge, with ten different brands of the exact same thing. There was an entire aisle of breads, another one of cheeses. Were these toilet paper types really that different? Did humans need multiple kinds of sheets just to wipe their butts? It was overwhelming every time I went. I ended up just throwing random items in my cart and hoping I wasn’t buying the wrong dish soap or food that was meant for animals.
Although those dog biscuits had actually been pretty tasty.
I grabbed a cart and went straight to the meat section, ignoring the stares of the customers I passed. Once there, I carefully scrutinized the different packages, using my phone app to translate all the unfamiliar words. None of the products were the same as back home, but the app thankfully showed pictures of the animals the meat came from and gave a description. I’d spent about ten minutes trying to figure out the difference between a rump roast and a chuck roast when a human female wearing the store’s uniform came up to me. Her hair was hidden under a scarf, and her name tag said “Amina.”
“You’re one of the hockey players, aren’t you? Ozar?”
“I am.” I waited, wondering if she’d express support likethe two employees at Starbucks or ask me to write my name on something.
“Can I help you find anything?” Her smile widened. “It must be really hard figuring out our food.”
“It is.” I held up the two roasts. “I’m cookingSwakegastew tonight for a human female that I’m wooing. Which of these is best?”
Amina clapped her hands. “A date! How exciting! I’ve obviously never hadSwakegastew. Describe it and I’ll do my best to help.”
I told her about the dish, how it was meat-heavy with a rich and spicy sauce and that it was served over a slightly firm, steamed vegetable calledmoa.
She frowned. “Is the meat chopped? It doesn’t sound like the human version of stew.”
“No, but it falls off the bone when cooked, so we remove the bone and serve the meat in large chunks with the sauce,” I explained.
“It sounds a lot like a dish my grandmother makes.” She tilted her head and looked up at me. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” I was so relieved to have an actual human helping me. If the stew turned out good and Jordan was pleased, I was going to give Amina tickets to our next game. And a Starbucks gift card, just in case she didn’t enjoy sporting events.
She grabbed the two roasts out of my hands and put them back. “Lamb. A leg of lamb, but you need to rub the spices on it and start slow cooking it as soon as you get home in order for it to be spicy and tender like you’re describing.”
