17. Lily Pad Thai

Chapter 17: Lily Pad Thai

I pretty much grew up in a kitchen. Whether the one at home or the one at Thai Go, if you asked me what room I most associate with home, I'd tell you "the kitchen." Having two chefs for parents will do that.

As soon as I could be trusted around fire and knives, I was helping out, both at home and at work, whether it was slicing vegetables, rolling noodles, de-shelling seafood, or plating. As you can imagine, I picked up a lot about cooking. And not just Thai cooking. It started there, but I branched out to other cuisines, both Eastern and Western. When I wasn't watching silly videos on GoobTube, I was watching all the cooking channels.

And this evening, I was putting those skills to use as we made our second attempt at pizza. We'd finally managed to get enough dough, cheese and basil again, and I'd decided to ad a few vegetables fresh from our own farm for a little texture.

Unfortunately, once again, the pizza train was derailed after Sprig somehow managed to blow the dough up. Now, one might blame this on Sprig being a conduit for the forces of chaos but I have my own theory. I bet somehow, Maddie found out about Sprig's crush on Ivy, possibly through some dark pact with the forces of Satan, and cursed the dough she brought over to explode.

It makes about as much sense as anything else.

Rather than starting all over from scratch, Hop Pop decided to cut his losses and take the family to Stumpy's, the local diner.

From the moment we arrived, I decided we probably would have been better off eating the ashes left over from the explosion. I've heard the term "greasy spoon" before (thanks to lots of episode of "Gil Guerro's Hole-in-the-Wall of the Week") but that seemed too tame for this place. For starters, it was filthy. It seemed like no one had washed, well, anything in the place in years. And then there was the smell. It stank like someone had died in there. And I only say "like" because I've convinced myself the skeleton in the corner is fake for my own sanity. It was the kind of place that would have a rat infestation… except they'd have to compete with the roach infestation, the possum infestation, the black mold infestation, and the One-Eyed Wally infestation.

As the child of restaurant owners, everything about this place offended me, down to the print on the menus; why they even bothered with menus was a question on its own, since the only thing on it seemed to be various flavors of "slop". That's what it said. Slop. The owner clearly wasn't even trying.

Speaking of the owner… Stumpy had to have been the biggest frog I'd seen up to that point. Both of his hands were gone, replaced by spatula attachments. You could tell he'd been a wall of muscle at some point, but he'd let himself go, judging by his attitude. It seemed like he took absolutely no pride in his establishment, which anyone with any knowledge of the industry could tell you spelled death. You could see it in the way he carried himself, in the disinterested way he served his customers. He'd pretty much given up entirely.

And that probably would have been the end of it, just a sad dinner in a sad diner, if the customer at the only other table in use (if you didn't count the one Wally was passed out on) hadn't chosen that moment to make an ass of himself. This lizard in one of those triangle hats from the American Revolution started complaining, in some sort of Bizarro version of an old-timey comedy routine, that there weren't enough flies in his soup. He went on to insult the restaurant, the owner, and the very concept of restaurant management, claiming it was so easy any idiot could do it.

And I took that personally.

Sure, this should have been none of my business, but at that moment, I felt this surge of empathy for Stumpy. If our own place had failed, Dad and mom could've ended up just like him. It only got worse when I found out he was Albus Duckweed, the town food critic. The lowest form of life there was. We'd been lucky, but Dad knew more than one fellow restaurateur who'd had their business ruined by a bad Yowl review. It was like people took some sort of sick glee in destroying people's livelihood. There were even legends that some burger guy in New Jersey had struck back and tied up a notoriously vicious critic until he gave his place a fair review, but I had a feeling that was just wishful thinking. But I had no doubt that every restaurant owner, deep down, wished they could somehow stick it to critics. And here I had my opportunity.

And so, instead of keeping my nose out of it like I should, I got in the critic's face and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of him and his profession. And in retaliation, he did the unthinkable. He insulted Thai Go.

It was on.

Of course, in hindsight, claiming that I could turn the place around in two days may have been overselling my skills, but there was more than just Stumpy's on the line, there was the Boonchuy family pride.

I was going to turn this place around if it killed me.

Well, I wasn't far off. Stumpy's was in absolute shambles. Even the filth was filthy. And Stumpy himself had no intention of helping me, so it looked like I was going to have to do everything on my own. Now, I hate hard work, but I hate someone else being proven right even more, so I was ready to do whatever it took to get Stumpy's in shape. Be it scrubbing, shining, hauling out the huge amount of trash (and feeding it to what I thought was a dumpster but was actually a giant dumpster-shaped lizard that was just as hungry for Anne-meat as it was for garbage).

As I worked, a curious thing happened. At some point, Stumpy went from hanging back and watching with an amused expression to actually pitching in. Between the two of us, we were able to clean up the diner into something presentable. When we were done, he admitted to me that seeing me so determined had inspired him to start taking some pride in his work again. That's… kinda weird to me. I've never really been an inspirational figure before. When I think of inspirational figures, I think of my parents… or Sasha. She was always able to get people motivated, whether as head cheerleader or just in day to day life. She's what I think of when I think of a leader. Never myself.

But it didn't matter. This was only step one. I still had big plans for Stumpy's. As in literal plans I'd drawn up. This place was going to get a total makeover, complete with a brand new menu.

And with a new menu would come a new name.

Well, it took most of the next day and a good chunk of the day after that. Arranging the décor, designing and sewing an authentically traditional Thai hostess outfit,, and, last but certainly not even close to least, planning and the new menu. I had all of the Boonchuy family recipes – well, most of them – in my noggin, but there were lots of ingredients I just plain can't get here. Try to find a green papaya in Frog Valley. You can't. It's impossible. And that's not even getting to the meat. Finding out which bug corresponds to which kind of meat is a job in itself. I'd already figured out that cricket was kind of like chicken; a little experimentation taught me that beetle could be substituted for pork and millipede for beef. Minced maggots made a pretty good base for larb, and shellfish were pretty much the same. I was able to find local produce that could pass for some of the fruits and vegetables that I couldn't get.

The result wasn't anything I'd call authentically Thai. It was something new, something uniquely Anne Boonchuy.

And so, Lily Pad Thai was ready for its grand opening.

You could really feel the excitement in the air. And no one was more excited than me. Or more exhausted. I may know a lot about restaurant management simply by learning from my folks, but nothing had prepared me for actually being in charge. And yet, it was worth it. The frogs of Wartwood, who mere weeks ago had been treating me like a monster, were here eagerly devouring my cooking.

Lily Pad Thai was a hit with everyone. Everyone that is… except the one lizard I'd set out to impress in the first place: Albus Duckweed.

[Anne's note: I've since learned that Albus Duckweed is actually a newt, and that newts are nothing like lizards. It also occurred to me just now that I'd seen him before; he was the emcee of the Firefly Formal. Which makes me wonder why I hadn't recognized him before.]

Duckweed had been there all night, right under my nose, in disguise. This is apparently something critics do so you don't give them special treatment and they get an unbiased experience… which does make sense, actually.

Too bad he lost all the credit he earned from me by insulting my cooking as some sort of hodgepodge of clashing tastes. After all the work I'd put in, to be dismissed this casually… it was a personal insult. And I wasn't going to take it like down.

My dad's specialty is squid with basil. It's never failed to wow a critic. The squid around here are really big and technically they're krakens, but that probably means they just taste even better. So it was time to release the kraken all over Duckweed's tatsebuds!

Okay, word of advice: If you're going to prepare kraken, make sure it's dead first. Live kraken do not take kindly to being the main course.

Much as I was tempted to let it it Duckweed, though, there were a lot of other innocent customers there, not to mention Hop Pop, Sprig and Polly, who were still waiting for a table (I felt bad about not having a reservation open, but the place was packed). The kraken had to go down. Which was easier said than done because it outarmed us ten to four. But we had a secret weapon… a big ol' lemon wedge. One juiced eye and a follow-up with Stumpy's tenderizer hand and we had one big ol' order of calamari.

Well, the good news is that Duckweed is really into avant-garde, so an entrée that tried to murder him was right up his alley, resulting in Stumpy's first good review ever. The bad news is the kraken wrecked up the place, so Lily Pad Thai is going to shut down for a few days.

Actually, it looks like it might be shutting down permanently. See, Stumpy's passion for cooking has been reignited, and he wants to take things back to basics. Which, honestly, is fine by me; managing a restaurant full-time is a hassle I don't think I'm ready for. And Stumpy has promised to keep a few of my dishes on the menu, so I still feel like I made an impact.

I just hope I've managed to do the Boonchuy name proud.

A.N.: There's a Bob's Burgers reference (specifically, the "Moody Foodie" episode) in there.

Shadow, Jose: Thanks!

Team Gophers: I'm not subtle, am I.

Next: Plantar's Last Stand