Chapter 8: The adventure begins

To start, Alice wanted to cook something simple, and of course, cheap, as she didn't have much money to spare.

After her nap, she began searching for recipes to kick off her channel. She decided to make banana pudding. It was simple; she had bananas at home and just needed to buy some cream, and another two or three things. Plus, she was craving something sweet.

Hence, she put her plan into action. She quickly washed up and went to the nearby supermarket. There, she bought a small carton of cream, instant vanilla pudding mix, and some vanilla biscuits.

The original recipe called for specific Nilla wafers, but she couldn't find any at the supermarket. So she decided to tweak the recipe a bit. She also grabbed a box of brownies that were on sale on her way home.

In her kitchen.

Looking at her shabby kitchen, Alice felt somewhat disheartened. While watching other people's videos, she noticed that their kitchens were top-notch. Everything was new and shiny. Their equipment was high-tech, and the backdrop was gorgeous.

Alice didn't even have a mixer, and her pots and pans were crusty. Reality hit her hard. Should she just stop? Alice felt uncomfortable and hesitated.

After a quick moment to gather her courage and taking a deep breath, Alice decided to continue despite the conditions. She knew she would have to deal with uncomfortable situations in life anyway, so she might as well start now, with herself.

She began by propping her phone in the middle of the upper shelf, panning down to her workspace. She chose the prettiest spot on the countertop and laid out the process of weighing the ingredients. She planned to do a voiceover later.

1 can of sweetened condensed milk, 1 1/2 cups of ice-cold water, 1 box of instant vanilla pudding mix, 3 cups of heavy cream, 4 cups of sliced bananas, and 1 packet of vanilla biscuit.

Once she had prepped all the ingredients, she took an extra shot, zooming in on each ingredient. She tried to shoot as cinematically as possible and retook some shots she felt unsatisfied with.

The next step was actually making the pudding.

In a large bowl, she beat together the sweetened condensed milk and water. Then she added the pudding mix and beat until it was well incorporated. She then froze the mixture for 30 minutes. The actual recipe said to refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight, but since she needed to get to her class soon, she decided to freeze the mixture directly.

While it was freezing, Alice whipped the heavy cream until her hands were sore. After making sure the mixture was no longer watery, Alice folded both ingredients together.

She was excited for the assembly part and expected it to taste good. She found a clean, used food container her mom kept from takeouts and re-cleaned it.

On the bottom of the container, she arranged the biscuits, covering the bottom and layering it with the pudding-heavy cream mixture as well as the sliced bananas. She added pieces of brownies that she had grabbed earlier to make the recipe unique to her. She repeated the process until the container was filled, then garnished the top with crushed leftover biscuits.

For once, she thought she might have done a good job. The end result looked mouthwatering. She was glad she took the first step. Smiling foolishly, she began reviewing the shots she had taken earlier.

Knowing there wasn't enough time, Alice packed one of the containers and brought it to college. She couldn't have felt happier during the commute as she busily edited the video and began planning the words for her voiceovers.

Her journey was filled with joy and excitement. She had never felt this way before. Usually, this time was used to catch up on her sleep or lament her life. She finally felt relaxed.