11. Rated 11.5 out of ten

Miriam got home in less than half an hour after they ended the call. She had passed by a grocery shop to get extra ingredients for her new recipe. Janet glared at her when she entered and Miriam chuckled.

"You act like a mother sometimes, you know", Miriam teased, which earned her a pillow thrown at her. But Janet totally missed her target and Miriam laughed even harder.

"Did you take basketball classes like ever before? You're such a bad thrower." Miriam said as she made her way to the kitchen to drop the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and washed her hands.

"I was the best shooter during our time, if you don't know." Janet sneered with a mock glare.

"Ptts. Who? You?! No way!!" Miriam was on the couch now laughing hard.

"Stop teasing me and go away!"

"With my new recipe? Oh very well thank you. I'll just go to bed now and..."

"You wouldn't dare, Mimie!" Janet sat up straight now with her sharp gaze on Miriam. She had been waiting for her to return and cook whatever special meal she talked about and now she was going to go to bed? "Get yourself busy with the special meal or I cease to be your tasting officer!" She threatened with a serious face.

Miriam was still laughing. Janet was easily riled up and Miriam sometimes made fun of her on that.

"Can you even resist my meals? You won't even allow anyone to taste it first."

"Seriously are you still here talking?"

"Okay, okay." Miriam raised both hands in the air to surrender and gestured sealing her lips, stifling a giggle. She walked to her room to change into comfortable clothes of shorts and an oversized shirt. She tied her waist-long brown hair into a messy bun and came back to the kitchen to start cooking.

Janet enjoyed everything about Miriam's cooking. Her culinary skills were top-notch, right from how she prepped her ingredients to her pro-chef skillful knife work to adding up everything into her perfect meals. She derived fun just sitting and watching her do her magic at her favourite place in the house, the kitchen. Miriam was really good at it, and Janet found it very interesting to watch and listen.

"What are you making today?" Janet asked with excitement written all over her face when she saw Miriam removing all sort of ingredients and arranging them on the counter.

"I'll be making jollof rice with beef sauce and cucumber salad." She said with a broad smile.

"Oh my God, that sounds drool-worthy!" Janet said as she rubbed her palms together in anticipation. Unknown to Miriam, she had set a camera at a vantage point to capture all their reactions. But she knew it wouldn't be able to capture the cooking process so she asked. "Wait, can I record the process? That way I can refer to it when I want to try."

"Oh yeah, you can. "Miriam shrugged. "Just don't post it anywhere." She added quickly. She hated being on social media, so despite all the suggestions from friends and family to post some videos of her meals and recipes online, she refused. But Janet had managed to put some videos together just in case she changed her mind some day.

"Okay let's begin by prepping the ingredients. So I have here with me a cup of rice, chopped tomatoes, you can actually ignore that one and use tomato puree or tomato paste, but I'll be adding a little bit of tomato paste here. I also have some red chilli pepper, three medium-sized chopped onions, two cloves of garlic and some ginger." She paused and Janet nodded in understanding. All the ingredients were neatly put into small glass containers. At first, she would write everything down, but she didn't have to do that now that she was recording everything.

"And for the seasoning," Miram continued, "I'll be using thyme, paprika, curry, a little bit of ginger and garlic powder, and of course, salt." Miriam concluded excitedly. "And oh, I'll be using olive oil as well, but you can use any cooking oil of your choice. And finally, our thinly cut beef." All these too were in cute containers. The sight was just amazing.

"And for the salad, we have our main ingredient being cucumber, and I'll be adding some onions, tomatoes, carrots, eggs, salad cream - you can use mayonnaise here, and some ketchup."

"For the beef sauce, I'll be using some corn starch and soy sauce in addition to some of these vegetables and seasoning. So let's being."

Miriam soon began the process and Janet was following with her camera at every step of the way, as Miriam washed, blended, mixed, cut, tossed, stirred, fried, boiled, all the while explaining every step. The click-clack of knives and plates filled the kitchen as she busied herself. At some point she would let Janet taste for salt. In about an hour and half, the meal was done and served.

The dining table was a sight to behold. She had made fresh orange juice as well to complement everything.

"Okay. Taste it and let me know how I did." Miriam said and clasped her hands together over her mouth and waited for Janet's judgement. She had put so much effort into this new recipe and she couldn't wait to know how it went.

"Oh come on, it already smells divine. Don't fret. It'll taste great."

Janet took a small plate and scooped in some of the jollof rice, she added some salad and then some beef sauce. She scooped a fork-full of everything mixed together and ate. She chewed slowly with a light frown on her face, as if trying to contemplate. After some few seconds, she closed her eyes and savoured the heavenly taste of the meal. She slowly opened her eyes and took another in, then a third. She was nodding all the time as she enjoyed the meal.

"So..." Miriam asked with hopeful eyes. She did great, didn't she?

"God! This tastes... Wait, you haven't tried this before? I mean, cooked it before?"

"Gosh, Jane, just tell me already! This is my first try. How is it?"

"It tastes great, dummy! How can you be so good? Wow!" Janet exclaimed. She served herself with lots of rice and sat down to eat. She wasn't a foodie per se, but when it came to Miriam's meals, she could always eat more than enough.

Miriam sighed in relief as she placed her hand of her chest. She was glad it went well. She also sat and served herself. When she tasted the food she couldn't help but smile to herself. It indeed tasted great. She was slowly honing her skills to reach her ultimate goal of becoming one of the best cooks in their country.

As she ate, she noted the amount of ingredients she was tasting, especially the spices and seasoning. As perfectionist as she was, She needed to make everything perfect the next time she tried it again and so it was very important to take note of all details and the tiniest mistakes and avoid them. She would then pen down the recipe after the second try when she was sure everything was on point.

She knew asking Janet would be useless. She looked like she was enjoying it way too much, and she would say nothing was wrong about the meal. But all in all, the meal was great and she was proud of herself.

After the meal she asked Janet to rate it on a scale of one to ten, and as expected, Janet exaggeatedly rated 11.5. They both laughed as they did the dishes and settled down.

Miriam quickly took her diary and started jotting down important notes, such as time spent and other important point to help improve her skills, before she went to shower and got to bed. She called her parents to check on them before finally succumbing to sleep.