Streaming Without Sazzy

Not long after she left, there was a relatively loud sound in the house as Sazzy's room door opened. I turned my head to see Oliver exit the room alone.

He shut the door behind me, seemingly engrossed in his own thoughts, before he sulked over to the sofa. Sitting beside me, he lay his head on my arm, which hid his facial expression.

"I don't like Sazzy. Don't trust her."

Oliver huffed as he rolled over such that his entire face was mushed into my arm.

I raised my hand to comb through his locks. The silky hair filtered through my fingers as I spoke to him in my calmest voice.

"Don't say that. Ava said that our systems were made to resemble each other. So Sazzy was made to resemble you. I'm sure you'll get along after a while."

Hearing my words, Oliver froze. Then after a while I felt hot air being blown onto my arm as he snuggled closer.

"I don't resemble her at all. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the form is only about the height and body shape. Not at all about our personalities."

I laid my hand on the back of his head and patted him for a while.

"Now, now. Don't be upset. You know what, do you want to start the personal stream soon. Usually I do it with Sazzy in the background making sure that things run smoothly. But it should be fine to do it with just the two of us. I'll go buy some ingredients right now."

Giving his head several more pats, I then pulled down my personal terminal and started adding several ingredients into the shopping cart.

Oliver turned his head such that he could see what was being added.

"What are you cooking for the stream?"

I quickly checked out of the store after buying everything we needed.

"I was thinking of something casual and not too strange compared to what we ate in our previous world, since you might not be too used to this world's food. There's this dish Sazzy and I ate on Vastum that had some meat, some vegetables and tasted quite similar to the kebab's in our world. You can also help out, but just be careful of the fire."

The two of us got up from the sofa and started working. I took out the grill from the store room as Oliver went to the door to wait for the delivery.

Setting up the grill, I still had time so I sent out a chrip to announce to my followers that there was going to be an upcoming personal stream. After just writing the stream name as "The Comeback Stream '' and anyhow putting a random picture as the thumbnail, I turned the fire on low and set up the streaming area as I waited for Oliver to arrive with the ingredients.

With two bags in his hands, he walked over to the door facing the beach and placed them on the living room floor. Together we took each ingredient out and placed them on the wooden step near the grill.

"The streaming area is from the end of the wooden step nearer to the door to that rock over there slightly away from the grill. If there's anything you don't want to show the stream, you can also tell me and I can turn off the camera for you. This device is this drone camera that will film the whole thing. And this one is the taste analyzer that will allow the audience to taste the food. It will dematerialize the food though so we need to prepare separate portions for ourselves."

Giving a brief explanation on how I stream, Oliver asked several questions here and there before we were both all ready. I then pressed the stream button on my jolt page and started the stream.

"Hello and welcome to the Foodie exploration channel. I am Chef, and together with me is my little brother. Sorry for being missing for a couple of weeks."

As I was explaining things to the viewers, Oliver gave a slightly awkward but cute wave at the camera from behind me.

WoofWoofGimmeFood : Ooh! I didn't know Chef had a little brother. He's kind of cute!

AllOfYouStayBack : Hello Chef's little brother! Do you want some sweets? Big sister over here has some sweets.

GiveThisDogSomeFood : Ooooh Chef's little brother. Cute! Can he cook too?

Looking at the chat being more than friendly to Oliver, I linked Oliver to my jolt page and allowed him to be another moderator for the chat. This allowed him to see the chat and interact with them as he pleased.

"For today, the menu is meat kebabs. There will be all sorts of meat used, like musk rat meat, but also noodle snake meat and several types of fish meat! The first step to making a kebab, is to marinade the food in a mixture of spices and a jasmine milk-crushed jade fruit. The jasmine milk and crushed jade fruit will make a sort of semi-solid mixture that is slightly creamy. After you get this mixture you can separate it out into several bowls and then put the seasonings of your choice."

As I talked, I did the mixing while Oliver moved over to the wooden step to grab the bowls. Then, he held the bowls as I scooped equal portions of the marinade mixture over.

After we had separated the mixture into three bowls, we made three different mixtures of marinades. The first marinade had spicy powder, clam powder and some jade fruit juice. The second one had cut jade fruit, clam powder and a little bit of golden extract. The third one had sun dust, clam powder and cut jade fruit.

Mixing all three marinades, the two of us then dipped our selected meats into the marinades. We then skewered the meets on a metal stick and stuck them over the grill.

This was when we split the work into two parts. I was in charge of the grilling, while Oliver marinated and skewered the meats. And once Oliver was done with his part, he would sometimes help turn the skewers.

Each end of the skewer was made of heat insulated material that was not hot to the touch so I wasn't afraid that he would hurt himself. At one point, I even relinquished my position in front of the grill to Oliver so he could feel the joy of cooking in another world.

Checking the chat, a large majority of the viewers were either salivating over the food, or heaping praises at Oliver for being so cute and helpful while cooking.

AllOfYouStayBack : Look how cute he looks trying to help his big sister out! When he held out the plates for Chef to put the finished kebabs on, I almost wanted to show this to my younger brother and ask him why he wasn't so thoughtful!

WoofWoofGimmeFood : He's cute, can cook, and is such a well behaved kid! How is he even real!

NeverTooPoorToEat : Chef, can you give me your brother? Just for a day! Please! I promise he will go back once I'm done pinching those cute cheeks! I promise I won't make him cry!

AllOfYouStayBack : NeverTooPoorToEat stay away from the child! You aren't allowed to touch him if you're gonna pull his cheeks! You'll definitely make him cry!

Chuckling at the usual interactions between the noisiest of the regulars of my stream, I kept one eye on Oliver as he cooked finished the kebabs and plated them. Then, like I explained before the stream, he put one of each type on a plate and sent it under the taste analyzer.

Pressing the analyze button, the food dematerialized and he put a similar plate on the wooden step for the audience to eat.

While he was cooking, I interacted with the chat a little by talking with them

"Hello, NeverTooPoorToEat. If you want to, you must ask my brother himself. He might be a little mad if you ask to pinch his cheeks though. Since it'll seem like you are treating him like a child."

As I snitched on NeverTooPoorToEat out loud, Oliver turned to my direction and gave his most intimidating glare. Although it looked more like a small little animal trying its best to appear intimidating.

Following that were more squeals from the audience which had their hearts conquered by my brother, while the occasional food obsessed viewers squealed about the food.

Once we finished cooking everything, I turned off the fire on the grill and we left one plate for the audience to try while we ate the other plates that we made.

In total, there were six variations, since there were three different meats with three different marinades. But we managed to cut the number of skewers on a plate to three since we alternated the vegetables and the cubes of meat on the skewers to have all three different meats on one skewer.

The top meat was the fish. Using my teeth, I nibbled a little bit of the fish meat since it was so hot. By grilling the fish, there was a little crispiness on the outside that contrasted with the inner soft and tender meat of the fish. The marinade also made the whole fish more flavorful and enjoyable.

The second meat after a break with some blue vegetables was the musk rat meat. Unlike the crispy outsides of the fish meat, the musk rat meat was tender both on the outside and the inside. The herb-like taste of the meat complemented the marinades really well in a way that you would never expect and served to enhance the taste of the marinade instead of the marinade enhancing the taste of the meat.

Finally, after another break of blue vegetables, we finished off with the meat of the noodle snake. Like its name suggested, the snake meat was slightly chewy with a sort of starch-like taste that resembled noodles. However, the difference between this meat and noodles was the fact that the meat was much better at absorbing tastes and had different reactions to ingredients than the staple food it was named after.

Grilling the noodle snake meat produced a slightly tough and chewy texture that was immediately followed by an avalanche of flavors that would hit the tongue. After that avalanche, there would be a reappearance of the taste every time you bit down on the meat in your mouth. It tempts you to chew all the time to get all the flavor out of the meat.

While eating, I gave a slight commentary of the food like I was used to as I watched Oliver nibble at his food.

Towards the fish, he was pretty hesitant about the first bite. But the subsequent bites were faster and more vigorous. Then he made a face at the vegetables, hesitating quite a lot more before he bravely swallowed it in one go to move on to the meat. After tasting the vegetable, his eyes lit up as he licked his lips.

Taking a larger bite of the musk rat meat, he desperately tried to gobble the whole thing as the meat precariously wanted to slip off the stick. He ate the blue vegetable after that with no hesitation, even showing an expression of liking the fresh taste after each flavor filled meat. Finally, when faced with the noodle snake meat, his bite was big at first before quickly turning as small as possible to savor each bite.

I smiled at his happy expression. It was nice to see his smile again.