Stream Start!

Taking a disposable spoon from the plastic bags, I passed one to Ken, before turning back to my own bowl. Scooping up the porridge, I saw the familiar small broken grains of porridge, the familiar smell of ...well nothing. Blowing on the hot porridge, I then placed the spoon into my mouth.

The nostalgia hit my taste buds like a freight train. The slightly salty taste! The aftertaste of rice! I could almost feel tears well up in my eyes at such a perfect replica of a dish from my previous world. I closed my eyes to take in the taste, the memories of school, of my brother, flashed in front of my eyes as the hot almost semi-liquid dish flowed down my throat.

Feeling a touch on my elbow, I opened my eyes to see Ken passing me some red liquid.

"Put it in your porridge. It'll taste heavenly."

Taking the sauce from him, I unconsciously poured around a spoonful of it into the porridge without any hesitation. Then, stirring it, I put the new mixture into my mouth. If you were talking about heavenly and porridge, you of course had to be talking about soya sauce with porridge. And as if expected, the sauce indeed tasted just like the soya sauce from my memories.

Opening my eyes, I was faced with Ken staring at my face.

"So? Heavenly right? By the way, did this make you remember anything?"

Ah right, I was supposed to be an amnesiac.

Freezing for a couple of seconds, I just decided to mention my past memories of my brother and anything that probably wouldn't stand out too much in this world.

"You seemed to look forward to the porridge so much at the inn, I guessed that you have probably tried it before. Sorry for doubting your amnesia."

Apologizing, Ken took his empty plastic bowl and threw it into the trash.

No. I'm the one who is sorry.

I stirred my porridge as if stirring my guilt so that it could dissolve away.

[Don't feel guilty. You can't help it. After all, we are outsiders.]

Sliding Sazzy a look, I then put aside my guilt and decided to enjoy the porridge.

Then, after we cleaned up, we both sat at the kitchen counter to discuss the flow of the stream. And once we planned it out, we prepared the second batch of Kimchi for the stream. This one with a slightly tweaked recipe from our first batch. Hopefully, there would be no more disgusting areas. Planning the schedule for the next couple days, we then went to sleep. There would be a total of 3 batches. The first batch would be the original, the second would be the one we just made, and the last batch would be made after 3 days. Since we couldn't keep Ken away from the inn too long. Nodding our heads, we went to sleep for the day.

The next day, as well as everyday until the livestream day, the two of us went over the plan for the stream as well as occasionally checking in on the Kimchi.

The day before the stream, Ken double checked everything one more time before we both left to sleep.

On the big day itself, when we were setting up the equipment Sazzy had remembered to bring from our home, Ken was checking the ingredients again. His face was slightly red and his breathing was fast and audible.

"Ken, calm down. You're too nervous."

Stopping in his tracks, he took several deep breaths until his breathing stabilized.

"It's gonna be ok. It's gonna be ok."

Chanting to himself, he finally got his face back to its normal color.

Setting up the livestream, we both got into place, verbally reminded ourselves of the planned schedule, then started the stream.

"Hello and welcome to the Foodie exploration channel. I am Chef, and this is my assistant for today."

I pointed over to Ken.

"Hello foodies! I am Ken, the son of the owner of Ribbon Fish Inn!"

Ken waved in his usual energetic fashion, and I put down the worries in my heart and drew my focus to the stream.

"Today, we will be cooking 5 dishes in total. There will be 2 main dishes, and three snacks."

While I was speaking, Ken took a small jar out of sight of the stream view and placed it onto the table, along with the other ingredients needed for today.

"The 2 main dishes will be starry sky soup and fried passion. For the side dishes and snacks, they will be fried fairy wings, fried egg as well as our new hybrid dish, Kimchi."

Ken took out the sea dragon and placed it onto the kitchen counter. It was his turn to inform the viewers of his culture.

"This is a sea dragon. It is usually caught using fishing traps due to its powerful jaw strength. Its jaw can cut though most fishing nets and even bite through fingers so its availability in the market is scarce."

Ken placed a prepared stick in front of the sea dragon, showing off its danger as the stick was cleanly bitten in half.

"We call them sea dragons because of a legend. It is said that long ago, these sea dragons were what the twin gods of the sea, Mare and Caelum, rode on. Mare and Caelum represent the sea and the sky respectively. It is said they were created when our planet, the original Aquarius, was split in two. At that time, Aquarius was a gas planet, but then it slowly condensed into becoming a whole planet. But the whole planet by itself could not hold out alone, and that was why it split. When it split, at the core of the planet, the twin gods were born. The moment they were born, the gods pulled the planet into one to form the current planet Aquarius."

"Mare is the god of the sea because it was said that his body formed the ocean, while Caelum formed the sky. And because Caelum embraced Mare right after they were born, Aquarius has the sky covering the sea. It is also why although they were born at the same time, Caelum is mostly thought of as the older twin."

From my side of the table, I brought out a small tank with a red ribbon fish that Jim allowed us to borrow. We had to go to his farm after the stream to return it though.

Ken returned the sea dragon back to the cage where he placed it. We then switched positions.

"This is the red ribbon fish. I am sure that many of the viewers would recognize it, since it is an iconic parasitic fish. The relationship between the fish and the parasite is one of the most perfect examples of the symbiotic relationship that the two twin gods symbolize and stand for. The Red Ribbon parasite grows and lives in the gills of the red ribbon fish. We do not know the benefits that the red ribbon fish brings to the fish since we have never managed to find a fish of this species that does not contain the parasite, however, since the fish that contain the parasite are alive, we believe that they have a symbiotic relationship. The parasite is also incredibly delicious, as we will show today."

He placed his hand inside the fish tank to touch the fish as I made the drone camera move closer.

"In the wild, this red ribbon parasite will naturally be trimmed by smaller fish that will eat it off from the red ribbon fish."

Placing his fingers between the two stems where the red ribbon parasite was coming out from, he parted it to show its eggs.

"These things near the stem of the parasite are the eggs. Since it is off season right now, the eggs are smaller and are only found near the base. But when it is in season, they will be quite long and big, and can be found all along the stem of the ribbon. They can be made into seasonal cuisines, like fish porridge, or even rice, and according to the Chef, it will also taste delicious with our new hybrid dish Kimchi!"

With a large smile, Ken let go of the parasite and affectionately stroked the fish.

"Red ribbon fish are very friendly, and are also thought of as the physical manifestation of the purest form of Mare's power. Caelum's equivalent would be the sugar dust phenomena that occurs sometimes on the sea where it would rain a fine powder that would taste sweet. Because of this, red ribbon fish are never eaten or killed, and when they die we will hold a small funeral for it and send it back to the ocean."

Taking his hand out of the tank, he shifted the fish out of sight of the livestream.

Then one by one, he introduced the origins and cultural significance of each of the ingredients we would use today.

While he was talking, I took the chance to peek at the chat. It seemed like the majority of the viewers were listening to him talk, and most people were exclaiming at the meanings behind each ingredient.

Of course there were several people who were expressing that they only came here to eat, and that they didn't really care. To those people, Sazzy had said to just ignore them so I did. Overall, everything seemed to be going on as planned.

The moment he finished explaining everything, Ken signaled to me and we both started to shift ingredients here and there. It was finally time for our practice to pay off!