Well, Julia’s back to giving us phrases, not pictures, as a starting point for our 100 word stories. Of course, clarity is important, and this week the prompt is “… being clear is essential to …”
My story clearly begins with a bored student…
Fine Cuisine
“Now, the basis for everything is a good stock. First take a good knuckle of veal…” Blah, blah. “…extracting all the nuances of flavor…” Don’t care. “…a cloudy broth is useless. Being clear is essential to a good sparkling consomme…” Let me out of here.
“You!” Chef barks suddenly. “And what would you use to clarify stock?”
Oh no, he’s pointing at me. Think. The heck with thinking, just say something ridiculous and get it over with. “Crushed eggshells,” I blurt.
For once, Chef looks surprised. “Well. Yes, some chefs use them. And you must add…”
When class is over, I’m going for pizza.
A Number of Things 
🙂 Nicely done bit of head-narrating, there. I can definitely feel the antsy-ness, and the blurted reply (and Chef’s answer!) made me smile. Nice work!
Thank you! It’s always nice to have dumb luck on your side.
Poor chef, how embarrassing being trapped into agreeing! very clever, I bet he/she would have rushed to research that answer! You must be a good cook to have written this – either that or you haven’t thrown out your soup and stock cookbook 🙂
Once upon a time I did things like trying to make soup, and vaguely remembered the eggshell trick – apparently using egg whites is more popular, but that’s not as funny!
A great use of the prompt, lovely piece x
Thank you!
HA HA! I like the daydreaming in this…blah, blah, blah 🙂
And pizza. Mmmm, pizza. 😉
Crushed eggshells? Must look that one up.
I couldn’t remember where I got the idea, but I think I’ve tracked it down at last – an old edition of Fannie Farmer (copyright 1965) tells us “To clear stock. Remove the fat…For each quart, add 1 egg white…Add the eggshell broken in small pieces…” (pp 70-71).
That’s a relief – one less question jumping around in the back of my mind! 😉