Star Trek: The Original Recipe

Stardate 2317.4

Captain’s Log, USS Enterprise

"Space: the final frontier… and yet, for all our technological advances, nothing aboard this ship can replicate the simple satisfaction of cooking a meal from scratch. Tonight, I, James T. Kirk, will do what no starship captain has done before—prepare a home-cooked meal in the galley of the USS Enterprise. May the odds be ever in my—wait, wrong franchise."

The mess hall of the Enterprise was unusually quiet. The standard dinner rush had passed, leaving only a few late-shift officers picking at their replicated meals. Captain Kirk stood in the small, rarely used galley, sleeves rolled up, facing a collection of real, fresh ingredients he’d managed to smuggle aboard from their last supply stop at Starbase 12.

"Captain, this is highly irregular," Spock remarked, watching with one arched eyebrow as Kirk cracked an egg into a mixing bowl. "Our food replicators are calibrated to provide nutritionally optimized sustenance. The need for manual preparation is—"

"—a lost art, Spock," Kirk interrupted, stirring with practiced ease. "Sometimes a man needs to make something with his own two hands. Call it… a human tradition."

"A waste of time," Dr. McCoy muttered, peering over Kirk’s shoulder. "But I suppose if you manage to not poison us, it could be entertaining."

Kirk smirked. "Bones, I’ll have you know I make a mean scrambled egg and steak dinner."

McCoy folded his arms. "Jim, I don’t care if you were raised on a farm in Iowa, this ship isn’t a diner. You really expect a warp-capable starship’s galley to have cast-iron skillets?"

Kirk pulled one from a storage locker and gave it a confident shake. "I planned ahead."

Spock exhaled through his nose, the closest he ever came to an exasperated sigh. "I fail to see the logic in this endeavor."

"That’s because it’s not about logic," Kirk said, flipping the steaks onto the heated pan with a satisfying sizzle. "It’s about passion. It’s about taking control. It’s about—"

At that moment, the red alert klaxon blared.

"Red alert! Captain to the bridge!" came Uhura’s voice over the intercom.

Kirk sighed, tossing the spatula to McCoy. "Bones, keep an eye on that steak—if I come back to find it overcooked, I’m throwing you in the brig."

"You try that, and I’ll revoke your cholesterol meds!" McCoy shot back as Kirk and Spock dashed to the turbolift.

The moment they left, McCoy looked down at the pan.

"Dammit, Jim," he muttered, grabbing the spatula. "I’m a doctor, not a short-order cook."

Epilogue:

When Kirk returned to the galley an hour later, he found an empty plate and a satisfied-looking Scotty patting his stomach.

"Ach, Captain, I dinnae know ye could cook like that," Scotty said, licking his fingers. "That was the best steak I’ve had since I left Aberdeen!"

Kirk looked at McCoy. "Bones?"

McCoy shrugged. "Hey, I wasn’t gonna let it go to waste."

Kirk sighed and dropped into a chair. "Fine. Somebody get me a replicated sandwich."

Spock, ever the observer, tilted his head. "Fascinating."

The End.

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