Pepperoni . . .
Cheese toast first: it's pretty good, but very, very greasy. It's loaded with garlic butter and cooked to perfection, with crispy-edged bread and cheese slightly stiff but half-melted, just how I like it. The portion size is generous for two people, and fair for four. My only quibble is how they assemble the portions into sandwiches, which results in the cheese slices melting together. This isn't a problem if you eat a portion as a mini-sandwich, but creates issues if you try to share.
As for the pizza itself, it's scrumptious. The tomato sauce is savoury and slightly spicy--delicious enough that next time I might ask for extra sauce, as my pizza was fairly light on the stuff. This pizza comes with white and red onions, but I hardly noticed them, which makes me wonder if their flavour was overpowered by the pepperoni, the sauce, the seasoned crust, or perhaps some combination of the three.
Speaking of the pepperoni--the key ingredient of this pie--it's as meaty and pepperoni-spiced as one could hope for. But I think the real star is the crust, which offers a satisfying flaky yet chewy texture and even a little heat thanks to the onion seasoning.
I really enjoyed my first experience of BMPP, and I look forward to trying it again.
"It's called a pizza," intoned Captain Lucius Wolverine as he settled into the svelte dining chair opposite that of Chief Nurse Cherry Bubbles. The seating arrangement was as strategic as it was comfortable. Wolverine had an unobstructed view of both his lovely date for the night as well as the ship's rather severe tactical display mounted on the bulkhead wall behind her head. The meal had been placed on a silver platter between the two Starfleet officers in such a way as to suggest that it must be shared to be eaten.
ReplyDelete"I've never seen one before," said Nurse Bubbles. Her hungry eyes glittered in the muted light of Captain Wolverine's Quantum Suite, the small but luxurious room for dining and other pleasures located aft of his main cabin.
"It's a gift recipe from Captain Woods. The last time I had one I was on the Encounter."
A swift mein of recognition crossed Nurse Bubble's face. "I've heard of him. He's the one who survived the Kobayashi Maru test."
"You're thinking of Kirk," smiled Lucius Wolverine. "James Kirk was famous for foiling the no-win scenario. He cheated, though, and reprogrammed the computer so that it was possible to rescue that ship from the Klingons. Captain Woods also won, but Starfleet classified his rather unique response to the unsolvable crisis. So, my dear, if I tell you what happened, I will be bound by regulations to swear you to Class One Alpha security."
"Class One Alpha security?" The Chief Nurse leaned forward seductively. "Never heard of that one before, Lucius. What happens if I talk?"
"Oh, you'll be punished. Likely a good spanking."
"Heavens!" Cherry Bubbles giggled. Lucius Wolverine applied one of his trademark knowing winks, but somehow it came off as a little spurious. He knew the entire story of Captain Woods' run with the Kobayashi Maru, and the deeply profound effect it had on Starfleet. This wasn't something to be made fun of, and for one of the rare times in his life Lucius Wolverine felt abashed. The feeling lasted less than a fraction of a second, but it had been as real as the perfect curl of hair that kept falling from his otherwise impeccable haircut.
He straightened his Captain's uniform. "Listen, what I am about to tell you really happened, and it really was classified... for a few years anyway. Nobody except for a select few in Starfleet knows what really went down."
"You can tell me, Lucius, I won't talk unless someone kisses it out of me." Cherry Bubbles added: "You could kiss it out of me, if you wanted to."
"Perhaps later, darling. I have a lot of exposition to get through right now."
Nurse Bubbles made herself as comfortable as she could in her dining chair. "Oh all right, you may as well get it out of your system."
But Lucius Wolverine had already started to explain manfully, and with the tremendous unshakeable confidence befitting his advanced rank: "Starfleet had been unprepared for Kirk. After he had re-programmed the simulation, it fell to the Vulcan Commander Spock to rectify the situation. He identified the weak point in the Kobayashi program, which came down to human fallibility. Spock reasoned, logically, that the computer system that controlled the test needed to be far more autonomous. Before Kirk, there had been a small crew of computer operators that ran the Kobayashi simulation, and who used their expertise to rig the game to favour the Klingon aggressors. Spock removed the human factor, correctly identifying one of the scientists, Carol Marcus, as being highly susceptible to Kirk's limited charm. Spock then used learning systems to create an algorithm that duplicated the known tactics of the Klingon fleet. Not only could the new computer learn from Starfleet tactical experts, it was also programmed to learn from each of the hapless individuals chosen to be victims of the test. Have you ever seen the Kobayashi Maru, Cherry?"
ReplyDeleteShe nodded yes, and rubbed her pert rump in memory of bruises past.
"Me too," said Lucius, pausing to remember. His Kobayashi Maru had been before he had met V'Sal, the great Starfleet barber, and therefore was pre- Utopian Hair. It was a trying time, as Kobayashi Maru would be for any cadet.
"So one sunny day towards the end of his final semester, Lieutenant Woods climbed into the simulator and took the command chair. As expected, the civilian freighter Kobayashi Maru had run into a gravitic minefield outside of the Federation border. Woods raced to rescue the foundering ship. He set the all-time speed record for getting to the Maru, did you know? He was so fast that the Klingons were late to appear, and so Woods had managed to get nearly all of the Maru crew transported safely on board his own vessel. When the Klingons finally showed up, they were pissed, and they came in with shields up and weapons locked. Immediately sensing that he was outgunned and had no chance to outrun the Klingons, brave Lieutenant Woods invented on the spot his famous Woods Manoeuvre."
"I remember the Enarlety Crisis. Wasn't the Woods Manoeuvre part of that? I mean, way back when? I don't remember anything about how the Woods Manoeuvre worked, though." Nurse Cherry Bubbles pouted prettily.
"The full use of the Woods Manoeuvre requires one regulation starship, one warp core, and one dining room much like this one. Woods turned the weak underbelly of his ship towards the enemy forces and opened the protective doors for the warp core, exposing it. Any hostility whatsoever would demolish Woods' ship in an instant. Vwoosh! It would go up just like that. Knowing that the enemy would see how unprotected he was, Woods would use that moment of complete surprise to open communications and invite the opposing commander to dinner. It would be a very nice dinner. During the meal, Woods would get to know the enemy and possibly parlay them into a truce. At the very least, he would buy some time for his science team to figure out the enemy weakness, and de-escalate the situation. No enemy was going to destroy Woods' ship while their commander was on board enjoying Earth delicacies."
"Wow," Cherry Bubbles whistled, appreciative. "That's brilliant! So how did the Woods Manoeuvre do in the Koabayashi Maru simulation?"
"There was no dining room in the simulator, so the Klingons targeted the exposed warp coil and blew Lieutenant Woods to kingdom come. It was the most thorough decimation of the test crew ever recorded. Apparently, one of his helmsman's molars was detected in the Gamma Quadrant, the explosion was so fierce. Simulated, of course."
"So what happened to Woods?"
"He applied to take the test again. He did the same thing and the Klingons blew him up again. Woods did note, however, that this time, the Klingons took slightly longer to fire upon his ship, and that the tooth only made it to the Beta Quadrant. For some reason, the computer had let up on its attack, if only by a fraction. It obviously was trying to compute what Woods was hoping to accomplish in command. Fascinated by both his abysmal test score and by curious delay in the simulation, Woods applied for the test yet again and was blown up yet again. Every day after classes, he took on the Maru: Starfleet had no regulation in those days for how many times you could fail the test that had no passing grade. On days off, he did the Maru multiple times. Every time, the learning computer watched Lieutenant Woods virtually sacrifice his ship and the doomed crew of the Kobayashi Maru. After every run, it took longer and longer to digest the unfortunate virtual deaths of all of the people. "
ReplyDelete"Amazing."
"Ancient Earth lore tells the story of the wily coyote who when faced with death by starvation, chased an uncatchable roadrunner and was blown up by the same trinitrotoluene bombs he had previously ordered from a catalogue. Lieutenant Woods was the same way. There were dozens if not hundreds of humiliating, explosive ends to the Woods Manoeuvre, none of them successful by any measure."
"Lieutenant Woods did win, didn't he?"
"The news of such an unbelievably long string of losses to the computer was made apparent to the Admiralty, and they were looking to pull the plug on the entire Kobayashi Maru program. The original intention of the exercise was to expose cadets to the possibility of personal loss during a mission, and not to wallow in such excessive displays of ultimate defeat. When the Admirals beamed over to the test facility, however, Woods was deep into yet another run. The Admirals watched through hidden viewports as the Klingons approached Woods' ship and the warp core was exposed. However, the Klingons did not attack. Instead, they opened communications, and apologized profusely for interrupting the rescue of the Kobayashi Maru civilians. They gave Woods their extra supplies and tractor-beamed the Kobayashi Maru all the way back to Starfleet Spacedock at Earth. Then they surrendered, but only to Lieutenant Woods. They explained in great detail how they had come to admire Woods' bravery and steadfast commitment to finding a non-violent solution."
"Really?"
"It gets better. The Klingons hacked into the Starfleet communications network and broadcast their message of reconciliation across the galaxy, explaining that true peace happens not when men in hidden rooms make decisions about gun emplacements and troop depositions, but when every sentient being is freely given the choice to encounter their own neighbour and share a nice meal together."
"Really. I don't remember seeing any of this."
"Nobody saw it. It's just a simulation, remember? Although the Kobayashi Maru computer absolutely did try to broadcast these messages of interplanetary peace, the Admiralty was right there on the spot and cut the power to the entire Starfleet HQ to prevent the results of Woods' test from leaking out. The computer was deactivated and disassembled using transporter beams set to widest dispersion. The entire event was buried under the most top secret classification Starfleet had at the time. Lieutenant Woods was kept quiet by promoting him to Captain and sending him off on the most far-flung mission Starfleet had available. And his ship was even re-christened 'Encounter' in honour of the concept of meeting new life forms and inviting them to dinner."
"You know Lucius, this pizza is cold."
"It's not bad when its cold," Captain Wolverine offered his Chief Nurse a slice. "We ate it cold, Woods and me, after he performed his Woods Manoeuvre for real, thus solving the terrifying Enalerty Crisis. After that happened, there was no longer any need to keep the Kobayashi documents under top security, and they were declassified. Buried under a mountain of unrelated Starfleet news items to make sure nobody found it by accident, yes, but still they had been declassified. With pizza, we celebrated Captain Woods' daring and his commitment to the highest ideals of Starfleet integrity. Something, I will admit, that grates on me, I mean there's no Wolverine Manoeuvre..."
ReplyDelete"There should be," Nurse Cherry Bubbles interjected as helpfully as she could...
"...But I'm just glad Woods is on our side. And I do kind of like pizza now. We should try one with mushrooms, mushrooms are awesome!"
Wolverine and Bubbles enjoyed their pizza, and as they finished it, they recalled other shared adventures together and had much hearty laughter over the many close calls they had with near-disaster. They felt good in each other's company, and their bond of close friendship began to deepen.
However, neither officer nor any of the ship's sensors noticed the heinous trans-dimensional being who lurked unbreathing in deep space just outside the Quantum Suite display window, its night-dark form obscuring the twinkling stars. For only a monster composed of pure self-centered evil could possibly be so ebon back, its red, piercing pinpoint eyes betraying its all-consuming hatred of Captain Woods and anyone who should be so unfortunate as to be numbered among Woods' loved ones, or friends, or even momentary acquaintances.
"Yesss", it hissed to itself, "Enjoy your cold pizza now, while you can. Imagine, however, your horror, when it comes time to dine with Captain Woodsss once again, and he inviesss you to his dinner table... and there are no peroghiesss... because I am about to go back in time and ANNIHILATE the PERSSSON who INVENTED PEROGHIESSS in THE FIRSSST PLACEssss!!"
The alien's final exegesis was a groaning shriek of the most diabolical kind, completely inaudible in the vacuum of space, but all the more chilling because of it. And more dire even than the soon-to-be notable lack of sour cream in Alpha Quadrant.
The Temporal Cold War erased my memory of my Kobayashi Maru encounters, but you've recounted them with such fidelity that the experience sprang back into existence as though it had really happened.
ReplyDeleteBut what the heck are "perogies?"
Really? You know, Ukrainian dumplings, like you'd go to eat in Vegreville, Mundare, or especially Glendon. There's several ways of spelling them, depending on dialect. I thought you liked them. You'd certainly serve them for others even if you didn't enjoy them at all.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait a minute. I am so gauche right now. Please forgive my complete ignorance here. A quick check-in with the Department of Temporal Investigations confirms that the inventor of pyroghies - perhaps the most accepted spelling across dimensional reality - was murdered by a time-travelling malevolent alien before the dumpling could be invented. I am so sorry, pyroghies never existed in the Encounter timeline. How awful for you, but better for the waistline. They are pure carbs.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Trek wiki, pyroghies do exist in the Kelvin timeline, but only in the Deneb system, and not here on Earth. If you go to Deneb, they fill the dumplings with living slime worms, but otherwise it's the same, especially they way they make the dough by hand or tentacle.
And you know this is all true because I had to wake up in the middle of the night to pass this on to you... sleep is for the unimaginative.