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Peri was sitting at her desk, drawing a flower she had collected from their last adventure. The process was turning out to be very difficult, as she was not very artistically gifted. Despite that, in her time travelling with The Doctor she had practiced and improved. Once, the two of them had gone to meet Da Vinci, who unsurprisingly was good friends with The Doctor. Da Vinci himself had offered Peri a few lessons.
A few months into her travels with the Doctor, he had given Peri a journal. It was meant to be a birthday gift, and he had even brought her a little cake. This had been during the time he was trying to get back into her good graces. Although, she wasn’t sure if it really had been her birthday at all. One tended to lose track of that kind of thing when travelling in time and space. Now Peri’s journal was almost filled; perhaps she would ask for a new one.
The flower was almost finished; Peri was drawing part of the stem when the Doctor suddenly burst through her door. Scared half to death, Peri instinctively lifted her journal. She saw something dark out of the corner of her eye. Dammit! She had knocked over the inkpot. Looking down, she saw that no damage had been done except for the table, now sported a large black stain.
The Doctor flinched and quickly went to assist Peri. It was a habit of his, he would always open the door at random times and always catch her off guard. Since the Doctor couldn’t handle being alone for too long, he was always seeking her company. He produced a cloth from somewhere in his coat and cleaned up the stain as quickly as he could, before it could leave a mark.
Once the table was mostly clean, he turned around. Peri checked that none of the ink had gotten on his dreadful coat. A part of her wished it had.
“Everything looks fine Doctor” she said and he turned around dramatically. She smiled at his silliness. “Did you need help with something?”
The Doctor seemed to remember he had come here for a reason. “Ah yes, I have a surprise for you.”
“What kind of surprise?” she said, looking at him suspiciously.
“I promise my dear, it’s something you will like” he offered his hand and led them towards the TARDIS kitchen.
Before they entered the kitchen, the Doctor stopped in front of the door. “Cover your eyes.”
Peri gave him a look but covered her eyes. The Doctor waved his hand in front of Peri to make sure she couldn’t see anything. He opened the door carefully, leading Peri inside with a light hand on her back. He positioned her in front of the kitchen counter. Peri felt the Doctor move away from her for a moment and come back quickly.
“You can open your eyes.” The Doctor had a proud grin on his face.
The Tardis kitchen was a large white room with marble counters and white shelves. He stood in contrast with his surroundings, holding a plain-looking book titled The Vegetarian Lifestyle of Borges 3. Peri’s expression was one of confusion as she stared at him, “Is this a joke?”
The Doctor looked back at her with mock offence. “No, it’s the surprise. I was looking in the Tardis library for books the other day when I saw this.” He stepped closer to Peri showing off the book “It’s by John Dawson, the greatest human chef. You wouldn’t know him; he came long after your time. The man travelled all round the universe and wrote books about all the food he tried.”
Now The Doctor stood right in front of Peri with the expression he showed when something genuinely fascinated him. “Look, since that nasty business with the Sontarans we agreed to no longer eat meat. I thought we could try one of the recipes. The people of Borges 3 are quite known throughout the galaxy for their vegetarian diet.”
“Are you sure this is wise? If I recall correctly, you burned my cold dinner and there was that time with the…” before Peri could finish, The Doctor shushed her by putting an index finger to his lips.
The Doctor put a hand to his chest. “Now, now Peri I take offence to the notion that I do not know how to cook. I lived as a human some four lives ago and I’ll have you know, I cooked an excellent shepherd’s pie. Just ask The Brigadier.”
Peri laughed, the mental image of The Doctor living as a human too foreign to really consider but no less funny for it. Whoever this Brigadier was, she felt bad for him. “Now that’s something I need to see.”
“Don’t laugh” the Doctor was entirely serious.
Peri was surprised; the Doctor really wanted to do this. Usually, the way to spend time with him was running into danger or listening to one of his rambles. The science talk was always complicated nonsense, but he usually had a way of making it easy to understand. This was something else, though. He wanted to do this together. She could tell he was clueless about it even if he pretended otherwise. At the very least, she had to give it a chance.
Peri smirked at the Doctor with the knowledge that this would turn out to be a disaster. “So where do we start?”
The Doctor looked at the book for a moment, then back at Peri. “I’m not actually sure…” he seemed to think about it for a moment, then looked at the book once more. “Let me check.”
The Doctor opened the book, flipping through the pages until he found one of interest. He took off his rainbow coat, dropping it on the counter chair without taking his eyes off the page. Still reading, he walked behind the kitchen island and set the book down on the counter. Peri walked to him and looked at the page he had selected. It looked like some sort of ravioli, despite the fact that it was the most revolting shade of magenta. The list of ingredients was made up of things she had never seen and was not entirely sure that she could eat.
“Doctor?” Peri trusted the doctor with her life. She just did not trust him with her taste buds.
“Yes?” The Doctor said absentmindedly, completely absorbed in reading the ingredients.
“Are you sure this is safe?”
The Doctor turned around quickly to look at Peri. “Safe? Safe, of course it’s safe. This book was written by one of the foremost culinary experts in the entire universe. He did not reach that reputation by poisoning people.” The Doctor was entirely serious. It gave her comfort that if the meal turned out badly, she could say I told you so.
The Doctor began to look around for the different utensils and spices they would need, muttering to himself, “I know I had some beganien salt somewhere.” When he located it, he exclaimed with excitement “Found it!”. Peri saw him looking for all sorts of things she never knew the Tardis had. Of course, it was a large ship, but The Doctor did not seem like the kind of person that kept a well-equipped kitchen.
Peri was smiling to herself; the entire idea was extremely silly but also very sweet. He had changed so much since her initial meeting with this version of him. Never in her life had any of the guys she had dated done something as nice as this. She had mentioned needing a break and he had listened. Now he was cooking for her.
Walking up to a very distracted Doctor, she asked “How can I help?”
“Oh yes, please look for some...” The Doctor looked down at the book. “Pin fruit.”
“Let me see.” Peri looked at the image of the pin fruit and found that it looked like a blue apple. She glanced at the Doctor as if to make sure he was being serious.
“Please bring the opelia too,” he said while tossing some old peppers to the trash.
Peri wasn’t too sure about this, but maybe it would be fun to do something together besides running away from danger.
...
The Tardis refrigerator was a lot like the ship itself: bigger on the inside. There were shelves upon shelves of vegetables, sweets and things that did not belong inside a fridge. Some of them were familiar to Peri and others were completely foreign. A lot of them she was sure had been there for years. She turned the corner and was surprised to see a container labeled “Jamie”. Right next to it there was a vase dated 179 b. C. Inside it there was some kind of paste, or perhaps it had been there so long that it had turned into one. Now she was sure that the food in the refrigerator was prehistoric.
Peri kept walking until she reached the “o” section. There she found the opelia, it was an ugly shade of green almost like a chemical and had an odd smell that reminded her of a swamp that her and the Doctor had once traversed. Looking over to the side at the “p” section, Peri found there was no “pin fruit”. A feeling of relief washed over her. She was glad to leave this place; it was ridiculously cold and there was a foul smell coming from something that had clearly been rotting for hundreds of years.
...
When Peri stepped outside of the refrigerator, she noticed that the Doctor was in deep concentration. On the counter in front of him there was a standing mixer that looked like it was from the 60s. He kept hitting it in an attempt to make it work.
“Oh my, this was working properly just a moment ago,” she heard him mutter to himself. Of course, for him that could mean a hundred years.
Walking up behind him she said, “Doctor, I don’t think that has worked in 20 years and it won’t work now if you keep whacking it like the Tardis console”. Peri stood next to him and took a quick look at the unfortunate mixer. The Doctor fixed her with an even gaze, not breaking eye contact even as he tried hitting it one last time. Rolling her eyes, she placed the opelia in front of him.
Peri looked around at the collection of spices the Doctor had brought out. As she grabbed one, Peri noticed its unnatural brown color. Meaning it had probably gone bad. She whispered lowly “Yuck” and dropped it.
“I found the opelia but there wasn’t any pin fruit,” Peri said.
“Ridiculous!” The Doctor waved his hand, as if to dismiss the very notion. Peri gave The Doctor her look, which made him calm down.
“Okay, let me check,” he said in a gentler tone. “If there aren’t any. I’ll pick up some tomatoes instead. I’ve heard the taste is quite similar.”
The Doctor dropped what he was doing and walked toward the refrigerator. Before going in he said, “Peri dear, please start chopping those mushrooms and get started on the opelia too”. Peri scrunched her nose at him.
...
All the opelia had been chopped and Peri was finishing with the last of some very yellow mushrooms, when The Doctor reappeared with a bag of tomatoes. Walking up to her, he placed the bag of tomatoes on the counter. She smirked a little, turning to him with her best I told you so expression.
“Well, it seems you were right. There was no pin fruit,” the Doctor said begrudgingly.
Peri kept what she wanted to say to herself and instead said, “I’m telling you Doctor, you should really clean that fridge. I saw things that are older than me. You know, some could even be older than you.”
“Impossible Peri, the Tardis has an automatic feature which disintegrates all food items once they have gone bad,” the Doctor said proudly.
“I saw a container labelled Jamie.”
The Doctor visibly cringed. He seemed to think about it as he scratched his jaw. “Now that you mentioned it…” he said, lowering his voice “I might have jettisoned it in one of my emergencies.”
“Oh, it’s always something with you,” Peri said, leaning forward and smiling at The Doctor.
“Now, now that is beside the point.” He walked towards Peri at the counter and placed the tomatoes next to the cutting board. “Pin fruit has a similar taste to tomatoes, so it should be fine. Now that we have our main ingredients we should get started.”
The Doctor picked up the cooking book. Peri stood behind and glanced at the instructions. She was baffled it was utter nonsense. The measurements were not human, nor the numbers.
“Can you understand any of that?” Peri asked.
“Of course, they are simple instructions. The one tiny problem is that this version of the book is in the native tradition of the Bor.” The Doctor spoke with hesitation.
“What does that mean?” Peri said, concerned.
The Doctor turned around to face Peri. “It means it is not in any way comprehensible to us or even the Tardis. I’m certain not even Mr. John Dawson really understood them, he just translated them directly from his master.”
Peri again gave him her look. “Then how are we supposed to understand it?”
“Do not worry, my dear Peri. I spent six months there fixing their broken interplanetary communications system. I picked up some things.” The Doctor bopped Peri’s nose and got to work chopping the tomatoes.
...
The Doctor and Peri had finished cutting all their vegetables and were starting the process of making their dough. Peri opened the smaller fridge she had insisted on getting and went to grab some eggs. The fridge was almost empty. She sometimes thought there was someone other than them living in the Tardis given how food would always go missing.
Peri was still looking at the fridge. “Doctor, we don’t have any eggs,” she said.
“Then let’s use the Virilian eggs, I know they’re somewhere in there.”
Shaking her head, Peri grabbed the small red box of Virilian eggs from the fridge. They were a light blue color and had been gifted to them by the people of a village on the planet Virilia as thanks for saving them from a Dalek attack. The people there were very proud of their produce, at least that was what The Doctor had said. She closed the fridge and placed them at the counter where they had set up.
“Is it true these are the best eggs in the galaxy?” Peri asked.
“I don’t know let’s find out shall we,” he replied.
The Doctor grabbed a bag of flour; it was made from wheat native to the planet of Borges 3 and looked much like the flour Peri was accustomed to. Taking a measuring cup, he scooped an unspecific amount as the instructions said to pour “however much your soul calls for” which was not very helpful. Peri handed him two eggs, and he cracked them on top of the pile of flour.
“Doctor wait, aren’t you supposed to make a circle or something?’’
He looked at her blankly. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that how they make pasta?”
“Well, this is not pasta.”
“Looks close enough to me.”
The Doctor shrugged his shoulder. He mixed the flour with eggs until it formed a sort of dough, then kneaded it until it was smooth. The blue eggs had given the not-pasta a very faint hue of blue. This whole experience would test Peri’s stomach.
“Can you check how much time we should let this rest?”
Peri looked at the book and read out loud “Let rest until the sun rises on the morrow.” Oh great, Peri thought. The Doctor forgot to check the prep time.
“Don’t worry Peri, this is a time machine. I’m sure we can resolve this little time issue.” The Doctor thought about it while walking around the kitchen. Peri couldn’t help but fall into step with him.
“Oh, I know!” Peri exclaimed “What if we land somewhere, put it outside, travel to the next day and pick it up?”
The Doctor seemed to think it through for a second. It was a terrible idea, but nothing else came to mind. He wanted to have a nice dinner with Peri and was desperate not to disappoint her.
To hell with it, he thought.
“We’ll try it.” He picked up the bowl and Peri followed him to the console room.
...
The Doctor arrived two days late to recover the dough; it was the closest he had gotten. On the first try, they arrived 50 years later to find the dough was long gone. Then on the next jump, a mere thirty minutes; too early. He tried multiple times, until finally deciding two days was good enough. Despite going forward one hundred thousand years and a week ago, the whole thing took about an hour. That was the funny thing about time travel. You could visit the start of the universe and the end all in one afternoon.
Peri picked up the dough, determining it was safe enough to eat. She was happy and showed it off to The Doctor.
“See? I said it would work.” Peri smiled proudly.
The Doctor was pleasantly surprised at the fact that it had worked and smiled broadly at Peri’s joy.
They considered it a success and went back to the kitchen with their two-day-old dough.
...
Everything was set up. The not-ravioli was filled after multiple failed attempts; overfilled or underfilled, they just couldn’t seem to get it quite right. Ultimately, they settled on kind of filled. They hadn’t bothered with the sauce; it would take too long, so a little bit of oil would have to do. The Doctor had gone to get it, claiming it would be perfect.
A few minutes later, he came back with the mysterious oil. Peri thought it would be olive oil, but it was red. It was probably the least strange thing she would try today.
“What is that?” Peri asked.
“It’s oil from Borges 3. They gave it to me as a gift after I fixed their little problem. I completely forgot I had it. It smells like butter and garlic.” The Doctor opened the bottle and offered it to Peri so she could smell it.
Peri was pleasantly surprised to find it actually smelled quite nice. Maybe just maybe this whole thing wouldn’t turn into a complete disaster, just one with tiny messes all along the way. Which Peri supposed was what being with The Doctor usually was.
The not-ravioli was to be boiled for three minutes and then would be done. Once the timer started to go off, Peri removed the not-pasta. Some of them had opened, but most were intact. The Doctor sprinkled on some additional spices the recipe required, including the nasty-looking brown one from earlier, which the Doctor assured was “fine”, and tossed them with some of the oil.
The Doctor went to a cabinet on the opposite wall and pulled out very elegant-looking plates with green flowers.
Peri went into the big refrigerator where the Doctor had a variety of cheeses, most of them had ugly mold all over them. Luckily, they had been to planet a week or so ago where Peri had accidently bought a very large wheel of cheese. She scraped a bit of it into a bowl.
When she got back, the Doctor had set up everything in the dining room and had even put some flowers in a vase. In the middle of the table was the ravioli and a salad she had prepared a few days ago. She placed the cheese next to the salad. The Doctor pulled a chair for Peri, sitting down next to her.
This whole thing had taken them longer than they intended, they were both sweaty and their clothes stained. Despite that, Peri and the Doctor couldn’t help but smile at each other and laugh at the mess they had made.
The food did not look very appealing, but it had a nice smell that reminded Peri of her favorite restaurant.
“What are you thinking?” The Doctor asked.
“I don’t know, but this was just really nice.” Peri smiled.
“I’m glad Peri.” The Doctor offered Peri the cheese and then served himself. “Well, I think it’s time to try our food.”
The Doctor and Peri excitedly took a bite from the food. Their faces dropped and they simultaneously spat out the food.
“Oh god, that was awful!” Peri exclaimed. She quickly reached for her glass of water and took a large gulp.
“No, they all can’t be bad,” the Doctor said, immediately trying another one of the not-raviolis. One after the other they all had the same awful taste. Finally, he removed the filling from the dough and tasted it individually. He determined the dough was the cause of the horrible taste.
“It was the dough! I knew those eggs would be a problem!” Peri exclaimed.
The Doctor said, “Well now we don’t have anything to eat”.
Peri’s face dropped. “Maybe you treat me to a proper dinner then.”
The Doctor lifted his brow, “At a restaurant?”
“Well why not? We’ve never been to a restaurant before.”
“That’s absurd, we’ve been to many restaurants.” Peri looked skeptically at the Doctor. He sighed. “Well to a restaurant it is, then.”
...
The Doctor set the Tardis coordinates for Borges 3. He was waiting there for Peri to finish getting dressed. His new plan was to take her to eat some proper Borgian food. That way she would have the opportunity to taste it and maybe forget their earlier mishap. He had changed his clothes, choosing something other than his usual coat for once, although he was still dressed more colorfully than most people.
Peri came back, looking very elegant in a midnight blue dress. The two of them were horribly mismatched but it was normal for them.
“How do I look?” she said while putting on her last earring.
The Doctor looked up from the Tardis console but kept quiet, simply staring at Peri without saying anything.
Peri rolled her eyes, “Oh why do I even bother, you don’t know anything about fashion.” She approached the Doctor, giving him her most severe look. “This place better be nice.”
“I take offense to both statements.” The Doctor double checked the scanner. “We have just landed on Borges 3, on the year 4023. Just a few weeks since the last time I visited. Everything will be as peaceful as I left it.”
“For our hunger’s sake you better hope so,” Peri muttered under her breath.
The Doctor held out his hand for Peri. She took it and, together, they walked out of the Tardis.