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Boom-apetit
Not a food blog for the faint of heart (or tongue).
Spicy Meat Pies
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 44 reviews | 4 ⭐️ average
A juicy, spicy minced meat pie with a buttery flaky crust! Perfect for winter dinners.
Featured Comment:
Meats4Seviks: it’s good
Juicy, spicy and the equivalent of biting into a hot summer’s barbecue.
Let’s talk about meat pies. They trace back to the Neolithic period, around 6000BC, where you can spot them on those old Shuriman hieroglyphs and ancient texts.
Personally, I had my first meat pie when I was sitting in a bakery waiting for my parents to finishing buying their groceries. I remember biting into one and thinki-
“Fucking hell,” Ekko mutters. His thumbs rapidly scroll down the page, frowning as the wall of text keeps going. “Who cares about your personal life.”
He’s hungry, he’s craving meat pie and he’s not in the mood to hike into town to the only pub whose pies he actually likes (and who’s employees he hasn’t seen in close to a decade, shamefully) so here Ekko is - flour and butter to one side, his harvested vegetables to the other, and the store-bought beef mince in front of him.
Boom-apetit is probably the only website he clicks on when he feels like cooking something. The author, Jinx, seems to really have a knack for combining spices and flavours into her dishes that he doesn’t find with any other blog.
But damn it if he has endure more of her endless raving about inane topics like her childhood experiences. Get to the food, he always says.
And then his eyes catch on one specific phrase - like a pull straight from his childhood, a ghost from his past rearing its very blue head.
Pow-Pow.
His finger freezes the page mid-scroll, flipping the text back up to the word and staring at it, wide-eyed.
“I used to go by Powder, but it’s more of a nickname for my favourite saucepan these days,” he reads her words aloud, his face paling as he slowly scrolls up and finds more achingly familiar recounts of her life.
Her sister with flaming red hair that matches the chillies they’ll be incorporating into the recipe. Her adopted dad who used to bring home his meat pies from the pub. Her brothers, both polar opposites of each other, who loved munching on the pies and never spared her any unless she leapt to grab one first…now passed on.
Ekko hadn’t known that tidbit of information.
It makes him frown.
Ekko sets the pastry and meats back into the fridge and takes a seat on the bench.
His farm can wait. He dedicates the rest of his afternoon to reading every single recipe preamble ever written by Jinx.
…in excruciating detail.
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SaloPlants+GF: I’m a vegan. I replaced the meat with tofu and the butter with smashed bananas. The pie crust was soggy and never fully baked, and the filling was just okay. I did not get the juicy meaty taste I was promised. Terrible recipe.
Jinx: hi @SaloPlants+GF, at some point you should consult a child’s science book and realise smashing bananas together makes no sense when you need butter. It’s a sweetener, at most. And if you wanted a meaty taste, maybe just put meat in. Tofu? Why would you do that for a meat pie? Who hurt you?
The earliest memory he has of Powder is meeting her at the beginning of high school. He met her through her big sister, Vi, who’d made an off-handed comment about how she actually had a sister in the year below him and who tended to disarm people with her cheeky smile, or gadgets, or both - in either combination. He’d thought nothing of it, merely shrugged at this information.
Ekko had been a tad awkward in his mid-teens, still all gangly limbs, gap-toothed and waiting for his growth spurt to fully kick in. His favourite pastime was basketball, even if he’d been on the smaller side at the time, and he’d only just joined the team for their after-school training sessions.
Mylo, Claggor and Vi would drag him over to the school gym - which was a generous term, given it was just a punching bag hung up in the corner right next to a rickety treadmill - to help him build muscle mass and maybe learn how to throw a proper punch without hurting his knuckles, when she walked in.
He remembers his eyes blowing wide open, his mouth slamming to the ground as the human embodiment of an electric storm stood before him. Her hair was a shock of blue, tied up in twin braids that trailed behind her, whipping and curling as she walked. Her eyes, also a piercing blue, had glinted back at him with interest. Her lips, pert and pretty, had quirked up, taking in his look of complete awe.
“You look like you’ve just been electrocuted,” were her first words to him. He’d barely issued a response, not even sure if it was clever or just plain dumb.
Vaguely, he remembers Vi clapping his back and waving off his reaction, giving him a weird look as she passed on a few textbooks to her. “I’ll see you at home. Don’t blow anything up on your way back.”
The girl threw Vi a scathing look. “If I wanna blow something up, I will,” she snapped back, though not without a smile. Eyes locking with his again, she’d half-covered her mouth with an outstretched hand - a message, only for his ears. “You’re welcome to join in, if you don’t tell my sis.”
“I can still hear you, Powder,” Vi drawled out.
Ignoring her, she’d waved them all off and gave Mylo the finger when he called her a rude word sarcastically. Just before she - Powder - closed the door behind her, she turned to look at him. A wink. A cheeky wave.
And for the first time in his life, Ekko Lamar had fallen in love.
Spiced Choc Chip Cookies
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| 367 reviews | 5⭐️average
A comfy chocolate chip cookie with a hint of spice, perfect with a glass of warm milk.
Featured comment:
CaitBakes : It feels like biting into a cozy gingerbread house oozing with chocolatey goodness. If Jinx hadn’t inherited this recipe from her own mother, I would have stolen it as my heirloom recipe!
Welcome to my very own chocolate chip cookie recipe - inspired by memories of my childhood.
My mum used to bake every Saturday morning as a way to ring in the weekend. My big sister and I remember waking up to the smell of gently spiced cookies for family breakfast. Sometimes when I bake these cookies, I swear I can feel my mum’s presence right behind me, like a gentle hug.
The spices add a bit of a kick, so you want to make sure to maintain that very delicate balance between sugar, salt and nutmeg or you’ll lean too far in one direction and overpower the flavour - or worse, dry out the dough. Much like my dead mother’s corpse - ha.
You’ll want to crumb the dry ingredients first, otherwise-
Ekko stops reading when he realises it gets pretty technical from there. He’s baked this recipe about a thousand times before, because he loves it and makes it every time his friends come over to the farm.
It’s always a hit, and he always refers them to Jinx’s recipe when they ask for it.
Now, however, he desperately wants to find her and envelope her in a big, warm hug.
Ekko had only known Powder and the others from when they’d all been living with Vander. While intellectually, he’d been aware that Vi was her biological sister and the other two were adoptive brothers, not much thought about their actual parentage had crossed his immature teenage boy mind at the time.
It’d been far more occupied with staring at Jinx dreamily every time she sat down with them at lunch, showing off another automaton robot she’d made in engineering lab. Or, in the night time, logging onto Z-Drive and hitting her up in the private chats to laugh about the unhinged things that Dr Singed said in science lab, or how she was going with classes and did she need any tutoring for help. She’d always said no, but always kindly followed up with a weird meme.
He regrets it now, not taking the time to ask about her parents at the time. Somewhere along the line, they’d lost contact just before he moved away with Benzo to the farming estate. The internet provider was being an ass, refused to get them both back online in rural Zaun for a good few months, and by the time he managed to log back on, her account had completely vanished.
Benzo, in his forgetfulness, couldn’t remember Vander’s phone number and Ekko hadn’t even had the foresight to get Vi and the others’ numbers before they moved away. None of them had actually possessed a phone at the time, to be fair.
…Not that he could contact Mylo or Claggor now, anyway.
Ekko frowns. If only there were a way to find her again. Maybe then, he’d be able to properly express his condolences, maybe talk to her about her life and get to know her as Jinx.
She has no contact details outside of her business details, and even then he doesn’t really want to cold email her announcing his presence either. What if she didn’t remember him? Would that make it weird?
Insecurity seizes him like a cold hand around his throat. Maybe they’ll all be better off staying apart from each other. Better not to dredge up old memories when they can let sleeping dogs lie in peace.
Still, he makes sure to subscribe to her mailing list for updates. For now, he’s content with catching up with her over the blog.
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MarcusBarkus : I followed the recipe exactly except that I replaced nutmeg with ground anise for more of a kick. It did not turn out well. The taste was abysmal, like biting into a ball of cough medicine. I’ll have to dispose of the whole thing. I don’t know what went wrong because I followed the recipe to a tee.
Jinx : @MarkusBarkus, I hope you drown in a vat of acid.
Benzo’s truck pulls into the driveway with a loud, sputtering groan. The drive had been long and exhausting, even if it’d only been a three-hour trip outbound and the roads were still well-paved from lack of use. Zaunites never ventured outside of their city, and those who did were wholly unfamiliar with the rural backdrop he’s now calling home.
Ekko is seventeen, in his final year of high school, and utterly devastated.
There’s no wi-fi, all his friends are hours away and therefore inaccessible for the rest of his known existence, and now he’s living on a farm .
Benzo seems to relish the clean, country air. He steps off the truck, which gives a lurch in return, and takes a deep breath with his arms outstretched. “Well lad, welcome to your new home.”
Ekko follows him, his brown eyes glancing around with suspicion. “It’s so…quiet.”
Benzo chuckles, clapping a hand gently over his shoulder. “That’s the idea.” They stand in silence for a moment, taking it all in.
There’s a small cottage at the front of the property with a thatched roof and stone foundations. The door and windows are wooden, there are planter pots scattered across the porch, and a neat garden with flowers and bushes peppered across the front lawn.
Coming from a city where concrete and metal stretch out farther than the eye can see, Ekko is feeling…severely displaced.
He sticks out like a sore thumb in his graffiti’d jacket and black pants. He feels out of place, stepping across the threshold of the house and taking in the rustic kitchen and creaking wooden floorboards. It’s all so provincial. So simple, for his tastes.
But Benzo seems delighted. “It’ll be a good change of pace for us both,” he says, with two large boxes in his arms, “You’ll see.”
Ekko did see, in the end - how Benzo’s perennial cough finally cleared up after just a few weeks in the open air, away from the city’s heavy smog. How they were both getting solid, daily exercise just tilling the soil and touching the grass beneath their feet. How he’d made some new friends in his final year - Scar, Eve and Ajuna, all genuine and smiley and brutally honest, just the way he liked it.
By the time they managed to reconnect their home to the grid, and realised (crushingly) Powder and the others were all but ghosts on Z-Drive, his old life in Zaun was left far behind.
Garlic Fish Stew
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| 87 reviews | 4⭐️average
A garlicky, tomato-based fish stew designed to dip with crispy toasted bread.
Featured comment:
MMedarda: I was never a fan of fish, or stew, but my pregnancy craving demanded SOMETHING fishy and I am so very pleased that Jinx posted this recipe. I’m (figuratively) deceased (the baby is fine and born now). It was so incredibly amazing. Highly recommended for the whole family to enjoy!
Shall I set the scene?
The toddler is crying. It’s a dark and stormy night. You’re exhausted.
Your sister just got released from her jail sentence after being locked behind bars for the past five years without going through proper due process. The court adjourned after several weeks, concluding that she was in fact, very innocent and her record subsequently wiped clean. The Lord Mayor personally attended the trial and gave you and your sister a very sincere, all too late apology and now you’re too exhausted to cook anything except for whatever leftovers you have in the fridge.
It’s fish stew!
The trick is a hearty helping of olive oil to tenderise the white meat and add in a rich depth of flavour. Believe me, my sister noticed the difference when she tried both trial runs, though she’d also just gone to jail and eaten slop for half a decade, so I dunno how much stock I’d place in that sentiment.
Make sure you use a white fish, like halibut or flounder in particular, because it tends to hold more firm when you need to sizzle it up in the pan. I prefer having this with a helping of salad to balance out the flavour a bit. Old felon over here just guzzles it up with her hands.
Janna help me.
Here’s the recipe!
Ekko scrolls down, making a quick note of the ingredients and remembering to talk to Eve about her next shipment of trout. He’s craving fish stew now, oddly enough.
There’s a few suppliers he works with to sell his crops, all of them his good friends. His fish lady is Eve, his dairy man Scar, his equipment supplier Ajuna. They all work together in the Firelights Association - named after the cute little bugs that fly around their properties at night - to circulate farming goods across Zaun and keep the people fed with actual, fresh produce. It’s been a long-term passion of his, passed down from Benzo before he’d died from old age.
When he tills the soil and milks the cows in the wee hours of the morning, it’s like he’s standing right behind him, guiding him through the motions and teaching him how to farm the land properly. To this day, he still thinks of Benzo when he churns the butter and packages it up for sale.
The past is a fickle thing, always popping up when he least expects it.
It’s why he’s so shocked, reading into her pre-amble segment again, when he realises she’s probably deadly serious.
Vi went to jail??
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Deckshard : when the recipe calls for olive oil, does that mean extra virgin olive oil or virgin olive oil or refined olive oil? Am I really expected to go out and get refined olive oil in a storm when it’s rarely stocked anywhere? THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A SIMPLE RECIPE. WHY SHOULD I EVEN ATTEMPT TO CREATE THIS WHEN MOST PEOPLE WANT SOMETHING EASY TO FOLLOW WITHOUT PURCHASING ADDITIONAL PRODUCTS? I will pass on this.
Jinx : I think olive oil means OLIVE OIL. I THINK EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL WOULD BE EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. I THINK VIRGIN OLIVE OIL WOULD BE VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. I THINK REFINED OLIVE OIL WOULD BE OLIVE OIL. I THINK PURE OLIVE OIL WOULD BE PURE OLIVE OIL. THIS RECIPE IS VERY SIMPLE I LIKE IT THATS WHY IM USING CAPS
It’s the mid-autumn harvest period, when all his vegetables are coming to fruition and ready for harvest. He hires a few farmhands to help him with the workload, and wakes up in the early hours to get to work.
There’s a lot of bending over, a lot of dirt somehow finding its way into his gloves, and a lot of sweating beneath his overalls, the tools clinking around in his pockets as he walks around the dirt mounds. It’s hard work, but it’s good and it’s honest.
He finds nothing more satisfying than when all the vegetables are sorted and packaged into crates, loaded up into Ajuna’s truck for distribution. The payment will come in later, per their contracted agreement with The Industrialist, a company known for expanding well throughout Zaun.
He’s not too fond of how the man at the helm of the company works. He’s uncomfortably good at negotiating finances, and all too happy to ask for little in return for the Firelights’ requests. Farming doesn’t churn a profit very often, and while Ekko isn’t unhappy with the generous deal they managed to cut for their produce, he can’t help but wonder why it was too easy.
Still, there isn’t any other distributor in all of Zaun with nearly as much of a reach as The Industrialist, and he seems genuinely keen enough to support their cause without ever requesting more, so Ekko supposes the man is making far more revenue elsewhere and that they’re his charitable cause. It grinds his gears, but for now he’ll let that creeping suspicion slide.
When the last of the farmhands leave for the night with their hard-earned cash slipping into their pockets, Ekko washes himself off. There’s a bowl of fish stew with his name on it, and he’d gotten an email notification earlier today that Jinx had published a new recipe.
He immediately opens it, keen to see what story pops up next.
Rhubarb Butter Cookies
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 3 reviews | 5⭐️ average
Buttery shortbread cookies with a fresh rhubarb centre for that extra hint of tartness.
Good old fashioned butter cookies are hard to beat. They’re holiday staples, but they’re so good for every other time in the year. I love the simple flavours and the crispiness of the edges, but after much experimentation, adding rhubarb just gives it that extra hit that I like in my food.
Much like the trusty spiced choc chip cookies, the butter ones bring back sweet, old memories. I used to bake these with my adopted dad in high school - it was the simplest recipe he knew, and he did it well. It was around the first time I learned this recipe that I had the worst experience a girl could ever get.
I’d finally plucked up the courage to tell my high school crush that I liked him, over Z-Drive, on a day I knew he wouldn’t see the message until I was fast asleep (he had basketball training) - only to find that he went completely offline?? So I made a post saying I was hacked just to avoid the embarrassment, because who wouldn’t.
Later, I found out that he and his family had moved away without even saying goodbye, and I haven’t seen him since. No one had his contact details either and even dad, who knew his dad couldn’t reach them for ages. The butter cookies were my comfort food, and I’m pretty sure it was all I ate for weeks afterwards while I was trying to get over it.
Also of note, you cannot eat rhubarb leaves because they are poisonous, but the stalks are completely safe to eat. Here’s how I prepare them-
Ekko almost drops his phone into the bowl.
His reflexes kick in, gripping onto it just before it creates a splash. Leaning back in his chair, Ekko scrolls up the page again, scanning over that passage on repeat.
“So that’s what happened,” he mutters to himself, dumbfounded.
It’s the exact opposite of the narrative he’d built up in his head all these years - that they’d all just deactivated in the time he’d been off the grid and left him behind. That no one wanted anything to do with him anymore. He wants to kick himself, or maybe hug himself?
Hope blooms in his chest. It pushes him to finally register his account details and leave a comment on her recipe in the hopes she would recognise his name after all these years. Surely?
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EkkoLamarIsSoSorry : funny thing about Z-Drive - it needs you to be on the grid to use it and it turns out moving to the country cements you as firmly off the grid. can we catch up?
Jinx : @EkkoLamarIsSoSorry oh my fucking god
CaitBakes : holy shit
Meats4Seviks: whats happening
ViStands4Violent : WHAT.