Self-Cooking Olive Oil

 

Streetlights cast shadows of gum trees onto lawn. The occasional tear of car through puddle from a distant main road. The witching hour and bad juju is afoot. Dorothy paces a metre diameter circle, dribbling a bottle of hydrochloric acid onto a forty kilo pile of tempeh and incanting:

'Raey wene htht iwteserneht loievilosy ubroht uaehtemity revet pircstacnet ybpuoglliwlio evilognikooc fles foecirpeht.'

The metre circle glows dark green and swallows the hissing tempeh. Dorothy steps back. Something pokes through the portal - the top of a Bailey P150 platform ladder, then Erin's torso.

'Hello. You must be Dorothy. Pleased to meet you.'

'Yes. You must be Erin. We spoke over the phone. I have your kangaroo chilli.'

'The boss'. Too hot for me.' Erin points two index fingers, playing I know your game. 'Speaking of, how spicy did you make it?'

Dorothy shows bandaged hands: 'Jachuranga peppers.'

Erin leans on portal's edge and hands Dorothy a litre bottle of olive oil: 'Bad. Ass. I'd give you a Yelp review if anyone would believe me.'

Dorothy hands over a greasy paper bag: 'How about repeat patronage? This time next year?'

Curious smile: 'I'll see what I can do.'

Erin dips beneath the portal, followed by platform ladder. The portal closes and eyes must readjust to suburban night light.

Fika goes: 'The actual fuck?'

Dorothy startles: 'What you do there?'

'My sister said I should get out more.' Duh. 'So I went for a walk.'

'That's not what she meant.'

'Not the issue at hand. What's in the bottle?'

Dorothy opts for honesty coated in sarcasm: 'Oh, just some Self-Cooking Olive Oil. It cooks stuff without needing a heat source.'

Blunt: 'That does not sound safe around children.'

Befuddled: 'Who cares?'

'The prospective customer. Which I am, currently.'

'And how were you going to pay? This is the sort of produce that you can only find at the organic farmer's market, if that farmer's market was in Hell.'

'Uhh.' Momentarily stumped. 'Oh! You're new people, right? I haven't met you before?'

Uh oh: 'Correct.'

'Then my lawyer owes me some weed.'

Dorothy finally smiles: 'So you know Renee?'

Fika has a bottle of 'Tangaroa' 2022 Pinot Gris and Dorothy has a place, so they take the former to the latter. Dorothy inherited her home from a jet-setting-archaeologist aunt. Dorothy, a rental property manager and hypocrite, has neglected to pay her utility bills. Phones are used to navigate to a stone which goes fwoosh.

The kitchen is illuminated: food processor (clean), cutting board and meat cleaver (dirty), skillet (maaaaybe?). Wine is poured into stemless glasses and the sunstone is placed on charcuterie paddle. Dorothy leads a small tour: the bookshelf is old (not dusty) cook tomes, the lounge room hosts a fire pit, the bathroom is immaculately clean. Fika begins to understand the value of the Self-Cooking Olive Oil.

Careful careful: 'So how much of that oil are you willing to part with?'

'Not much.' Left fist behind hips. 'For deep frying, it's revolutionary.'

'And for drizzling on salads it's not fit for purpose.'

Side glance, oh you wanna' play?: 'You're new to this scene, aren't you? The magic. You should come to our next auction. Your dope is nothing special - that would be El Dorado Green. I grow my own average stuff and box hedges are suddenly popular.'

'What I'm offering is Kumquat Weed. Turn it into butter.' Fika does not say and freeze it. 'Use that butter for baking, or frying. Add a citrus twist to your edibles.'

Dorothy concedes: 'Firewood is cheap at the moment.'