Rainbow Dash was an accomplished pony. She was the reigning champion of the Best Young Fliers competition. She was the leader of the weather team during the Winter Wrap-Up. And she was as close to the Wonderbolts as any pony could be, without actually joining the group. And everything the blue pegasus had done, she was to make sure that her friends and other ponies knew about it.
But everypony, even Rainbow Dash, had their weaknesses. For her, it was the ability to put a meal together for herself. She couldn't cook all that well, but she also knew that she couldn't live a life that consisted of take-out meals all the time. And Rainbow Dash most certainly couldn't live off a diet that was similar to Pinkie Pie's; sweets and pastries seemingly all the time. She needed healthy items.
With a few days away from any tasks or responsibilities, Rainbow Dash made it her goal to learn how to cook. But because it was Rainbow Dash, she was determined to make the most difficult meal possible. So on this night, the pegasus chose....
“Grilled bean stalks with banana nut bread, and apple juice.”
Rainbow Dash had not told anypony her plans, wanting to do this in complete solitude. She was never good as showing her faults in front of others, in the first place. So to ask anypony for advice, even Pinkie Pie, who worked at Sugarcube Corner, was not an option in her mind.
Raring to go, Rainbow Dash looked over the recipe for the main course.
“Okay, take five bean stalks,” she murmured to herself as she read the directions, grabbing a few. “Check. Now cut them length-wise to open them up. Guess I need a knife.”
Rainbow Dash walked over to the utensil draw and pulled out a regular butter knife . Not experienced in cooking that well, she thought that any knife would do. The pegasus grabbed one of the footlong stalks and placed it on the counter, squinting her eyes and placing the knife's bladed end on the far end of the stalk. At first, Rainbow Dash just tried to run the knife down the middle, but was not having success with it. She then switched to a sawing motion, and found that it cut into the stalk much better.
“Hey,” she grinned to herself. “This is pretty easy. Don't know why I thought this would be so hard.”
Rainbow Dash did do one mistake, however. Instead of opening them up like a book, she cut through the entire stalk, splitting it in two. The directions were not specific enough, and a beginning like Dash would not have realized that.
She did the same for a couple more stalks, getting into a comfort zone. As she went through the process, the knife became a little more damp with stalk juices, and the juices would be splattered onto the knife, thanks to her careless cutting. That would also catch up to Rainbow Dash as she cut another stalk.
With her eyes closed as she was cutting, humming and grinning, the knife then stalk slipped out of her right hoof. Almost instantly after, Rainbow Dash took a saw motion that was intended for the stalk, and instead ran it on the hoof that was holding the stalk.
“YEEEOOOWWWW!!!” she screamed in agony, flinching her hoof back and protecting it with the unharmed one. “Celestia damnit that hurt!” she screamed more. Rainbow Dash held up the injured hoof, and saw blood coming out where she made her careless mistake. She snarled in anger, and ran off to the bathroom to cover up the wound.
With the stalks that were already cut on a skillet on the stove, an annoyed Rainbow Dash moved on to the next dish that she was preparing. She read the instructions for how to make banana nut bread. “This is going to take all night,” she lamented. “How does Pinkie Pie manage to crank these out?”
The blue pegasus charged forward with her task. She gathered all the ingredients, along with the mixing bowl and the beater needed to combine them. The first task was to preheat the oven, a simple enough chore for Rainbow Dash that she did, while keeping an eye on the stalks.
“Next, put in two cups of flour,” she murmured. Rainbow Dash, however, couldn't do the task neatly, and clouds of the powder poofed into the air as she poured it into the measuring cup and the bowl.
She continued adding the ingredients in; water, salt, and sugar. The recipe also called for the required nuts and bananas. But remembering her experience with the bean stalks, Rainbow Dash put in the two without cutting them up or making them smaller.
“There, that should complete it. Now to mix it all up,” she told herself, grabbing the mixer. “Hmmmmm...if I want this to be done in 10 seconds flat, I should put this on the highest setting,” the pegasus reasoned. It was a bad reason, because everypony that cooks starts on the low setting, to ease into it. As soon as she dipped the mixers into the bowl and turned it on to the 'high' setting, bits of the ingredients exploded out of the bowl. Flour and salt and water splattered across the counter, the walls, the floor, and even Rainbow Dash. The final insult was the bananas jumping out of the bowl and exploding on the walls, and the nuts pelting her in the eyes.
“OW OW OW!!!” she screamed, trying to use her hoofs to bat away the nuts. Once she was able to turn the mixer off, Rainbow Dash saw that about half the semi-mixed mixture was left in the bowl. “Damnit damnit damnit,” she growled, and gave up with the process by pouring what was left into the baking pan.
Rainbow Dash was about to turn and head towards the preheated oven, but was shaken to her core by a loud beeping sound. It was the smoke alarm, and it was telling the pegasus that her stalks were burning in the skillet. Soon after, the blackened stalks caught on fire.
“Oh no!” she screamed in horror, and dumped a glass of water on the burning stalks to put the fire out. Once that was done, she used her wings to fan the smoke away and looked down at the charred remains of her main course.
“Great,” she scrunched her nose in annoyance, and haphazardly threw the half-filled banana nut bread pan into the oven.
Rainbow Dash had failed on making grilled bean stalks, and her banana nut bread was not going to turn out as expected. She had one last chance to make something right, and save whatever was left of her first solo-cooking adventure.
The pegasus had a glass out on the counter, along with a bowl of red and green apples from Applejack's farm. But there was a conundrum going on in her head.
“How am I going to get juice out of these apples?” she spoke aloud to no one in particular. “It's not like an orange where you squeeze it.” Rainbow Dash pondered it for a couple more minutes. “But what if you can,” she rubbed her chin with the bandaged hoof.
Rainbow Dash grabbed a red apple and took a bite out of it to open it up, done with using knives this evening. “It's juicy, so it should just come right out,” she reasoned. Rainbow Dash took her hooves and squeezed the apple as hard as she could, but did not see any juice come out.
“C'mon!” she grunted, pressing with all her might. “I know...you're...in there...juice,” she struggled, holding the apple over her glass. Rainbow Dash gave up after about a minute of squeezing, panting from the laboring task. “Maybe...the green ones have the juice,” she thought. The pegasus picked up a green apple, not biting into it this time, and started to struggle again with squeezing juice out of it.
She was not a quitter, though the task would be futile. Rainbow Dash put her entire strength into squeezing out juice from the small green apple, letting out a primal roar. After another minute of squeezing, she gave up and panted from exhaustion. Rainbow Dash looked down to see the fruits of her labor, but was shocked and surprised to see no juice in the glass.
Rainbow Dash roared a few strings of swear words at the empty glass, and whipped the green apple against the wall. Unfortunately, the apple bounced back, and straight into her left eye. The impact sent the frustrated blue pegasus down on the ground, rolling around in pain and covering her eye.
“This sucks!” she roared, getting on her front legs. “How can this get any worse?!?”
Her question would be answered by the smoke alarm loudly going off, again. She jolted once more, and saw smoke pouring out the closed door of the oven. Rainbow Dash had not adjusted the temperature of it, meaning that the banana nut bread had been cooked thoroughly and then some. After putting out the fire and clearing the smoke, she pulled out the banana nut bread pan. The substance inside it was not bread, but a blackened, hardened brick.
Rainbow Dash looked at all the food she had made this evening; charred bean stalks, ashy, blackened banana nut bread, and an empty glass where apple juice was suppose to be. She sneered at her efforts, unhappy that she had not come close to achieving her goal.
A minute later she picked up the phone and pounded the number key. “.....Yeah, I'd like a large daisy pizza, extra cheese...”
