SERA00 Pastimes: "Sassan" Mihashi Sakiko

Hey y'all fans! Today I bring you the exiting pilot episode of the forthcoming "Interest" Series: SERA00 Pastimes! In addition to being written about on my blog, these segments will be recorded into a one-hour special to be played on TV! We decided to start of this sequence with someone reeeeaaal interesting.
Cute and kind and generous, this girl is loved by everyone. Her charming personality is part of what has gotten her into the A rank of Team Aurora; her skill and dedication towards SERA00 is the other part. Of Japanese heritage, please welcome the number one ranked girl, the essence of SERA00, Mihashi Sakiko!
For long time coming, Sassan has been an avid chef in her spare time. Enjoying both cooking and baking, SERA00 girls have been known to water at the mouth when Sassan's mushroom risotto or apple pie is mentioned. Today, we will put Sassan's cooking to the test; evaluated by the public.
We will secretly place Sassan in the kitchen of SERA00's Sweetshop. After customers finish eating, we will have them complete a survey, answer a few questions about the quality of the food, and then bring out the actual chef to meet them...Sassan!
The media members were chosen to work on this project. They were all A ranks, as after all, it's Sassan. So it's going to be SERA00 heaven for the lucky fans who get into the café. They think it's a special promotion where all famous members become waitresses for a day. What they don't know is that the usual chef has a day off. To avoid suspicion, they were told that Sassan was in an interview and couldn't make the promotion.
On the Sunday, we were getting ready to open shop, a little later than usual at 9:30 AM. Something had gone wrong and communication had been lost somewhere along the way; the special menus hadn't been created. So the menus were hurriedly printed out. The selections had been changed from the original to match Sassan's recipes. Already, there was a long line of customers waiting outside. When the first part of the lineup was interviewed, they admitted that they had camped out in front of the Sweetshop all night.
About two hundred down the line, the two guys told me that they had arrived at five AM to already find this line. Wooow, compared to us, demand for the A ranks, especially the media members, was in a whole other league.
The media members lined up in front of the door and shop opened crazily, with fans trying to stream in to get a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of all eight media members together, and only a couple of meters away from them. Good thing we had security.
Because there were only fifteen tables, after the initial rush, we employed half the media members at once. They were split into two teams, plus lucky lucky me who was there to report on the segment. Team One, renamed to Team Sunrise, consisted of Harley, River, Luna, and Fracken. Team Two, renamed Team Cupcakes (=D) consisted of me, Angel, Luraland, and Rosie. The relief team of the normal café staff who wouldn't step in unless needed, jokingly named themselves the Maid Team.
"This is so exciting!" Fela whispered to me in earnest. She's the young Sweetshop manager, if you haven't read my Sweetshop post. Of course Fela would be excited for her shop to be dominated by some uber-famous girls for a day.
Both teams were dispatched to take orders; each table took a little longer as the customers asked for autographs and photos. But enough with main dining area. We will now follow the camera crew backstage and see Sassan create her crafts!
Sassan is hard at work. Today she is the head chef, and everything will be cooked to her discrepancy. Sassan is smothering a two large roast beefs with her own blend of spices. Randomly jabbing the hunk of meat, she inserted cloves of garlic into the incisions. A couple of hours earlier, Sassan had already put two roasts in the oven; now, she took out the finished roast and replaced it with the two raw ones. Flouncing across the kitchen, she checks on her risotto, which apparently seems to be going well. Now it's off to the rice cooker, then to the soup, and arrives at the pie. Sassan expertly kneads the dough, both hands white from the cornstarch. She rolls it out , lines ten pans at once, and scoops the apple mixture into half. The other half is filled with a berry mixture. She works efficiently, and creates lattice tops for the pies, finishing them off with flawless crimping. "Pop them in the oven, half and hour at four-twenty-five," Sassan instructs the kitchen staff. The cakes are ready and she hand decorates each one. Somehow, within all the roses, she writes "SERA00" on each cake with beautiful calligraphy.

Finally, with nothing pressing at hand, Sassan takes a break. I take this opportunity to interview the SERA00 star.
Me: Good morning, Sassan!
Sassan: Hi Evie!
Me: So, Sassan, tell us how you're doing right now.
Sassan: Well, I'd say everything is going fine right now, but it's only the beginning of the day. I've never made so much food in one session before, like this, and it's absolutely exhausting!
Me: You're quite amazing, Sassan. Is the quality of your food up to your own standards?
Sassan: I would hope that it is! *laughs* I'm actually quite nervous to find out what my fans think about my cooking skills; but that's just it, isn't it? In the past, I've always had my fame supporting me, but now, no one knows who's the actual chef...my name won't help me now!
Me: Sassan, when did you get into this hobby of cooking?
Sassan: *thoughtful look* Hmmm...I would say that it would have to be a couple of years back. Yeah. When SERA00 was first formed, we had about, say, a year of hardships before we really entered the music industry fully. Ah, I guess we were pretty lucky to get our big break only twelve months after we were formed. But Miss Avery had full control of the group and our path was well planned out. We had about twenty girls to start out, and because we were going through these times when we thought all our efforts combined didn't even make an impression on people's hearts when we sang, we were quite depressed. So Angel, always our leader, began to hold small little weekly parties just for us girls to celebrate our hard work. Everyone would bring something to the party. I used to bring desserts, and when all the other girls were actually enthusiastic about the taste, that's when I started to take cooking more seriously. Yeah...those were good times...
Angel: *walks in* Sassan!! Here, fifteen order sheets quick! *dissapears back out*
Me: Thank you, Sassan! I'll leave you to your devices.

Okay, wow. Seriously, just how do they do it? The famous members all have this talent for spinning interesting stories out of interview questions. If that had been me, it would have been like this:
Interviewer: So, Evie, when did you first really get into this hobby?
Me: Three years ago.
Interviewer: ...
Me: ...
Ready for round one? Here we go. The blinds are pulled down, doors locked. The fans on the outside will have their chance but they musn't see what is going to happen now.
"Can I have everyone's attention?" Angel yells sweetly. Somehow she can make the two go together.
"Angel! The fans' shouts begin.
"I love you Angel!"
"Thank you," Angel takes a bow. "But today isn't about me. You all are on a new SERA00 TV segment, and this is the first episode!"
The restaurant erupts into cheers.
"The media members will now move to your table and you will have the opportunity to rate the quality of the food you tasted today. It is imperative that you give your most honest opinion. The chef won't mind!" Angel explained.
Standing at the doorway to the kitchen, half-veiled by the curtain, I witnessed both Angel's grin and Sassan's perfect rendition of a raised eyebrow.
Angel flounced over to a table where a young couple sat. They had shared a slice of apple pie. She bent down and grinned broadly, shoving the mic in the guy's face. "What did you think of the apple pie?"
He seemed a little overwhelmed and replied, "It was very good." His girlfriend dared to venture a little further with her reply though. "It was good, but I think it was overly sweet."
It continued on like that. Generally, the customers were very forgiving. They commented both positive and negative. Some of the feedback Sassan received included that her pasta should be more al dente, and that it was too limp in its current state.
"And miss over here with the cake sampler," Angel said, "What are your thoughts?"
She took the challenge full-on: "Overall, I would say kudos to the chef but the cakes are all very traditional. Chocolate, vanilla, the cakes are all something someone would bake at home. They lack the creativity you see in most high class restaurants. Especially since this is supposed to be a café."
"Wow," Angel exclaimed into the camera. "Miss..."
"Lara Crawford," she said to Angel, "Food critic."
"Ms. Crawford here is very knowledgeable!" Angel finished. She swept back to the front of the café. She had an innocently sweet smile on her face that I knew came from knowing she was about to prank everyone in the room, big time.
River was standing by the camera, doing the commentary as Angel led the program. Now, River was facing the camera as she said ominously, "We will now ...reveal the chef to the restauranters, who have no idea what is about to happen." She turned to address the bewildered customers. "Angel and I and the rest of the media members have been playing you all along. This is not actually a promotion for the Sweetshop but is actually the filming for the pilot episode of a new SERA00 segment. It is called SERA00 Pastimes. Each episode features one girl and their hobby. Today we showcase the cooking hobby of..." River looked to Angel to finish the sentence.
Backstage, staff were ushering Sassan into place for the reveal. Someone with a clipboard told Sassan: "Sassan, walk out in three...two..."
Angel gave her most charming smile and swept one hand towards the kitchen curtain. "Mihashi Sakiko!"
The entire shop erupted into ear-piercing cheers. Fans were going giddy with excitement to see Sassan barely metres away from them.
"Sassan!"
"SASSAN I LOVE YOU SASS-"
"Sassan we support you!"
The chaos died down as she climbed up the little platform to stand next to Angel. She took the microphone handed to her by the staff and bowed briefly. "Ah, good morning everyone! Thank you all for coming out here today even though you didn't know you would see me. How are we all doing?"
The tiny crowd roared with a volume ten times their size.
"Sassan, my dear friend," Angel said. "Let's hear from you. What did you think of the feedback you received from your customers?"
"Mm, well first if all I would like to say thank you for being honest! What do I think...I would have to say that I never really thought about it that way!" Sassan said. "I never really considered honing my skills to a professional level, to fit gourmet standards. Basically, I never had actual cooking lessons as my SERA00 girls were my teachers. I usually catered to their taste as they are the only ones who have eaten my food so far, so as long as they were happy I didn't think of trying to perfect my food any further like a lot of you commented.
"I think there is a lot I can learn even now. There are many tastes out there I have never explored because I feel comfortable with my current menu. I guess it's like SERA00...If you always stick to your current repertoire you will never discover new hits!"
The crowd roared their approval.
"So Luna must have her pasta limp as string," Sassan targeted her friend amiably.
Luna grinned and raised her hand in awknowedgement.
"And Luraland loves chocolate cake," Sassan continued.
Luraland smiled sweetly and posed for the cameras and videocameras that turned her way.
"And all the girls have an unhealthy love for sugar in their food! There is much for me to think about now, thank you very much and please continue to support me!" Sassan finished with a bow and the cameramen stopped rolling the film.
The day continued on and one noticeable change was that Sassan really took her fans' comments to heart and there were less negative comments as the day progressed. One thing didn't change though: the girls' enthusiasm and Sassan's love of cooking!
Thank you for reading this post and please watch SERA00 Pastimes: Mihashi Sakiko. Please support SERA00!