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Michael didn't know if it was cheating or not, but he was so glad that he had a phone he could use to look up a quick recipe. Something quick and very, very easy. Because had no idea that pumpkin could be made into things besides pie and jack-o-lanterns and he didn't want to let Junior down. Poor guy looked like he needed something good to happen in his life.

Fortunately, it looked like there were lots of simple recipes for pumpkins. He found one that involved making bread but he'd actually done that before and it was pretty easy as long as you followed the recipe so he quickly memorized the ingredients and got to work on his pumpkin-garlic knots. He basically just dumped all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed them up, and let the dough rest.

After a bit, he rolled out the dough and cut it into long strips, knotted them up and let the dough rest again. "Alright, I'll let you take it from here, Junior. Basically, you bake them until they're golden brown, then brush the tops with oil and garlic. And done. Pretty simple."

And letting the other man take over, he went to scrape the flour and bits of dough off his hands. Because...ugh....it was kinda gross.

Mao didn't really understand what had taken Mei so long in the first place to get started with the dish, but he supposed he had to blame her crippled intellect for that one. She really didn't seem to understand what was going on most of the time, which was probably for the best; he wasn't entire sure what scenes in the clinic she may have stumbled upon without his knowledge.. In any case, with a proper amount of thought, it seemed Mei had figured out that Mao wasn't going to lift a finger when it was so much easier to watch her and criticize what she was doing first. Any failure in the dish, of course, would be a result of her incompetence in the kitchen. ….An incompetence that quickly proved to.. somehow not be present..? The man was stunned as he watched her cook as flawless as an average housewife could, doing her work without anything he could really tell her to do better.

Oh, wait. “Pumpkin soup? Did you think of that on your own or did you have some help?” He said in Mandarin with a motion to a few stations over, where the Sonata children were making the same disturbing rendition of the dish, it seemed. “I hope you feel proud of this..” He paused to hover over it, inhaling the smell of.. of delicious pumpkin soup, homemade and classic as if prepared by his own grandmother. ..He frowned and shook his head at Mei in disapproval before moving to try to fix it up. He located one of many hollowed out pumpkins and went to pouring the soup inside a clean one, pausing only to taste the soup and.. spill some of it over the side, but, oh, well, it was Mei's fault for doing so well.

Oh, awesome, she was going to get the appetizer! Baba was getting a little worried after she heard the theme being announced – pumpkins? What could she make with pumpkins? She guessed it was just a theme, so.. maybe she could just make something like a pumpkin. If that was what 'theme' meant – what did that mean again? Baba frowned as she looked at what few stations she could see from where she was standing, trying to figure out if all of them were making pumpkin dishes or.. Yeah, it looked like everyone was just using pumpkins. Damn it. She guessed she would just have to substitute pumpkin with.. pickles and onions or something. But, that would have to be later! For now, she had to try to make Ayaka's cute gyoza look even more presentable! She stared at it for a long moment before reaching down and adjusting one of the gyoza so they would all be facing the left rather than the right.

“...Yes. I finished.”

Junior had followed along quietly, more focused on how the man had called him, well, man. Like what people on television called their best friends, those guys who had such a strong bond they were willing to take a bullet for one another... Was it because he had.. coworkers now? Would he and Peter be this close if he spoke to him too? ..No, that was getting ahead of himself. He needed to focus on the potential maybe colleague friendship that he and Michael were about to embark on. “...Okay,” He paused and looked over the dough as he gathered up the nerve to say it, “..man.”

He let out a shaky breath and hurriedly turned to put all of his focus on the last few steps. Hopefully he could do a good enough job to impress Michael since the man seemed to really know a lot about cooking to pull out something as nice as this on a moment's notice! Junior could only think of soup when the theme was announced for an appetizer.. When he was finished, he carefully arranged them on a plate in a spiral – people liked curves naturally, didn't they?

Brian stood there in complete awe at Matthew. He didn't think the new kid at school would be such a cooking genius! Really, he just thought they could goof off and maybe make something terrible that the judges would have to eat – like, frog eyes or something – but, no, this guy was taking it serious. He tried not to clap when Matthew had finished making.... whatever he was making, it was hard to say, really. Brian's parents didn't really cook much outside of the usual lazy meals – grilled cheese, some pasta, frozen dinners.. – so pumpkin wasn't something he really ate. But he guessed it looked tasty? He would try some, but, then again, Brian wasn't sure if he was allergic to that. Yeah. That's a good reason as any. “Cool, dude! It looks all.. edible! I think we nailed this.” He said as he moved in to finish up the dish, putting it on a plate and trying to arrange it in a way that made it look good. Though all he knew to do was to use a cookie cutter and try to arrange the squares into a couple of pumpkin-shaped piles – which worked out pretty good, for a high schooler who just didn't care!

When he saw what Gus had in mind for their brilliant cooking plan, Juno let out a strangled gasp as he doubled over with laughter. He struggled to raise a brow in his amusement and chortled out. "Oh, it's too late for that you ******** d**k."

After a moment of trying to ease the laughs out, Juno finally straightened up in order to confess to Gus with all his seriousness. "This. This right here is perfection. You deserve a reward for that, big boy." Said reward involved Juno reaching in.... to the box of condoms, making sure to pull out a big one, before blowing into it. His technique was sloppily executed though because with one fatal move, everyone exploded all over him. "s**t!" He spluttered out when he saw what he had just done. He blew the condom too hard, and now it was in confetti pieces all inside the bowl of Chex.

"Um, I meant to do that. Yeah."

A pumpkin appetizer? Well in that case, a pumpkin and feta cheese tart it was! She remembered seeing something like that on a cooking show one time, at least, so she knew it was a thing. Now if only she knew the recipe! Not even Elizabeth, as great as she was, could remember a recipe off the top of her head. Like a few of the other contestants, she too took out her phone, in search for instructions. Having known, what she was looking for, it didn't take her long to find it. Still, she wouldn't be afraid to tweak it a bit, she did know best, after all.

Having found her recipe she gathered up what she needed. She chopped and mixed what she needed, and occasionally switched out some items for others. This dish would be perfect! After all the mixing, it was time to fill it into the pie crust and then stick her dish into the oven to bake!

Now it was time, to make sure everything was on the plate and looked okay. So, the spread looked a little funky, but that shouldn't be too big of a problem. Mitsukai took the pumpkin spread from her mixing bowl and plopped the mess into a smaller serving bowl. She grabbed a nearby plate and grabbed handfuls of vegetables, including carrots, broccoli, and celery, for dipping. Maybe she'd just set the dipping bowl in the middle of the plate? Oh, but then she'd have to move around those vegetables out of the way. Whatever, the dipping bowl could just sit on the side. That looked okay, right? Well, it wasn't like she had much time to make it look any better, so this would have to do!