Review – Harvest
Harvest is one of those stories which starts off as minimal. But then context gives it meaning.
Background
Lili has to, at some point, join the NX-01. She is more or less drafted during the Star Trek: Enterprise canon Xindi war. She is to replace steward Preston Jennings. Lili also replaces an unnamed sous-chef and an equally unnamed pastry chef. Non-combat personnel really need to go.
I had already showed her being drafted in Voracious. Hence this would be a scene that would take place not too much later.
There were hints about this story, too, in He Stays a Stranger, where a far more mature Malcolm and Lili, in a shared dream, recall their first meeting –
[They] saw the day they had first met, a day near the start of the Xindi War, when Captain Jonathan Archer had brought a new sous-chef onto the NX-01 and introduced her to the senior staff as she served a Harvest Salad, her specialty from her old restaurant, Voracious. They shook hands and looked in each other’s eyes then, too, and Malcolm remembered he had thought that her eyes and hair were pretty and she had a lovely smile, and Lili remembered that she had thought he seemed very intelligent and well-mannered, not to mention a little cute.
The Set Up
Harvest Salad
For a new sous-chef on a starship, her first day had to involve making a meal. I also made sure to have the meal coincide with Major Jay Hayes‘s first day as well. That way, there could be the canon tension between him and Reed as an underlying part of the story.
Tripp Tucker‘s very recent bereavement was also part of the tale. As Lili is a chef, I also wanted to give a canon shout out to Hoshi‘s canon experimentation with cooking in the Singularity episode.
The meal is a Harvest Salad, one of Lili’s specialties.
The Meal
The captain and the senior staff wait as the chef and the new sous-chef are a bit late. Hence the captain makes use of the time to introduce the new MACO CO, as it’s also his first day. So there’s already a bit of tension between Hayes and Reed by the time Chef Slocum and Lili walk in.
Lili is nervous meeting new people and starting a new job. She fusses over the placement of the flatware. Then she forgets she’s still holding a teacup when she comes over for introductions. She drops it twice – once, when Phlox grins at her too widely. The second time is when she and Malcolm are chatting.
Because the salad contains various fruits and nuts, it can symbolize some of the disparate elements that are coming together. Lili spends some of this time asking various senior staffers what some of their favorite foods are. And she promises to give them portions with extras of their favorites. Malcolm’s canon love of pineapple, and Tripp’s canon love of pecan pie, both come out. Jay Hayes reveals a preference for blueberries. However, I don’t show Captain Archer’s preference for strawberries until Protocols.
Story Postings
- Harvest on Fanfiction.net
- Harvest on Fictionpad
- Also, Harvest on Wattpad
- Harvest on G & T Show forums
- Harvest in context
Rating
The story is rated K.
Upshot
I like how it turned out; plus people liked it. The idea of Lili giving the senior staff a little taste (quite literally) of home, and promising to provide a little bit of comfort right at the start of the canon Star Trek: Enterprise Xindi war was an irresistible premise.
