After Kita went to take a shower and to freshen up, Helen finished up her work and decided to prepare dinner for them. Making dinner wasn't hard as it was mostly automatic. Upon the press of a button, Full gourmet meals would be prepared automatically and served. But Helen always prefer to cook herself. She took the ingredients and added her own touch to the dishes. In her opinion, It tasted better when it was cooked by hand. Automated cooking made food taste bland to her. And Kita agreed.
She decided to prepared some chicken curry with rice. Although the auto-cook could prepare it for her with just one click. She took the ingredients from it and started preparing.
Soon, Kita came out of the shower and a nice aroma wafted in his nose.
"Is it Chicken curry?", He asked excitedly.
"Yeap!"
"With Carrots and potatoes?"
"Yeap, just the way you like it."
"Oh yeah! Love you honey!", Kita said excitedly.
"Go to the dinner table, It's almost done. And take these.", Helen pointed at a stack of 2 dishes and some tableware. Since they were the only one eating they didn't have any more dishes. Just the two for each of them.
Kita took the dishes and set them up on the table. Soon after Helen came with the food and sat down. They both served themselves and began to eat.
"Oh, That hits the spot!", Kita said as he put a mouthful of rice and curry in his mouth. He loved her cooking the most, Although these days, people rarely cooked by themselves. And food prepared by the Auto-cook was arguably better as it could control the heat and timing perfectly. It always cooked the dish to perfection. But cooking wasn't about being accurate to a T with the recipe. Every chef added their own touch to the recipe. This mirrored their own choices in food and how they wanted to cook it. The Auto-cook didn't do any such thing. It always prepared the same meal each time, every time. There was no deviation from the recipe or any personal touch added. Only humans did that.
Still, people who were busy didn't have the time or care to cook food themselves and then eat it. Hiring a personal chef was also quite expensive. So the Auto-cook was the go to solution for them. They just wanted to have a meal when they were hungry and didn't want to deal the hassle of cooking it up.
Kita was also used to the food Auto-Cook Cooked in his early days. He didn't have the time to cook himself. Not that he knew much about cooking to begin with. He just pressed a button and fresh meals would get made pre-prepared for him. In his University days, it was the epitome of efficiency for him. Even after getting picked up by Dr. Kbom, he was still eating Auto-Cooked food.
It was only after he met Helen and she introduced him to the world of Home made meals that his perception about food changed. Helen was a great cook and always preferred to cook her own food. After eating the Food made by her, Kita couldn't eat the Auto-Cooked food anymore. Although he'd still eat it from time to time. But if given the choice, he'd take the food she prepared anytime.
"The chicken has cooked nicely, It melts in my mount", Kita savored the taste and feeling of the chicken and rice.
"Hehe, I added my special ingredient to make it that soft. Otherwise, it wouldn't be done so fast."
In this modern day and age, chicken were no longer the same as old chickens. They were long detached from the genes of their ancestors and were modified to meet the demands and nutritional needs of the modern human civilization who didn't have time to rear chickens. Chicken currently were bigger, Slower, Grew more meat on their bones and tasted better than traditional old-earth chicken. All thanks to gene modifications. These chickens were grown in automated farms that produced an astonishing number of chickens everyday.
But a down side to this was that it took some time to cook it up. As the meat was more stiff that got really tender when cooked, it took some time to tenderize. But this was an acceptable outcome as Auto-Cooks were equipped with the necessary tools to deal with it. So, most people didn't care about such stuff anymore. All they cared was having their meals prepared when they were hungry.
Helen was quite a good cook. She always prepared their dinners and whenever they ate together, she always prepared the meals for both of them. They enjoyed eating with each other as they felt more warm inside to be able to eat with the one they loved.
"How is it Kita? Do you like it?", Although she knew that Kita always enjoyed the meals she made, but she still wanted to hear it from him.
"Yes, It's the best!", Kita replied instantly.
Helen was quite pleased when she heard it. It was fulfilling to her when she heard praises of her cooking.
"Have you heard about the latest data that came off of the 4 planets? It may be that there's walkable land on the surface. It's almost like an Terrestrial Planet at this point."
"Except the heavy gravity and the toxic gasses in the air. Also the volatile temperatures."
"Yes, can't forget those."
Helen gave a laugh. Although the conditions on the planet right now might seem to be quite good that could potentially be habitable for certain species who can survive the toxic gasses, but for human, the conditions were no where close enough.
"The magnetic fields of the planets are quite interesting. According the readings, they are horizontal compared to the plane of the system."
"All of them?"
"Yes, All of them."
"I wonder why."
"No idea, but as seeing that all of this is definitely by purpose, this choice might also be for a reason.", Helen was quite excited to find out. Anything related to such interesting planets always got her excited.