Don't Let Him Cook

Only Uncle can cook. Don’t let him.

Once a year, the cooking show “The Golden Spoon” films its finale in the Lozhkin family kitchen, and every year the same man cooks it: Uncle. He promised to join his father at the judges’ table the night they turn down his plate. They never have.

Tonight, the family has decided to help him.

He cooks. You get in the way.

Uncle isn’t a villain: he sincerely believes he’s saving dinner, and he cooks it properly, from his father’s recipe card. He sears the duck, flips it and lets it rest, gives the risotto nothing but hot stock, and whisks the beurre blanc over low heat. You don’t need to cook anything. You need his plate to fail: swap his salt for sugar, turn up the heat under the sauce, carry off a pan, snatch food out of his hands, slip something extra into his saucepan. Drop a pinch into his pan right in front of him, and he’ll say, “Good. You salted it.” It was sugar.

He sees everything right in front of him, and he turns toward noise. Use that: one of you makes a racket in the corner or politely asks “Uncle, how?”, and while he explains, another works behind his back. Get caught in the act and the judges give you a strike. Three strikes and you’re out the door, on the stairs: knock to be let back in, and shout so he turns toward the door while the others finish the job.

Every discovery hurts his feelings a little more: “Dad!”, then he walks straight through you as if you weren’t there, then “QUIET.” — and then something worse than shouting. And he learns: let him find the same trick twice and he picks up a habit. “Right. I count the pans now.”

At the end of the round, three judges taste his plate: Father, the show’s founder and Uncle’s dad, who calls everyone “son”; Margot, a critic and the author of a book called “No”; and Timur, an influencer who is already putting all of this in his stories. If they accept the plate, the round is his. If they don’t, it’s yours.

What’s in the game

Co-op: two on one screen, each with their own controller or half the keyboard. Or up to three online through Steam, from your friends list or with a code. Uncle is always played by the game, so nobody gets stuck being the chef, and you can play solo too. Three dishes: duck breast with cherry sauce and celery remoulade, porcini risotto, and zander with beurre blanc and asparagus. 105-second rounds, plus 15 seconds to rearrange the kitchen before he comes down. Original music, with a theme for every dish: jazz manouche for the duck, a tarantella for the risotto, a polka for the zander. Controller and Steam Deck support. Father teaches the rules himself: the show’s Charter, one Article at a time, right in the kitchen. Once, before your first dinner.