“You and Reena have such a fascinating background. You know, we were in Turkey recently, and there was a mosque—”

“Ma, give ’em a minute to get in the door before bringing out the vacation pictures. Where’s Dad?”

“In the barn, feeding the princesses,” she told Duncan. “I’ll put another pot of coffee on. Make yourselves at home.” She smiled as she headed back into the kitchen.

“Princesses?” Nadim questioned as they made their way back outside.

“The goats,” Reena responded. “Careful with your fingers. Apparently they nibble.”

They found Doug in the barn. A strapping man with brown hair, he looked like he’d lived his life on this farm. After introducing himself, the princesses, and a Labrador retriever named Whiskey, Doug started chatting with his son about plans for upgrades to the building and the chicken coops, while Nadim scratched the dog behind his ears.

He dropped to his knees to get closer. “I miss my dogs in Africa. We always had German shepherds. Technically guard dogs, but they were always such sweethearts.” Interesting. Reena hadn’t been allowed a dog growing up.

A loud voice from outside prevented her from analyzing this new information. “This place is cuter than a Fisher-Price farm.”

Reena laughed. “Sounds like Shayne and Marley made it.”

After another round of introductions and a round of coffee served with homemade muffins, they were finally able to set up the barn. Doug found a large wooden folding table, which they placed in the middle of the room and covered with a cream linen tablecloth. A single-burner butane stove would suffice for cooking the egg curry, and Reena had brought her enormous wood chopping board for food prep. Marley added a few artfully arranged kitchen tools she snagged from Shirley’s kitchen and some cut flowers in old pottery, while Shayne plugged in the studio lights.

“Ready,” he said. “Go change, and then we can start initial shots of you two with the chickens and goats before we start cooking.”

For Nadim’s outfit, they’d picked a cream cable-knit fisherman’s sweater and paired it with his well-worn jeans. For Reena, dark skinny jeans and gray boots (thankfully her own this time), paired with a subtly embroidered teal cotton kurta-style top and a worn gray denim jacket. After a quick touch-up of makeup and a de-frizz of her hair, they were ready.

“Action!” Shayne yelled once they were in place.

“Howdy, folks!” Nadim said with a definite country drawl. Reena raised one brow at him.

“What?” he said, clearly hamming a bit for the camera. “When in Rome, right?”

“We’re not in Rome,” Reena said, looking directly at the camera. “But we are far from home! First, thank you to all the viewers who voted for us in round one. We’re excited to be in round two because the theme is farm-to-table!”

“So, we put a big table in the middle of a farm!” Nadim said, cheerily. “My beautiful bride-to-be here is going to teach me how to make a dish my grandmother made for me as a child—Zanzibar egg curry. But first, I’m going to teach her how to collect fresh eggs.”