Spoon Acquired. Now that Madeleine has a tool that's up to the current challenge, eating is easy. She stirs together the remains of everything left on her plate into the rice and then dumps both sets of pickled vegetables on top.

Bon Appétit. 

...Ok no the sauerkraut in particular isn't supposed to go [i]on[/i] this. But, too late now. Spoonful after careful spoonful disappears at a steady rhythm that suggests she's given up on tasting anything. She does not speak or look up, and only occasionally pauses for water, which she drinks in too-large gulps and runs out of well before her plate is empty. 

There is one brief moment where her eyebrows lift and she stares at the spoon instead of using it, having just registered where it had been. Or rather whose mouth. She turns a very slight pink, but resumes her rhythm with a tiny shake of her head. The rest of the world, even this apartment, does not exist until her plate is empty. 

She breaches the surface of this momentary bubble, quiet and still. No promise, but no rejection. No comment, but no dismissal. And now...

She shakes her head.

"I went once, but I got turned away. They said there was a prize pool, and the number was too high for me. I still remember... the laughter, when I turned and walked away. The official amateur circuit was easier to join. That I did online. The fee was higher, but they had financing. I did courier work. Before I was... myself. It was very bad. But I looked good in the hat."