New Plan, Step One: Provide For My Community [open]

[summerdude]

Magnus needs something to change, so when a Mansion calendar helpfully informs him that it's International Falafel Day back on Earth, he goes to the library for some cookbooks, and then to the kitchen.

He lays out ten different falafel recipes. He gathers the ingredients they list, as best as he can understand them. He has canned chickpeas and fresh chickpeas and dried chickpeas and chickpea flour and box mixes of falafel that say 'just add water!'

Cripes.

"I can do this," he says, peering at the assorted recipes intently for a good ten minutes, and then takes the dried chickpeas over to the sink to rinse and soak.

Comments

[summerdude]

"Hmmmm." Magnus puts down the recipes and pokes at the chickpeas. They are pretty hard. "Why?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know. I think some things just take time."

[summerdude]

"Very profound, dude," Magnus says, now thinking of the half-ripened body under the pavilion. He pulls out a recipe that uses the fresh chickpeas he found in the back of the fridge and passes it over to Galahad. Something about it seems weird, but he can't put his finger on what, and it's not like he actually knows how food works, so. "Wanna help me figure out how to get 'em out of their pods?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad skims the recipe to make sure there are no secrets of timing that Magnus has failed to notice and, satisfied, nods. He fetches a cup measure for the chickpeas and a bowl for the pods -- he diligently saves all vegetable scraps for the compost whenever he cooks -- and then picks up one of the chickpeas. It looks fairly straightforward to shell. His gaze flicks to Magnus.

[summerdude]

Magnus is reading the recipe over and over again, convinced he's missing something. He glances up. "What?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"They don't look hard to shell."

[summerdude]

"I've never shelled beans before," Magnus says, putting the recipe down and coming over.

[onthewillowsthere]

"They're soft." He cracks one of the pods with his thumb and opens it, sliding out the green chickpea inside. It's just like shelling peas at the nunnery.

[summerdude]

"Huh. Wild. Is this the same thing as removing the skins?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has cooked with regular chickpeas before, in his experiments with Laertes, so he knows what he's talking about when he says, "No, they have another skin."

[summerdude]

"Some of the recipes say they should be skinned, too."

[onthewillowsthere]

"This one doesn't.

[summerdude]

"Dude, did you know that flours weigh different?" Magnus asks then, shelling a chickpea of his own. He breaks the pea in half, inspecting its components. The skin does seem really inoffensive.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Laertes and I always use the scale instead of the cups."

[summerdude]

"It makes sense but it's also, like, dang," Magnus says. He shells another chickpea. "How do those gluten-free guys do it?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"What is gluten-free?"

[summerdude]

"People who can't have, like, wheat stuff. Because it makes them sick. They have to use different kinds of flour."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you think anyone here is gluten-free?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. He has no earthly idea. "Sunny might be kosher," he says. "Well, she didn't say she was, so she's probably not. But she's Jewish so she might be kosher some day. Um, that's a totally different thing. Tally's vegetarian... which is also a different thing. I think Hanguang-jun might be mostly vegetarian even though he cooks meat? But those are the only dietary restrictions I know about."

[onthewillowsthere]

"We should ask. We should keep a list." Claudius would like to know, he thinks, and so would Susan.

[summerdude]

"That's a really good idea," Magnus says. "What do you think, conversations? Sign on the table? Both?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Both. Sometimes people have to explain things."

[summerdude]

"Smart. Yeah. This'll be useful for the, like, food guys, too."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Who else is a food guy?" interested.

[summerdude]

"Well, there's the cooking food guys, like Laertes and Tress, and there's the growing food guys, like me and Uncle D, and then there's the hunting food guys, like Little John and Wei Wuxian. And the fishing food guys, like Mothwing and I think maybe Gideon is trying to be one, too?"