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]

And Magnus, who missed that part, groans, loudly and evocatively. "Why does cooking take so much time, Hanguang-jun?"

[lightbearinglord]

"It is a lesson in patience and planning." There's a tiny quirk of fondness at the edge of Lan Wangji's mouth. He has more serious matters to discuss with Magnus anyway; perhaps they can use that wait.

[summerdude]

"This is why they invented delivery pizza," Magnus grumbles.

[lightbearinglord]

"They have yet to invent delivery pizza where I am from," Lan Wangji says, calmly peeling an onion skin. "That must be why I am patient." Obviously not. Wei Ying also grew up without the benefit of delivery pizza.

[summerdude]

Okay, okay, that coaxes a little laugh from Magnus. "Yeah," he says. He's been watching every move Lan Wangji makes like a hawk, trying to quietly learn from it; the peeling of the onion is no different. "That must be it."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji makes fairly short work of chopping the requisite ingredients. Once they are finished, arranged into orderly piles, he also goes to retrieve the green peas the recipe instructs them to include.

[summerdude]

Magnus, meanwhile, goes off in hunt of a food processor. This is made a little difficulty by the fact that he doesn't know what they look like. "Hey, Hanguang-jun?" he calls. "What do you do when you're looking for something but you don't know what it looks like?"

[lightbearinglord]

It is at this point that Lan Wangji becomes cognizant of the probability that Magnus may be no better-qualified to operate a sharp blender than he himself is. He pauses, thinking. "Look it up," he says.

[summerdude]

"Is there a guide to kitchen appliances somewhere?"

[lightbearinglord]

"The library is expansive." Lan Wangji pours the peas into a bowl. "I am no help to you." At least this is a somewhat more entertaining context in which to contend with the fact that Magnus was born more a thousand years after he was.

[summerdude]

It feels silly to go all the way to the library to find a food processor. Magnus goes instead to the pantry and starts poking around until he sees a machine that looks vaguely familiar. It has a blade and stuff. He takes it out and brings it back into the main kitchen.

[lightbearinglord]

The object Magnus has produced does bear some resemblance to the blender they used when they made tamales with Sagramore. Choosing to believe that Magnus has not erred, Lan Wangji begins depositing the ingredients within it, one by one.

[summerdude]

Magnus sorts out the plug and figures out how to get the blade situated with a little jiggling and trial and error, then helps Lan Wangji add ingredients.

Once they're all in, he pushes the button. It doesn't start. "Huh."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji watches this with no particular change in his expression. He looks at Magnus. Regrettably, he has no cultivation techniques that will recreate the abilities of a food processor, as far as he can tell.

[summerdude]

Magnus wracks his memory. His mom had one of these, he's pretty sure? She called it something else, though. A brand name, maybe? It had--

"A lid?" he guesses. "Maybe it needs the lid. I'm gonna find the lid." He goes to find the lid.

[lightbearinglord]

"The blender had a lid," Lan Wangji agrees solemnly. He awaits Magnus' return.

[summerdude]

Magnus finds a reasonable-looking lid and brings it back. After a few moments of fumbling, he figures out how to twist it on and lock it into place. In doing so, he also twists the handle of the food processor around. It's not on purpose, but it makes the same latching sound, so -- maybe that was what this needed? He tries the button again.

"It works!" he exclaims, looking over at Lan Wangji excitedly.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji gives him a warm look in return. It strikes him with that fondness every time, seeing Magnus smile -- always, but especially recently. He hopes that what he has to tell him shortly will not add too much additional weight to his shoulders. "We are instructed to pulse it eight times, then add the remaining ingredients and begin the chilling process."

[summerdude]

"Pulse," Magnus repeats. The button -- it's really more of a lever -- did a single little whir and then stopped. That's maybe a pulse? Experimentally, he flips it the other way.

It latches in and keeps going. Hastily he flips it down again. "Okay. Pulse." He pulses it six more times, then grins at Lan Wangji, proud of figuring out the food processor.

[lightbearinglord]

"Well done," Lan Wangji says to him. It did not appear overly difficult, but he couldn't have so much as identified this appliance himself, so Magnus' presence was certainly necessary. Summarily, he gathers the remaining ingredients -- flour, baking soda, salt, and spices -- and tips them into the mixture before replacing the lid. "Pulse a few more times," he instructs Magnus.

[summerdude]

Magnus pulses it three more times, then squints at it (what is he looking for? Who can say!) and pulses it a fourth.

[lightbearinglord]

The recipe asks for the mixture to be well-blended. Lan Wangji also considers it for a moment, then produces a bowl from a cupboard beneath the counter. "Place it in here and then cover it."

[summerdude]

"Yes, sir, Hanguang-jun, sir," says Magnus, obeying. He seems to have become sous chef in this endeavor, but he's not mad about it.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji watches as Magnus covers the bowl. He takes it and places it in the refrigerator, shutting the door with the refrigerator's characteristic little thump as it falls into place. Eight hours. Four shichen. That is more than enough time, he hopes. He turns back to Magnus with a slightly more serious demeanor -- a subtle difference, but one Magnus is likely to notice. "I have news to deliver while we wait."

[summerdude]

Magnus, of course, does notice, and his spine straightens automatically. "News?"