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]

"So it is like cooking."

[sporesprouter]

"Basically, I guess. I think the simple steps work for most things, really."

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs. "You should tell that to some people back home. My home."

[sporesprouter]

"Not a lot of them go with the simple steps, then?"

[summerdude]

"Nah, it's all about complicating things as much as possible."

[sporesprouter]

"That doesn't sound like a way to get much of anything done, if you ask me."

[summerdude]

"Nah. But I guess they're not really interested in getting anything done."

[sporesprouter]

"But why?"

[summerdude]

Has Magnus never told Tress about this? "Everything is, like, prophesied," Magnus says. "So they're mostly just killing time."

[sporesprouter]

"Isn't it worth making the most of your time before you hit all the prophecies, though?"

[summerdude]

"That's what I keep saying!"

[sporesprouter]

"Because you have a good head on your shoulders."

[summerdude]

"Coming from you, Tress, that's a huge compliment," Magnus says. He squints at the oil. "How do we tell when it's hot enough?"

[sporesprouter]

She grabs a wooden spoon and sticks the end in the oil, looking at the bubbles. "It's ready."

[summerdude]

"Whoa." Magnus peers into the pan. "What did the spoon tell you?"

[sporesprouter]

"If bubbles form around it when you stick it in, it's ready. If it's bubbling really hard, though, you need to lower the temperature."

[summerdude]

"Cooking magic," Magnus breathes. "Okay. Now we put the stuff in the thing?"

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "Now we put the stuff in the thing."

[summerdude]

"In balls, right?" Magnus peers at their mixture and tries to shape some of it into a ball.

[sporesprouter]

"The recipe just says spoonfuls and then flatten them with a spatula."

[summerdude]

"Right." Magnus has read so many falafel recipes that they're all blurring together.

[sporesprouter]

"Would you like me to do one or two and then you can watch me and do the next?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, let's try it."

[sporesprouter]

Tress nods and scoops up a spoonful of the mixture, putting it in the oil and flattening it quickly with a spatula. "Oh, could you set out a few paper towels that I can put this on when it's done?"

[summerdude]

"Sure thing, boss," Magnus says, relieved to have clear tasks to complete.