[Closed Post: Cinnamon Roll]

[timebethine]

A few days' recovery have left Laertes feeling refreshed enough to return to his baking, although not quite ready to dive into anything particularly complicated. Thus, he abandons the more complex direktørsnegl recipe he'd been meaning to try in favor of perfecting the humble cinnamon roll.

The days are getting shorter--even Laertes can feel it, though his sense of time is poor. He can no longer rely on the sunrise to wake him at a decent hour for baking, and so today he's up a little before the sun, kneading the bready dough by hand rather than using the paddle of the stand mixer in the hopes that the physical exertion will wake him up a little. It's not working particularly well; his eyelids keep drooping.

Comments

[timebethine]

"My apologies," says Laertes. "Thou knowest more than I, clearly."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan shoots him a rueful look. "It was a good catch."

[timebethine]

"Respectfully, it was not." For want of something to do with himself, Laertes starts assembling ingredients for breakfast--just something simple, this time: eggs and bacon and rye bread for toast, as well as the end of a knob of butter. "Hast thou broken thy fast yet?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan gestures with her cooling cup of tea. "Just this, I'm afraid."

[timebethine]

"Then what wouldst thou have? And is it eggs, bacon, and toast?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, quite happily." Susan peers at Laertes's assembly. "What sort of bacon? I hadn't a clue there were so many varieties before I got here."

[timebethine]

"... are there?" Laertes glances down at the waxed paper package. "I only thought 'bacon,' and bacon appeared. I know not what variety it is."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I grew up on rashers, and learned of the joys of streaky bacon when I went to New York," Susan explains. "But the icebox has given me something different every time I've asked for bacon here."

[timebethine]

"Ah--so thou speakest not of the difference between a cut of bacon and guanciale, then? It's still cut from the belly of the pig, but of different quality?" Is the bacon he's looking at streaky? What's a rasher? He has no way of knowing.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan purses her lips thoughtfully. "Cuts of meat aren't an area of expertise," she admits. "But I believe rashers are mostly from the loin? With some belly attached. I do know that streaky bacon is so named due to the streaks of fat and meat."

[timebethine]

"I've cooked so many recipes with bacon, and not a one of them has specified," says Laertes as he starts heating a pan. "It seems as though it would matter; the fat hath a different texture than the flesh. Every time I think I understand this art a little, I find some new lurking ignorance."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan gestures at where the appliance that warms food is situated next to the icebox. "I'm - somewhat familiar with the icebox; we have appliances that cool food, in my London, but not ones that have an attached freezing implement. As for the appliance that warms food... I would never have fathomed such a thing before arriving here, but I found an entire cookbook dedicated to items you might make with just that one tool in the library last week."

[timebethine]

"Thou art a diligent study."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Perhaps Susan is more unpracticed in commiseration than she'd previously believed? "I'm mostly just trying to familiarize myself with the scope of resources here," she admits.

[timebethine]

"I think at times that its scope must be infinite," he says. "This stand mixer alone has saved me many hours of kneading, mixing, and whipping; what further wonders might await us, unrecognized by our unpracticed eyes?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I wonder the same," Susan says, and pauses for the briefest of moments. "I understand that time operates queerly here, bringing people and objects from different years - even among those who knew each other at home." Such as Lancelot and Galahad. "But I'm still shocked that the Mansion is able to produce things from Narnia."

[timebethine]

"Why so? It brought Tress spores from her world, which I think is less like ours than Narnia."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan goes to set the oven to preheat for her biscuits. She flicks a glance at him. "Why, because Narnia is no more."

[timebethine]

"But it was, once," he says. "In thine era of science and calamitous war, I would be no more, if I ever was to begin with. Dead upon the floor of a stage a thousand times over--yet here I am. I was, once, and therefore, here I may be again."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Perhaps," Susan allows. "But our world goes on turning, even if we have exited it to live in another. When Lucy was here she told me Narnia burned, flooded, and froze, and even the stars fell from the skies. I suppose that feels more impossibly inaccessible to me." She waves a hand, somewhat airily even though she doesn't feel particularly flippant about anything. "Or maybe I've just not wrapped my head around it all."

[timebethine]

"Then let us approach this in a spirit of inquiry," says Laertes, scraping bacon out of the skillet and turning off the stove. "Name some food that can only be found in Narnia. Describe it to me, and I shall try to produce it from thy description. I have not thy sense that Narnia is unreachable; I may be able to bring forth whatever thou canst not."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh! I meant - I've found some Narnian things, too, but never on purpose," Susan says. She's thinking, though. "There was an ancient old tree in the Lantern-Waste near the Western Wilds. It yielded fruits that looked like pale brown dates but tasted like the richest toffee, with a soft, sweet center instead of a pit."

[timebethine]

Laertes considers what she's describing for a long moment, the way he had the pavenders. He tries to imagine the taste--the sweet richness of dates and toffee, the soft chewiness of the center. The light caramel color, and the tautness of the skin; he's never seen what dates look like on the palm, but he imagines them full in their ripeness.

The first thing he pulls out from the refrigerator is a plate of dates stuffed with pistachio paste, cream cheese, and brown sugar, which look extremely tempting; however, he can easily tell they're not what Susan is looking for. He concentrates again, and pulls out something that looks halfway between a date and a fig. "This?" He asks, passing the fruit to her.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

It's close but wrong, somehow, but it takes until Susan breaks the fruit open and tries a bite that she realizes what. "I'd forgotten," she says. "When at their ripest, the fruits had a syrupy juice that would get all over absolutely everything."

[timebethine]

"The same taste of toffee in the juice? Or a different sweetness?"