(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

(Not-Actually-OOM: A few days ago, Gavroche and Sunshine come to the conclusion that it's better to show someone you're still their friend than abandon them when things get complicated. The trick is finding the right balance.)

When Sunshine comes in from the kitchen, today, she has a plate of food - a full meal, really - in addition to her tray of baked goods. The plate holds a sizable slice of broccoli-cheese quiche, a spinach and mixed greens salad with raspberries, feta cheese, candied pecans and a homemade vinaigrette dressing, and some toasted quinoa with carrots, sweet peppers, corn and caramelized onions. Though vegetarian, everything in it is a good source of iron and protein. On a smaller plate, for dessert, she includes one of her humongous cinnamon rolls.

She leaves the plate and cinnamon roll with with the bar, with instructions that they are for Jason Todd.

A peace offering, and a sign she doesn't want their friendship to be over, though she knows neither of them is probably ready to confront this yet. They'll work through it, though, eventually. That's what friends do.

Once the plate has been delivered to the Bar, Rae starts arranging her tray of baked goods for sale, and puts up a sign:

Sunshine's Freshly-Made Baked Goods
Cinnamon Rolls As Big As Your Head: $4
(Extra Icing: $.50)
Bitter Chocolate Death: $3.50
Death of Marat: $4 (only two available)
Caramel Cataclysms: $3
Lemon Lechery: $3
Rocky Road Avalanche: $3
Chocoholia: $3
Hell's Angelfood: $2:75
Meringuamania: $2.00
As-Of-Yet Unnamed Chocolate Cake with Pecans, Ginger Fudge, Pistachios, and Sea Salt
Help me name it, and get a slice for free!

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Why would any put much salt in a cake?" Teja asks, stopping by her baked goods. "Are they not supposed to be sweet?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine smiles at him, looking up from arranging the tray for display. "It's not in the cake so much as sprinkled on top with the pistachios. Salt helps to accentuate sweetness."

[ostro_goth]

"There is so much to be known about food, and baking," Teja says, slowly shaking his head, as if at himself. "It is not something I have ever had much dealings with."

Cake is something to give to others -- as a tribute to Atton Rand, or as something to calm an excited child.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Food isn't a simple subject, it's true," Rae replies, smiling. "There's always more to find out. Would you like to try to cake, to see what I mean about the salt?"

[ostro_goth]

"It might be wasted upon me," Teja says. "I do not usually eat sweet things."

Unless Pyrrha makes them and gives them to him as a matter of course.

[sunbaked_baker]

"People have an odd notion of what 'wasting' something means," Rae murmurs. "Then how about an example?"

With a brief request to the bar, two soft caramel squares appear on a small plate. "This one is a straight caramel - it's sweet, yeah, but the other one is the same caramel with rough salt sprinkled on top. I'd bet you'd be able to tell the difference, and how the salt affects the sweetness of the caramel."

[ostro_goth]

"I may need the remedial lessons," Teja says, taking the straight caramel first, and eating it.

"Others are so much better at this than I am. Like Doctor Lecter, for example."

[collects_strays]

This time, Graham knew that when his cell door clicked open, he wasn't dreaming. He had no chance of sleeping, didn't bother trying, didn't want to try. He'd been sitting up on his cot, back flat against the wall. When he wasn't seeing the floor, he was in a sunlit field in Hibbing, Minnesota.

When the door unlatched, he had the strange inkling it was because he'd wanted it to.

On the other side of it, he's not sure what to do. The clatter and voices of the bar don't feel like part of his mind, but still seem unreal. Or he feels unreal, walking through it, like he's not sure he's the one that's really there. Eventually, he stops in front of Rae's sign, reading it without looking to her.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae is scooting the oval, high-sided dishes containing the two Death of Marat over to make room for a stack of Meringuamanias, when she notices Will's approach.

He looks... different, than the last time she saw him. Admittedly, she does, too. Last time she had seen him, she had been dressed to accompany Dr. Lecter to the opera, with all of her scars on display. She looks more like herself, now. Colorful t-shirt and jeans and sneakers.

"Hello again," she greets. Her smile is mild, just in case he doesn't feel like chatting.

[collects_strays]

Graham moves to look to her. The mildness in her smile feels like the absent barrier between them.

He takes a breath, glancing down to the floorboards, and then back up again.

"Hello, Rae."

[sunbaked_baker]

"You doing all right?" the non-pushy friendliness of a coffeehouse baker, referencing the prison jumpsuit he's wearing by not directly referencing it. But her manner holds no surprise at seeing it; Rae has already heard that Will spends some time in jail, but also has heard that he is innocent, and is eventually released.

"Can I get you anything to eat?"

[collects_strays]

"No."

There's a part of him, a piece of himself that has yet to wilt, that cringes back at that. At refusing another's kindness when offered through food; at ever refusing a meal when you can be certain of having it.

But Graham just lifts his eyes away from her, toward the rafters. "Please don't do that."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae blinks at him, understanding that he's not doing all right - she wouldn't be either, if she were in prison for something she didn't do (thanks, Goddess of Pain) - but not understanding the request.

"Don't... do what?"

[equal_of_any_man]

"Mademoiselle Seddon." Olivier presents himself with a deep bow of respect, greeting her with the honour or Dr Lecter's esteem (He hasn't heard yet) "It would seem you have brought great bounty to the Bar. Everything smells most wondrous!"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Thank you, Olivier," smiles the baker, pleased at the compliment. In return for the bow, she offers a makeshift curtsey with the frill of her sunflower-dotted apron. It's heartfelt, if obviously from someone for whom the movement isn't customary.

"Would you like to try anything from the tray? There's something to fit just about anyone's tastes."

[equal_of_any_man]

"I would be glad to try the 'Death of Marat mentioned by Dr Lecter but if they are so few, I would be loathed to rob another of it. Perhaps you can recommend something? I have a great love of chocolate."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Nah, you'd not be robbing anybody of it," she grins at him, setting one of the oval, high-sided dishes down in front of him on the bar. It looks a little like a porcelain bathtub, the crust even with the rim a light, flaky, innocuous-looking pastry crust. "I only make a couple of them because they're a right pain to make."

Light, flaky crusts hiding dramatically dark and heavy fruit fillings are really hard to get right. This one hides a filling of blackberries and raspberries, an ominous purple-red color that tends to spurt over the edge of the 'bathtub' a trifle dramatically, when one's fork first breaks through. Much like the blood of Marat, assassinated in his bathtub.

"If you like chocolate, though, I also have a new experiment I'm trying to get peoples' opinions on, if you'd like to taste-test."

[equal_of_any_man]

His eyes go wide at the sight of the dessert. "It looks quite splendid." He knows nothing of Marat so what he sees is richness without an air of horror.

"But I think your chocolate creation would be more my tastes. I mean no insult to your art."

[sunbaked_baker]

"No insult taken - though if you would like to try both, you're certainly welcome to," Rae grins, exchanging the Marat for a generous slice of the white-chocolate-chip and pecan chocolate cake, topped with dark chocolate and fresh ginger fudge, the top of which is sprinkled with pistachios and sea salt.

With fork and napkin.

[lt_blade]

Sonya's been too busy back home to have maybe more than a sandwich at meals back home, if she's able to make herself eat. When she arrives in milliways, she looks like one who hasn't really eaten in awhile.

Rae's food always smelled good, but it's sweet and she's not sure she could handle something sweet for the time being. "Anything with ginger in it?"

She wasn't sure about the chocolate cake, but something with ginger should help. Much as she was too busy to eat, she knew it was something she had to do.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I do," she says, watching Sonya approach. "You don't look like you need chocolate cake with ginger fudge, though, to be honest."

Though not all of Rae's baked goods are sweet, Sonya looks like she needs real food.

"I have half of a broccoli-cheese quiche, some toasted quinoa pilaf with veggies, and spring salad with feta cheese, strawberries and homemade salad dressing back in the kitchen, if that'd suffice. I can make some ginger tea to go with it."

[lt_blade]

"Right now sweet things aren't really settling at the moment." Sonya couldn't exactly say that they'd make her sick, but she wasn't sure she could take them at the moment.

She had no idea was quinoa was, but the thought of vegetables that weren't canned or cooked to death sounded more appealing than whatever was written on the board. "It'd more than suffice. Should carry me over for the rest of the day." She thought a moment. "I'll take black tea though, if there's any."

Her stomach wasn't upset, just in serious rejection of anything overly sweet.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I can make that just as easily," she nods, setting the kettle on to heat before stepping towards the kitchen door. "Give me a sec, and I'll make you a plate."

[lt_blade]

Sonya wasn't even sure she could bring herself to eat. Hell, the only reason she was in milliways was because it showed up, not necessarily because she wanted to take a rest. Still, rationally she knew she was doing herself no favors by starving herself, and lord knew the food in the mess hall never stimulated one's appetite.

Another good thing about milliways, even the vegetarian cooking was good.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine will always look askance at people who think 'vegetarian' is a label that food has to make up for, in some way. As though it were a disability for which to compensate.

Rae comes back with the plate of food - a balanced meal, delicious and full of iron and protein. Broccoli-cheese quiche, a spinach and spring greens salad with raspberries, feta cheese, candied pecans and a homemade vinaigrette, and a toasted quinoa pilaf with carrots, corn, sweet peppers and caramelized onions.

And a teapot, as well, just in time for the kettle to start whistling.

"Here you go," she says, setting down plate and silverware for Sonya, before turning to pour the boiling water into the teapot to let it steep.