(no subject)

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet is positively gleeful when he sees the Bar's napkin-request that he manage happy hour. The call to duty! And he is prepared! His recent adventures brought him through a used book shop, where he found a volume that spoke to his needs: Les Boissons américaines, ou la Manière de préparer les coktails--cobblers--coolers--crustas--daisies--egg nogs--fixes--fizzes--flips--juleps--sours--slings--smashes--limonades--sangarees--punches--grogs--toddies--pousse-cafés--cups--Etc. Etc. 156 recipes, all from the moment the centuries were about to turn. What a world, what a time!

Bossuet may be the kind of idiot who wanders off into the labyrinth for fun, but he's not completely mad. He's not offering to make absolutely anything in the book. But he picked a couple of recipes whose names amused him. Specials today?

Kiss-Me-Quick
Pick-Me-Up

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

"Already putting that expedition to good use," Dr. Lecter remarks.

He wanders up to the bar, looking relaxed and content in shirtsleeves and a cook's apron.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Waste not a moment, that's my motto!" No it isn't, not even a little bit. "If you're in the kitchen, I expect I can make something to go with it."

[cook_the_rude]

"I'm making salad with cold roast beef," Dr. Lecter says. "And I'll share, if you can suggest something interesting to go with it."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Interesting, yes. Interesting and enjoyable with cold roast beef, though..." Hmm. He flips through the book. "It's all apéritifs, of course. To go with a meal, hmm. Would it support a Metropolitan? Vermouth, cognac, bitters."

[cook_the_rude]

"It's an interesting idea," Dr. Lecter says. "We can be wildly unconventional and try."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Probably something less strong would be better, but-- "I'm open to experimentation. And I have the ingredients out already, which is a point in its favor. I'll make us two, and if they come out badly I'll drink them both and suffer for my ineptitude?"

[cook_the_rude]

"That is a good offer," Dr. Lecter says. "I shall be back with the salad in a moment."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Excellent." Lesgle mixes up the drinks, whistling cheerily to himself. He stayed up nearly all night matching up maps of Paris, but if he's tired it doesn't show.

[cook_the_rude]

Dr. Lecter returns soon with a plate of salad for each of them, dark with bloodwort and beetroot and rare cold roast beef.

"So, let us start the experiment!"

[morethanprops]

Moist is looking cleaner than the last time he was in, he's still traveling but in better condition.

His suit is tweed and a little worn but clean, "Are the specials requests or drinks?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet grins. "I chose them for the names." Not that that answers the question, but hey. "Which will it be for you?"

[morethanprops]

"They're good names and lines. Kiss Me Quick, I think."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet winks and leans forward--to scoop up a proper glass for the cocktail. It mingles absinthe, curaçao, and bitters. Hopefully Moist von Lipwig is a brave man. "Now, where are you coming from?"

[morethanprops]

"The road from Genua," His accent is something that could be European but its a little off. He watches the mixing curiously.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Genoa?" His accent is hard to place, but Milliways' translations do that anyway.

Sadly, the link for Bossuet's 1899 recipe is not working, but while his mun is unable to read it, he himself is surely better provided. It's a fine performance.

[morethanprops]

"Genua, lovely place in its own way, swampy but pretty and good food,"

Along with lots of rich and foolish people.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

The recipe (now available again to Bossuet's mun) calls for a large straw; the one that comes to hand is brilliant green and bent into a humorous shape. "And there. You're my first customer for a Kiss-Me-Quick; you'll have to tell me if it's as good as anything in--Genua." Not, apparently, Genoa.

[lark_in_flight]

It's a change -- and, to be honest, a bit of a comfort -- to see someone behind the bar who dresses like a normal person. It's also a change to see someone behind the bar at all; Cosette has missed all Happy Hours thus far, and only spoken to Bar herself.

It's that that catches her attention and draws her curiously nearer, before she even looks at the Specials list. And thus before her mun has to decide if the Milliways translation field tells her what the drink names mean.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle is looking uncharacteristically respectable these days, what with leaving his old coat back at the barricade, though at the moment he's quite happily adorned with an inn-keeper's apron and a bar towel over his shoulder. Playing bartender is fun. And it makes it all the more suitable to grin a grin at a pretty young girl who looks like she might want to come up to the bar. "Mademoiselle. What a pleasure to see a familiar cut of sleeves in a place like this."

[lark_in_flight]

Cosette is a respectable engaged woman, but she's not above a little flirting without intent. Her smile back is smaller and more reserved, but it's there, and she approaches closer to the bar.

(She doesn't say that she quite likes this dress and its sleeves, thank you, but she does preen a little privately. Cosette's father and fiancé have very little appreciation of fashion, so usually Toussaint is the only one who even thinks about the cut of sleeves with her.)

"It is such a strange place, isn't it, monsieur? But you, you must be French -- you sound perfectly French, if Milliways isn't playing one of its silly tricks."

She's a little flirty, but not so much as to talk about his outfit right back and right away; it's too close to complimenting him on his looks, she feels, and that is too flirty for a respectably engaged woman.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

She's quite right. Even Lesgle, shameless reprobate that he is, wouldn't have gone so far as to comment on her dress if he weren't in the role of aubergiste.

But he is, and he beams at her. "As French as Mère Michel's cat, and I've ended up in a café just the same--on the preferable side of the table. Did you come here from Paris, perhaps, Mademoiselle?"

((EESH the baby kept grabbing the computer and manage to post this mid-sentence at least once, sorry.))

[lark_in_flight]

His smile is infectious, and she finds her own brightening in response. "Why yes. Paris of January, 1833, isn't that what I'm supposed to say? Are you the proprietor, monsieur?"

[Hee, I've done that a time or two without even a grabby baby as excuse. No worries!]

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Sadly no--I'm simply behind the bar for the evening. Sometimes I think if I serve enough drinks I'll work off my tab, but then again hardly anyone ever offers to pay me so the Bar may need to rethink her strategy."

(Talking gives him time to pull together in his memory everything Enjolras had said before about people here from their Paris. Gavroche's sister was here, but this doesn't seem likely to be her; the old volunteer and his daughter came here. Valjean was his name, but he had wanted to be called--oh, something else, something with an F. Delicate ground, perhaps. --And, and, how could he have forgotten the best part!-- she was engaged to Marius Pontmercy. Well, well. Nice work, Marius.) "Is there anything I can serve you while we're both here?"

[lark_in_flight]

"Yes, if you please."

She casts an uncertain glance at the specials board, which the mun has decided hasn't translated the English drink names. Accordingly, the only word in there she can even guess at is Me, and she might be wrong.

She doesn't spend much time in the ordinary sort of cafés, particularly ordering a drink at the bar rather than a meal from a server. But she wouldn't mind a drink, and she's curious about this job of his and about meeting a countryman -- and she feels sorry for him if he's not being paid properly, even if he seems unconcerned. She can certainly spare the cost of a glass. "As often as not I ask Bar to recommend me something new. Have you ever -- oh, that's silly, you must have spoken with her. Isn't she nice? I suppose I'll have a hot chocolate, please." It's winter at home, even if everything is sunny and green here, and at Milliways the indoors is never too hot or too cold.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Bar is a pearl beyond price. And--hmm, hot chocolate." His mind has been on sherbets and lemonades and light fizzy soda mixes, but yes, she'd said January, hadn't she. Lesgle's been at Milliways for enough cool summer mornings to have worked out at least a bit about the coffee and chocolate machines. He'll...try not to break anything. (Of course, he could just ask Bar, but it's a point of pride. He's running happy hour, damn it all.)

It makes boiling-water noises behind him that he hopes are normal. "...So how fares Paris in January, 1833?"