Two pups, two muns

[cook_the_rude]

Today, Dr. Hannibal Lecter and a ten-year-old redhead known to be a younger version of Milliways' favourite baker are busy in the kitchen, making ice cream.

It's a slightly unusual kind, and involves grinding up gingerbread.

Comments

[herr_bookman]

"Chocolate with brownies sound amazing," Autor says, fetching a small pot from the cabinet. "Well, I think so, anyway. I've never had a brownie."

And after he told the seventeen-year-old Rae that he would. "What about peanut butter?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"How have you never had a brownie, Autor?" the girl's eyebrows lift in the mild horror of one who likes making food finding their friend lacks an Experience.

"Strawberry-cheesecake ice cream sounds wonderful," she adds, grinning at the possibilities. "We could do a whole line of cake and pie and brownie and cookie-based ice cream flavors."

[cook_the_rude]

"A veritable ice cream party!" Dr. Lecter says. "Those are all excellent suggestions."

[herr_bookman]

Autor heads to the fridge to acquire a stick of butter, which he cuts a third of a cup from. He places that in his pot along with the herbs and garlic and turns on the heat to melt it all together.

"I don't know, Rae. You'd think I would, given who my mother is, but I have no idea," Autor says. "It's sort of a travesty, isn't it? I'll fix that. But we'll have to make brownies sometime--and then brownie ice cream."

The butter melts, and it stirs the bubbly mixture with a spatula. Gears turn in his head. "Making ice cream for the whole bar would be quite the challenge. We could have it out by the lake."

[sunbaked_baker]

"That would be fun," says the girl, grinning. "But we'd likely have to wait for it to not be the middle of winter for everybody to want to go outside and have ice cream. Summer would be better."

Though, summer is always better, in her opinion.

[cook_the_rude]

"Unless we do it at the Caribbean inlet," Dr. Lecter says.

[herr_bookman]

"An ice cream party in winter?" Autor says, raising his brows. He stirs his butter mixture a bit more, the delicious garlicky smell wafting up from the pot.

Then he calls a glass container with a lid out of his sylladex, and removes the pot from the heating element to cool a bit. "That'd be a lot of work. How many flavors would you have? As many as you could make?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"They'd still have to get their coats and mitten just to get to the party, if it were out at the tropical inlet at the lake," Rae considers. "I just figured that if the party were in summer, people might already be looking for a way to cool off. Ice cream and swimming in the lake would sound really good, then."

"We'd have as many flavors as we could think up, and manage to make," she answers Autor, figuring that All the flavors! is probably not a feasible answer. Not at the end of the universe.

[cook_the_rude]

"In that case," Dr. Lecter says, "all the fresh fruit from the gardens, too. Rhubarb. Strawberries. Black currants. Raspberries."

[herr_bookman]

"Apple cinnamon, perhaps," Autor says, pouring his garlic butter sauce into the glass container. "Peach. Key lime. Or even rose-flavor, I bet that would be delicious."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Ooooooh," Rae heartily agrees with all of these. But some part of her won't let her go without making a contribution. "Maybe even combinations like.... mmm... strawberry-mint, or ginger-peach."

"Do you think rose ice cream could be made like you made the rose cupcakes, Dr. Lecter? With rose water, and rose jam?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Exactly like that!" Dr. Lecter says. "Excellent idea, you two!"

[herr_bookman]

Autor falls silent, sealing the lid on his butter sauce. He doesn't particularly like that he's giving Dr. Lecter excellent ideas, and participating in the conversation. It sounds like the man already had that idea, too.

His butter sauce is done, too, so there's really no reason for him to stick around after the dishes are done. The boy carts them to the sink, ruffling Rae's hair in passing.

[sunbaked_baker]

The hair-ruffling makes the girl laugh, scrunching up her eyes as her hair is mussed.

"You're just lucky you're too tall for me to reach!" she teases Autor, sticking out her tongue in retaliation as she un-musses her hair.

[cook_the_rude]

"See," Dr. Lecter says. "A good cook always cleans up after himself. Autor has learned that as well!"

[herr_bookman]

Autor ignores Dr. Lecter, and turns to Rae with a small smile, rolling his sleeves up. "That's the first time I've been the one to be too tall for anything."

He fills the sink with soapy water.