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There are a variety of enticing smells wafting from the kitchens, today. Sunshine, as is her habit, has been busy, and the budding springtime has infused her with a desire to experiment with new flavor combinations. So a sign can be found near the corner of the bar counter nearest the kitchen door, which reads:

Taste-testers needed.
Inquire within.
-Sunshine

Sunshine herself can be found in the kitchens, her blue, sunflower-dotted apron dusted with flour and powdered sugar, humming to herself as she works.

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Sinthia appears--it's honestly a little unsettling when she does that appearing-out-of-nowhere act, even if it's just that she's been quiet--and comes around to the kitchen itself, waiting for an opportune moment to greet Sunshine.

It may look a little odd, the small child in neat but completely unrelieved black next to the unusually colorful baker.

After years of depending on her eyesight for forewarning her of most approaches, Sunshine actually has learned to face the kitchen door when she is likely to become engrossed in her work. Most of the time.

So she looks up (with only a faint trace of surprise, for she was hoping people would come in) when she sees the unusual motion in the far reaches of her peripheral vision, her face easing into a smile when she sees who it is. The expression is accompanied by a faint flurry of unworded thoughts, memories of their first conversation, and the hope that Sinthia has been doing all right, that she's safe...

"Hey there, Sinthia," Rae greets her with a soft smile.

Well, she's not in danger of being shot at like the rest of the people she talks to at home. When he could go home. But that's probably not the definition of safe Sunshine meant.

"Hello," she replies softly with what might be the first hesitant twitches at a smile around the corners of her mouth. Sinthia likes Sunshine; she doesn't have to talk out loud and Sunshine doesn't think she's creepy. "I saw your sign." This by way of volunteering to be a taste-tester, but Sinthia has yet to fully understand the nuances of keeping a conversation going with a normal person.

Sunshine's smile brightens. "Would you want to help me taste-test some new recipes? I've got four here I'm trying to fine-tune."

On a large serving plate on the kitchen table is a crumble-topped, lavender-dotted pound cake with a couple of slices cut from it. It is still warm from the oven, smelling of chocolate and lavender and coconut and... tea, perhaps?

Beside it is a cake platter supporting a bundt cake dusted with powdered sugar and wreathed in delicate floral scents.

Another plate supports an array of freshly-glazed doughnuts smelling sharply of dry citrus and... faintly flecked with green?

The fourth plate bears a pile of small, glazed cookies, their scent mingling spicy heat with sweet citrus.

Sinthia looks at the plates, and the smells are so nice, and she actually smiles for once--it's little and doesn't last long, but it's there. "I'd like that. Everything smells so good," she says, gravitating towards the cake first.

She recognizes the smell of tea and of something florally-spicy and she loves it already. It smells so good.

Sunshine chuckles moving to fetch a fork for the girl and serve up a slice of the lavender and white chocolate and earl grey pound cake with the coconut and walnut crumble. "I'm glad. We eat first with our eyes and our noses, before we even take a bite. The look and smell of a dish are just as important as the taste."

"Knock-knock!"

That is Dr. Hannibal Lecter, sticking his head into the kitchen and saying the words, rather than knocking as such.

Sunshine looks up from kneading some pleasantly springy dough that looks to be in the middle of some enthusiastic gluten formation - likely a future pizza - and her expression says she had practically been expecting him.

"Hey, Dr. Letter," she greets him, dry as the dough before her isn't. "Come to offer your services to a baker in need?"

"Always," Dr. Lecter says. "I would be honoured."

"The warmer weather and everything starting to grow again has made me want to experiment, lately," she remarks. It is generally so, as the increasing daylight hours reawaken her own creative energy like a new leaves unfurling on the trees after the winter's cold darkness. She may not literally hibernate, but some part of her nearly does. "I've got four recipes I'm trying to fine-tune today."

On a large serving plate on the kitchen table is a crumble-topped, lavender-dotted pound cake with a couple of slices cut from it. It is still warm from the oven, smelling of chocolate and lavender, coconut and bergamot-laced tea.

Beside it is a cake platter supporting a bundt cake dusted with powdered sugar and wreathed in delicate floral scents.

Another plate supports an array of freshly-glazed doughnuts smelling sharply of dry citrus and... faintly flecked with green?

The fourth plate bears a pile of small, glazed cookies, their scent mingling spicy heat with sweet citrus.

Hannibal steps closer and inhales the scent, as if trying to determine where to start.

"May I have one of the orange and watercress donuts?" He finally says

She can't successfully suppress the faint smile that results as she steps away to wash her hands and serve up one of the doughnuts.

"I was surprised how much the flavor profile of the watercress changed upon baking. It lost nearly all of it's peppery bite, and turned... floral, earthy," she comments, serving up one of the doughnuts on a small plate, and setting it, a fork, and napkins before Dr. Lecter. "Something to ground the bright citrus."

"That is how I guessed what it is," Dr. Lecter says, inhaling the scent before taking the first bite. "That's an aspect of the herb hardly anybody knows about. Well done."

The glaze is sweet despite the dry citrus bite, dotted by candied beads of grapefruit juice that pop as one chews. The doughnut is light and fluffy in texture, the floral, earthy flavor of the watercress a pleasant counterpart to the citrus.

"Watercress is almost always used fresh - its usual associations are with freshness - so I'm not terribly surprised few folks try cooking it."

"Try everything once," Hannibal says. "Basil and cilantro are easily ruined by heat; wild garlic and watercress survive better than you'd think."

He takes a second bite.

"A friend of mine can only ever stand cilantro if it's been cooked," she remarks, amused. "It breaks down the whatsits, aldehydes, that make it taste like soap to her."

Why yes, former poorly-motivated student Rae Seddon had gone and looked it up. It's not every day someone tells her something she made tastes terrible to them.

"Which the rest of us find interesting about that herb in the first place," Hannibal muses. "I wonder what convolution of human evolutioncaused that marker to appear in the first place."

"No clue," Rae says, blithely, but it's an interesting mystery. "If it was originally caused by some genetic mutation or coding error it's probably the most benign one ever."

"Maybe it's related to the same... instincts? That make little kids dislike bitter foods they might develop a taste for as adults. Way back when it might have been an evolutionary advantage, making people less likely to accidentally eat poisonous plants, or something."

"That's hardwired into our development," Hannibal nods. "Children between three and say, ten, will often not eat anything they don't know and haven't been introduced to by their parents. Too much curiosity may lead to poisoning."

There is a faint snort of amusement from Sunshine. "Mom, Charlie and I used that to our advantage when my half-brothers were really little. A decoy plate of their own, and a little of what we wanted to introduce them to on our own plates, because it never failed that they would prefer what we were having to whatever was on their own plates. Even vegetables."

"A very clever way of dealing with the issue, and instinctually sound," Dr. Lecter nods. "What the grown-ups are having must be safe and good. Especially if they're told they might be too little for it."

"That was the fail-safe, if they still didn't want to try it after all our efforts. Suggest their disinterest was because they were too young for it."

Worked nearly every time.

"A weaponized form of 'the grass is always greener,' I suppose."

"The food is always tastier on the other plate," Hannibal nods. "Tell me, Rae, what was the most unexpected thing one of them did like?"

Edited 2019-04-08 21:51 (UTC)

Sunshine chuckles, shaking her head as she settles the dough she'd been working into a buttered mixing bowl, and covers it with a damp cloth.

"Calimari. Mom doesn't really like it that much, and Charlie wasn't expecting to have to fight the boys in order to get any for himself."

"The breaded, deep fried ring variety, or some other way of preparing them?" Hannibal asks.