Delicious in Dungeon, Tuesday, Per 6

[sailor_meshi]

They were back on the second level today, since they were once again harvesting a special kind of plant monster. Rather than being on the rope bridges, however, they were making their way over tree branches the width of a regular street, with other kinds of vegetation growing off them them.

"This," Senshi said, holding up a root vegetable that bore a surprising resemblance to a person, "is a mandrake. Mandrakes are very nutritious and also real good for spell users, I guess, because they're full of mana, especially the heads. You can pack 'em even more full of nutrients by growing them in spirit-rich environments, but that's magic stuff and I don't really truck with that. All parts of mandrakes are edible, though they're kinda bitter for some folks' taste." There was a way to mellow out the taste, but he hadn't learned that one yet, class, sorry. "The problem is, of course, harvestin' 'em. When pulled out of the ground, mandrakes let out a scream that causes anyone that hears it to have a mental breakdown and usually die. If you pay close attention to the face, you can tell the one wasn't harvested yet and the one that was. In the first case, the one that was pulled up has both its eyes and it's mouth wide open for the scream, as opposed to the one that is still kinda restin'." He passed both mandrakes around for the class to study.

"Now, when you're foragin' for mandrakes, you find 'em by the crown of leaves that poke grow above ground. They got a kinda peppery scent to 'em, and look like a very loose head of lettuce. Now, when you find one to harvest, the trick is to kill it by cutting its head off before it has the chance to scream. You pull it up by the crown, gentle so the greens don't tear off in your hands, and just as you get the eyes uncovered, you position your knife, pull fast, and slice off the head as fast as you can, right above the little neck frill." Hunkering down, he demonstrated, his knife seemingly both fast and sharp enough to cut the wind, hand steady and stroke sure. "Because they're not proper monsters, cutting off the top of the head or anything won't 'kill' it, the whole head has to be removed if you want to stop it from screamin' when it's dug up."

Why? Because magic was weird, that was why. Don't ask.

"Now, mandrakes can basically go in everythin', but today we're gonna have 'em with basilisk eggs. We're gonna talk about basilisks next class, but for those who don't know, basilisks are a monster with the head and body of a chicken, and their tail is a snake - but not a snake tail, the snake half also has a head. Like a chicken, a basilisk lays eggs every two or three days, but their eggs look more like snake eggs, ovoid leathery shells and you can feel the insides kinda slosh around. Usually they're laid beneath low-hanging plants and bushes to keep them out of the sun and also sight of egg-stealin' predators. Basilisks don't make nests, but rather leave a layer of feathers beneath their eggs to rest on. If you end up fightin' off a basilisk, you can usually find yourself a nest somewhere in the vicinity. Basilisks don't like to stray far from their nests unless they're chasin' down somethin' they think is a threat. Since we're not dealin' with the basilisk today, the eggs are for takin', the real practice is gettin' the mandrakes out without lettin' 'em scream. Of course, their screamin' ain't gonna kill you or break your brain, but it is gonna be real loud and obnoxious, so learn fast."

This Sh*t is Bananas; Tuesday, Third Period [06/11].

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Today's featured recipe," Summer, who had brought a very large bottle of presumably water with her to class today, was so pleased to announce her lesson for today that she totally skipped right over the preamble to get right to it, "is not actually all that weird or disgusting,. I know, I know, who even am I anymore? But sometimes, I just come across something simply too good to not share with you guys, even if it goes outside the criteria of my whole disgusting oeuvre, so, yes, even though we're in the middle of June, we're getting a little Halloween-y as I present you..."

She dramatically removed the cloche.

"The banana spook cake! Ooo~ooooh! Isn't it spoooooky? And kind of ridiculous, right? This actually comes to us from the National Banana Association, because, look, they were pushing bananas hard in the mid-20th century, I'm sure that's something we can delve into and talk about if anyone really wants to, but this was yet another 'creative,'" she of course did the finger quotes, "way of making your bananas more fun and frightening! Plus it actually sounds kind of delicious? And I know you weirdos are going to have fun decorating your own bananas for ghosts. So we're doing it. We're making the banana spook cake.

"However," Summer gave a significant pause and a look toward the fact that there were two cloches, actually, "I can't let you guys think I'm getting soft, so we're also going to be making..."

Off went the cloche.

"tomato-banana tarts. Literally just bananas on tomatoes, probably with, like, mayo to hold them in place. Because why not? Two recipes, both scary in their own right, both for different reasons. Let's begin."

Make Your Own Pizza!, Monday, Period 2

[carbsliftthespirit]

When the students arrived for class today, they would find ingredients at their station: dough, sauce, mozzarella, and an assortment of your usual moddable pizza toppings. They would also find a very excited Raiden. "It's time to put it all together and make pizza!" he exclaimed. "At the restaurant, we have special ovens that get very hot and hold the heat very well. I've gotta get Castor to get one for our house back home, because all we have there--and what I'm guessing most of you have access to--is a regular household oven. But there are some tricks we can use to make it more like a pizza oven.

"If you look inside your ovens=-careful, they've been preheating for an hour--you'll see a baking steel, which is a heavy slab of, y'know, steel. All that mass is going to retain heat better and help the pizza cook more evenly. You can also use a baking stone, or special bricks, or a combination of those. The long preheat is key, too. It lets all that mass heat up evenly so it's ready for you when you need it. You'll also notice that the racks are placed close to the top of the oven, but not at the very top like they would be to use the broiler. On to the pizza!

"The first step is going to be shaping the dough. You don't have to toss it into the air and spin it, although that does look cool. Just follow along with me as I show you how to do it and you'll be fine." Once Raiden had walked them through that, he said, "And after that you can put the dough on the pizza peel and build your pizza there! You'll want to add sauce and cheese and whatever toppings you like. I'm particularly partial to sausage, myself, but there are no wrong choices here! Follow your heart. Then you're going to carefully slide the pizza off the peel onto your baking steel, and bake until it's golden brown and bubbly around the edges and all that cheese is melted and delicious.

"Are there any questions? Does anybody need any help with their pizzas? Please let me know!"

Earth Tourism, Tuesday 5th period

[unusual_sith]

Lana met everyone with her usual calm smile when they got to Portalocity. "We've been focusing on natural interest recently, so I thought we'd go to a city this time. Venice is a place in Italy - that's on the continent to the east of us. It was built over and around over one hundred islands, with canals interspersed as well, so there's a lot of water travel and quite a few bridges."

Their portal opened and she ushered them through. "We'll be taking a boat tour to see the most of it. And we'll have just enough time beforehand to grab some food to go from a local coffee house. Sorry it's not quite the culinary experience eating in would be, but we're strapped for time."

She grinned. "So, follow me!"

Practical Philosophy, Tuesday

[endsthegame]

"We've been blessed with relative peace of late," Ender said, his legs folded under him, the remains of a sandwich beside him. "Still, this is Fandom. I'm sure most of you will have woken up at some point or another looking like someone else, or feeling like someone else. It can be a bewildering experience. Or freeing."

He reached for his water. "The great philosophers spent a lot of time talking about matters of personal identity," he said. "Some philosophers denote identity simply as bodily existence: you are who you are as long as you are your physical self. Of course, that brings issues of its own with it, whether it be because of the natural process of aging, or because the island turned you into another sex. Are you still yourself, when your genitals are different? I would say yes, but it's a frequent topic of debate."

He set the bottle back down. "The second theory is that identity is a product of mental substance; that one's mind is separate from one's body, and that it is where our personhood lives. So if we wake up one morning forgetting who we are, then whatever inhabits our body is not us. Whatever that body did was not our action."

He eyed each student in turn. "Of course, John Locke went a step further and defined mental substance as being one's consciousness, in which case the answer is rather more clear-cut, I feel. 'If Socrates and the present mayor of Queenborough agree, they are the same person: if the same Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person.'"

"But there are many other theories. One presupposes that one's self is really one's intuition: after all, when your mind is gone, and someone then proceeds to torture you, you'll still feel fear and apprehension, because you can intuit that torture isn't something you want happening to you. Other theories suppose that consistency is key, that every part of you that I've just mentioned must remain in a certain alignment for you to be you. And so on, and so forth."

He smiled, tapping his finger against the bottle. "But that's enough for Philosophy 101," he said. "Have any of you ever experienced waking up in another body? Or with another mind? Did you remember what you did? Did it mean anything to you, or could you put some distance between it and yourself?"

Self-Defence For Shinies, Tuesday, 1st Period

[snipsnspecks]

There was no nerf--animal or toy--to be seen today, but the class was still meeting in the Danger Shop, so take that for the warning it probably was. "My wife is obsessed with a movie about an FBI agent who infiltrates a beauty pageant and her special skill was teaching self-defense," Anakin began. "She made sure everyone remembered to SING--solar plexus, instep, nose, groin--when approached by an attacker. This works with standard humanoid attackers, and we'll begin with those, but will get you nowhere with Wookiees, Hutts, or Trandoshans."

"For starters, Hutts don't have insteps," Ahsoka added dryly. "And good luck reaching a Wookiee's nose."

"And you're going to have to do much more than just punch a Trandoshan to knock them over," Anakin said, nodding. "We'll start with boring, squishy humanoids first."

Ahsoka gestured at the controls and a row of training dummies appeared. And NPCakin.

"Hey," Anakin said, pointing to his other self.

"I don't know where he came from," Ahsoka replied. "It looks like it just put him in automatically."

You could thank Cara for that, Anakin.

"Uh huh," Anakin said dryly. "Well, I'm sure the fake me is much less of a challenge."

Was it the way NPCakin was trying to edge behind Ahsoka that gave you that impression?

Probably, yeah. "Start out easy, then progress to your skill level. Ben, start with the Hutts."