Flavors, Food Choices, and Menu Planning - Friday, 4th period

[sharp_as_knives]

Hanna waited for the students to file in and get seated, then nodded to them and began.

"I hope you all enjoyed the film last week. So, now we return to cooking. Salt," she said, and uncovered the dishes on the counter. "Throughout the world, salt is the most widely-used ingredient in food. It is also one of the oldest. Long before refrigeration, salt curing was used to preserve foods. Salt pulls moisture from food and inhibits bacterial growth."

She passed around a bit of home-made jerky. "In addition, it affects many of the chemical reactions involved in cooking. Because it helps protein gelatinzation and alters the rate of fermentation, it affects the texture of meats, breads, cheeses - most things in which it's used." Bread and sausage were passed around next.

"Also, it affects other flavors. In small amounts, it can enhance sweetness - hence the salt you may find in fruit dishes and candies - and cut bitterness - hence its being used in pickling like the olives we had in our bitter foods class." Next were more of those olives, and some salted caramels to taste.

"The key with salt is using the right amount, and the right kind. You should at all costs avoid common table salt; it has additives to help it to pour, and iodine. Neither will do your dishes any favors. It melts too fast, behaves unsavorily," pun totally intended, "and offers no benefits other than easy access. Instead, you can use kosher salt or sea salt."

There were several tiny bowls put out now. "Kosher salt tends to have larger crystals, so can add its own texture to a dish. It has fewer mineral notes than sea salt. It's a good choice especially when adding salt early in the cooking process.

"Sea salt comes in many forms - coarse, flakes, and so on - and there are a number of varieties." Including the grey, pink, and black ones she set out next. "The minerals in the area they come from offer subtle differences that can enhance a dish."

She looked around for any questions, then nodded. "So. Taste these, then make something of your own. Preferably that makes good use of at least one of them."

Comments

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

Sparkle hit the stool heavily and doubled forward a little, bunching at the shoulders as though the wind had been knocked out of him. He nodded, pulled in a few breaths and tried to wrap his head around something, any one something, and needed a few tries to get words to happen again.

"Zhahar," he said, burying his fingers in his hair, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor. "Zhahar's gone. Zhahar's gone and Sholeh doesn't even remember her, you can see it, right? Like, right there in her face, there's nothing there."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Sholeh is Zhari's sister?" Hanna nodded slowly. "I could clearly see she believed herself to be telling the truth. I thought perhaps it was something like what happened the other week; the same person, with some differences. But she has taken her sister's place and doesn't remember her?"

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"You could say that. Zhahar would have to just... I mean, if she was there, Sholeh would know. And she's just acting like she has no idea who Zhahar ever was." Sparkle pulled in a deep breath and held it. "All of the other shit, I could deal with, but people just not existing any more, not even in the memories of the people they're closest to?"

He still felt like he was going to be sick.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Clearly she existed, because we both remember her," Hanna pointed out. "The difference here would seem to be Sholeh." She pondered for a moment. "That weekend when we all were different people, some had different families as well. Their existing families, presumably, did not exist. Perhaps this is something similar, but instead of affecting the entire island, it has restricted itself to Zhari and her sister."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

Sisters. Two of them. But Sparkle didn't speak up to clarify that. He just nodded, eyes on the floor, looking like he was trying like hell to keep from sliding into another freakout.

"But they're not the only ones who are different," he noted, carefully evenly. "And who aren't even aware that something has changed for them."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"This is why you asked how long I hadn't been a man?" she asked, only a bit bemused. "You remember me as a man. So, which of us has been changed - my memories, or yours?"

It was an honest question, Sparkle. And again, Fandom!

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"I don't know," Sparkle replied, brow furrowing even as he continued to refuse to look up. "Rilla thought it was weird, too. And I was a little too busy freaking out at Sho about Zhahar to ask what she thought. She's just brushing it all off as Fandom strangeness, but this seems... I don't know... way more haphazard than the usual crazy."

He kicked at the floor a little, leaving a light scuff from the bottom of his shoe before rubbing it away again with his toe.

"There's something up, and I fucking hate not knowing if it's everyone else or me. Usually it's obvious and today I have a girl whose sister suddenly doesn't exist patting me on the head and telling me that the island will fix itself and I'll be sane again on Monday and shit's been so in the air lately, I don't think it will."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"If Rilla thought it - meaning my being female? - was odd, then perhaps it is me that is different. Although I clearly remember having always been a woman." She shrugged. "To tell you the truth, so long as I am still myself, I'm not terribly bothered by my gender."

She smiled at him. "Let me reassure you that, male or female, I am fine. I have no doubt this is some variety of the island's strangeness; if it should fix itself in time, we'll wait until then. If not..." She spread her hands. "Has anything else about me changed?"

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"Not that I've noticed," Sparkle admitted, grudgingly. "I mean, obviously I don't know everything about you, but you know what you're talking about when you teach, and your cooking is great as always. It hasn't, like, undone you from reality like it did to Zhahar."

Yeah, there was no way to say that sentence without freaking out a little more.

"You live in Baltimore and you're a psychiatrist and you've got, like, that big fancy house that I tried to break into that one time with the kitchen that would make most people's heads spin and you still like plaid?"

There was only so much he could narrow down, here.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

Hanna chuckled. "Yes, that is all still true. We made squid-ink pasta in that kitchen before I took you to the opera as a reward for not belittling yourself for a week." She'd worn a very lovely gown.

"The strange voices have been happening to everyone - we even heard one in class a few weeks back - and the other strangenesses happened to most everybody and left, as they seem to do. I believe I can confidently say that you are as sane as you have ever been, and are not hallucinating. The only worry left is Zhari."

She took a deep breath in demonstration. "Breathe. You are fine, and there is no immediate danger," she stressed. "Let the rest of it go, and we will focus on the one thing that is actually a problem, yes?"

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"Right. Right. Zhahar," Sparkle echoed, taking a shaky breath and nodding. "There's no immediate danger here and now, nothing's like swooping down to eat us or anything. It's a bunch of little changes, and just one person who isn't where she's supposed to be at all."

Which meant it could take anyone else away, from there.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps she is somewhere else," Hanna suggested. "She may not think she has a sister, either."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

Oh. Oh, hey, there went the world slipping out from underfoot again. And Sparkle was feeling a little on the dizzy side.

"It would be awesome if it worked like that," he murmured, completely non-committally. All of that calming down he'd been doing was slipping away again, with a gusto. "I don't think- I mean, yeah, maybe. Sure. That could be a thing that could totally be happening, with Zhari being somewhere far away from, like, Sho and Zee. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I need to, um... I have to go do a thing."

He was pretty sure that thing was 'going to be sick.'

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Sparkle!" Hanna grabbed his shoulder to shake him out of it. "Breathe!" He was not getting sick around her food, damn it.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"I'm breathing! In and out, right? But she can't be anywhere else, that's not how the Tryad work! It's either she's there or she's nowhere and she's not there!"

And there he went, clamping his hands over his mouth and oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck he was going to get so drunk tonight.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

Hanna got up to pour several of the small margaritas which were totally part of the carefully-chosen food today, WTF happened to my list of food?? into one and handed it to Sparkle; he seemed to need it.

She started putting together what he'd just said with little things she'd noticed and that Zhari had let slip. "Zhari and her sisters, they...share the same body somehow?" She couldn't quite see how that would work, but it seemed to fit the facts.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

Sparkle took the offered drink and clung to it like a lifeline, staring into it and nodding a little before knocking back way too much of it in one go.

"Three of them. I thought Sho was just, like, fucking with me, except they're usually so damn careful to not be associated with each other, aside from how similar their names are." He stared at what was left in the glass for a few seconds before finishing it off. "People think they're some kind of demon or something, like anything with as many freckles as timid little Sholeh could possibly be demonic, and so they hide it."

A beat.

"Fuck. Fuck, you didn't hear any of this from me, okay? Please? Sho's the only one that even really like tolerates me any more, I hurt them once, when something attacked the island and I spent a few days as a vampire, but I don't want them hurt I mean I really don't and I just... I know a lot of people here but Sho's one of a really small number I ever really called a friend and if Zhahar's gone, I don't even know what that means for them."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"I won't say where I heard it from," Hanna promised. "Although I think she - they - would forgive you, given the circumstances." She poured him a bit more margarita. "And while I have no idea whether they may be 'demons' given the definitions of their world, I have no reason to hold it against them or hurt them for it."

She pursed her lips and sat back, arms crossed. "Sholeh; is she the sister who's dating Evan?"

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"I... think so?" Sparkle shrugged his shoulders a little, looking down at the floor. "I don't really know the kid, but I think she's mentioned him once or twice."

He sat there quietly with the cup in hand, a little more willing to actually pace himself, this time.

"I did her hair for dances and stuff before we had our falling out, I suppose she had someone she was aiming to impress. Why?"

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Zhari spoke with me in confidence about their relationship." She held up a hand. "I won't give specifics, but it would have been unlikely for Sholeh herself to come to me about this, and I don't know her other sister. I'd be interested in knowing what her version of that conversation is, and if it would be enough to convince her of Zhari's existence."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"It... might," Sparkle replied, after a moment. "Or at least get her thinking twice. I mean, there's nothing I can say that I shouldn't know, you know? They came out to me about it ages back."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

Hanna nodded. "I will speak with her, then. Although she may still be correct; this is all undoubtedly some oddity of the island, and perhaps it will clear itself up by Monday."

And if it didn't, there wasn't exactly much they could do about it, but she'd leave that part unsaid.

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

Sparkle was good and pessimistic enough to already have considered that possibility, and he was trying not to think too hard about it.

Incidentally, it was a losing battle.

"Some things have been more likely to clear themselves up than others," he mumbled miserably. "It'd be nice if all of this crazy was one of those things, yeah."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[never-dull.livejournal.com]

"Granted I haven't been here as long as you," Hanna acknowledged with a nod, "but so far, every oddness I have seen has eventually cleared itself up. Some have taken longer than others, but none has been permanent."

Re: Talk to Hanna!

[myownface]

"Not all of it clears up on its own," Sparkle replied, shaking his head and staring down at the floor. "It's all been fixed one way or another, but people have been trapped in dungeons or stuck in other realities more than a few times. If this is going to be something like that, I want to, I dunno... be able to duck and cover if it looks like it's coming for me, next."