fandomhigh | Don't Be Stupid, Friday, 1st Period

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Don't Be Stupid, Friday, 1st Period

The class was back in the Danger Shop again this week, though was set to the kitchen simulation instead of last week's fake Caritas. There was a stack of cookbooks on the desk up the front.

"Sometimes not being stupid isn't about the big things," Cara said. "Sometimes it's about the little things, like figuring out how to cook a meal without setting everything on fire so you don't starve to death. Or die in a fire." That would also be bad.

"So today you're all going to pick a recipe at random from one of those books and cook it, without bothering me for help." Sink or swim people. Also because her actually trying to help would likely end in tears.

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Please don't set anything on fire, Atton's already covering someone else's class.

As an added wrinkle, all the recipe books use Australian measurements while all the equipment is marked for American ones. This is not actually deliberate on Cara's part ~~just her player's~~ as it would require knowing there's a difference.

Edited 2015-09-25 11:47 (UTC)

Don't ask how Cassandra had managed to turn the bottom of her spaghetti to sludge, and the top to charred sticks.

In fact, don't ask how she'd managed to get tops and bottoms on spaghetti at all.

"Ugh."

"Oh, that looks interesting," Ringo declared, looking over at Cassandra's creation. "What was the recipe?"

Wordlessly, Cassandra shoved the book at her.

It was, perhaps, the world's easiest spaghetti bolognese recipe ever written.

Ringo glanced at the page, then did a totally cliche double-take.

"Oh. Um." What was the right response to that?

"I do not understand how these 'noodles' are supposed to function," Cassandra muttered.

Well, for one, you were not supposed to put them upright in a mug in the microwave.

It wasn't like Ringo was some sort of real cook, but she at least knew how to handle dried noodles. "Um, well, you're supposed to soak them in hot water?"

"Like, completely, not just one end?"

Cassandra squinted at her noodles. Then at the book.

"Why does it not say so, then?" she snapped.

For a moment, Ringo re-read the instructions. Clearly the correct answer wasn't 'they assumed you would already know'. "I don't know. That, um, does seem like a pretty significant oversight." After all, who knew when you might have someone who had never cooked dry pasta before, or even seen anyone else do so, read your recipe?

Cassandra let out a low grunt.

"Incompetents," she muttered.

At which point she took her frustration out on the book by stabbing it with a bread knife.

... at least it wasn't terribly sharp? Sorry, Cara.

Well. That had been unexpected. Ringo definitely looked surprised, and edged back a fraction of an inch just in case Cassandra was overcome with the sudden urge to stab something else with that bread knife. She doubted that was likely, but then she'd never seen anyone do whatever it was Cassandra had done to spaghetti, either.

"Was that, um, really necessary?"

"Yes," Cassandra said flatly.

She turned to Ringo, though with no intent to stab in her expression. "You know how to do this?" she said, sounding slightly harried.

"I've cooked noodles before?" So maybe? "Would you, er, do you want a hand?"

Cassandra took a deep breath. "Yes," she said.

"Okay." Ringo relaxed slightly, offering Cassandra a smile. "It's not too complicated. I bet you could do it if they'd just given you all the instructions instead of assuming things."

Cassandra reached over and got a fresh batch of noodles. She held it up and raised a questioning eyebrow at Ringo.

"Right." Ringo nodded firmly. "First we need a pot that's big enough to put the noodles in and enough water to cover them up." She looked around, then grabbed one. It was much bigger than the mug Cassandra had started with. "Aha!"

"Why is the water so important?" Cassandra had never been a star cook, no.

"Well, the noodles have been dried out?" Right? Ringo thought you probably had to make the noodles normally and then dry them? Somehow?

"So you need to soak them in water so that they'll be soft again. And soaking them in hot water is way faster than cold water."

"Right."

Cassandra took another deep breath, set the noodles down, and then reached to turn on the tap. "Red is warm," she muttered quietly to herself as she did so.

Ringo nodded in confirmation that Cassandra totally didn't need. Even if she'd seen it.

"Though we'll probably want to heat the water even more since it's not that hot out of the tap."

"Fire, then," Cassandra surmised, and took the pot so she could put it under the tap. "...Do you know how this stove works?"

It was the little things.

"Well, I've never used one exactly like this before, but I bet I can figure it out." There were only so many variations on modern stovetops, after all. She walked over and bent down to examine the knobs.

Cassandra had filled the pot up with a great deal of water. She lugged it over towards the stove like it didn't weigh much, then put it down on it. "It does not seem familiar."

"Well, this one looks like it's electric, so it's super-easy to use."

"There's a knob for each of the circles on top, so you put the pot on one of them, finding the corresponding knob, and turn it on." Which meant turning the knob all the way to the highest setting, obviously. That's how you cooked things on stoves!

Cassandra frowned, shoving the pot onto one of the circles - probably one that was too small - with considerable force.

Then she bent down to squint at the knobs. "I see... symbols?"

"Do you sort of see how they could maybe be a diagram of the stove if you looked at it from the top?" Ringo asked, pointing at one of them. "With a different circle highlighted for each one?"

Ringo ended up with a recipe for bouillabaise terrine. Which she had never even heard of before. She might have known how to cook a couple of things, as long as they were simple, but this was well beyond her. So she was just sort of staring helplessly at the page wondering what this was supposed to be. And what some of the ingredients were.

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Don't Be Stupid, Friday, 1st Period

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