Finders Keepers

Kitchen

Even before entrance into the renowned kitchens of the Last Homely House, the scent of delicious culinary creations is noticable, enaminating from the everpresent flames of the great ovens, the vast ingredient stores present in the room. Counters, marble topped, furnish the center of the hall, and shelves as well rarely do they lack the means to produce a meal fit for the citizens of Imladris and their guests.

A small, circular table rests to one side of the room, a few chairs ringing it, available for a quick snack or full meal. To the north, a split door allows the breeze to dance upon the airs of the hall, leading to the Herunnur\'s porch. Opposite, the entrance to the wine cellars beckon, and to the south a large, wooden door opens to the dining hall.

================== Eldarin Calendar ===================

IC time is:    Nighttime < About 10:11 PM >

IC day is:     Orithil

IC date is:    39 Echuir

Moon phase:    New 

Earendil:      Gil-Estel is not visible.

IC year is:    Loa 24 o Yen 22, Nelandran o Endor

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RL time: Wed Feb 17 22:43:44 2010

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Night has fallen in the valley of the elves, the sky forsaking the blazing light of the sun for the gentle illumination of the moon and stars. It is a fine night for celebrating, and many are in fact enjoying song and tale in the Hall of Fire this night. In the House Kitchens, however, are only two edhil.

A fit of giggles escapes the lips of the female elf as she carries a tin from the oven to the marble counter in the centre of the room. Her long brown locks are secured away from her face and she has rolled her sleeves up to the elbow to make cooking all the easier. Her blue eyes flicker in the firelight as she looks admiringly from the tin to her companion. It is Mellindiel, a taylor of Imladhris, although one might not guess her profession in her current state.

\"Now don\'t you eat all of it at once,\" she teases the other elf between giggles. Clearly, she has been into the wine cellar a few times this night. \"Anyway, this portion - \" she gestures with her hand as if cutting the cake and indicates the largest piece - \"is all mine!\"

The other elf standing across from her raises his eyebrows. Lifting one of his elbows up from the bench he picks up a knife from the table and with a wry smile cuts a thin slice from the edge of the cake. \"This portion here? Are you sure you want this piece? Very well,\" he tells her, sliding the much smaller peice onto a plate for her before she can object.

The female elf bursts into giggles again, nudging her friend with her hip so she can wrest the knife from him. \"No, no, silly. This piece!\" She puts one hand over his and cuts a third out of the little cake, digging it up with the flat of the knife so she can place it on another plate. She waves her fingers around for a moment afterwards to cool them off. \"That bit is yours. This one- \" she grabs the tin with a cloth and hugs it close to her. \"Is mine. Once it is decorated, of course.\" She eyes him in mock-defensiveness. \"You cannot challenge me: I made it, after all,\" she says childishly. \"You\'ll have to make your own if you want more.\"

\"Oh, is that so?\" the male elf, Eryndir, asks. \"So then, I suppose this bottle of my mother\'s \'Firelight\' wine, is all mine.\" He picks up the green-hued glass bottle, half empty, from the table and pours himself a large glass, pointedly looking at hers, nearly empty.

\"Daro, daro!\" she interrupts, putting down her cake and coming over again to grab the bottle from Eryndir. \"There\'s plenty of ingredients to make more cake, and time to do so, but not so for the wine.\" A goofy grin had spread over her face, but she was coherent in her speech: she meant what she said. \"Besides,\" she says, \"don\'t you remember my challenge? May the one who makes the best cake win!\"

As the female elf goes to grab the bottle from Eryndir he holds the bottle up over his head, making her reach for it. As she stretches up to grab it, he grabs her about the waist with one arm and leans her over gently, like a dancer move, and quirks and eyebrow at her \"You never said what the prize was,\" he asks her.

Mellindiel squeaks as she is pulled off balance, but quietens when she realises Eryndir has caught her. She looks up coyly at her friend. \"Well, what is it that you want?\" she asks, smiling only a little.

Eryndir leans in closely, barely an inch from her face. \"I want...\" he says quietly. The fire flickers invitingly in the reflections of his eyes.

\"...To see the look on your face when I make a cake thats better than your own!\" He lets go of her, dropping her a few feet to the floor, grins at her and takes a long drink from the bottle \"And if I win,\" he adds, \"you\'ll be cleaning my clothes for a week!\" He places the bottle back on the table and strides to the large kitchen bench, grabbing ingredients on his way and laying them out before him, competition in his eyes.

The elleth squeaks once again as she falls to the ground, landing with a thud on the tiles. \"Truly?\" she asks challengingly once she regains her composure. \"Well, if I win, you\'ll have to sing me a silly song every day for two weeks!\" She gets up from the floor and strides over to the counter, retrieving a ceramic bowl from nearby. \"And seeing how you wrecked my cake before I could decorate it, I\'m going to have to make a new one.\" And with that, she sets off measuring ingredients for a second cake.

The battle was begun. Eryndir mixed and stirred and tasted his cooking was not complex but it had the rich, heart-warming smell of home, and the simple and elegant style of a recipe passed down through many hands. Eryndir\'s cake was a family recipe, one of his mothers, which was more of a pudding than a cake, using dried fruits soaked in his mothers \'firelight\' wine and small pieces of jelly. It was moist and dark, round and decorated with small sugared leaves and raspberries.

Mellindiel\'s cake was different still. She started with a butter base, then put the pulp and juice of a sweet orange into a pan, added some sugar, and simmered it to make a syrup. She added some of this syrup to the mix, occasionally looking over at her friend\'s concoction and commenting (\"Raspberries? I\'m surprised we have some, so early in the season.\" \"Jelly? That is certainly different.\") before putting her batter in a tin, checking the heat of the fire, and baking it. Once turned out, it showed to be a beautiful orange-caramel syrup cake. She decorated it sparingly with strips of candied orange peel.

Eryndir sliced a piece from his cake and placed it in front of Mellindiel, looking at her cake with a critical eye. \"As usual, you\'ve decorated it with a rare attention to detail\" he said, noting the perfectly smooth surface and artisically placed peel. He gestured to his own work. \"Not the prettiest, I\'m afraid, but I did manage to persuade one of the kitchen hands to let me use a few of this season\'s first raspberries before you arrived this recipe never tastes the same without them\"

The other elf smiled at him. \"Don\'t be so quick to belittle your work, mellon. Your decoration is very imaginative, and we have yet to taste the two: after all, the taste is the most important thing.\" She cut two slices of her syrup cake and served them on separate plates, serving a little of the syrup with each.

Eryndir tried each cake, tasting his thoughtfully, with a drink of wine on the side. \"Not bad, not bad. I do say, I make a fine firelight cake,\" he told the female elf, smiling in a very put-on act of humility. Then he took a spoonful of Melin\'s cake, smelling the tantalising aroma before biting down into the large piece. Immediately his eyes widened. He slowly chewed, carefully swallowed, then placed the spoon slowly back onto the bench. \"Melin, my dear, did you, perhaps, in your...\" he waved his hand around in the air, looking for a diplomatic word \"...delicate state, did you forget that the syrup must be watched very carefully, otherwise it burns quickly?\"

Mellindiel\'s breath caught. \"It can\'t possibly be that bad,\" she said disbelievingly. \"Let me see-\" she sliced off some of Eryndir\'s slice of syrup-cake with her spoon, then delicately placed it in her mouth. She shut her eyes tightly and wrinkled her nose. \"Oh, that\'s terrible,\" she said after she swallowed the burnt cake. \"The cake is all about the syrup - if that is ruined, then everything is ruined!\" She looked at Eryndir apologetically. \"I am sorry I subjected you to that.\"

She turned to the other cake, put a spoonful in her mouth and began studying it. She sighed audibly and shook her head, a slighly awed expression on her face. \"My friend, that is a delicious cake you have there. You will have to give me the recipe.\"

Eryndir laughed gently. \"Why thank you, Melin. And fear not for your cake, for it its one of your rare failures, from which, we are taught, we should learn lessons, though I confess I am at a loss at to what that is this night.\" He placed the cake down on the bench, then looked at her, suddenly serious, and began to walk towards her, his closeness surprising the female elf and moving her back a few steps against the table. He leaned over her, arms either side of her body. \"I think I have rethought my reward,\" he told her, close once again. Then his arm came up behind her to grasp the cake tray from before, with Melin\'s two thirds contained within. \"I think, I will have your slice of the cake\".

Realising she had been duped, Mellindiel glared at Eryndir. \"Fine then. At least I get out of a week\'s washing,\" she said mildly. She looked at her friend, holding her first, delicious cake, spoon in hand, then around to where her ruined cake sat with Eryndir\'s. She looked slyly back across at Eryndir, then made a dash for it - over to the other cakes, and to Eryndir\'s half-full cake tin. \"Finders, keepers!\" She called over her shoulder as she ran off with the rest of the firelight cake.

Eryndir watched Melin run off with the rest of his cake, smiling wryly, always enjoying how energetic she became when she drank. He sat down in a high-backed chair and leaned back, resting his feet up on a small plush stool. Then, idly, he held up the bottle of firelight wine, admiring the way the liquid moved inside the bottle. \"Finders keepers indeed.\"