fandomhighdorms | 5th floor common room, late Thursday morning

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5th floor common room, late Thursday morning

Annette was cooking. Okay, Annette was trying to cook. This is something she has never been good at no matter how many times she gave it a go. She had pancakes cooking though they were very questionable considering their too lumpy form. She had bacon frying, and she was currently cracking eggs in a bowl. She didn't notice any eggshells that fell in either. If she was going to survive college one day, she had to learn to cook. Right?

Her cat, Angel, was curled around her feet, purring and playing with Annette's shoe laces. "Angel that stop, going me up trip and then what will breakfast happen to? Burn will no one it then enjoy."

Annette blinked, cocked her head, and continued with the cracking of eggs. "Either know it I don't."

[The common room it is open! ETA: Annette's *mess* has been taken care of by Liir, anyone coming in after him is going to just see nice, neat, leftover pancakes that he made. HEE!]

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He shrugged. Whatever it was, he didn't really mind. She just sounded a bit like Chistery.

...it made him just a little homesick.

"That's all right. Don't worry about it. You look better, though. And cooking."

He pointed down.

"Is that your cat?"

"Cooking I don't often good do. At all," she said, even as the bacon began to burn. "Learn trying to college before I go."

Annette smiled down at Angel who was now curiously reaching out a paw towards Liir's shoe. "Angel, yes."

Edited 2008-03-06 16:10 (UTC)

He leaned down, glad that Andrew was asleep in the pocket under his hand, and reached a hand to her.

"Hello, Angel," he said, sounding as if he was talking to another person, really. He didn't reach to pet her; he'd let her get his scent and approved of him before he did.

He turned his head to peer up at her.

"Another person with cooking problems? What seems to be giving you trouble?"

Angel was sweet really. There was only really one certain person that she took exception to. She sniffed at Liir's hand, purring, and decided he was perfectly fine because she she tried to tip up his fingers with her little nose so she could be petted.

"Likes you," Annette said, grinning, then she turned her attention back to the pankcakes and bacon. "Oh! Trouble it gives me all messy and look now done I have burnt." She sighed and turned the eye off under the bacon. The pancakes were black on one side and not very appealing to the eye.

"Sucks this."

He smiled, warm as the sun, and put his attention to petting the cat. He'd have used both hands, but one was going to stay over Andrewbunny in his pocket because he didn't want to chance on Angel's prey drive. Not over Andrew.

But he really did like the cat.

"Does she like tuna?" he asked, ridiculously. Then he looked up.

"Something wrong with breakfast? Perhaps turn down the heat a little? Or do you get distracted and let it burn?"

Annette nodded distractedly at the tuna comment and went about throwing her mess in the trash can. The dishes she used, including the pans, went in the sink.

Sighing, she turned and leaned her back against the counter, looking down at Liir. "I know don't. I'm watching guess hot too much stove. Matter doesn't. Give up."

Stepping over to the pantry, she grabbed a box of pop tarts and asked over her shoulder. "Want one? Blueberry."

[I haven't gotten a single notification, bear with me if I'm slow. *kicks lj*]

He gave the cat one last scritch before standing up.

"No, and neither do you," he said with a touch of chiding. He held out the tuna bag for her.

"Could you give this to Angel as I get things cleaned up?" He smiled at her. "You wanted pancakes, you'll get pancakes."

And maybe he'd even show her how it was done.

[ooc: notifs are out for the mo on me too; I just refresh like a freak ^_^]

Annette gave him a look, but he was right, she really didn't want pop tarts.

She took the tuna with a grateful smile and sat down on the floor, out of the way from where Liir would be working. Annette just suddenly... her head tilted to the side and her ear began to tingle and itch and... "What the?"

...and then it was gone, that funny sensation and she rubbed her ear. "I don't know what that was but ew. Oh, I can talk right again!" Grinning, she looked up at Liir as Angel climbed up in her lap to be fed the tuna.

"I would love pancakes! But you don't have to cook for me, really."

He was already working on the pans and the bowls in the sink.

"I'm here, I don't mind, and I can show you how you can do it on your own without burning it."

He said it, smiling, obviously not bothered. He didn't mind doing this sort of work. At least no one would be doing it by tick-tock that way.

Annette let Angel finish the tuna and she asked, "Do you randomly carry with you a bag of tuna?"

She hopped up off the floor then and came to stand by him, looking rather sheepish. "I shouldn't be letting you clean up my mess though. Want me to take over?"

"You can help," he said. "It goes faster when two people do it."

He scrubbed and soaped a dish before passing it to her for rinsing.

"And yes, I do. I like animals, for one, and for another a Firecat is assisting me with something and I like to bring him treats and meals and such if I can. One because I tend to it for those I consider my friends and another because it's a small way I can tell him thank you."

He gestured to his bag, but didn't pat it since he didn't want to get it wet.

"I keep a little something for most people in here. If I wasn't about to make you pancakes, I'd have offered one of the brownies."

Getting the water temperature adjusted just right, Annette helped by rinsing and setting the dishes in the drainer to dry. "That's very nice of you, Liir, and while Angel can't thank you specifically, you've won her over easily." She chuckled. "Ino watched her for me when I went to Mexico and Angel got into her hair elastics. I had to buy her some more, but Ino thought she was cute so all was well. Angel can be a little stinker when she wants to be."

Tilting her head to peer up at him at a better angle, she smiled wide. "You would have? That's so kind of you, Liir. Are they special brownies?" Because Annette has had lots of special brownies. Made her miss Leo to think about them.

He didn't know what that meant.

"I experimented a little with them, yes," he admitted. "They're spiced, and there's some notes of vanilla and coffee as well. They're especially good warm, or so I thought."

He pulled away from the sink, dried his hands, and pulled the pan over with one of the bowls.

"I'll need flour, some baking powder, a dash of salt, at least one egg for the pancakes unless you'd like more, the milk, and some butter, if you don't mind. I don't know how you have things put away up here so you might be best with finding the dry ingredients while I grab the ones that should be in the 'fridge."

Annette wouldn't elaborate, especially since it seemed he didn't know what her 'special' meant. Actually, she never wanted to have those kind of brownies again.

"Oh, those sound good," she said instead, smiling.

She took a towel and dried her hands. "I can get you all of that," she said and went to the pantry grabbing the ingredients he asked for. Uh, she didn't know you put baking powder and an egg in pancakes. Or milk. No wonder her pankcakes sucked.

Setting everything on the counter, Annette said, "The measuring utensils are clean... you need those, right?"

"Not really," he said at first. Then he thought it over. "Well, it I'm going to show you, it'd probably be best. If you could?"

He set the bowl on the counter, grabbed the laddle and the spatula and put them next to the oven, made sure the oven surface was clean and started buttering the pan. He left the heat turned off for the moment, though.

Oddly enough, he kept his shoulderstrap bag on. He was very rarely without it, though, so perhaps it wasn't too strange.

Grabbing measuring cups, she set all of them out, from largest to smallest. She also set out a set of teaspoon measurements. "I... should write this down as you show me so I don't forget. I kind of suck at following recipes but this should be easy, right?"

Annette did notice that he kept his bag on but she didn't question it. She just figured it was a thing.

More the fluffy bunny in the front pocket, sleeping, was the thing.

He nodded.

"Probably for the best."

He cut a sizable chunk of the butter off and put it in the pan. Then he turned the heat up.

"Two cups of flour. Sifted, preferably but no one will keel over from the 'cakes if they're not. Put in the dash of salt and two teaspoons of baking powder in with the flour and make sure that's well mixed."

He started to put together the egg and the milk.

"Cup and a half of milk," he said as he worked in another bowl, "mixed with the egg in a separate bowl. We'll put them together and blend in the butter" which was melting slowly on the low heat "as soon as we're both done."

Annette grabbed a notepad and pen that was just really incredibly handy at the moment and started to write down what he was telling her. "About how many pancakes does this make? In case I want to try and feed someone," which made her grin like a dork because Annette has never fed anyone before unless it was to hand them a bag of chips or a pop tart.

"This always took care of Nanny and Elphaba and I," he admitted. "I had to make another two batches for the monkeys, but that's neither here nor there."

Then he poured the wet into the dry. As he mixed, he flicked the burner off and grabbed the pan to pour the melted butter in as well.

"You mix this just until it's smooth. No more, no less."

Then he put the pan down and got to business doing just that.

"I'd usually put berries in, if we had them. When Nanny got older, though, I started with syrups since it made them softer and easier for her to eat. I can show you how to do one or the other as you like."

Right. Flying monkeys. Annette shook her head. No one should have to cook pancakes for flying monkeys unless they were cute and sweet and not weird at all.

Annette jotted that down... Mix until smooth. No more, no less.

"You know how to make syrup? People actually know how to do that? I mean, aside from manufacturers of course."

He looked sideways at her.

"Yes. It's really not that difficult. It just requires a careful eye and a bit of work to clean up after. I also know how to candy fruits, make preserves, whip cream, churn butter, make cheese... all manner of things. Simple, basic things; it just takes a bit of patience."

He flicked on the burner again and picked up the ladle.

"Heating up the butter greased the pan," he said with a smile, "so now we just wait until the pan is warm before we dip in this and start putting out the pancakes."

He turned to her again.

"I'm not going too fast, am I? I'm not much of a teacher."

"You are totally amazing me, Liir," Annette said, awestruck. "Did you have to learn to cook where you are from?" She grew up with maids and cooks and never had to worry about any of that stuff, so a boy knowing how to do all of this was just amazing, particularly a boy in high school.

She penned that down in a hurry... Heat up the butter greased pan.

"No no, I'm good. What is the heat on? High? Because you want to make sure they get good and done, right? And you are a great teacher, I think."

He shook his head.

"Medium," he told her. "It takes a little longer, but they end up golden brown instead of blackened."

He turned and put his hand over the pan. When he judged it fitting, he ladled on the pancakes, one in each quarter of the pan, neat little circles.

"I had to do most of the cooking in the keep," he explained, his eye on the pancakes as they cooked. "At first, it was Sarima's sisters who did all the work. But when the Wizard's soldiers took the royal family and it was just Elphaba and Nanny and I, well...

"Nanny could barely stand by that time, certainly not long enough to do much of anything like that. And Elphaba didn't care to, her water allergies aside. So it fell to me. Some I remembered from watching the sisters. Other things I asked Nanny about and she told me, like the cream and such. Some things I figured out on my own, or heard from the Arjiki traders who would bring us supplies. The Witch didn't deal with them if they'd deal with me and once I was ten or so, they didn't ask for her anymore. And you flip them when you see the bubbles appear on the top."

He did just that, holding one on the spatula for a moment so she could see the bubbles before he finished.

Medium. Annette wrote that down.

Then she turned her head sideways, listening to him as he spoke. Liir had a nice voice, pleasant, and it was easy to listen to him as he explained the cooking details behind his upbringing. So to speak. It was hard to imagine, some of what he said and though she didn't interrupt when he spoke, she asked him as she looked down at the bubbles, nodding so he knew she understood, "Was it a hard life, your growing up?"

He shrugged.

"I'm alive. And I'm here. Others aren't so lucky," was all he'd say to that. He hadn't been put to the Paraffin Necklace or thrown into Southstairs.

He hadn't been melted.

No, others weren't so lucky.

"All lives are hard," he finally said after a minute. "It's how you know you're living them. And it's a little less time to cook the other side. You just check and see that it's a nice golden brown before you plate them."

He checked, dipping the spatula under the corner to look, before he plated the pancakes and dipped out another four.

"See?"

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