fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room

Look, if common rooms on floors where not as many people lived weren't for ambitious attempts to fill them with food, then what were they for? Really, now. Graham had been looking forward to this all week, so when he got up that morning, he hastily went through his morning workout and training with Triumph, made sure his trusty steed was all set up with those carrot cookies from Kurt and his plushy giant space hamster bestie, and then wound up taking the stairs up to the third floor several steps at a time (which wasn't really that difficult with those long legs of his, anyway).

"Hey, Guillermo!" he said, waving a hand in greeting as he walked into the room, and already grinning from ear to ear in eagerness as he looked at the supplies gathered and ready to be transformed into delicious empanadas. And then his eyes went around the common room, and, despite the grin, made the attempt to shake his head sadly.

"Just look at this room!" he said. "It's so empty! It's so sad! I think it might need something! A lot of somethings. But what could that possibly be?"

Edited 2022-08-20 09:44 (UTC)

“Graham hi!” Guillermo smiled shyly as he saw him, rubbing the back of his neck slightly as he did.

“It is quite empty isn’t it?” he considered thoughtfully, “I’m not to sure but I think it may be missing some very tasty treats,” he tilted his head, “a lot of very tasty treats,” he added.

Graham's eyes narrowed a little as he tapped his chin thoughtfully with a finger; he was doing a mostly good job of keeping a straight face, although a smirk kept slipping out. He wrangled it under control though as he mused, "Mmmm, yes. Yes, I think you're right. Tasty treats, and a lot of them, and I'm thinking....maybe...."

Here he really trailed off, as if he couldn't for the life of him fathom what kind of tasty treats, until the moment when he was suddenly 'struck' by inspiration and declared, hoisting up a finger in the air, "Zounds! I think I've got it! What this common room needs is...."

He then paused, with a big intake of breath, as if setting up the blank and then looking to Guillermo to fill in the rest.

“Oh,” Guillermo’s eyes widened, he tried to keep a straight face as he did but he couldn’t help but grin slightly, “oh … I think it could be … “ he pretended to be lost in thought as he gave it some more thought.

“Do you think maybe maybe it could be empanadas that are missing from this common room?" he couldn't help it, he started to laugh.

Edited 2022-08-20 10:26 (UTC)

And if Guillermo was laughing, then Graham was laughing, but only for a little bit, before he reined it in to snap into a straight, serious face for a moment. And giggles now under control, he looked around the room as if with new, fresh eyes as such a suggestion. "Zounds," he said, his expression and tone awed and filled with revelation. "I think you may be right! Empanadas! Of course!"

And, with that, he let the grin finally brighten his face, unrestrained, rubbing his hands together eagerly as he moved in closer to the kitchette and Guillermo. "We'd better get to work!"

Guillermo managed to compose himself long enough to get focused, even though he still managed to start blushing and then he looked at the supplies he had gotten ready for the marathon.

“Absolutely,” Guillermo grinned, “I picked up some ingredients in town to get us through the first several batches, I didn’t know if we should try one flavour of empanadas first or we could keep mixing and matching them,”

"Hmmmm," said Graham, a very deep and thoughtful hum as he looked everything over. "That's a good question. You're the expert," he grinned over at Guillermo with that, "and I defer to the expert, but it would make sense to me to start simple with just the one, and then work our way up to mixing and matching once we really get our groove going. Kinda like a warm-up, you know? It's always important to warm up before a challenge!"

“I do think starting simple would work best,” Guillermo nodded as he thought it over, “and we do have got three different flavours to work with so we can make plenty of each,” he added. "I think it would be quite fun to work our way up to to mixing and matching," he considered.

"I think so, too," Graham agreed, although, really, Graham thought it was going to be fun even if they didn't work their way up to mixing and matching the flavors, but that was beside the point. He grinned, as his stomach gave a little rumble of anticipation and reminder that this wasn't all fun and games, here, there were empty stomach chambers to be filled today as well as common rooms, and so he clapped his hands together as a sort of rallying gesture, before his fingers danced a little in front of him, eager to begin.

"So!" he said, grinning over at Guillermo, a dedicated and willing disciple to his empanada tutelage. "Where do we start?"

“Well I thought we could start with the beef empanadas first,” Guillermo considered as he returned the grin, “it’s pretty straight forward to make,” he said, even though he did know the recipe off by heart - he had still made sure that Graham could have a copy as well and handed him the recipe, “we can make nearly 40 in one batch,” he added.

"Forty!" Graham straightened in impressed approval as he took the recipe to have a look over it. "That's as many as four tens! We could have this room filled up in no time!"

He chuckled a little, mostly to himself, of the sudden image he had of them not being able to fill the room at all, because they'd be eating them all up almost faster than they could make them, but even forty empanadas could be a lot, even for Graham's hollow leg and empty stomach.

His eyes quickly danced over the recipe, too, with another amusing thought, of how recipes really weren't that much different from some spells, all about gathering ingredients and putting them together in the right way, and that, really, getting delicious food out of it in the end was practically magic in and of itself!

"So it looks like," he said, "we start with cooking up the meat first?"

“We can make quite a lot of batches of them,” Guillermo grinned, “and then we can definitely watch them pile up,” he looked over the common room at the thought of seeing it filled with empanadas.

“We start with the meat first,” he nodded, as he gestured to the pan that he was setting up, “did you want me to show you how to make the first batch and then you can try the second or did you want me to explain the process and then you can try the steps as well?” Guillermo asked.

"Better have you do it first," Graham decided with a nod, "and then I can follow by example, and we can be guaranteed the first batch is a good one, because, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure at least a few of the first batch actually need to be redirected into here," he patted his stomach with an utterly shamelessly hungry grin, "rather than out here." He hitched a thumb over his shoulder to the common room.

"Just," he added reassuringly, "to get us started, of course."

His smile widened, “of course, to get us started” he nodded and paused tilting his head as he considered, “you know I think it’s only fair that we sample a few from each batch before we start to fill up the common room,” he said shyly, “we can both eat and do our challenge at the same time,”

"Exactly!" Graham agreed easily, eagerly, with a satisfied sort of nod that they were clearly both on the same page on this matter. "After all, you need fuel if you're going to tackle a big challenge like this and we want to make sure that the empadanas we're filling the room with are quality ones, too. We can't just go filling it with sub-standard work like any old hacks! We're men of substance! Only the best empanadas for this common room! And the only way to know that for sure is to try some ourselves!"

“It’s very important,” Guillermo nodded, his blush going even deeper, “especially since we would need to sample more than a few of them just to make sure that the batch we’ve made is perfect for the common room,”

He grinned, “they’ll be the best empanadas ever that way, the common room will be very lucky to have them,”

Actually he hadn’t thought what they were going to be doing with the empanadas after their marathon cooking adventure, he just liked the idea of eating them and getting to spend more time with Graham and then he realised that he was staring at Graham, he went even redder and ducked his head slightly in embarrassment.

Graham had honestly just sort of imagined they'd spend the break eating their way back to civilization. They had all week, after all! A lofty goal, perhaps, but one he would have been more than willing to strive to accomplish!

But, either way, no matter how many empanadas they did end up making, it probably wouldn't be difficult to find enough other people to eat them if it turned out they weren't actually up to the task.

"This place," he declared, holding out his hands and sweeping them dramatically in front of him, "will have never seen so many incredible empanadas!"

And after he'd finished the gesture, he could only grin eagerly over at Guillermo again, just in time to catch him ducking his head like that, and Graham's own head tilted. He couldn't help wondering a little what sort of thought had just struck Guillermo to make him react like that. He wanted to ask, but it looked like maybe it could have been something embarrassing, and, knowing how that could be, he just gave him a soft, encouraging smile.

"My attention," he assured him, "is all yours. Guide me in the ways of your delicious arts, O Empanada Master!"

And, of course, he had to play that up a little more with a mighty, regal twirling of his hand and an accompanying bow, one that he made sure put that nice flowiness of his cloak to good use, too!

Guillermo did like the idea of spending the entire break week helping Graham eating a common room full of empanadas.

“I will gladly teach you the fine arts of empanada making,” Guillermo smiled brightly at that and seemed hopeful that Graham hadn’t picked up on his staring or at the least he hadn't commented on it and he tried to not be so awkward as he went to work on showing Graham the first step.

“So the first step is the meat as we established and we need two tablespoons of olive oil first,” he tried to put his focus on the recipe and he put in the olive oil “we cook this on high and than we put in the meat,” he added the beef in next and started to let it simmer.

"Pretty easy so far," Graham noted, with a little bit of a grin as the aromas of the cooking meat already started to hit his nose and grab his attention and make him lean forward a little eagerly toward it. He closed his eyes for a moment, too, just to appreciate it that much more, but, lest he miss anything, they didn't stay shut for long. "I can definitely manage putting meat into a pan without burning it, I think!"

After all, he had perfected the art of a perfectly cooked choco-chip pancake, so he was pretty confident in his pan-handling skills.

Guillermo grinned at that as he began to break the cooking meat apart with a spoon, “it is a pretty straightforward recipe once you become familiar with it, it also helps that there’s not too many steps to remember,” he added, “I mean the most complicated part of making the empanada is probably the filling itself, since you have to mix in quite a few ingredients,”

"And that's easy for you to say," Graham said with an appreciative laugh. "You're the expert! But I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

There was a particular eagerness in that last part, though, maybe even a touch if impatience to start getting to those more complex parts of the recipe and to see just how well he could manage them, but, for now, he was content in just watching Guillermo work and taking mental notes to remember for when it was his turn to give it a try.

Guillermo couldn’t help but laugh at that, “I guess I am, I have been making these since I was a kid basically,” he paused, “but I did teach myself how to make empanadas,” he added proudly.

Once the meat had cooked to where it was supposed to and it had been transferred to its bowl, Guillermo turned his attention to showing Graham the next step and what was needed for the filling and started mixing in the ingredients, “so most recipes do have a much longer wait time for the fill but I do tend to have my own ~~so very convenient~~ shorter wait time,” he explained, “but I find it works just as well,” he said, “especially when you can then start working on heating up the pastry as well while you wait for the fill to well chill,” he blinked a bit at the rhyme.

Always one to appreciate a good rhyme almost as much as a good pun, Graham's face lit up with amusement. "Heat the meat, chill the fill," he repeated with a grin, "and don't be hasty with the pastry!"

Yes, he was incredibly proud of that final addition, and he had the beam on his face to show it, too.

"I bet," he added, "you've picked up a lot of tips and tricks about cooking since you've been doing it for so long, too!"

Guillermo also appreciated that last addition and he beamed back, “oh that was a great one,” he grinned and he turned to preheat the oven to start getting it prepared, the dough had already been sitting out so he didn’t have too much work to do to make sure that they had been sitting at room temperature and he carefully started removing them so they were ready for the filling to go in.

“I do like to add my own spin to the recipe,” he admitted, “it’s not quite how most people would make them but there hasn’t been any complaints yet with how I’ve made them so far,” he added, smiling shyly as he said it.

Edited 2022-08-20 13:53 (UTC)

"Definitely no complaints on my end!" said Graham, meeting that increasingly familiar smile of Guillermo's with a bright one of his own. "Granted, your empanadas are the only ones I've had, so I guess I can't really compare, but, if you ask me, I'd say clearly, you've perfected it!"

Although he had to admit, now he was a little curious about trying other empanadas to see how they did compare, and had a horrible thought of what he would do if it turned out that Guillermo's empanadas had actually been terrible this whole time, but he didn't know any better...

...but then quickly, with a shake of his head, dismissed that thought and shook his head, because Guillermo's empanadas were undeniably amazing, so if his were actually considered terrible in the wide world of empanadas, then those empanadas were probably out of the world.

“Well I mean if you wanted to I could always get you some other empanadas if you wanted to see what they tasted like?” Guillermo offered as he took out the fill from the fridge and began to fill up the empanadas, “there is a Mexican restaurant on the island,”

He smiled shyly, “I - I could buy you lunch one day if you’d like to try or dinner even?” he offered and then he started to go rather red.

Graham's nose scrunched up a little bit with a sort of distasteful uncertainty, showing what he really thought about the idea of going out and trying empanadas that weren't Guillermo's at this point (even if they were the best in the entire universe, it still wouldn't be the same!), but then he laughed a little, waving a hand dismissively.

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that, Guillermo!" he told him. "I've got a good deal of pocket money myself now, especially since I've got the job at the Empooor~rium~."

Yes, he did need to still say it like that, thank you, complete with waggly fingers that always accompanied it, but no one got to see when he was on the radio.

"Besides," he added, "it seems kind of silly, to waste shiny gold coins on food you can make yourself! If we're going to pay for food, it should be something really different or special!"

A pause.

"Or pies."

He would rarely hesitate to fork over shiny gold coins for delicious pies!

There was a very brief pause then as Guillermo tried to still keep his nerve and then, “wecouldgooutforpies!” it came out in a rather impressive keysmash.

“I - I mean,” he stammered, going bright red at this point, “I’d - Id like to out for pies with - with you,” and then he stared down at those empanadas because they were definitely really fascinating all if a sudden.

Edited 2022-08-20 22:48 (UTC)

"Well, then," said Graham, his smile maybe a little confused, but he could see how someone could get a little flustered over pies; his own excitement over the prospect definitely made his grin brighten, "we'll just have to go out for pies! They've got loads of them at the bakery that I've still got to try!"

Guillermo was very excited about pies yes.

It shouldn’t be possible for Guillermo to be that red as he worked on finishing up the first batch of empanadas, carefully folding them and placing them on the trays.

“I’d - id like that, eating pies at the bakery,”Guillermo stammered and then his glasses chose that moment to fog up so he tried to casually wipe them with his shirt before he put them back on.

“I mean if you’d like me to be there,” he added, the last of his nerve fading and he now just stood there, staring awkwardly at Graham.

"Of course I'd like you to be there!" Graham assured him, with a small laugh because it seemed funny that it would even be a matter of doubt. "Pie's always better with friends!"

“Um…” he started to say but his nerve was gone, “I …yes friends,” he nodded, deflating slightly but he tried to stay focused as he went to put the tray in the oven, he wished he could say something but what if he just messed everything up? “pies do sound nice,” he had no idea if any of that made sense.

He liked spending time with Graham, he was …really confused about everything right now.

“First tray’s in!” he declared, grateful for something else to focus on.

Graham was starting to feel a little confused, now, too, because Guillermo didn't seem as excited about pies as he would have thought he'd be, especially considering how they'd gotten on the topic in the first place, but maybe he was just really focused on the empanadas? Multitasking could be tricky, and Guillermo took a lot of pride in his work, so he just figured maybe he just wanted to make sure he was doing the best he could with them and not getting too distracted with other plans.

And, besides, now with the first batch in the oven...

"That puts us one step closer," he said, with a new thrill of excitement racing through him, "to the Ultimate Empanada Experience-ence...ence...ence...."

Yes, he added his own echo effect, and then flashed Guillermo another grin.

"Do they take very long to bake? Should we get started on the next batch to save time? If we're going to fill this whole room, we've got to make sure we're working as efficiently as possible, right?"

Guillermo let out a laugh at that, despite his awkwardness and his thoughts about pie eating and … he ducked his head slightly.

“we can definitely get started on the second batch, efficiency is definitely important here,” he grinned, “so each batch takes around 25-35 minutes to cook, I think that gives us plenty of time to get started on the second batch?” he looked back up at Graham, smiling, “do you think you’re ready to start work on your own empanadas?”

The bright and easy grin that preceded Graham's answer was probably all the answer that was needed, but he gave one anyway, with a solidifying pump of his fist. "Definitely," he said, although he followed it up with a slightly delayed, "although I may have missed a little bit of the steps toward the end, when we started talking about pies, but I think I got most of it! If anything, I know I can definitely at least get the meat part this time!"

“ I didn’t really go through those steps that clearly did I?” Guillermo looked a little sheepish, “well I will still be here to offer help if you do need it,” he assured him, “we can see how you go,” he smiled.

Third Floor Common Room - Saturday

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