Smoldering Blossom (Rough Draft v1.0)

1.5 Salt, acid, and sugar (Rune)

"Oh fuck," Novi mutters, his facial expression changing to one of concern.

"Something bothering you?" You ask him.

"I just remembered the refrigerator's powered off, the stuff inside could spoil." He says.

"Is there something we can... do about it?" You ask, you aren't familiar with any form of preservation other than low temperatures.

"I've got some salt, vinegar, and sugar," He says, gesturing you to the kitchen. As the light hits the counter, you can see the preservatives he mentioned, before an obvious question comes to mind.

"Doesn't sugar make bacteria grow faster?" You ask, puzzled at the inclusion of sugar as a preservative.

"In smaller quantities, yes, but if sugar constitutes most of the mixture, it'll act as a preservative since it draws out water like salt does." He elaborates with a hint of enthusiasm.

What a nerd.

He props the light between two cups, casting a white beam across the countertop. He then cracks open the fridge briefly to check its internal temperature.

"It's been warming up already." He says, slightly worried. After a moment, he isn't yet grabbing the perishable contents out for some reason.

"Something wrong? I thought we were gonna start salting stuff." You ask.

"Yeah... uhh... thing is, it feels like I'm doing something wrong if I just swing the door open and start using salt and vinegar to preserve stuff," he says nervously, "it's like a feeling that I should just leave it in the residual cold to keep."

"Uh huh," you say as you approach the refrigerator, you crack it open and briefly stick your fingers in to feel barely any cold, while Novi watches with an expression you can't make out.

"It's already too warm in there, stuffs not gonna last there anyways, especially since I don't think the power will come back in a while." You tell him, as he surprisingly breathes a relief sigh.

"Well, let's take stuff out then." He says, opening the fridge door, "can you get the light, Rune?"

You hand him the flashlight, to which he then illuminates meats, vegetables, a bottles of dairy products, and fruits, some of which don't even need refrigeration. The sight makes you a tad envious, since both of your households barely had preservative loaded junk to eat.

Novi first grabs out the meats, beef and pork of cuts you know nothing about, and sets them on the countertop.

"We'll be salting these," he says as he reaches for a box in the cupboard. It turns out to be a fully loaded box of large resealable bags.

"Oh by the way, the running water still works for some reason." He says as props the light back where it was before. "So, uhh, you wanna just hold the bags open?"

"Sure, sounds easy." You respond, you don't know if there's any correct procedure to salting meats, so you prefer leaving that to Novi.

You hold open a bag as Novi pours a generous amount salt into it, then drops in beef with one hand, then salts with his clean hand holding the container, then more meat, then repeats until a final topping of salt, to which he then checks the box.

"Yup, that's salt." He says.

"What? Were you just now checking to make sure it wasn't sugar?" You ask, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, in hindsight I should've checked before, but it's all fine," he says, "you can zip up the bag now."

You close the plastic bag and set it aside on the countertop, before grabbing another. He fills this in the same alternating manner with the top and bottom being a generous amount of salt. You close the bag as he goes to wash his hands.

"Is that all the meats?" You ask.

"Yeah, we're doing fruits now, same thing but with sugar- oh wait alcohol can work too!" He mildly exclaimed.

"What are you gonna preserve the dairy and eggs with?" You ask curiously, his expression changes to... whats the word... panicked? That'll do, he seemed panicked at the thought of not knowing what to do.

"Ahhuugghh... I guess we'll use alcohol for those and just sugar for fruits." He says in a seemingly unsure tone of voice.

"Cool, and bags again for fruit right?" You ask.

"Yeah, but we'll have to chop them up first," He says as he rips some paper towels from the roll and sets them flat on the counter, "I'm not gonna wash a big cutting board in the dark."

He briefly washes the fruits, then chops up the sizable ones, leaving smaller berries unchopped. You open a plastic bag as he opens a box of sugar.

It's the same as with the meats, only with sugar and chopped fruits instead of salt and raw flesh.

As he was washing his hands a second time, Novi turns to you.

"Can you mash the ones that weren't chopped? I feel like the sugar won't diffuse through the skins well enough. You mash the berry filled bags, and in the dim lighting the colorful juices squirt into the granules of sugar.

"Whats next?" You ask Novi, starting to feel exhausted from merely holding a few bags open.

"Next, we're pickling stuff," he says as he grabs a bag of onions from the fridge, "The knife is a bit dull, so this'll smell like shit."

He starts chopping the onions into long bits, and soon the air hurts to breathe. You keep your head back as Novi dumps the chopped onions into the bag in your hands, then slowly fills with vinegar, adding another strong scent to the air.

You zip the bag, then run to the living room for a breath of air, your eyes still stinging from the onions. You return to see the towels with chopped radishes on one side and peppers on the other side. After bagging them with vinegar, you're curious to see how he's gonna use alcohol for the dairy and eggs.