[Hypnosis Mic] Cooking Together

Butterbur

Riou started right away, going over the ingredients for the pastry dough. Barnyard grass flour, stone-ground salt, acorn oil shortening, water. Not too complicated. The ingredients were very Riou. Doppo would have to make some substitutions if he tried it at home. It was inspiring that Riou managed to make all this himself out here. Who'd've thought you could make a pie out of things found in the woods? Doppo could never be that inventive.

Doppo had some trouble getting the dough to the right consistency. Even with Riou measuring out the other ingredients for him, he couldn't seem to get the amount of water right. First too little, then too much, ruining the batch. Before he could apologize (profusely) for wasting ingredients, Riou brought out more, waving away the mistake.

“Don't worry. Go ahead and try again. This is still usable, just not for tarts.” He looked at it for a moment, apparently deep in thought. “Ah. We can have meat rolls for dinner. I trapped some marten and squirrels this morning.”

Well, if it was getting used, then maybe it wasn't too horrible a mistake. The next batch, he managed to get right, kneading it to the perfect consistency. While he rolled it out, he noticed Dice watching them through the curtain.

“How long is it going to take? I'm starving,” he complained.

Riou, who was carefully brushing oil across thin sheets of the over-watered batch of dough, answered him. “The dough needs to chill, and then the tarts will need to bake. It's going to be at least a few hours until they're ready.”

Dice whined. He must've been as bored as he was hungry, because he then came into the kitchen and sat next to the laboring Riou. “Give me something to do,” he said.

“Can you skin a squirrel?” Riou asked.

He nearly gagged. “No way in hell am I doing that.”

Hadn't he just asked for something to do? Did Dice really have any right to be so picky? Not that Doppo wanted to skin a squirrel, either.

“Then you can ash-treat the butterbur.”

“That sounds boring as hell, but it's better than dealing with squirrel guts. Point me to it.”

Riou set down the not-quite-phyllo-dough and went to the sink to show Dice how to properly remove the alkaloids from the wide, flat leaves and thin red stems. The young shoots, he explained, could be eaten raw. Where did Riou even learn all this? He was a font of botanical knowledge.

Doppo finished rolling out his dough. Riou took it from him on a wooden slab and stepped outside to place that and his own dough in the, uh, well, it was just a metal box outside, but on cooler days it could serve as a sort of fridge.

Taking a short break, he turned to see how Dice was doing. He was, surprisingly, diligently going about his assigned task, but, hm. “Arisugawa-kun, you've got something, uh,” he motioned towards his own mouth, “there.”

“Huh?” Dice rubbed at his mouth, confused.

Doppo reached for something reflective enough to let Dice see himself and landed on a clean metal bowl. He held it up for him to examine his reflection.

“What the hell…?” Dice said softly, poking at the black splotches around his mouth.