[EP] Tea and Cookies

[st_oh_honestly]

For a few weeks Dot had just pitched in where it seemed like she would be useful and tried to pick up any interesting information for her notebook. Not that she'd learned anything too terribly useful, certainly nothing that would lead to a way home. Then she'd discovered the small bakery in the corner of the main cafe that seemed to be the unofficial gathering place.

She watched it for a few days and then poked about in the pantry kitchen before deciding that what everyone needed - aside from a priest to give mass on Sunday - was cookies.

And bread.

And possibly scones.

What she made would be decided by what she could find in the pantry but most baked goods started with flour, butter, eggs and milk. So many of the people here seemed to lack... well what Dot thought of as essential skills. At least for a woman of her class. What Dot could do with a little flour and some eggs was a sight to be seen.

Which was why the pastry case was currently bursting with cookies, a pot of tea was ready on a side table and Dot was kneading bread at the counter wearing an apron over the most demure clothing the little boutique had to offer.

She may or may not have a smudge of flour on her nose.

Comments

[st_alksthroughwalls]

On her way into the bar, Kitty was assailed by the scent of fresh baking. "That smells amazing," she called out to whoever--

Oh. Miss Fisher's companion. What was her name again?

"Tell me there are fresh-baked cookies and I will make you anything you want to drink forever."

[st_oh_honestly]

"Chocolate chip, nut butter and snickerdoodle." Dot turned with a smile, and nodded at the case as she held up her floury hands.

"Help yourself."

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Chocolate chip?" Kitty felt her stomach go a little gooey, like the best kind of chocolate chip cookies. She grinned at the young woman and reached into the case to snag one. "I'd kiss you, but I should probably introduce myself first. I'm Kitty. I've seen you with Miss Fisher, but I don't think I've ever caught your name."

[st_oh_honestly]

"I hope they're okay. I've never seen chocolate like that before." Individual morsels prepackaged for cookies just seemed odd to her.

She shaped the dough, dropped it into an oiled bowl, tossed a dish towel over it and wiped her hands on her apron before offering one to Kitty.

"I'm Dot."

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty knew a lot of thing, like how small regularly sized chunks of things melted more evenly than irregular shapes. But chocolate chips didn't melt in cookies, which meant there was another reason for it. "Huh." Now she wondered how they'd come about. It probably had something to do with the Nestle company...

She blinked out of her thoughts and took the outstretched hand. "If they taste half as good as they smell, they'll be great."

[st_oh_honestly]

"I only tried the oatmeal," truthfully the chocolate in these particular cookies had been a whim. And a lack of raisins. "But the basic mix is the same."

[st_alksthroughwalls]

To set Dot's mind at ease (and, okay, because she was pretty hungry), Kitty bit into the cookie right then. Butter burst over her tongue before the browned flour and sugar, and then the chocolate, just melty enough to release the flavor. Kitty's eyes widened a little and her eyes brightened with pleasure.

"Ohmygodthat'sgood," she said around a mouthful of cookie, hand coming up to cover her mouth while she finished chewing the bite. "I've eaten a lot of chocolate chip cookies in my life. I'm pretty sure this is the best."

[st_oh_honestly]

That made Dot laugh, pleased and a little embarrassed if the blush on her cheeks was any indication.

"Oh good, I decided to add the whole bag like the recipe on the back said but I used my own recipe for the rest." The trick was using an extra egg yolk.

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty snagged another cookie on the way toward the bar counter, pulled a small plate from under it, set the cookie on it and then started her mental inventorying of what she needed from the kitchen, the other bars, and maintenance. While she did that, she asked Dot, "Where did you learn to cook like that? Is it just baking or can you cook all kinds of stuff?"

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow was one of the people in the hotel who was quite able to cook, and she had handled a number of her own meals to avoid going completely mad from eating chicken. She hadn't made pie since that first night, frankly she had done everything in her power to talk to as few people as possible.

But someone was baking.

And so she had quietly crept into the bakery to slip a cookie.

[st_oh_honestly]

"There's tea too," Dot told the silent girl who was eyeing the cookies. "And milk in the chiller if you prefer."

[st_arkcrowblack]

It had been years since her stepmother had last put her in the milk bath, and even so, Snow White had never been able to stand the stuff. Once you'd nearly been drowned in it, felt it in all the wrong pipes as it were, well. Sometimes she swore she could still smell milk even when it was nowhere near her.

She flinched at the mere use of the word. "Tea's fine," she murmured, but she took a cookie rather than concern herself with the tea, either.

[st_oh_honestly]

"You'll have to pour it yourself," Dot turned to display her flour and dough covered hands with a smile.

"And I hope those are alright, there was only these chocolate dots to use instead of whole chocolate. Very odd."

[ooc: Chocolate chips (premade ones) were invented in 1937, and Dot is from about 1928 so I've decided she stood looking at a bag of tollhouse chips like... why would you need them premade?]

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow nodded and poured herself a cup of tea. "Thanks," she murmured. For putting in the effort, she meant, because it was rude not to.

She wasn't sure if it was loneliness or not wanting to seem like a lump--though if she were honest with herself it was probably more the former--she added softly, "Last place I was in didn't have chocolate."

[st_oh_honestly]

"No chocolate?" Dot's face was slightly horrified, which just went to show how much her life had changed since she'd come to work for Miss Phryne.

"We didn't have it much when I was growing up, too many mouths and not enough money. But my mum would make cocoa sometimes, for the end of Lent and Christmas."

[st_arkcrowblack]

"Nowhere to get it," Snow explained with a faint shrug. "We were cut off." That she supposed was one of the few advantages of being here and not in Gotham. You weren't living in a constantly rebuilding war zone.

Bear, Regina, and Sissy, or physical safety?

That wasn't a hard choice.

[st_oh_honestly]

Dot nodded, and went back to kneading her bread, deftly cutting it into pieces and shaping them into rolls that went on a greased baking sheet.

"The war was like that, I was just a girl, but I was old enough to know about the rationing and to understand why we couldn't have certain things. And we weren't even on the continent, can't imagine what it was like for the boys fighting."

[st_eadiesthefour]

Constance's room was too quiet. The entire inn was quiet compared to the Paris she called home, but she wasn't meant for hiding away when there was so much life going on. Even while married to Bonacieux she hadn't been so isolated. So she kept the room for sleeping and when being in a future world surrounded by a language she didn't understand got to be too much.

The aroma of fresh bread and pastries greeted her as she walked into the cafe looking for people. Constace gave the woman kneading bread a friendly grin, then looked over the display of cookies, although not ones she was recognized. More new things to learn about and try. She pointed at the dough the woman was kneading. "Je pourrais vous aider si vous voulez?" she offered, her voice and an eyebrow rising in question at the end.

[st_oh_honestly]

Dot considered the other woman, wiping floury hands on her apron.

"I know you're asking something," her tone was apologetic, she didn't speak French, for all Miss Phryne might have tried to teach her. She frowned and pointed miming eating a cookie then pointed at the dough and mimed kneading.

"Are you asking for a cookie? Or.. what I'm making?" Or something else entirely. Bother. Her latin wasn't much unless you wanted to pray to the blessed virgin but it was better than she could do in French, she wondered if this woman spoke latin.

[st_eadiesthefour]

Constance still tried, when she met someone, instead of assuming they wouldn't understand her. A few spoke French of one sort or another, which was a relief, and she wouldn't know if she didn't try. But she'd mostly prepared for those she met not to. She pointed to the dough, then to the other woman and herself, and tugged the ends of her sleeves up slightly although they ended halfway up her forearm anyway, so needed no rolling or tugging up to be out of the way.

She thought, trying to remember words and sounds she'd heard and tried to put meaning to. "'elp?" she tried, pointing to herself and the dough again, hoping it might help, whether she'd remembered the right word or not.

[st_oh_honestly]

"Oh!" Dot's face lit up with genuine pleasure and nodded gesturing the other woman around the counter to join her. "Yes, you're welcome to help if you want."

From a hook she produced another apron and offered it.

"I'm Dot." She gestured again at herself this time. "Dot."

[st_eadiesthefour]

Oh, she was a sweet young woman, Constance decided at the way Dot lit up at the offer. And practical too, baking bread and quick find an apron for Constance. "Constance," she said, pointing to herself again and quickly tying the apron into place. "Bonjour, Dot."

Joining Dot behind the counter, Constance found a bowl and started mixing up more dough, measuring ingredients by eye and how they came together. As she worked, her mind could move to other things, like not only having seen Dot as just one of the many faces moving through the inn, but in connection to someone Constance had met. "Vous conn-" she began, stopping herself with a shake of her head. "Mademoiselle Fisher, oui?"

[st_oh_honestly]

"Pleased to meet you Constance." Dot said going back to her own dough. She certainly could be sweet, but she was also practical just as Constance thought.

But not TOO practical, after all she'd made cookies first.

She was cutting her dough into equal pieces and shaping them into rolls when the other woman spoke, she glanced over and it took a moment to make sense.

"I know Miss Fisher, yes. I mean... oui. I'm her companion." She hoped that would translate somehow.

[st_eadiesthefour]

Compagnonne translated fairly easily, Constance hoped and fit with what little she'd seen of the two women together so far. Friend, yes, and confidante, but more like Constance had been for Anne, where the Spanish-born queen had been so alone surrounded by French nobles, unequal but devoted.

Constance gave another nod and smiled. She'd like Mlle. Fisher, beyond simply meeting someone she could have a conversation with, but if she had to guess, Constance thought she and Dot could be friends, once Constance learned enough English to speak in more than gestures and a shared comfort with baking.

[st_oh_honestly]

They probably could be friends, Dot didn't know Constance not really, but she felt... friendly. Familiar.

She smiled at Constance and then as she finished setting the rolls aside to rise she arched a brow.

"Can you make croissant?" She sort of shrugged and put out her hands in a helpless gesture. Maybe Constance could show her?