strangetrip | [OTA] S'more S'mores, Please (joint EP: Emma and Jag)

Usually when Emma couldn't sleep, she cooked. Last night had been the opposite. She'd started trying out new marshmallow variations, completely lost track of time, and spent most of the night in the kitchen instead of doing reasonable things, like sleep. She'd grabbed a nap in the wee hours, though and another after lunch, and now was wide awake.

She also had batches and batches of homemade marshmallows.

Around sunset, Jag helped her set up a table near the pool and outdoor bar, that she loaded up with the marshmallows, graham crackers and other cookies, chocolate and berries and spreads and bacon. Anything somebody might think of that would make a good s'more, from the traditional basic graham, milk chocolate bar, plain marshmallow, to bourbon marshmallow s'mores with smoky bacon. If the inn was anything like the castle, word of mouth would spread quick enough, and the food wouldn't go to waste.

Jag had started a fire right beside the table, but after having had his own fill of s'mores, he had left Emma to meeting the demand of other hotel residents. He was sticking around to make sure the fire was behaving just right, though. So he was lying on his back a little way from Emma's table, and the fire he was still controling, weaving and sculpting additional fire between his hands, keeping a distracted ear on what was going on nearby.

[tag Emma or tag Jag. food and fire, what could be better?]

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Curnen smiled and picked up one of the Midori marshmallows. She figured if nothing else she could try roasting and eating it on its own and seeing what that tasted like. She couldn't imagine the flavor that Emma was trying to describe, so there was nothing for it but putting it in her mouth. "Reckon I'll do that in a bit, then." She nodded at the spread of treats. "How long'd all that take, anyway?"

"I kind of lost track of time," she admitted, ducking her head and lowering her gaze sheepishly. "It's really not all that long to mix up one batch, maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes or so? Then they have to set up for hours or overnight before they're ready to cut and eat. But I spent most of last night trying out different flavors, just because."

"Good project 'round here's more precious than gold," Curnen mused as she watched her marshmallow slowly brown. She smiled. "Project with food, you could have us all literally eating outta your hand."

Emma shrugged again. "I have two skills, and there's not much need for a fortune teller here. But I like experimenting in the kitchen, if there's a food you, or anybody, miss. That's what I did with New York-style pizza back home, and I've never been to New York. We just had a lot of people from there, who were willing to taste test and tell me what I got wrong."

Curnen snorted. "I got the one skill, and it's questionable if anybody 'round here really needs a musician." Especially one who got the shakes when performing for groups larger than a handful of people.

Which wasn't to say she couldn't cook, of course she could. But it was purely functional.

"And I ain't ever had no New York pizza," she said, leaning hard into her drawl. "Now I'm curious what's so special."

"I think it's regional snobbery, actually. 'No pizza could possibly be as good as Brooklyn pizza,' or something like that. Mostly it's about getting the crust right. Some people say the water makes a difference there, and that's the one thing I couldn't do." Then there was the seasonings in the sauce, but really, the crust was the part she'd spent the longest reverse engineering.

"I'll make it sometime soon, and you can try it for yourself."

Curnen blew on her marshmallow before she poked it to see if it was an all right temperature for her mouth. It was more of a precaution than she might have taken some months ago, perhaps. "I'd like that. Only ever been around Tennessee in my life, this is the most adventurous my diet's ever been."

Well. Unless you counted the part where for a while she'd had to eat out of people trash to get anything reliably. That was an adventure if ever there was one.

Emma liked being able to feed people, and introducing them to foods they'd never tried before. And this pizza would always remind her of Sabine and Pyro and others from home, a kind of connection to them when she couldn't be with them. "I thought I recognized the accent. It's been a long time since I've been to Tennessee. I went through parts of it when I was with the carnival. We did a big winding curve through the south, from Oklahoma to Virginia and back each year."

Curnen chuckled around the marshmallow in her mouth, trying to decide what she thought of the flavor. "What parts?" Probably not anywhere near where she'd lived. The towns in the mountains were probably more properly called villages. Too small for anybody traveling through to bother with.

Emma chewed on the corner of her lip as she thought. "It's been years, but... We mostly skipped the big cities, or stuck to the suburbs at least. We weren't a big enough show for more than that. I remember we went to Oak Ridge. And La Vergne – that one's near... Nashville, I think, but I mostly remember it because of the name, and the trees. Paris, that one I remember for the name too, and the mini Eiffel Tower."

Curnen nodded confirmation on the location of La Vergne. She'd only had cause to be in the area when she was on tour with Rockhouse, but it was the first time she'd been out of the valley and she and Brushy had tried to learn and see whatever they could. "I'm from further east, up in the mountains. One of those towns with a couple hundred people tops."

They'd gone through some of those mountains, Emma remembered. But mostly on the main roads and in the valleys. She nodded. "We didn't stop anywhere too small. Nowhere we couldn't bring in crowds enough to get by. And caravans and trucks of our rides and booths didn't like those mountain roads too much."

The mountain roads, at least in the world Curnen had come from, had been guarded by magic older than most people could fit into their head to be unwelcoming to outsiders, but even so she nodded. "Oh yeah. They're little and winding and a lot of the smaller ones ain't paved. It's a death trap in winter. Even some locals just go up in the hills and you don't see 'em for three months."

"Winter wasn't a problem. We spend the off-season in Oklahoma. Our problem was going along the Gulf or eastern seaboard during hurricane season." Which was one of the ways Emma's gifts came in handy. "And since we usually ran March through November, and hurricanes are June through November..." she trailed off, her point clear enough, she thought.

"Well, shit," Curnen laughed. She'd never experienced a hurricane herself, but she'd heard plenty of tell about them. "Y'all like to live dangerously."

"I grew up in New Orleans," Emma said, as though that were explanation enough. She wasn't going to think about why she'd left, or just how much she knew about hurricanes.

"Besides, I'm a seer. The idea is not going where the storms are going to be, I could see how to avoid them."

It was explanation enough. "Sounds handy." There were no seers exactly among the Tufa, but most people with the true in them had some talent in reading signs or hearing the guidance of the night wind. It wasn't completely reliable on an individual level, but as a community they managed to keep themselves protected.

Curnen smiled. "I think I'm good getting my next s'more, you ain't gotta humor me." Which wasn't a 'go away' so much as a 'technically you're hosting and I've taken enough of your time.'

Another shy smile, and Emma nodded. "Okay. I'll be here." If Curnen had any questions that couldn't be figured out with a taste test.

"And I'll let you know the next time I make pizza."

[OTA] S'more S'mores, Please (joint EP: Emma and Jag)

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