![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danko_kaji) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomweekly2016-07-03 01:58 am
[#019] A Bonding Experience (Original Universe)
Theme Prompt: #019 – Sweet Tooth
Title: A Bonding Experience
Fandom: Original Universe
Rating/Warnings: None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Noelle and Christopher take the day to challenge themselves. Prequel story to my original series, Friends of Fate. They are 14 / 16 years old respectively, adoptive cousins living under the same roof as Christopher’s blood relatives.
“I have to say,” Christopher says, pointing his spoon at her. “This hasn’t been your best idea, yet.”
“But I’ve always wanted to try it!” Noelle sits on her knees, leaning over the low rustic surface of their living room table with bated anticipation, silver spoon poised in hand. At the sight of this delectable monstrosity served in a large bowl between them, she can practically feel her mouth water (and her stomach churn in dread).
“You do know neither of us are equipped with the sweet tooth capable of putting a dent in this thing, right?”
“So?” She giggles. “Maybe today’s the day we finally develop one!” Clearing her throat, she attempts to imitate his infamous scholarly voice. “One is not simply born skilled or smart; they cultivate such talent and intelligence through experience.”
“Now you’re just mocking me.” He chuckles, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. This causes his bangs to fall over his eyes, and he moves to brush it out of his face. She pauses, spacing out at the sight of his salt-and-pepper hair, how the white has progressed to dominate the black in thick, heavy highlights. How does it manage to gray so fast when Christopher’s just a teenager? She wonders if she should feel concerned; it does look cool, though…
“What?” He catches her staring, amused.
“Mm, nothing. So…” She drums her hands against the table, eager to start. “Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be for that extra gut. I’m definitely not going to look forward to training today…”
“Neither am I, but it’s because of that training that we can work out that extra gut.” She sticks her tongue out, stealing the first bite, humming in happiness. On the rare occasion Christopher’s home from school on holiday and their grandfather’s still out working at the dojo, Noelle made sure to finish her homeschool print-out sheets and house chores early so she could have the entire day with Christopher in peace.
Although she expressed the desire to partake in the ‘ice cream sundae concoction’ challenge after seeing it in a movie, neither of them knew of a local place that hosted such an item on their menu, and so Christopher decided to whip one up after they returned home from a trip to the grocery store.
‘Melba Fruit Mountain,’ he had dubbed it, and Noelle hums in thought, curious.
“Where’d you get the word ‘Melba’ from? I never heard of it.”
He smiles through his spoonful of fruit and ice cream. “I improvised, but originally it was supposed to be a Peach Melba, a dessert that consists of peaches and vanilla ice cream topped with raspberry sauce; pêche Melba, as the French would call it. French chef Auguste Escoffier invented the dish in honor of the Australian soprano Nellie Melba, with whom the dessert derives its namesake.”
“Wow… She must have been pretty famous to inspire a whole dessert.”
“Mmhmm. Her and the chef who invented it. It was a grand, memorable occasion, too.”
“What was?” She straightens up, excited at the prospect of another story.
“The dinner party the Duke of Orléans gave in celebration of Melba’s performance in the opera Lohengrin.”
“What a mouthful…” Noelle falters, overwhelmed by that flood of information. “Could you perhaps repeat that, please?”
“In 1892, she performed at the Covent Garden in a famous Romantic opera called the Lohengrin, which was written by Richard Wagner. Follow me so far? For the occasion, Escoffier created a new dessert, and to display it, he used an ice sculpture of a swan, which happened to be featured in the opera, and decorated the bed of vanilla ice cream atop it with a fine spread of peaches topped with spun sugar. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah!” She beams, enthralled by the picture his words painted. “It sounds so dreamy, like it belongs in a medieval novel or fairytale… I wish I was there to witness its birth and creation!”
“No need to say both words; birth and creation basically mean the same thing.”
“If they’re supposed to mean the same thing, then why are they two separate words, hm, hmm?”
He laughs, nabbing some fruit after finishing his first mound of ice cream. “Touché. Mm, well, at any rate… Other versions of the dessert naturally followed. Escoffier, for the grand opening of the Carlton Hotel in which he served as head chef at the time, modified the peach melba by removing the ice swan statue and replacing the sugar with a raspberry purée. Over time, pears, apricots, or strawberries would sometimes replace the peaches, and raspberry sauce or melted red jelly would substitute the purée. You can pretty much slap together any assortment of fruit you want with vanilla ice cream and call that a melba.”
At the rate of Christopher’s “dessert anthropology,” Noelle’s made quick work out of her side, which looked demolished in comparison to his rather neglected mess. She starts to swipe around his area for more ice cream, fishing for fruit buried beneath the melting slope, knowing full well how he hates to drink up the soupy parts.
“That’s amazing. How do you know so much, anyway?”
“I read.”
Whenever Christopher displays such arrogance with a straight face, it almost always causes her to giggle, and Noelle grins, pursing her mouth in vain to stifle her glowing amusement. “Really, though.”
“It’s the truth. When I want to know something, I look it up.”
“So you mean to tell me you woke up one day wanting to know the full history behind the origins of a fancy dessert?”
“Why, yes!" He beams. "Would you believe me if I told you I was a master chef of epicurean delights in a past life? I even owned my own restaurant and everything, specializing in the highest quality Japanese cuisine, and you were my lovely manager of human resources.”
Noelle laughs. “You know, if you keep talking like this, we’re never gonna finish this thing.”
no subject
no subject