Mingle - Emergency Potluck

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin

Main Nav | Permanent Bulletin | Calendar |

WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

[lasthumanvoice]

"I'm pretty sure turnips are fruit of the earth. Though that makes me wonder about peanuts now, given now those grow. Hello, hi and hello!" Cecil is reading the notecards and vibrating with joy.

"I may need to argue about latke toppings with you, though. Sour cream is perfectly acceptable. Cranberry sauce, even better."

[amourtician]

Anzu raises an eyebrow at Cecil.

"Sour cream is savoury, dearest," he says, after a brief pause. "It does not go along with dessert. Desserts are really supposed to be sweet."

As to the other thing, it takes him a second to process it, "wait, ah. Wait a moment. Peanuts grow not on, nu, trees?" He's been assuming they're like cashews. He might, in fact, even be thinking of cashews. "And what exactly are cranberries?"

[graphomaniac]

"Uh, cranberries are like, rowan, but squishier and they grow in lakes," says Lev, unhelpfully. "They also taste suspiciously artificial for something allegedly grown?"

He comes closer, nodding in greeting to Cecil.

"He won't be convinced of the sour cream thing," he says, jerking his chin at Anzu. "Also, don't get him like, started on the difference between sour cream and smetana?"

[lasthumanvoice]

"Oh, no. Peanuts grow on a plant that's low to the ground. They're not tubers, but the plant buries them in the earth! And cranberries are...well, sour and delicious and make for a thick sauce that thickens itself due to the pectin in the fruit."

[amourtician]

Anzu, who has definitely never seen a peanut in any form (not even as peanut butter), tries to picture the habit of a peanut plant and comes up with something more akin to an Umbelliferae, growing like a carrot or like Katusha's Lace, with an intricate phototoxic flower and a long taproot. But Cecil said they're not tubers. Anzu's not sure if carrots are tubers. Are taproots tubers?

"So, ah," he says, cocking his head to one side and contemplating Cecil. "Like carrots, then? Or, nu, more akin to very confused strawberries?"

He smiles, a little abashed.

"Forgive me, darling," he says. "I'm but a physician, not a true natural historian. If peanuts poison not, and produce not flowers what can burn the skin, then they're rather out of spheres of my knowledge."

Cranberries sound intriguing, though.

"So one can make kissel with them?" he says, suddenly agog. "But without no need to resort to potato starch?" He likes the idea of kisel. He hates the texture of the reality.

[lasthumanvoice]

"I have no clue what kissel is, but there's no potato starch in cranberry sauce. Just cranberries and sugar and some water, for the purists. Citrus additions if you're feeling spicy. As for the peanuts...either I need to draw a diagram or find you a plant, one of the two."

Or both, perhaps, if he has time and the means at some point.

[amourtician]

"Nu, well! Citrus counts as spicy by thee, ziskayt?" Anzu says; by his tone and his expression, it's clear he's matching Cecil's air—not at all serious, but also, as Anzu sees it, neither disingenuous nor truly frivolous. Some light conversation, a friendly duel of wits, maybe. "I suppose I could imagine it, barbaris is a spice, after all, as are lemon peels—" he cocks his head to one side, taps a finger against the side of his jaw, thinking. "But how novel! A fruit what thickens itself. I assume the texture never gets suspicious gritty?"

As for the matter of peanuts, Anzu holds up a hand, grinning.

"Oh, dearest, I'd never say no to practical demonstrations of wonders, botanical or otherwise— but!" his grin gets wider. "Hold on just a second, sweetness—"

From the far end of the table, he fetches a sheaf of papers, clearly the same as the paper the food labels were written on, and a fountain pen. These he hands to Cecil with a flourish.

"I'd also never say no to new knowledge gained immediately, even if it has to be supplemented later. And thy words intrigue me."

[lasthumanvoice]

Cecil doesn't hesitate. He takes the pen and produces this:



"So, is that fruit of the earth, or not?"

[amourtician]

Anzu holds up the piece of paper, stares at it, then rotates it a couple of different ways. Then he looks at Cecil; his mouth's twitching, like he's suppressing an urge to laugh. His eyes are certainly merry—amused.

"Ziskayt, this is a positively fiendish arrangement for a plant's habits!" he exclaims. "It's almost the vegetable lamb, except I assume the nuts at the end don't go baa, nu?"

He taps the side of his jaw again.

"Hast thou heard of the matter of the palm tree?" he asks, trusting that Cecil will assume by default that he's going somewhere with this sudden tangent.

[lasthumanvoice]

There's a moment of confusion, and then a slow almost melting smile when he's called 'ziskayt', like he hasn't heard the word in forever, and he doesn't know what it means, but it makes him inexplicably warm and fuzzy on the inside.

"I...haven't. My sister stopped taking me to Hebrew school after I celebrated bar mitzvah. There weren't many other Jewish people in the town I'm from. It was...there's...I don't know as much as you two do about everything, alright?"

Typical American two-day Jew, but not wholly by choice.

[amourtician]

Anzu reaches out a languid hand, offering Cecil the option of a handclasp, something to hold on to. His expression is gentle, but internally, he's kicking himself for not being even a little more considerate—the rabbi's son, and grandson, and great-grandson, with good yikhus coming out of his nose, he who was so lucky to grow up with little fear of persecution, at least until he was eleven, and to grow up with no fear of assimilation, nor fear of abandonment.

Of all people, he should be mindful not to lord such things over others.

"Dearest," he says, softly, "thou need'st not explain, but ah … please, sweetness, blame thyself not." He takes a deep breath, considers telling Cecil about his own disconnection, of his own making, too—and decides to burden not the other man with such matters; there'll be time.

Instead, he smiles at Cecil, and says, "mine husband says that no one is too old to learn Torah. And in any case, he certainly spoke highly of thy reasoning and thine attitude both. Anyone can memorise psakim. Interpretation and application, such are the things more valuable, and much harder."

He leans back, flicking his hand at the wrist rhythmically; he rocks back and forth just a little, though not quite as prominently as during prayer.

"In any case, darling," he continues, breezily, "the matter of the palm tree. Halakhically, it is a grass, and bananas require the blessing of fruits of the earth. Theoretically. I do not eat bananas. Feh. Might as well eat a sponge. But, ah. It seems like an analogous case to the peanut, nu?"