Stressed Backwards

[Faith Augustin]

20th
Vhalar
717

Throughout her life, Faith had always been focused on needs and wants and desires. Not her own, the idea of focusing on those or even acknowledging them was something which was barely an arc old. Padraig had taught her that; gently and without judgement or criticism he had completely refused to order her to do anything from the moment they met. Her a slave and him a tutor, he could and should have given her instructions and edicts from the very beginning, but he never had. It was an arc ago this trial that she and he had found themselves in the still forming body of the Immortal, Treid, following a series of events and battles. As they had fallen together, clinging to each other and neither one of them prepared to admit their feelings, he had not once told her what she had to do.

Despite the fact, she knew, that he understood how much easier he could have made it. Still, for all that his love and respect for her had made an understanding of her own wishes and desires possible, it had still been a long journey. It would be a lie to say that she was there yet, either, Faith knew. Compared to where she had been, though, they had walked a million miles together. Maybe there was still a thousand miles to go, but that was fine.

That was, she knew, more than fine. Every step they took, they took together. In a strange way, he was looking forward to the first time they argued, she believed. The thought of it, of disagreeing with him in that way wasn't something that she could easily comprehend and the whole notion of it gave her a level of anxiety which she found hard to express. It was very over simplistic to think that he wanted to argue with her, he didn't, but Faith knew that he wanted her to be able to. She wasn't sure that she ever would, but it wasn't for the reasons he might think. Or maybe he already knew.

Faith looked down at the notepad she had with her and she smiled to herself. Her mind was wandering, there was no doubt about it. In the Order, they saw a lot of pregnant women and many of them complained of being flighty in their thoughts. Faith finally understood what it was they were talking about.Flighty was exactly right, she considered, her hand moving to touch her stomach. Just entering the second trimester of her pregnancy, Faith looked and felt well. She'd been relatively lucky, she knew, in terms of her health and she was looking forward to this part; it was in the second trimester that women reported really enjoying the growth of their child.

Still, she perched the parchment on her legs which were raised on the sofa and Faith turned her attention to what she was doing here.

[Faith Augustin]

20th
Vhalar
717

What she was planning was, she knew, not quite in the realms of entirely possible. However, Faith thought that she had found a way to put what she could imagine; it was about understanding the ingredients, about working one step at a time to make them work in the way she wanted them to. What it entailed was imagining carefully, thinking about each part. The secret was in realising, she had concluded, that baking was a science. Faith had a rudimentary understanding of alchemy, of chemistry and even the beginning of one in physics, yet the realisation that she could apply those principles to her baking was one which had opened doors for her.

The notes she had made showed a dessert plate. Faith had an idea for it, and she wanted to check it, see if it was possible. Her idea was simple and it had come to her whilst watching the waves crash over the shore. There had been a piece of driftwood, stuck in the sands and Faith had watched it as the foam of the waves had left tiny sparkling debris on it. It was beautiful, in truth, and it had made her think of a dish.

The first thing was to make a caramel and Faith knew that it had to be a very special sort of caramel. This one would need to be the dark grain of a wave of wood. When it was eaten, the caramel would act like popping candy, exploding in the mouth. It required careful measurements and an attention to detail on her part. If she kept it at the wrong heat, or heated it for too long then the exploding wouldn't happen. That was a reaction to the bicarbonate of soda. It was all a very small part of the finished piece, but Faith knew it would be vital. Then, it was on to the actual "wood" itself, made from a rich nougat.

Combining the two, Faith had to work to turn the nougat and caramel into a piece of 'wood'. The trick was making it look like a piece of driftwood and for that it took an attention to detail - but Faith had exactly that. So she was able to move on to the next bit - which was to produce small pieces, small chunks, chips and bits which looked like pebbles and sand. Some of these were ground biscuits, shortbread and others were small and crunchy balls of popping caramel dipped in liquid caramel and then left to set so that they had long 'tails'. Which meant that she could move on to the next part.

That was a deep chocolate mousse. She had plans for that and what Faith did was make a rich white chocolate ganache, a thick sauce which would be served in a jar. That too required meticulous measurement, Faith needed to work to ensure that it was liquid and then, when it was poured over the 'driftwood' nougat and caramel it would react with the base, becoming a light mousse flavoured with almonds. Then, when it was that mousse, after it was set, then a dark chocolate sauce would be poured over and that too would set to a thick and crispy outer shell. The pouring of the sauces and their transformation was something which she had to experiement and practice with. Getting the white chocolate to react and shift into light mousse was relatively easy, but the dark chocolate was more tricky as it had to change into a crisp shell, which was best when it was even.

Still, she got it to work and then, it was time to taste and make adjustments to the recipie to make it absolutely perfect.Tiny amendments here and there were the order of the trial and Faith knew that in a very real sense, this had just started for her.

[Faith Augustin]

20th
Vhalar
717

Now, it was time to get this ready for the restaurant. Faith was starting to consider the possibility of opening up some kind of dessert bar. When they had been in Rharne there had been a tea shop which sold only tea. Padraig had teased her about it and refused to go there on the grounds that he wanted to be able to have a piece of cake with his cup of tea, but just lately it had been something she had been thinking about.

They could sell desserts, sweet confections and so on in the Scholars' Nook. Initially, Faith had thought about opening up their own place, but then she recognised the simple fact that she wouldn't go there, preferring to go to the Nook. That caused her to consider whether she could reasonably put herself in the position of being in competition with Caz and Flea at the Nook. The answer was simple - no, she would not be prepared to do that. Caz had become a friend to them both and Faith wouldn't do anything which might put them at odds. However, desserts in the Nook would be a great addition and so, Faith decided, she was going to put the proposition to Caz. But she was going to do it was an example of what she meant and what she could do.

Because the people who went to the Nook would appreciate unusual or quirky and so Faith thought it would be a good time to use the new skills she had developed over the preceding seasons. The driftwood mousse was one, then she was planning on making a chocolate scroll. The scroll would be made with a chocolate and marshmallow mix which meant that she could make it so that the chocolate would open up and unfurl, the texture and thickness of actual parchment. However, that was not sufficient for Faith; she had to make it so that it was able to be written on. So, in the kitchen at Cally's she worked on tempering chocolate sufficiently that she could make a wafer-thin feather quill and a pot made from chocolate which contained liquid chocolate ink. The nib of the quill would dip into the ink and would, by clever use of temperature, extra ingredients and tempering, write on the parchment.

By the time she was done, she was ready to go to the Scholar's Nook with an example of a dessert (the driftwood wave) and the chocolate scroll. THat would mean, hopefully, that she was able to show Caz what it was that she was able to offer.The plan would be that she would be able to take a number of items once every three trials. The produce could be kept cool by use of a green-sand display, Faith thought, and that would allow them to make sure that she was able to bring sufficient quality produce but that it would not take over her time at the restaurant. Next season, Faith thought, the investment she was going to make in the business was that she was going to outfit her kitchen at home so that, once the pregnancy had progressed to the point that she couldn't work and then, once the baby had come, she could still do what she could, the best that she could manage. That made, to her mind, good sense.

[Pash Raj'oriq]

Thread Rewards

It took me several moments of staring at the title to understand it, and then I smiled the rest of the time I read through this thoughtful, delicious post. I’m slow, but I love dessert. I do enjoy how Faith deals with things.

Faith

Points

XP:
10 | These points cannot be used for magic.

Fame:
N/A

Loot

N/A

Injuries + Overstepping

N/A

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Baking: Combining nougat and caramel
Baking: White chocolate mousse
Baking: Chocolate quill
Baking: Chocolate parchment
Baking: Chocolate ink
Cooking: Caramel

Other Knowledge:
Capstone Ability: The Confectionier

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