"Well, thank you," she said with a slight smile when he said it wasn't actually a bad idea. She nodded when he said he wasn't a gardener, but looked at the cart with a critical eye. "I love growing things, especially things that we're then going to eat or cook" Shrugging slightly, Faith considered that it was one of the reasons why she had started Cally's after all. To grow produce on a larger scale; she did it at home and they ate well because of it, but the ability to do good from that skill delighted her. "A lot of herbs also act as medicines, too, so you might consider it a double bonus."
He'd been to so many places, Faith thought and she looked utterly entranced. "What's Ne'haer like? I was there briefly, but it was when the shadow beasts were attacking and the place was in a bad way. And Desnind? Oh, I'd love to go to Desnind, pay my respects to Moseke. It's just so far away, though." She considered it and nodded. She'd go, she was determined. As for what Immortals' Tongue was? "It's a small island just over.... oh, I don't know, just off the mainland. There are shrines to every Immortal there." Faith smiled and gestured around. Scalvoris was strange like that, she explained. All the Immortals were shown reverence here, none were excluded. It was a tradition of the place that it was a bad idea to irritate the Immortal of Pestilence, for example, so sacrifices of produce were made to her at harvest time. "The temple in town is to all of them. It's beautiful, they call it the glass temple, it has the most beautiful windows. Egilrun is a small village somewhere around here and they are famous for making glass, usually from the magic sand."
For the yellow dragon wood, Faith nodded. "It burns like any other log. Smells like cherries when it does." Why, no one knew but it was a pleasant smell. She motioned to the campfire. "Feel free, we can try it out?" She nodded at the sack holding what it shouldn't. Thus far, she said, she'd not found a limit to it. There was a spelunking kit in there, a first aid kit. All sorts. When he asked about the jug and the glass at Cally's, though, she frowned. "What do you mean?" As recognition dawned, though, Faith shook her head. "That's Paul. He's a very good waiter and part of his job is to make sure that he doesn't get in your way when you're eating, but that your glass is full."
When she said that she had worked as an undertaker, or maybe it was that she'd been a slave, he smiled but not quite as cheerily as he made out, she thought. Glancing at him Faith grinned and nodded. "You get the stuff, I'll make you one, and some planters. Happy to show you how, if you want some basic skills."
But preparation of a feast, she was happy with that. The first thing she did was put the prepared chicken (once they'd prepared it and she was satisfied. That took a while, she was fussy about feathers) and rubbed it in sugar and then salt. Then, she wrapped it in some butchers' paper and left it on the side. "If you can keep that in there for a few breaks, all to the good, but at least do it while you prepare the stuffing." Which turned out to be onion, a few of the herbs he had, a half bit of carrot that he had, that kind of thing. She worked with him so that they basically chopped them all very very finely and mixed them together. "Any vegetables and decent tasting herbs will do here, whatever you've got really."
Once they had done that, Faith asked him to pass her the chicken and she washed it clean, but did so by use of two bowls. One had the chicken in, the other had a small amount of water. She poured the water, maybe two cups at most, over the chicken, washed it off, transferred the chicken into the second bowl. Then she repeated it. So that left her with two cups of water, with the salt and sugar mixture. "I'd use that to cook the bones in and make a stock with, myself. It adds a real depth." Then, she asked him to pat the chicken dry and showed him how she would stuff the vegetable mix under the skin of the chicken itself. "You have to be gentle with it, not rip the skin and it's why I was so fussy with the preparation." Faith explained. Then, it was just a case of tying it up and trussing it carefully, then putting it on the spit roast. It would leave them with, she explained, chicken with a crispy and very tasty skin but a moist meat underneath it.
Whilst it's cooking, we can make the bread and potatoes,, Faith didn't measure the ingredients, but she tasted what she was doing, constantly. Flatbread dough was straightforward, flour, salt, oil. "Milk is good, too, if you've got it, butter. The trick is to substitute where you can. I've used almond oil, coconut milk, all sorts." She diced up some chilies and added some dried ones he had and threw them in, rather unceremoniously. Once the dough was made and kneaded, she suggested just letting it rest, maybe on some warm sand. There was no need, she said, but somehow she felt it always just tasted better if she had.
The potatoes she prepared next and asked him how he might normally do them. Her way was to lay them on a flat surface, small potatoes fresh from the earth, cleaned but in their skins. Each one she pricked with a small knife or a fork, depending on what he had and then rubbed salt into them. Then she poured some water on to her hand and flicked it over them. "I don't wrap them against the skin. It makes them go soft and soggy and that crisp jacket is what we want. I would do it more like this." Four sticks of yellow wood laid on the edges of the flat stone they were on and then a flat piece of the same wood over the top. That made a parcel where the potatoes weren't wrapped individually, and once she'd checked the chicken, which she'd been doing regularly, she set the potatoes to cook, in their own little oven. It was cheating, she said, and she knew it, but that yellow wood didn't turn to ash, so there was a really good means of turning a flat stone into a decent cooking tool. The trick, she said, was to remember that you were going to have to get the food out of there, and have it next to some earth. Which she did.
Then, it was just a case of waiting and, maybe ten bits before the chicken was ready, cooking the bread on a gridle pan. "For this meal, I'd like the bread to be soft, so make it a little thicker, cook it a little less time. Thinner and more heat for crispy bread. But these can be like wraps." It had to be said, if the smell was anything to go by, the girl could cook.
