Saving the Kitchen

Richard nibbled on his lip as he studied the recipe book.

It had been a while since he had last attempted to cook. Which could of resulted him in giving himself salt poisoning.

This time, now with more knowledge on different measurement types, he was going to try to make something a little more simple. A spaghetti bolognaise. It should be as easy as the cook book made it sound.... Right?

Tying his hair back and washing his hands, he looked at the ingredients spread neatly across the table, all of them needing to be prepared first before he started. Carefully, he picked up a knife and began to dice the mushroom slowly.

Giacinto hummed to herself cheerfully as she strolled into the kitchen.

She wore a simple black midriff shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. her curly hair was tied up in a high ponytail that bobbed with every step she took.

"Evening Dickory~!" she greeted with a wide grin, taking the younger vampires hand and pulling him into a surprise spin before laying a kiss on his cheek.

"What are we cooking today?" she asked curiously.

"Questo è un bene. Amo bolognaise," she said, clapping her hands together excitedly.

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That's good, I love bolognaise

Not glancing up from the mushroom, slightly afraid that if he did he would somehow mess it up (he was sure that the book mentioned that they all had to be diced up the same size), he hummed out a "Evening." back.

Eyes widening, he yelped slightly as he was pulled in for a spin, he felt the knife fly out of his hand. Wiping his cheek quickly, not as red as it would of normally gone, he quickly turned back to the counter to look for the knife.

Glancing at the clapping woman, he raised an eyebrow.

".... Good?" That meant she was eating it? Or helping him cook? Really, he was only cooking for himself, considering his cooking never went down well with others... Then again, even with himself. Normally, it was only the bin that would enjoy his lack of cooking skills.

"Naww." She grinned and ruffled the man's blond hair when he yelped.

Her eyes trailed over the ingredients set out on the counter as she bent to pick the knife off the floor.

She tossed it into the sink with furrowed brows.

"Where's the wine? We can't make a good bolognaise without red wine."

Grabbing the cook book, he pointed at the ingredients section running his finger down the list to show her.

"It does not say that it needs wine. So; no wine."

He knew that wine was often used in cooking. But for once, he did not want to mess up. Which meant sticking to the recipe. Whether the sound of wine in the food sounded like a good idea or not.

She waved a hand dismissively.

"The person who wrote that cookbook was human. I've been cooking for four and a half millennia. I have far more experience than that human."

She turned on the tap and began washing her hands.

"Go get the wine," she ordered.

"I have just over five-hundred. That does not seem to help me."

Sighing, he closed the cook book reluctantly and went to fetch the wine.

Opening the cupboard that stored the beverage, he frowned a little at the variety. Picking out a couple of the green bottles, blowing off the dust on one of them, he tried to figure which one to use.

But.... Can you use any old wine for cooking?

Chewing his lip, he tried to come to a decision by himself, before looking over his shoulder at Giacinto.

"Which one do you want?"

"Yeah, well you suck at cooking. I'm actually good at it."

She looked over her shoulder as she began to dice the mushrooms.

"Uhh.... Get the merlot." She said after a minute of internal debating. Merlot would do just fine for a bolognaise.

Still internally sulking about the Giacinto's small jib at his cooking, reassuring himself that it was just because he had little practice, he put the other two bottle's back into the cupboard before grabbing the merlot and placed it next to Giacinto.

Feeling that he had been pushed aside from his own cooking to be a simple errand boy, he stood to the side. He had tasted some of her cooking before, so he was not complaining about her taking over. Much.

Twisting his ring, watching the older vampire - in hopes that her cooking skills would somehow rub off on him.

She clicked a couple times, pointing at the onions before turning back to the mushrooms.

"Chop 'em," she ordered.

She wasn't doing all the work. That and she hated chopping onions. She did it, yes, but if there was another unfortunate soul that could do it, she'd have them to it.

Dick just happened to be that unfortunate soul.

Looking at the onions, he frowned a little. While he knew hardly anything about cooking, he knew that onions were not the most favourable things to chop. He had seen enough overused jokes about how it makes people sob like babies.

Not arguing with her though, he peeled a fairly large onion before cutting it, breathing through his mouth, rather then his mouth. It was a trick that he had read in that cook book, which he hoped will worked.

As he began to cut them, he frowned a little more, thinking over what Giacinto said earlier.

"You said that you have been cooking for four and a half millennia.... I knew you where fairly old, but I did not think you are that old." He stopped chopping the onions for a secound to look at the woman questionably. "Are you?"

"I could be older. I'm not sure."

The woman gave a half-hearted shrug. "I could only guestimate my birth with modern equipment. I could be anywhere up to a couple hundred years out. I may only be four thousand but I could be five."

She truly had no idea how old she was. All she knew was that she was at least four thousand years.

"How old did you think I was?"

Richard stared at her, suddenly feeling extremely young.

"And here I keep thinking I am old." He murmured to himself, closing his slightly agape jaw.

Blinking for a second, shaking his head to get himself out of his surprise, he turned back to his barley chopped onions. Trying to focus on chopping them, rather then thinking about how old the woman was next to him.

"I thought maybe a couple thousand, at the very most. And even that was a bit of a shock to the system."

The woman shrugged. "You were once human. You believed that you were going to die at a fairly young age. You have a different mindset about what old is."

She leaned back against the counter after pulling two wine glasses out of the cupboard above her head.

She filled both glasses with the wine before lifting one of the glasses to her lips. "Yeah, I guess I'm pretty old, even by vampire standards. The VHA got in touch with me about a month back. I've been named the oldest living vampire that they know of in the world."

"True, but still." He stopped chopping again, looking up. Trying to keep his eyes off Giacinto to stop looking at her in such fascination. "The things you must of seen... Watching the world change..."

Picking up the other glass he took a small gulp, dwelling to thought for a few moments.

"The oldest vampire in the world?" This time, he could not help but look at her in fascination. He quickly looked away again and took another sip. "It is a little hard to believe, if I am honest."

"I've had my fair share of life experiences," she snorted.

She'd seen the leaps and bounds evolution. It had been fascinating.

But it made her feel so...strange. For the first thousand years she had her father by her side. But after that she had just blundered. She stumbled through life feeling totally lost.

"Pity party over!" she exclaimed suddenly, pushing off the counter and setting the glass down.

"Yeah, I didn't really believe it, either. I remember when I used to be the baby vampire in the huge coven." She laughed. "I almost miss those days."

"Let's get this done, ne?"

Smiling at Giacinto, he turned back to the onions, setting the glass down beside him.

"Sure."

Really, he was bursting with questions. His curiosity nagging in the back of his mind. He was completely fascinated with her age, wanting to just sit down and just listen to her talk about her life and the world around her. She must know answers that historians would kill to know? And seen things that he could only dream of?

Biting his lip, he began to chop the onions. Judging by how quiet she went for a second, he guessed she did not want to talk about it - or at least to him. So he kept his curiosity to himself, shoving it to the back of his mind.

"Damn it." He hissed suddenly.

Blinking quickly, he stood back from the onions, his eyes stinging. Wiping the tears away from his blood-shot eyes with the back of his hand, he glared at Giacinto and then at the onion - not even half of it yet cut yet.

"If you are the expert, why couldn't you cut it?" He grumbled, sniffling as he edge back closer to the onion to carry on cutting it - trying to ignore his watery eyes.

The Succubus gave a quiet snort when the younger vampire cursed.

Haha, he got caught by the onions.

She looked at ihm with wide-eyed innocence. "I'm only helping so you don't burn down my kitchen. You're the one doing the actual cooking. I couldn't take on such a big job as chopping the onions."

He snorted, trying to ignore the tear threatening to overspill down his cheek. He speed up chopping the onions, precision and carefulness thrown out of the window, now just wanting to get the onions done.

"I was not going to burn down the the kitchen."

He glared at her again, grumbling under his breath about that one time where he may or may not of left something in the oven for far to long.

Quickly finishing the onions, he quickly pushed them towards Giacinto before turning away, grabbing a tissue to wipe away the tears.

"Anything else that I need to chop up?"

"Bring some water to the boil and go and get a bowl of ice water," she ordered, picking up her glass of wine again.

From now on, she'd just guide him on what to do.

Unless his cooking was so painful she had to take over.

"... Bowl of ice water?"

Raising an eyebrow at her, he followed her orders, bringing some water to boil (though he did not know it is was to little or too much) and then fetched the bowl of ice water - still a little unsure of why she wanted some.

Standing still again, he looked at her questionably to see why she wanted him to do next. Not wanting to work on his own initiative in case he messed up.

"Score a cross on the underside of the tomatoes and drop them in the boiling water."

She lifted a hand to toy with one of her curls idly, eyes flickering over the kitchen. There didn't seem to be anything out of place.

"After about twenty seconds move them to the ice water."

Picking up a tomato and a knife, he looked at them both before looking at Gacinto.

"Score a cross on the underside of the tomato? So, I just cut a cross in it?"

He cut into the tomato, a little unsure on how deep to cut in it.

"Like this?"

She nodded, eyes turning back to him.

"Aye, like that. Then just drop them in the boiling water."

Her eyes turned back to the kitchen as she took another sip of wine. "Twenty seconds in the water then move them to the ice water until they cool down."

Cutting a cross on each tomato, he followed Giacinto's instructions. He did each tomato one at a time, wanting to makes sure that each one was in the boiling water for twenty seconds. No more, no less.

"Should I turn the stove off, or keep the water on boil?" He asked, taking his glass to wine to take a couple of sips before smiling at Giacinto.