[PP-F7&1] Blueberries don't go on everything... [EaL]

[Blueberry 0]

Consuming Lemon Berry Palmiers (LD:+3) Total LD Bonus: +6

She watched as Gaius soundlessly moved into the pantry grabbing several items before stopping beside her. 'How did he find those? And that quickly? I've been looking for the last several minutes.' She watched as he prepared a dish at insane speeds, prepping his dessert at insane speeds. She stared one in awe she shoved the food into the oven, preparing the item perfectly. As he finished, he presented the dish to her and commanded for her to try it. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she gazed upon the dessert. "Okay!" Picking up one of the Palmiers from the dish, she would take a bite. For a moment, she was lost in the flavor, warmth flooding to her face as she allowed herself to become taken in the by the dessert. 

"It's delicious! Its just the perfect amount of sweet!" She wasn't entirely sure how tasting it would help, but she had managed to get a relative idea on how it should taste. 
 

[Gaius 0]

"Good, gives you a moment to think, yeah? Half of cooking is using your gut, and guessing. You know what it tastes like, now what did I add?" Gaius waved his hand as he took the plate from her hands, moving it into a wash basin and beginning to work it clean alongside those from his morning meal. "When you can figure out what I put in it, then you're on the right track. Have the shit I make is playing by ear. I know what it should taste like, I can pick up what is in it based on how it tastes." He muttered strongly as he places the first of many dishes into a strainer with a clack. "Those ingredients won't find themselves, and recipes don't write themselves. Hell, half of mine aren't even on paper." Gaius boasted at his constant experimentation, his guessing through things that ended up being either amazing or a total failure.

[Blueberry 0]

"The way you make things is by... tasting things as you go to knew what to do." She repeated back to him, attempting to better understand the concept. "So if there is lemon in it..." She reached over the counter, grasping one of the lemons she had grabbed earlier and chopped it into slices with a knife. She took one of the slices, taking a fair sized bite of it. Immediately the regret set in as her face began to pucker from the sour food. Eyes watering, she took another bite of the lemon slice. Was this really going to help her learn to cook. She attempted to smile to Gaius, but the sourness of the lemon would distort her face into something... undesirable to look at. 

"I-I  mmmmh I think I am going to go find those ingredients now." She told him, scrambling away before she put herself through even more embarrassment. She had finally got him to talk and now she would end up chasing him away.

185389 LD:1

[Gaius 0]

Gaius couldn't help but chuckle at her sudden cringe "Taste, not cram the whole thing into your mouth." He clarified before the girl would run back into the back room and shove a fist full of cinnamon into her gullet. "But yeah, you can pick up the taste of anything mostly in a dish. Slowly you'll pick up what works and what doesn't" as she would scamper off still fighting the acid that was making her eyes water. "Strange kid." he murmurs beneath his breath, finishing up his dishes and slicing off a piece of lemon for himself. A dash of sugar, a tiny pinch of salt before shoving it into his mouth. The kick was there, but significantly less like a right hook to the jaw. With a chuckle, he heads back into the main body of his tavern, wanting to give her the full run of the place. One subtle chuckle, as he runs a white rag across one of the large round empty tables. He takes a seat and tosses his feet up atop it, crossing them and was curious what she'd end up producing.

[Blueberry 0]

"Taste, not cram the whole thing into your mouth."

His words were heard, but they were almost drowned out by the cringe from the lemon. As he left the room, she dug into her mouth pulling the acidic yellow from it. "Blech!" she spat. Unluckily for her, the cringe from the lemon had made her forgot exactly where he had grabbed the ingredients from. Even if she knew what the ingredients were, it wouldn't help her find them in a kitchen of this size! He was also prepared to make anything instead of just desserts. To find the ingredients, it was like finding the needle in the haystack. Exactly how did he know where everything was? The kitchen was massive in size, as if it was prepared to handle a fully-staffed chef restaurant. 

Perhaps Gaius had only allowed her to be in here because he wanted a good laugh. She was willing she was being tested as if it was an Escape room. 

185397 LD:5+6=11

[Gaius 0]

Hearing the girl fumble around in the back room, Gaius continues to handle the dishes and place them away. The beautiful thing about the system is they never stayed wet for long, it was like pretend cleaning of a kitchen and less the real thing. You had to go through the motions, but none of it lasted for more than a few seconds after. The girl was taking forever back there, hearing a rustle in consistent banging and clattering. Nothing sounded like anything breaking, but it was clear she was out of her element in here. Good, she'd learn after long how to identify what she was looking for. Half the battle was always knowing that, the other is just figuring out what went together and what didn't. Cooking was more akin to artistry, than it was science, and 90% of it was based on using a gut feeling then just following a recipe. It was the difference between a crap chef and a damn good one. Without nothing but a few pointers, Gaius was teaching her the most important lesson.

[Blueberry 0]

The Roll was lost for this here post but I know it wasn't a LD:9 or higher-

Blue opened another cabinet, looking for the last of the ingredients on her list. Instead in the cabinet what she found was not ingredients but dust bunnies! The murderous kind! Swatting at the dust bunny, it fainted immediately. Closing the cabinet back up, a sigh would escape from her mouth. She was so close that she could almost taste the food. She enjoyed cooking the food and eating the food, but gathering the ingredients wasn't that fun at all. 

The sound of stacking dishes filled the area, causing her to glance to try and get a look at the man who owned the kitchen. She wondered if sharing the same kitchen would create some form of connection between them. That would help them be friends right? Of course, she wasn't here to make friends but it was a nice side bonus to everything that she had done in the day. 

[Blueberry 0]

Sifting through cabinet after cabinet, she kept on searching for the last few ingredients that she needed. At this point, she was coming across old ingredients. It would have been wiser to leave the places she had checked open. With her being so close to the finish line, the anticipation forced her to search even faster. Her eyes darted across each of the cabinet's contents, looking for those last few. Her eyes locked onto one and she snatched it quickly with a certain fierceness akin to that of a wild animal. 

Moving to another cabinet, she found the last ingredient. Grabbing the item, she nearly bounced all of the way back to the preparation table she had set out with the other ingredients. Setting them down, she would examine what she had to work with, a mischievous grin spread across her face. 

"Finally, after all of this time... I finally have them all."

195272
LD: 15
5/5!!!!!!!

[Blueberry 0]

She quickly got to work on her disk, becoming silent as she truly got into her passion. Electric blue eyes remained trained on the dish she was preparing as she began stirring ingredients together furiously. Despite how much of a mess she had been before in searching for the ingredients, there was hardly any mess caused by her baking. 

As she thought she was prepared to throw the item into the oven, Gauis's words came to mind. She dipped her finger into the mixture and quickly found it was far too bitter. She quickly added more sugar and cinnamon to the pie, finding that while it was still missing something, she wasn't sure what to add. Not wanting to ruin the pie, she placed it in the oven, where it would only take a few minutes to finish. Baking in Aincrad was much faster than when prepared in the real world. 

She finally spoke, calling Gaius back into the kitchen. "Its almost ready!" 

ID: 195273 CD:7 - Salvage
ID: 195274 CD:10 - Uncommon Dessert - EVA I

[Gaius 0]

Finally after such a long wait, the girl seemed to figure something out. A modest looking thing, a little mishapen and goofy. Gaius eyes it and takes a heavy whiff. Clear that he was inspecting what she'd put into it, a tinge of lemon and blueberries. Fitting given the girls name. A slice of a knife, and a single bite of it. "Honestly, its a little too dry. The dough was cooked a bit too long. The flavor is far too sweet to the palette, need something to offset it else your likely to get sick after a few bites." Another bite and the chef slides the fork over and allows it to dangle from his gullet.

"Frankly it kinda sucks." He pauses for a moment

"But you finally figured it out, good shit." Gaius grabs an arm full of blueberry, the little shit he'd been chastising this entire time. "Now cook this shit on your own, and get good." He spins his golden key and produces a duplicate of it. She'd done what she needed to and now would be able to use that thing to make her own building. "Fuck Maggie, do it your way and show your face around here. I want you to beat me, and it wont be easy." Gaius smiles in that giant shit eating grin with a pointed thumb toward his face.

[Blueberry 0]

Gaius came in silently after being called, focusing on her plate entirely without regard to her. A deep inhale as he cut a piece away from the entire thing. A bite would seal in his opinion. "Honestly, its a little too dry. The dough was cooked a bit too long. The flavor is far too sweet to the palette, need something to offset it else your likely to get sick after a few bites." Blue made a mental note of things to change. Most likely, her constant eat of sweets had made her accustomed to the taste. As Kura was with his nasty coffee.

"Frankly it kinda sucks."

Blueberry's mood dropped in an instant. The light seemed to leave her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something; however, she was bear hugged into submission by the tall man, all of her being drowned into his much larger body. As she was released, she remained stunned. Gaius produced a key from his own and told her to get out there and beat him. 

"You'll regret saying that! Just wait until I have all of Aincrad at my feet begging for more and your freakishly large kitchen gets dusty!" Grabbing her plate, she would chuck the entire entrée into the trash. There was no way she would be serving an unpolished product. 

"Thanks for everything!" She called as she walked out of the shop. 

Rewards
Blueberry:
• 200 EXP
• 200 Col
• 8 Materials
• EVA I Dessert