[Cooking] Starvation Is Not An Option ...

[Kavala]

Timestamp: Late Winter Location: The Bazaar, Sanctuary's Kitchen Purpose: Cooking Kavala had a list. It was a simple list, but indeed a list nevertheless. Having had absolutely no experience with cooking before in her life, her shopping came first. And truthfully it wasn't easy. She took Wind with her to the market loaded down with whither bags to carry the goods she was going to buy and armed with a fistful of coin. The trip would be expensive, but it would outfit Sanctuary well into the next season and hopefully last long enough for Kavala to learn to cook. She entered the bazaar with confidence, and a huge shopping list, walking from seller to seller purchasing goods. She started with dried goods, loading up her horse as she went. Kavala stuck to the list, keeping careful record of what she bought and how much she spent. Dried goods, then oils, then canned goods... it wasn't two hard to figure out. The market was daunting, crowded, and filled with men. It wasn't an easy experience for the konti, who lead her horse carefully through the aisles. But she was determined to gather her utensils and ingredients and stock her kitchen thoroughly. Finding the dried goods wasn't difficult. In fact there were vendors all over, especially in the food section, that sold what she needed and in quantity. It made her happy knowing that even though she wasn't skilled at all in cooking, her kitchen would be set up correctly. First things first though - the ingredients. rice Salt, pepper, basil, oregano, thyme, chili powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, rosemary thyme. flour sugar The book recommended oils for cooking in two types so she picked those up as well. Olive oil Balsamic vinegar Lard In terms of canned goods, Kavala picked up.. Tomatoes Chicken Stock Black olives White and/or black beans Finally, in terms of meat, she picked up a whole pig she could hang in the basement and several large salted roasts she could carve cuts from as she cooked. In addition, she had to buy three other things... a milk cow for milk and butter, a goat for cheese, and chickens for eggs. Fortunately Sanctuary already had lemon and orange trees growing on the land, making citrus easy to access. She'd have to get starts for potatoes and most vegitables to add to the garden once she put it in, but until then she could buy potatoes and onions as well as garlic at the market. And once the groceries were purchased, Kavala bought a nice set of pans, knives, and a cutting board. She added a shredder, peeler, and a colander. Then she picked up a set of measuring cups, spoons, a rolling pin and a corkscrew. Once she was done shopping, she'd take the items back to Sanctuary and start setting up her kitchen. cost : I'm just going to deduct 150 GM for the supplies and foodstuffs since I also track cost of living and this food should be included in that as well. If there's any issues, please let me know and I can adjust.

[Kavala]

So, having fully stocked the Veranda kitchen as best she could, Kavala set off to begin teaching herself to cook. The first stage involved checking out a book in the library on cooking and one on baking. Kavala figured the best use of her time was with learning to do simple things like breads and stews. If nothing else, such things would keep her alive. When nothing else fancy would. As soon as Sanctuary’s garden got up and running, they’d all be eating well. And with hiring new employees, she’d make sure at least some of them had hunting skills so they would never be without meat. Which, of course, was too necessary when she could always get a pig to hang in the basement.

So, sitting down, Kavala decided to teach herself how to make the sourdough bread the horseclans of the Drykas used so very carefully. Cooking had never interested her, but then again her father had always had plenty of wives to see the rest of the family fed, so it was no big deal. Kavala hadn’t HAD to learn. Now she did though. It was learn or starve. So, she picked up the baking book and sat down to carefully read the instructions on sourdough. Sourdough, it seemed, wasn’t as simple as cobbling ingredients together. One had to create a soughdough starter and learn the lifestyle of one. A sourdough starter had to be started, maintained, stored, revived often, and used. As she read on, the Konti’s head swum with the complexity of it all… but after a second read-through she was more than concinced she might be able to pull it off. Creating a sourdough starter was a lot like philtering. In fact, it used some of the same skills. It was like a careful potion that harvested yeast not out of the thin air, but yeast that naturally occurred on the grains she’d be using for her breads.

Interesting.

So, before she began, she reviewed the three rules of Sourdough and committed them to memory.

The Rules of Sourdough Starter

1. Without heating or cooling it, a sourdough started must be fed no less than twice a day. If the starter is not fed it will die.
2. Each time a started is fed – if the starter is correct and safe to use – it will double its size. How much the starter eats depends on its size. Since it doubles each time you feed it, before you feed it you should take half the started and make something with it – bread, biscuits, pancakes. If you do not, you’ll have an enormous amount of starter. Each feeding should be equal amounts of water and flour, by weight. You can use about 2 parts of water to 3 parts of flour by volume as an approximation.

So after noting that, she decided to gather the ingredients. She needed rye flour, wheat flour, malt extract (dried), salt and water. That was all. And as it turned out, that’s all she needed to get started was to mix ten parts of flour to six parts of water, knead, and never look back. The starter required being kept relatively warm, so on the hearth was a good place, and then feed twice daily. Then, once she had the ingredients, all she had to do was follow a handy chart in the book to keep the starter alive. It would be usable after about three days, and in the mean time when it doubled, she was supposed to divide it before she fed it, then disgard what she divided until it was stable enough to use. So Kavala dragged out the small scale from her philering lab and began measuring away.

The cart was easy enough

Sourdough Recipe Timetable/Feedings

Time	Starter	Flour	Water	Salt	Malt
0 Bellss (start)	0 grams	300 grams rye, 300 grams wheat	360 grams	3 grams	3 grams
22 Bells	300 grams	300 grams wheat	180 grams	1 grams	2 grams
7 Bells	300 grams	300 grams wheat	180 grams	1 grams	0 grams
7 Bells	300 grams	300 grams wheat	180 grams	1 grams	0 grams
6 Bells	300 grams	300 grams wheat	180 grams	1 grams	0 grams
6 Bells	300 grams	300 grams wheat	180 grams	1 grams	0 grams

In each step, one divides up the amount before feeding, discards half, then feeds as the chart dictates. Once three days have passed, the starter is just fed as per the last line on the table with half the started being discarded but safe to use… meaning – bake with it!

Kavala was excited. She carefully measured out her ingredients, mixed them together, kneaded the resulting dough, and then carefully looked up how to store the starter even though she’d already picked out a warm spot to put it.

The instructions in the baking book said to use a wide-mouthed glass jar similar to those used in canning. Kavala had several, so once the starter was ready to go, fed, etc she turned it into the jar, loosely applied the lid (in case it expanded so it wouldn’t break the jar) and left it on the warm hearth.

Then and only then could she concentrate on getting the starter fed so she could actually start making some bread. It would take her three days of twice daily feedings, then she’d be ready to bake her first loaf of sourdough. Until then, there was always stew.

It couldn’t be that hard, right?

[Kavala]

So, making stew was it? Kavala carefully combed her cookbook until she had what she thought was a good recipe. She wanted one where she’d have to do lots of chopping and slicing and dicing and maybe use a few techniques in the kitchen that she was unfamiliar with. And yet she wanted, without a doubt, to have a simple recipe to put together at the end of the day. So, after picking out nice harvest pork stew recipe, Kavala went down into the basement where the pork was hung, cut off part of a shoulder rump, then brought it back up to the veranda to chop up.

Carefully taking her sharp knives, Kavala cubed up the pork meat and set it aside. She then took squash, apples, potatoes, and carrots and did the same thing with. It gave her a chance to brush up on her knife skills with the pointers listed in her cookbook. She had to pay attention, according to the book, to both hands. For her knife hand she had to select a comfortable knife that fit in her grip. Her thumb and forefinger, surprisingly gripped the blade just beyond the handle. It made the knife an extension of her arm and gave her better control as she chopped. The really important hand, however, was the non-knife hand. When she cut and touched the vegetables she was chopping , holding them in place, she had to make sure and curl her fingers under her palm to protect her fingertips and not accidentally slice anything off. Her thumb and little finger needed to be tucked behind the other fingers. Then, according to her book, the side of the blade (but not the dge) was supposed to rest against the middle knuckles of her fingers so she could easily measure the size of the cuts and move her hands backwards on the food after each cut in anticipation of the next cut.

The knife, it seemed, she was supposed to move in a rocking motion from the tip to the end of the blade. After she’d mastered that, chopping became fairly easy. There were tips, as well, for fine chopping and course chopping in the book. For example… the book said “When finely chopping or mincing some foods, such as small bunches of herbs or garlic, the handle may be held in one hand while the other hand rests on top of the blade. The tip of the blade is kept in contact with the cutting board. The blade is rocked up and down until the food is chopped to the desired size.” Okay, she could do that. Kavala took the book’s advice to heart and made that part of her process. She didn’t’ want missing fingers or cuts or blood in her food. She wanted neatly minced or chopped food that was edible without the added konti seasoning.

There were also other helpful tips like one was better off cutting fruits and vegetables in half then laying them on ones cutting board before slicing or chopping because the vegetables would grip the board and not be so slippery. Another final great tip was to wet a cloth and put it under the cutting board between it and the counter so it wouldn’t slip and slide on either the wood or tile the cutting board was sitting on. Kavala followed all the advice religiously. When she was done she had colorful piles of fruits and vegetables all ready to go into the stew.

Harvest Pork Stew

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon rubbed sage
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups butternut squash
• 2 apples, cored and cubed
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 cups carrots, peeled and diced
Directions
1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook until lightly browned on all sides. Stir in the garlic and onion, and continue to cook until the onion has softened, and the pork is firm, and no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
2. Place the pork and onions into a large saucepan. Pour in the water, and season with salt, rosemary, sage, and the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then pull saucepan partially off the heat , cover, and simmer for 20 chimes.
3. Stir in the butternut squash, apples, potatoes, and carrots. Return to a simmer, then cook, uncovered until the squash and apples are tender, about 20 chimes. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

So, more instructions were there to be followed. Cutting accomplished, Kavala moved on to start following the actual directions of the recipe. She pulled out a skillet and put the butter in noting to herself that she’d better learn to make her own butter. Butter in Riverfall was expensive. But now that she had a milk cow, hopefully making butter wouldn’t be all that hard. She added the meat and garlic and onion, turning everything frequently until the meat browned and the garlic and onion caramelized. It took her longer than five chimes though because her fire wasn’t as hot as she suspected it needed to be. But, eventually she got it done and moved on.

She put the cooked mixture in a large stewpot then put in the water and seasonings. She hung the whole thing over the fire until she brought the stew to a boil and then pulled it off the main heat and hung it on the side of the hearth to keep warm for twenty more chimes. Then, she added in the squash, apples, potatoes and carrots, putting it back on the heat – but only slightly – letting it sit there until everything was tender. She fished out the bay leaf – noting it looked like it’d be no fun to eat – and set it aside with her other vegetable waste. That would go right back into the garden’s compost pile. Then, putting the stew back on the heat, all Kavala had to do wait.

And wait she did patiently until she’d deemed everything soft and delicious. She made herself a bowl, tried it, and decided that she wasn’t going to starve after all. When she was done eating, she decided it was time to divide and feed the starter again. Once that was done, Kavala took herself off to bed.

Tomorrow, she’d make butter.

[Kavala]

Most people who lived in cities made butter with expensive clunky equipment like with a separator and a churn. But that was not the Drykas way. While Kavala had never actually had to make butter, being the daughter that was a healer, she’d seen it happen many a time within her pavilion. And now that she had The Sanctuary, there was very little need for her to buy everything when she could make just as much as a normal pavilion could. She had the milk cow and the arm muscles, so there was really nothing stopping her except how well she remembered the task at hand. From what she could recall, while she was making medicines, her father’s wives were making butter and it seemed to have four easy steps.

The first step involved skimming the milk then culturing the cream. She went and milked the cow, which was something that had to be done daily now anyhow, though not by her since the milk cow had a calf. She poured a gallon of the milk into a clean container. She chilled the milk by doing this just towards nightfall where the temperatures were dropping, letting it sit over night for twelve bells. Then, after the time was up, she skimmed the cream off the top of the fluid with a spoon. Her fathers first wife had always said that when she started seeing water skim milk in the spoon pulling out the cream, then it was time to stop. So that’s what she did.

Kavala then poured the cream into a jar and capped the container tightly. She moved it to a safe warm place and let it sit for another twelve bells (usually until it was warm and smelled slightly sour). This step was called ripening, which made the cream ready to begin to make butter. If it didn’t ripen, then it wouldn’t have a good butter flavor once you tried to turn it into butter. So she set the cream on the veranda table at breakfast and figured on making it into butter that evening after a few smells. She new what the perfect smell was like.. .too much and the taste would be off. Not enough and the taste would be nonexistent.

The second step was whipping the cream. She transferred the ripened cream, later that same afternoon, to a jar that held a tight lid where it was only a third full. The container needed space to expand as the cream turned into butter. The next step was tedious. Kavala could remember all the Drykas women sitting around shaking their jars gossiping. It was a great deal more fun in a group, but alone she simply sat on the veranda, grasp the jar, and began shaking it. The more violent she shook it, the faster butter formed. She practiced agitating the jar so that the cream inside got a heavy impact at each shake, which was more like a jerk to the left and a sudden jerk to the right.

Kavala knew the length of time she ‘shook’ the cream into butter depended on the temperature of the cream, how violently she shook it, and the amount of cream in the container. You couldn’t just say shake it for a bell and have the perfect butter. You had to watch, wait, and keep looking for the perfect butter. It was obvious when it was coming too because just before the perfect butter, the churned cream got heavy, thick, and really hard to shake. The mass of buttermilk and the mass of butter inside the jar separated and became very dense.

Once you got to that point, the mass of butter to milk gets very dense, and then suddenly turns yellow, becomes firm, and separates from the milk. Kavala knew better than to shake beyond that point, so once that happened she stopped.

Then, she returned to the kitchen area, used cheesecloth and strained the butter from the buttermilk. She saved the buttermilk for cooking bread later. Then she took butter out of the jar and put it in a bowl. She worked the butter around the bowl with her clean hands, squeezing the remainder of the liquid out of the butter – which was simply water – tipping the bowl occasionally to let it drain out from the mass of butter. Once she’d worked the water out of the butter, the mass was firm. She sprinkled salt over it, a bout a half teaspoon per pound, and worked it in like she was working bread dough. She turned the butter over, worked the salt in more, and then tasted it. She added just a bit more salt at that poin.

Since she was done, Kavala put her newly made butter in a covered container and stored it in a cool spot. She’d have a real treat to slaughter over her homemade bread when it was finished.

[Kavala]

Kavala woke the next day, fed the horses cows and goats, threw grains to the chickens and gathered eggs. She walked back into the veranda area, stirred and divided up the starter before feeding it, and looked at what she had. There was definitely enough starter from her divisions to make bread. From here on out, in fact, The Sanctuary would need bread and have starter for lots of it. She decided to try a recipe she had from her mother, one she’d brought back from the Sea of Grass she’d gotten from Lachann’s first wife on her last visit. It was a simple enough recipe, one that she new made delicious tasty bread.

Two-loaf sourdough Kontir Bread

1 1/3 cup starter
2 2/3 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 cups flour*

*Flour depends on particular day, atmosphere conditions, and may vary.

Kavala truthfully had a whole bunch of recipes to use the starter with, but this one was her favorite and made two big loaves of bread. There were enough people at The Sanctuary now that pretty soon two a day wouldn’t feed everyone. Soon she’d need a full time cook. Regardless, she got started, taking a large bowl and combining the water, starter, sugar and salt. She stirred in the first three cups of flour with a big spoon and worked the mixture together until it was really thick and hard to stir. She carefully let the mixture breathe.
Kavala took a break to put on tea, yawning, and poured herself a cup once the kettle started squealing. Then, she rubbed her eyes, still trying to wake up, and started back in on the bread.
The Konti took another cup of flour, worked it in and began kneading with her hands, digging her webbed fingers into the mixture and combining it together. She kept adding flour until the dough got very smooth and slick, pulling apart and popping back together with a spring. She kneaded until the mixture was elastic enough for her tastes then greased a fresh pan and put the dough it it, letting it rise until it doubled. This took a full bell.

She turned it back out onto a board after a bell, floured her hands, and kneaded it down again, before dividing it into two. Shen the added these two globs of dought into bread pans that were thoroughly greased and floured. She left them once more, for a bell, to rise using that time to get the oven started and up to temperature with the wood she had to build her fire. She then made slits in their tops and put them into the oven to bake.

She cobbled together another stew, and when that was happily bubbling over the fire for the lunch crowd at The Sanctuary, Kvala put the loves on to bake. She baked them for twenty five chimes and had perfect bread turn out. It wouldn’t have been so perfect, if she hadn’t been on the veranda anyhow, watching the stew and working on a new salve in the kitchen area that allowed her to keep peeking at the bread and making sure it didn’t burn or overcook. Once she was done with that, she wondered if she had enough of her starter left to make something else.

Kavala checked and she indeed did.

[Kavala]

Kavala decided for her next project of the day she’d make an apple filled desert bread for a real treat for the staff after their day. She rarely had sweets, namely because no one was a baker at The Sanctuary, but she felt this could change in a heartbeat if the right combination came along. She had in her recipe book, a listing for apples, so since she had a great deal of them from the market (Riverfall was never without fruit) she wanted to try it. It started with a single konti loaf sourdough bread recipe, so she dug that out and began making the bread.

Single Loaf Konti Sourdough Bread

2/3 cup starter
1 1/3 cups warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour

So she combined the starter, sugar and salt in a large bowl. After letting it sit for five minutes, Kavala repeated the experience of earlier and began stirring in the flour gradually until the dough firmed up and began to get too stiff to stir. Then she kneaded, dipping her fingers into the dough and working it until it was elastic, letting the bread firm up like it should. She let it rise in a greasy bowl until it doubled, then she kneaded it again, punching it down and reworking it.
While it was rising to double in size, she got the filling ready, which was a seemingly easy task.

Apple Filling

2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped, peeled apples

She took her freshly made butter, proud that it was her own, the brown sugar, flour and then let it sit while she peeled three apples, cored them, and then copped them up to make the one desired cup. Once this was combined, she went back to the dough leaving the apple mixture in the bowl she mixed it in.

She rolled the dough out into an 8x12 rectangle on a floured surface. She melted her butter on the hearth from the still hot oven, and brushed it over the dough. She then spread the filling down the middle of the dough rectangle. Following the directions, she took a knife and cut, like she was making fabric fringe, the dough on either side of the mound of filling stretching down the center of the rectangle. Then, once the strips were cut from the center out, she was able to fold the dough strips over the filling, alternately, to make what looked like a braided loaf of bread.
Kavala set the dough aside, letting it rise, but not before spreading it once more with melted butter and then coating the top with cinnamon and sugar. Once that was done and the bread had rose and doubled again, she carefully transferred the loaf to the oven and baked it for another thirty chimes. The whole veranda smelled like apple pie, and when the bread came out it didn’t even last for desert. People wandered up to get a piece and soon it was nothing but a memory.

But for Kavala, she considered it a success. She’d no longer starve to death for lack of not being able to cook for the staff. To her way of thinking, starvation was just not an option.

[Mist]

Thread Grading! Kavala XP/Skills: +1 Bodybuilding, +5 Cooking, +1 Planning, +2 Research, Lore: The importance of a good list, Stocking a big kitchen with all the bits, Cooking: The Rules of Sourdough Starter, Cooking: Sourdough feeding table, Learn to cook or starve, Cooking: Proper knife handling when chopping food, How to avoiding seasoning your food with Konti, Cooking: Preparing pork stew, Steps to making butter, Cooking: Konti sourdough Bread, Cooking: Apple Filling, Desert Bread Item/ Consequences: N/A (everything got eaten) Additional Notes: I actually took a pause when I saw the date of the first post. Definitely the longest spread out thread I have seen, over a 2 1/2 year period... Well, at least you finally got it done. Though I also thought it funny as you referred to never having cooked before in the first post, even though IC you know have 13 pts. Just a interesting observation, as time has gone by. And if you were wondering about the bodybuilding which might seem random, I did that for the butter making. -If you have any questions about the grade, don’t hesitate to PM me.