Ah, to resist the temptation of grabbing some freshly baked cookies still waiting to cool down… You know, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I might as well tell the story of how I once got the moniker “Harf the cookie dwarf”. I was only a wee lad once, with just a stubbly hint of a beard, but already a well developed sweet tooth. We had a community oven in Hofenstadt that the families used, a steady fire smoldering throughout and foods being baked from savory to sweet. But of all the foods, not one would put a spell on me such as a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Like wisps of vanilla, cocoa and toasty aromas would manifest into solid force and drag me by the collar, away from whatever occupied my mind at that time. One time, there they were, sitting on a shelf, slowly solidifying into a crunchy crust with a gooey center, unattended, unguarded. I took my chances, grabbed some and ran. But who am I but a clumsy dwarf, my dexterity only extends to carving stone or wrangling an instrument, not to stealthing and thieving! I turned a corner, eyes on the prize but not on the floor, tripped, and took a spill so epic over some hot coals from an open fire, it would almost warrant a song being written about it. In the end I had no sweets, but the scolding of some elders, burn marks on the side of my belly that are still visible to this day, and a veritable mountain of embarrassment. For quite a while all the other kids would tease me: “Harf, Harf, the cookie dwarf!”… I kinda don’t like to think about it, but I do like to remember those glorious cookies…
Recently Quiz approached me about smoking soy sauce, something about making soup. It sounded elaborate as all hell and I’m intrigued, so I’ll gladly oblige her request. She strikes me as someone who really has an appreciation for good food and drink. I dig that (that’s a dwarven idiom, because dig, get it?). Because really, one ought to sit back once in a while (or twice, or thrice) and enjoy the finer pleasures in life. But I wanted to do a test first to make sure I get the smoking process right. Went with maple syrup and took a little bit more care with the setup, and it’s actually looking good. Now I have to think about what to use it for. I have an idea…
You know, I keep thinking back to that time we confronted the shapeshifter. Nice old lady, that’s what I thought. Turns out those were surface level impressions as we peeled back the layers and went underground. Then 3 of us got lost. We found that damn creature or whatever you want to call it, but the bloody ground opened up and took two more, so it was just me, Al and Quiz left behind. I hate to say it, but I was ready to turn around and run. I didn’t leave Niflheim to sightsee dark underground places with bodies hanging from the ceiling and blood wells. My heart wasn’t in it, so my feet went first. But then my brain caught up. Just moments before, we sat in this weird pocket of space with this Moulder guy and made breakfast. I remembered. I remembered those times I worked in taverns, behind every kitchen door, same picture. The messiest, ragtag assortment of people you can imagine. Chances are they don’t even like each other. Chances are they walk out the door, they go their separate ways. But they understand, the shift begins, you’re one team, you leave nobody in the weeds. And that fucking breakfast had to remind me of it… So my stumpy feet steered me back. I remember trying to drag Quiz away, half wanting to escape (no place for puns here), half wanting to figure out some better way to confront a thing that was capable of what we saw hanging on the ceiling, and the look she gave me…, I don’t know if it was brave or careless, but it was fearless in a way I haven’t seen, sharp and unwavering like the edge of a freshly stropped razor. Like there wasn’t a single shred of doubt in the universe that she’d do what she’d have to do… Well, things took some twists and turns, but needless to say the moment hasn’t left me. I spent plenty of time in the past years enjoying myself, following admittedly selfish pleasures. I had some idea of what it would be like traveling the world and seeing new things. But the past weeks have proven that the world is crazier than I’d want and the new things sometimes aren’t as pleasant as I’d hoped. I had to wonder if one could just look away and ignore what’s bubbling under the surface, I had to wonder what it means to be unselfish, if being a bard is just a frivolous pastime, and fate, with the subtlety of a granite brick to the face, put me back in Schwiflheim and I saw my own people in need… Only ever so slowly do I begin to understand that force that seems to tug at you and tells you to do the right thing, whether that’s good for you or not. Well fuck, wherever this is going, I hope at least I still get some opportunities to enjoy a good drink and a meal and write a nice song here and there.
Gumbo is fun. Firstly, it’s cooked with beer, that’s a plus (admittedly, the alcohol cooks out). Secondly, making the roux for gumbo feels like an elaborate dare just how dark you can make it before it starts to burn. Takes me back. We used to have enchanted jars to keep hot food with us, they were prized as much as a good pickaxe. I sold mine to buy my first lute. It wasn’t all that good, but it was a lute… Hm, I’m sure one could muse about selling your past to dream of a future… But those were the times. A hard day of work, a hot bowl of stew, a quiet place deep underneath the earth. That’s the thing, people often don’t know how quiet a mine can be. You see, if you’re feeling pompous and vain you carve big mountain halls. Large spaces, square angles, flat walls. Sound will bounce around like a tireless child. But when you’re mining, you don’t care about aesthetics. You don’t negotiate with the mountain about which path would look pretty, you choose the softer stone and avoid the harder bits. Some natural cavities here, a mined vein of ore there, and you end up with a ragged network of spaces where no two surfaces point the same way. And the way sound bounces there, not knowing which way to go, makes it sound unusually quiet and muted, like no other place in the world. A hard day of work, a hot bowl of stew. I remember I started to sneak away to find a secluded place, eat my food and hum melodies of fledgling songs. The birth of a bard, in the quiet of the mountain.
When the world is all weird angles, you don’t know which way to bounce, heh…
On the Delectable Foods of the World and the Joy of Eating Them: The Culinary Voyage of one L*********, Son of M******** T*********, Swordsman Extraordinaire. Liber Primus.
Abridged and censored by request of the distinguished M. T. and his royal Majesty King Ælfwynnd II
When dreams be endless, shalt thy path be boundless. Bravery, not fear, shalt set thy way ablaze.
Sir Scætha the Dauntless, XII. Knight-Captain of the Order of the Heron’s Wing
It is with the heaviest of hearts––yet holding onto the loftiest of ideals––that I leave behind not only the ancestral home of my esteemed family, but also the great kingdom which it has stood guard to since time immemorable. Never once, spending the days of my youth wandering through the shadows casted by the imposing manor of the T*********, skipping and frolicking through the well-tended garden while brandishing a stick as a pretend sword under the watchful gaze of the statues depicting my most honourable lineage, have I entertained the notion that I would one day abscond like a thief in the gloaming hours of the foredawn. Alas, yesternight’s altercation with my honourable father M******** and my fair younger sister L******––not the first of its kind, and most assuredly not the last––has finally steeled my will in pursuing what in my heart of hearts I have always known to be my destiny.
[THE FOLLOWING CONTENT WAS DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE BY THE HAWRYNDELLIAN ROYAL CHAMBER OF LITERATURE]
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My common sense––and also my self-preservation instinct in the face of those cleavers––prompted me to silently wait on the door, savouring the aroma of chives clinging to the air. However, a rather unflattering growl from my abdomen ruined my intent almost immediately.
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«Gardes des don, the lil’ ta-taille up!» the other, which I now recognized as a female orc thanks to the inflection and the fangs protruding from the sides of her similarly swarthy visage, peered over her shoulder, directing me a toothy––or rather, should I say fangy?––smile.
I did not really understand what she said, being woefully unfamiliar with the dialect of this region, but I did catch the words ‘little’ and ‘up’, so I presumed she was commenting on my waking up. Mustering my courage, I cleared my throat, only now stopping to at least make my unruly hair presentable.
«Ah yes, indeed, that is the truth, my fair madame» I said, offering my humblest of bowing «I, L********* of name, of the T-»I painfully stopped myself from adding my family’s name, coughing to cover it«thank you from the deepest reaches of my heart for saving my most inept person from the predicament in whi-»
[THE FOLLOWING CONTENT WAS DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE BY THE HAWRYNDELLIAN ROYAL CHAMBER OF LITERATURE]
Cleaver still clutched in the hand, she pointed to a huge bowl to her right, near which I espied three huge eggs, the size and colour of which I had never seen afore.
«Be a cher,» she continued «crack an’ beat deese.»
After an initial moment of confusion, I nodded with a broad smile and, rolling up my sleeves, I made my way towards the bowl; near the eggs, which quite surprisingly emanated a smell reminiscent of that of
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almonds, I found a hammer and a chisel. Taking the size of these eggs into consideration, comparable to that of a citron melon, I did not even stop to ask what the tools were for and got to hammering. When I bored my way through the astonishingly hard shell, I started pouring the liquid in the bowl, repeating the process ‘till all eggs were emptied; looking around the counter, I saw an imposing whisk.
«May I, Miss…?» I tentatively asked, only then noticing I had forgotten to ask for my host’s name.
«Edmée.» she simply answered, while nodding; I had not the faintest clue whether that was her name or it was another word for giving me permission to use the whisk.
«Thank you, Miss Edmée» I tried my luck and, seeing as the woman simply smiled at me and went back to what she was doing––she had just finished preparing the mincemeat and she was adding it to the wok pan––I guessed that I was correct.
Grabbing the whisk with two hands, I started to beat the eggs, feeling my shoulders growing ever so sorer due to the exertion of working such an unseemly sized whisk; with a tinge of sarcasm, I thought to myself that I was finally following a workout routine as my father had so insistently tried to force me for all those years. When I felt satisfied, I took the bowl and moved near Edmée.
«Is this to your liking, Miss Edmée?» I gingerly asked, much like a schoolboy showing his favourite teacher a picture he had just drawn.
«Mais la, nuff wit de Miss, it honte…» she gruffly answered, eyeing the bowl and adding a mumbled «It good, it good.»
With a spryness I would not expect for her body––and her age, if the locks of white hair were any indicator––she took the bowl and went back to the counter, where only now I saw waited a pot of fluffed rice. With precise gestures, the orc lady mixed the rice with the egg wash I had made, adding various sauces which I could not recognise; as the
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mixture was properly incorporated, the lady walked past me with a concentrated smile, dumping the egg-and-rice concoction into the wok, starting to stir almost immediately. I fell silent, as I was enthralled by her movements; the wok, of solid steel as far as I could guess without the chance of properly inspecting it, seemed as if it were made of hydrargyrum, so smooth and fluid was her stirring. With one hand constantly on the wok-handle, Edmée started unveiling various cloches, which were hiding a plethora of greens and vegetables in general, already neatly diced, which she then added to what I now understood was an egg fried rice. A couple of minutes elapsed, when the orc lady finally let out a single sigh, removing the wok from the stove.
«It ready! Allons, Laurrie, time to mange!» she gleefully exclaimed, leaving me completely dumbfounded as to what those words meant and so I simply followed her to an already set table.
After helping Edmée to her chair, much to her chagrin it seemed, I finally sat in mine, waiting for the lady to start eating; as she took up the first spoonful, I respectfully bowed, and, much to my embarrassment, I started to eat like a starving man. The woman did not say anything, and simply smiled in a warm, grandmotherly way. The best way to describe this dish was ‘rich’; the eggs, whose provenience as basilisk eggs I only discovered when I later asked Edmée, were lighter than normal poultry eggs as far as texture was concerned, while regaling a whole new complexity to what I like to call the ‘flavourscape’––thanks in no small part, I assume, due to the negligible traces of basilisk venom present inside the yolk; the rice, strictly a leftover from the previous meal for added crunch, was cooked to perfection and no grain stuck to the others, unlike the flavourless hodge-podge my father used to try and force down my throat to, in his words, ‘help bulking up’; the minced meat, an eye of round of a breed known as zebu as I had correctly guessed, was optimal in granting a bit of coarseness to the dish to contrast the smoothness of the greens ensemble. Such was my engrossment with this dish that Edmée forced me to take some with me as she sent me on my way, citing that she had things to do and no time to look after each and every boy running away. Much to my amazement, I was feeling loth to abandon this house which I had been in for less than a couple of hours; Edmée’s culinary prowess and kindness had won me over. Alas, the road was beckoning me, and with it many more dishes to discover; as I finished cleaning the dishes, I bowed to hide my contrition, to which the woman answered by hugging me tightly. With directions for the nearest city, the port of Transimo as luck would have it, I left the orc’s house, setting off into the pleasant afternoon air.
[In a corner at the campfire Alduhir sits and scribbles into a small notebook]
Things keep getting weirder. This stone disease thing was strange enough. I mean, we ended up curing it somehow, but don’t ask my how that actually worked. For one I was quite distracted with that whole raven thing and also there is the other thing… Sophia might be the only one who really would have understood it, but we parted ways with him during that time. Pity, he was probably one of the few sane ones of this group.
Anyways… For some reason we decided to put some believe in the ramblings of Sou Far and find the source of his newly found aversion to fire. If you ask me, that guy had mental issues long before. That cleanliness craze is definitely not normal. At least not where I grew up. I wonder what they did to him in that monastery…
The newest fad is that they think they’re now master chefs and discuss recipes during travel. Well, at least the food got better now. Much better in fact. Especially Harf seems on a roll! I didn’t know dwarfs can be such good cooks. But then he is probably not your ordinary dwarf. They kept bugging me about contributing, so I made pork strips with apples and onions. One of my gotos while traveling. Luckily I had some juicy apples left. Those did fit rather well. Also, the apples were payed for this time! Even if -stealing- liberating apples from the unknowing fruit merchant is ideal to hone your skills, I think I’ve learned my lesson last time…
There was a party that had time to spare, And a penchant for culinary fare, The cooking got ambitious, And yo, that food looked delicious, So they started a blog just to share.
