Hannibal's house (where Jono probably despairs of the flower arrangements), Wednesday evening

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal had spent most of the day on the phone with florists and the cake shop, the hotel and banquet hall, and a few of the guests, arranging some last-minute things. And brushing the cat, because biology waited for no weddings, and he had to keep the shedding down.

Now, he was reading and listening to Bach, sipping some very good tea.

It was a good day.


[OOC: Open post!]

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[sharp_as_knives]

Which Hannibal was smirking about, just a little. And Sentients tasted wonderful because they were seasoned with superiority and schadenfreude.

He nodded and pulled out a recipe for spicy honey and garlic quail. Then he paused to pull Kanan a cup of coffee. "What do you think of this?"

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan accepted the coffee, pausing to just breathe it in before taking a sip.

He closed his eyes.

He needed this moment, just him and the coffee, to just hang in there a little longer so that he could commit it to memory for always and never let it go.

"Still not quite caf," he reported, "but closer. I could probably crawl into this mug and drown in it, and I'd die happy."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal chuckled. "Please try not to; I hate to think of the mess and the paperwork. I'll try to get more types of beans in, for comparison."

He glanced at the recipe once more. "I'll be one moment; that meat is in the freezer downstairs. Please make yourself at home. Mind Beethoven; he's rather put out at the moment."

Not because Hannibal had brushed him, but because he'd stopped.

[uncertain_dume]

"Oh, I don't mind Beethoven at all," Kanan chuckled, and almost immediately started looking around for the old cat. Look, they'd made friends the last time he'd been over. Even if he had been pretty damn hung over.

Just watch, Hannibal. The old cat would be in Kanan's lap by the time you got back.

[sharp_as_knives]

In which case, Kanan could be the one petting him until his arm fell off; that suited Hannibal fine.

Hannibal just smiled as he went downstairs to get the quail.

[uncertain_dume]

And Kanan was quite content to work through his coffee, keeping an eye out for the cats, should they wander into the room. Beethoven was cranky at Hannibal, perhaps, but he had no such compunctions about Kanan.

So, yeah. Cat in lap. Kanan's arms were perfectly suited to sustained bouts of petting.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal shook his head as he set the quail to defrost. "At this rate, he may attempt to go home with you. So long as you can keep him in the food to which he's accustomed."

Kanan couldn't.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan most certainly could.

He just wouldn't.

"Heh, I'd be tempted, but it's probably for the best if I leave him with you," he decided. "As it stands, I can barely feed myself. And I'm usually on the move too much to really be able to take proper care of a pet."

[sharp_as_knives]

Semantics.

"Very likely," Hannibal agreed. "Besides, it would break Joni's heart if she didn't have his tail to pounce upon."

[uncertain_dume]

"And we really wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Kanan continued petting the cat with one hand, while lifting his coffee to his mouth with the other. "So, probably for the best I settle for these occasional visits, instead."

[sharp_as_knives]

"And meanwhile he will end up incredibly spoiled." As if he weren't already. As witness the fact that Hannibal was getting down the dried meat cat treats to put near Kanan.

He got down a large bowl and filled it with cold water to defrost the bird. "Quail is a form of bird, as you could probably have deduced from the feathers." Not that that was a guarantee. "It's used in several cuisines throughout the world. The bones are generally eaten along with the rest, since they are fairly small and chewable, but it's also acceptable to eat around them if you would rather."

[uncertain_dume]

Yeah, feathers didn't guarantee much. Plenty of reptile and reptavian species had feathers back home, too, after all.

"I'll give them a try," Kanan decided, nodding thoughtfully as he watched Hannibal work. "It can't hurt anything, really." A pause. "Only birds have feathers around here, huh?"

Mind: blown.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Correct," Hannibal said, giving him a curious look. "Although there is some debate as to whether ancient dinosaurs - a sort of reptile - may have had them as well. I take it that's not the case in some places you're used to?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Definitely not the case," Kanan agreed. "There are a few reptiles that have feathered crests, and reptavians, as well. I mean, not all reptiles, obviously. Some have scales or fur..."

Tauntauns, anyone?

[sharp_as_knives]

"Our reptiles have skin or scales nearly exclusively," Hannibal said. He smiled at Kanan. "I find the differences fascinating."

He got down the first of the ingredients. "This is a paste called sambal ulek - it's a mixture of chiles, lime, salt, and some other spices." He took out a serving tile and put a little on there, setting it in front of Kanan. "This is where most of the dish's heat comes from."

[uncertain_dume]

Well... Kanan had no idea what to do with paste on a tile, really. He tilted his head at it in consideration, and then set down his coffee. He wasn't about to stop petting the cat, after all.

And then, at something of a loss, he stuck his finger into the paste experimentally and then sniffed at it. Yeah, it had a bit of a bite to it. That wasn't going to stop him from then putting it into his mouth.

"Oh, that has a bite to it," he said, nodding his approval. And then... casually reaching for his coffee again. Because it was still hot, thank you. "I'm looking forward to seeing how it interacts with the rest of it."

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled and took out the garlic, letting Kanan see how he opened it up and took out several cloves. He took the tile back and smashed one on it before passing it back.

"Garlic. The bulb of a plant. Used widely in any number of cuisines." And it was possible he was particularly enjoying it this week. "It also has a bit of heat, although not so much as the chiles. When cooked, it can get quite sweet."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was absolutely using the coffee as something of a palette cleanser before making a reach for the garlic, taking a piece of the smashed clove between his fingers and smelling that, too.

"It has a much more pleasant consistency than Anzati snot garlic," he intoned, with a faint grin. "I'll definitely give it that."

Going by the name, that wasn't hard to do. He popped the garlic into his mouth, too. Basically dooming himself to coffee and garlic breath for the rest of the evening.

"Huh. Not sure what I was expecting, but I can see why you'd cook with it."

[sharp_as_knives]

"...that sounds like a singularly unpleasant food," Hannibal noted. "Is the taste similar?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Surprisingly so," Kanan confirmed. "It tastes better than it feels, and once it's mixed into other things, it isn't so bad."

Don't take this as an invitation to find a way to use it as a proper garlic substitute, Hannibal.

[sharp_as_knives]

But maybe vampires weren't allergic to it!

Hannibal nodded and poured out a small bit of dark brown liquid onto the tile next. "Soy sauce," he explained. "Made from soy and other grains; salty, for the most part."

[uncertain_dume]

Another mouthful of coffee -- garlic really was a pervasive flavor and it took Kanan some effort to rid his mouth of it -- and he was sampling the soy sauce, next.

"Salty," he agreed, thoughtfully. "But with something else. Savory... something. I like it."

[sharp_as_knives]

"Umami," Hannibal said with a smile. "It has a weight to it."

The last two ingredients he put next to each other. "Honey, and sugar. I imagine you have some form of sugars where you're from. This is brown sugar, which means it's been combined with molasses - another form of sugar, liquid and sticky. Honey is another sweetener, produced by small insects from the nectar of plants."

[uncertain_dume]

"We put sugar in caf, actually," Kanan confirmed, looking at the brown substance with interest before, after another mouthful of coffee, he pinched a little between his fingers and sampled that, too. "More or less what I was expecting. And we do have honey, too. Small insects manage to make enough to fill the demand?"

Insects that were not remotely the size of the ones that they tended to get honey from where Kanan was from.

[sharp_as_knives]

"There are quite a few of them," Hannibal said, smiling at the understatement. "Would you like sugar for your coffee?" he asked. "You hadn't used it before."