After some more walking the group stumbles into a large patch of blueberry bushes with ripe blueberries. And they are hard to miss. For one, the berries are prominent at the top of the bushes. And two, there are a lot of birds fluttering around who think that you don't need to wait to turn that into pie to eat it.
As the birds take to the air clara turns to Jewel and asks "He does make a good scarecrow. You think that's a career opportunity for him?"
Jewel just watches as Tarjun tries to scare the birds away. She shrugs at Clara's comment. "I'm not sure yet. The birds haven't flown away. And scarecrow isn't a very good career path. No upward mobility...."
Jewel activates her feral speech hex to let her talk to the birds. "Sorry for the loud noise. We just want to have some of the berries. We'll go once we have enough."
She moves toward the berry bushes with her basket. "Tarjun. Stop trying to scare them. I just asked if we could have some berries. We don't need all of them! Besides, you're crushing some of the bushes. Maybe we can dig up one of the bushes you damaged and take it home to re-plant."
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"There's many bushes," Tarjun retorts, while extricating himself from tangled, sharp branches. "I can crush one or two."
He looks down at his chest, and laughs. "Shit, I'm covered in stains!" He wipes some crushed blueberries off his shirt, and starts humming. "I'm blue, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di..."
"Priorities! We don't have a cart and we have no shovel." Clara declares and starts harvesting. She is not very careful, as the berries go into pie immediately. Well, the ones that don't go into Clara directly. With her hands and face changing color she joins into the catchy tune.
Jewel ducks her head when Clara mentions not having a shovel or a cart. She was right, but they hadn't planned to dig anything up when they'd left.
She moves up to the plants, looking for a couple that were close together. When she finds a small cluster she activates her wooden fists ability, thanking Erastil for the power that was useful for other than just fighting. She thrusts her hard, thorny hands into the dirt, digging the root ball up and putting it into her basket. "Well, one cluster will be a start. I'll carry it back. Now let me taste a few...." She joins the others getting her now not hardened hands and mouth blue.
"That basket was for the berries!" Clara protests. "Shall I carry them in my shirt now?"
Jewel smiles as she drops some berries into the basket. "We'll wash them when we get back. Maybe having a little dirt on them will keep Tarjun from wanting to eat all of them!"
"It's one thing to have the berries not washed, but eating pie and chewing on sand is disgusting!" Clara objects with the 'Ewww' expression on her face.
The look on Jewel's face is a bit offended. "I wash the berries before I put them in a pie! Mom wouldn't ever let me not prep ingredients properly."
"Now let's get some berries into the basket so we have enough for a pie!"
"What? He said you don't need to wash it. I wasn't talking to you." Clara objects.
"He's just blathering. And he can cast create water just as easily as I can!"
"I always clean any of the raw food before cooking, vegetable for supper or fruit for pies."
"I'm not pouring the good berries into the dirt." Clara states and keeps collecting them in her shirt.
Once they reach the Branston house and specifically the kitchen Clara grabs a bowl and pours the berries she carries in her shirt into it.
And surprisingly almost all of them make it into the bowl and not on the floor. "So, what now?" she inquires looking at Jewel.
Jewel is tempted to pour the berries and the plants with the dirt into the bowl Clara had used, but decides to not be antagonistic. "Well, I'll wash my berries good before adding them to yours." She starts separating the berries and washing them.
"I'll need to make a crust for the pie. I'll need some flour, butter, salt and sugar, and water. It takes about an hour, or a bit more. Have to be careful though because if you over work it the crust can be tough...."
She measures out some flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl, mixing it really well. She adds the butter and mixes it in as well, being sure to blend it well. She casts create water into another bowl so she can add it.
"You and Tarjun could mud in those blueberry clusters I carried back...." Looking around she is not surprised to find that she is alone.
Clara is really interested to see how Jewel make pie. See, not make or help. As Jewel suggests different work, Clara declines. "Nah, I'm watching you make pie. Don't want to miss something. Especially not when it's done and needs eating."
Jewel shrugs and starts adding the water to the flour mix, folding it with a large spoon and scraping the sides to get all of the flour mixture into a ball. Once she considers the mixture right she spreads a light coating of flour on the table and puts the ball on it. "Once I get the dough rolled into a thin sheet I'll cut it to fit the pie pan. A little lard spread in the pan will keep it from sticking when it bakes. I'll cut the rest of the rolled dough into strips to cover the pie."
She starts spreading the ball of dough with a wooden rod, her rolling pin, until it is the proper thin layer. Then cuts a circle for the pie pan, wipes a layer of lard into the pan and pushes the dough (crust) into the pan. She measures about a quart of berries into a bowl with a cup of sugar, a good pinch of salt and 2 large spoonfuls of corn starch. After mixing this up she pours the mixture into the pie and adds several 'spots' of butter. "Now the top." Taking the dough strips she weaves them in a cross pattern on top of the pie, pinching it onto the crust.
"Now we bake it for about an hour. We have to watch it so it browns a bit but doesn't burn." She stands and pats some of the flour off of her clothing. "Well I'm going to go mud those blueberry clusters in. That won't take an hour and the plants will be better able to survive with their roots in the ground."
She takes the basket out to their grove with a shovel, digs a hole bog enough to hold the clusters. Puts them in place and pushes the dirt over them. She casts create water several times to turn the dirt to mud. Coming back to the house she washes her hands and goes back into the kitchen to rest and watch the pie.
[ooc]Personally I buy a pie crust and make any sort of berry pie other than blueberry. Don't like them.... Haven't had gooseberries for ages, but they're good!"[/b]
Jewel just laughs at Tarjun's comment. "No. Mom is. I've just baked with her some. She'd know exactly when to put the pie in the oven. Would have a cup of coffee and relax, and the pie would be done perfect when she was ready to take it out. And she'd set it on the table on the wood lattice to cool, and wouldn't let you in here until it was time for you to have some."
"I guess keeping the kids away from the pie is the hardest part of baking it." Clara jokes.
With the pie in the oven Clara jumps in. "We do that differently. It's not a pie, but it's tasty too." Without further ado, she starts using what Jewel put on the counter for her pie to make a regular cake. Butter, sugar, eggs, flour and some leavening agent. Adding one after the other while stirring Clara creates the dough and lastly throws in two hands of berries. "And the best part of this is, that you don't have to wait til it is baked to eat it." she tells and licks the spoon.
Jewel carefully opens the oven just a little to check. "It cooks for an hour. But I don't know exactly how long it's been since I planted the berries. It looks like it needs a few more minutes. But you don't want to cut and eat it immediately. Let it sit for a few minutes or you'll burn your tongue trying to take a bite."
"What's that Clara? Like a blueberry cake? The oven will be open to bake it in a few minutes. Or do you just want to eat the batter?"
"We'll see." Clara replies and you can see that at least part of the dough made it at and into her face already.
"Are you sick? Who are you and what have you done to Tarjun?" Clara inquires.
Jewel struggles to wait..... She counts her breathing and realizes that by doing so she is breathing faster. But, it does take her mind off of the pie for a few seconds. She casts a dancing lights spell and has it hover above the oven door so it will light up the inside of the oven when she cracks it slightly open. She knows to wait until the berries and 'bubbling' before taking the pie out.
She gathers up the thick cloth to protect her hands and peeks again. It's just bubbling a bit.... Closing the door again she stands, holding her breath this time. Just a few more.... and she opens the door to take out the pie, crust nicely light brown, and carry it over to the cooling rack for....
"OK. Just let it rest until it at least stops bubbling! Can't set it on the table until it cools enough to not scorch the table top. Get some plates and forks. I'll get a knife to cut it."
"Nah, now that the oven is free the cake will be baked!" Clara states and fills it into a cake pan. Then she shoves it into the oven and sits with the pie, Jewel and Tarjun.
Knowing her brother and Clara, Jewel waits just barely long enough before moving the pie to the table and cutting it into six slices.
She serves a piece to each plate and takes one with a fork. "And I think we should save a piece each for Mom and Dad. They did provide the flour and other ingredients...."
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"Alright, but if it's real good, let's not leave them too big of a slice," Tarjun concedes. "They're not that big on sugar anyway - they turned us down plenty when we asked 'em for cake!"
Baked pie is apparently much better for his taste buds. He wolfs down his slice in a couple of minutes. "That's really good," he lets out a burp, and laughs. "Sorry. Really good!! Thanks, Jewie!"
"Do you have freshly pressed cow juice to go with that?" Clara inquires.
Jewel stares at Clara.... "Cow juice? It's not like there's a button yo press on the cow to get 'juice' from it! And you know how to milk a cow just as well as any of us!" She glances over to the pitcher where the fresh milk would be, and points. "She's not off her feed or anything that I know of, so over there."
"How do you not? You take a fruit and press it, you get fruit juice. You take a cow and press it's udder and you get cow juice." Clara hollers back with that 'how do you not get it?' look on her face. "And how do you know what a doctor is? I bet you haven't seen one in your whole life!"
She grabs the jug and leaves to check on Buttercup to see if she is willing to give some more cow juice.
Jewel stares after Clara as she leaves, then turns to Tarjun. "That's funny. We've been using magic for healing for years, and Mom wrapped up anything before. Any trained 'healer' would just say that Clara is impulsive.... or that she's an imp!"
She covers up the rest of the pie for their parents and heads for the door. "We better follow her and be sure she doesn't drink straight from the jug."
Jewel follows Tarjun, "The girls aren't scared of her anymore. I told them she's not dangerous, just annoying."
"Hello Buttercup. Today no riding, I only need some milk for the pie. You're good getting another udder massage?"
Buttercup doesn't care much as long as there is food in reach and so the cow keeps grazing while being milked.
Jewel stops a short distance back when she notices Clara handling the cow correctly. With things being done right she certainly doesn't want to cause trouble....
As Clara finishes up she moves forward slowly. "Good job. I think she might have even enjoyed that. You can be gentle when you want to!"
"If I wanted to milk you for snarky comments I'd be really pleased with you. But the way things are?" Clara shrugs and carries the jug back inside to sit at the table and enjoy her piece of pie with some fresh milk.