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[certaininequities]

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[certaininequities]

[it's not long before Stormin' Norman strides into the kitchen like it's a laboratory inspection, grinning from ear to ear and wearing one of the shirts Peter's given him.]

Peter! ... Whoa, you weren't kidding. How big was the recipe s'posed ta be?

Action

[heyunderoos]

[The counter spaces have been swallowed up by a comical amount of latkes. The teenager looks over his kingdom of potato and onion with a wiggle of his whiskers. A weak slightly embarrassed smile settles over his features as he turns to look at Norman.]

Uh, I didn't really follow a written recipe I was kinda just- remembering how Uncle Ben would make them. So...

[He waves a hand awkwardly.]

They're good though, promise!

[certaininequities]

[that little whisker wiggle puts the comedic tableau right over the top, and Norman laughs as he crosses to the sink and washes his hands.]

And knowing you, you wanted to be sure you had enough to share with everyone. Well, I guess you do now!

[he's still grinning as he dries his hands off and reaches for one of the latkes]

How long d'they keep? Do you figure maybe we could freeze them?

[he's never had a latke before, but he's not about to let that stop him from supporting Peter - and the smell filling the kitchen is amazing, to boot. he takes a bite, pleasantly surprised at the way the crunch gives way to something much creamier and richer than the hash brown texture he was expecting. his eyes widen]

MMH.

[heyunderoos]

I'll have to par things down a lot whenever Hanukkah happens. [He coaxes his fingers through his fur. His smile warms up a little further]

If you freeze them, I think a few months? We never really had any left over beyond the first few days.

[Peter blinks a little, brightening further.]

Oh, right, I guess you've never had one before?

[certaininequities]

If you tell me how much you used of everything, I could help you figure it out. It's just a matter of proportions - chemistry for food, right?

[he winks, then pops the rest of the latke in his mouth and deliberates their shelf-life]

I hadn't, no - they're fantastic. So much better than hash browns... I wonder what the difference is?

[don't mind him, he's just going to take another one .... yoink]

[heyunderoos]

Well, it's- potato and onion with a binding agent. It's a whole thing. I used flour I found, since we didn't have chicken schmaltz. [Peter looks around at his latke disaster trying to remember specifics.] I literally have no idea anymore, I kinda just went for it?

Baking is kinda more science than like cooking a lot of the time-? I mean, that's what May said whenever she ruined a cake. [His mood briefly dips at mention of May, but he tries to push past it.]

[certaininequities]

Schmaltz? ['the heck is a schmaltz', his face plainly says] That's a real word?

[Norman plz. at the mention of May, Norman kicks himself internally as well, but shakes his head]

There's still science in it. But it's more about relative properties and reactions in broader terms. If you just, uh, 'went for it', maybe we can reverse-engineer this with a kitchen scale and a little common sense.

[heyunderoos]

Oh, yeah, its- like chicken fat? [Peter always just accepted chicken schmaltz as a fact of life. Clearly, he was wrong.] It came up a lot when Ben cooked.

[There is some odd irony to the fact Ben is a safer topic than May at the moment. Something Peter doesn't entirely grasp.]

Yeah, true. Just hard to really picture right now. [He dusts his hands off carefully on a hand towel nearby.] I've been sending people messages too, to see if they'd like any.

[certaininequities]

And yet you're still skinny as a rail. I'll be damned. Where did you even put it all?

[he laughs, already reaching for the drawer where they keep the parchment paper and storage bags]

I can help you pack it all up, at least.

[heyunderoos]

I'm not that skinny!

[Norman gets a blep in turn for his teasing, Peter's tail wiggling a little in turn.]

Thanks, I was trying to figure out where to even start, you know? I usually eat stuff while cooking, but hot oil kinda made that hard. [A habit Norman and Otto had to get used to anytime Peter helped them cook, gently sniping bits of ingredients to eat.]

[certaininequities]

Maybe not since you turned into a Pooka.

[he laughs, his own nose wrinkling at the tail wiggle. the boy had already been impossible to say no to, getting exponentially more so didn't seem fair.]

I'm glad there's something that'll deter you from eating every edible ingredient on the counter. I'll hafta remember that. Maybe Otto and I will sacrifice our cardiovascular health for our grocery budget and start cooking more fried things.

[heyunderoos]

[Peter snorts a little, the gesture just making his whiskers wiggle a bit more. Even with his protest, he's clearly amused.] It isn't thatbad!

[Though his mind per usual is jumping around.] Do you think monsters can get heart attacks? Or like high cholesterol, that kinda stuff?

[certaininequities]

Ya know, I haven't thought about it, but ... hopefully I'll be getting Dr. O'Deorain's research notes from Dr. Slys soon. She had a lot of genetic markers already tagged, shouldn't be hard to figure out.

[even heart attacks can't stop them, he thinks, but keeps that one to himself. it's a train of thought he doesn't want Peter to board.]

[heyunderoos]

It'll be interesting to know what her notes say. Y'know, cause there is so much we just genuinely don't know?

[Peter has to muse about that as he helps get latkes arranged into neater piles, easier to stash into the parchment paper and storage bags Norman was grabbing.]

[certaininequities]

Exactly! [he points at him, grinning, feeling that same electric connection of nerdery he'd felt in Hogan's apartment. he's glad he has the chance to feel like this again: like a mentor. he knows in this moment that he's fortunate beyond measure. as he starts filling the bags, the two make a neat little assembly line]

She had already started work on trying to predict changes, so a lot of baseline factors should already be established. I need to figure out where I want to start, besides just the weaknesses ... I've been going through the volumes of that Spengler guide. Have you read it yet? Interesting as hell.

[heyunderoos]

Given how different every monster is, it's probably going to take a bit to really have a baseline. It'll be hard to make a proper control group.

[Slowly but surely the bags are being filled. Latkes may rest now.]

Yeah, Chiaki and I have went over the book a few times. I probably need to re-read it later.

[certaininequities]

I was thinking that it might be best to group similar types together, as close to the Linnaean taxonomy as possible. I would have originally said to just use the classes under phylum Chordata, but ... we have invertebrate monsters like slimes and, well, arache, not to mention all the mythological creatures and the undead ones.

[he labels each bag with the contents and the date: you can take a scientist out of the lab but he will always designate his specimens]

[heyunderoos]

Yeah, that would be a good place to start. Everything is already going to be... super complicated as is. [Peter is trying to wrap his mind around what an undertaking this is going to be, and his expression show he's not sure where what to feel.] I dunno how you'd even deal with something like a lich or anything else that's technically dead. You're gonna have to start asking monsters of each type to help in being a control for their type I guess?

That's if samples weren't already taken anyway. Still probably better to start with new samples?

[Peter continues the line of latke packing. His mind more focused on their conversation at the moment.]

[certaininequities]

Yeah, that's just it. It's a lot, especially since we can't just go off the research of biologists before us like back home. Getting people agree to let me do any case studies is probably going to be the hardest part. Moira had gotten some, but I won't know until I get her notes how much ground I have to cover.

[did he just steal another latke to munch on? maybe. it's tough to say whose habits wore off on who here]

[heyunderoos]

People get hostile over the weirdest things here. [Peter as a teenager is used to a hostile internet, but when it's this small of a population it's a lot more personal.] So, asking them is going to be a really delicate thing.

[Peter sees the latke theft, and just laughs softly at it. He's happy Norman enjoys them.]

[certaininequities]

And then on the other side of the coin - [he's speaking around a mouthful tucked back into his cheek, knowing full well that a teenager isn't going to mind if he has poor manners] - they take such bizarre things in stride. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to it.

You're right, though, of course. I should go back through the network and check if there were any volunteers Moira spoke with when she made her own request. That might at least give me a place to start.

[om nom nom.]

[heyunderoos]

Makes me miss New York, at least if people were hostile you had some idea as to why. Opposed to you said something casually they took super wrong or said something accidentally controversial about their god. [Peter understands New York perfectly, fellow monsters less so.]

It'd honestly be a fair place to start. Then you can message the people on that post.

[Collectively the two are making headway in getting the latkes put away.]