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Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:27 PM

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The end of summer was almost near, and it was time to celebrate. Although Toxic may have been born in the summer months, even in her home world and country, which seemed to have the seasons mostly in line with this one, too, she couldn't say she really enjoyed summer. Cooling off was more difficult, or costly, than warming up, after all.

In the past, her family once went camping every summer, as it was something of a family tradition, and she always came home with the worst of sunburns afterwards. Still, looking back, she enjoyed those times, she supposed, but those times were gone now.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:30 PM

How many years had it actually been? When she thought about it, she didn't actually want to count. It was painful to remember those sorts of things, after all. That family of hers, they were probably all gone, and here she was, still alive and well. She was getting along just fine, pretending that she always knew what she was doing, even if she didn't. How was it that she deserved to be saved, when they others didn't?
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:34 PM

Knowing where her thoughts were going, and that it wasn't going to be a good place at all, the woman shook her head and forced herself back to reality, to the task at hand. She was standing in the kitchen, in front of the stove, watching as the large pot of water finally came to a rolling boil.

Once it finally did, she grabbed not one, but two boxes of dried pasta that had been sitting out on the counter. For fun, one box contained the bow shaped noodles, while the other contained shell shaped ones. Those weren't their proper names, most likely, but she referred to them more by shape than anything else.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:38 PM

First, she opened one box, and than the other. After reading over the cook times, which were slightly different, she decided which one to pour in first. She poured the entire contents of the first box into the boiling water than set the box aside.

On her counter she kept most of her cooking utensils sitting in a decorative jar. Taking from it, she grabbed a slotted spoon and used it to stir the noodles. After all, she didn't want them to stick. Not to the pot, or to each other.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:42 PM

Once done, she set the spoon aside, on a large glass cutting board that had already been neatly set out on the counter for later use. Currently, it was clean and unused.

Enough time had passed, and she emptied the second box of pasta into the large pot, and then set the box aside. Picking up the spoon she had just used before, she stirred the noodles once more. Afterwards, she set the timer that was already built into the stove. She added an extra two minutes, to account for the fact that the water hadn't quite returned to a full boil yet.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:47 PM

That done, she turned her attention back to the counter, and she sighed while looking at the single cutting board. "I really should have gotten another one by now." One cutting board was hardly enough, even with its larger than average size, especially for when she had to cook for a large number of people. Ah, well, she'd probably just end up having to use plates as extra surfaces to cut on, in order to keep some of the ingredients separate. That was hardly anything new.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 7:57 PM

Deciding what ingredient she would prepare first, she moved across the kitchen and gathered up two cans of black olives from the pantry. Olives was the one ingredient, aside from the pasta, that was going to be included in the two different pasta salads that she was putting together. For that reason, she decided it was best to start with them first. Admittedly, she could have saved herself some time by purchasing that pre-cut versions that were also usually sold in stores, but it honestly didn't occur to her to do so.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:20 PM

Since she had fairly weak wrists and joints, which often ached from even basic use, Toxic did what she could to ease up the pressure she put on them. For that reason, she had an electric can opener instead of a hand crank version, which she used to open both cans of olives and properly discarded the lid portion.

Before handling the food, however, she stopped and made sure to wash her hands well in the kitchen sink. She kept both a bottle of dish soap and a bottle of hand soap in the kitchen.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:29 PM

With freshly washed hands, she first gathered up a simple steak knife, which she was use to cut the small olives, as it worked better than a larger knife, before scooping out some of the olives from one can by hand. She didn't drain them properly, because a small amount of the juice remaining from the can wouldn't be bad for the pasta, it might even add a little more flavor, and would help keep them from drying out while she prepared the other ingredients afterwards.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:32 PM

Setting the handful onto the cutting board, she scooped out a few more handfuls, and laid them out the same way as the first. Then, one by one, she sliced each olive into about three pieces, occasionally four, if it was a little larger than the others. The woman made fairly quick work of the olives, all things considered.

However, it was just as she finished cutting them, that the alarm on the stove went off to signal that the pasta was likely done cooking.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:35 PM

She quickly rinsed her hands in the sink, before grabbing the slotted spoon that was set off to one far aside of the cutting board, away from the olives and their juices, and using it to scoop out a few noodles. She then proceeded to rinse them under cool water in the sink, before eating each of them separately, one by one. They all seemed to have been cooked just to her liking, which was soft, but not over cooked. Toxic didn't particularly care for al dente noodles, so always cooked them soft.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:39 PM

It was then that she quickly turned off the burner on the stove.

She'd already scrubbed the sink prior to her cooking, and made sure only to wash her hands on one side of it, to keep the other side entirely clean. As such, she had no problem with fetching the large colander and placing it inside the cleaned, unused side of the sink. It even had a little stand on the bottom of it, to keep it from directly touching the sink surface.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/25/2017 8:41 PM

Then grabbing two potholders from the drawer which she kept them all in, so she could handle touching the pot handles without burning herself, she grabbed the pot and carried it over to the sink. Little by little, she poured the contents out, not pouring too much at a time so the water did not splash back up at her or overwhelm the sink drain.

Once all the noodles were safely inside the colander, she returned the still hot pot back to the stove top.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/27/2017 12:48 PM

The woman then went through the process of rinsing the noodles in cold water, to cool them down. If noodles remained hot and sitting out without moisture, they dried out that much faster, which just wouldn't do. It would take time to prepare the rest of the ingredients, so she couldn't risk losing the batch of noodles. Additionally, she would be able to need to handle them, when it came time to divide them into two different bowls, for the two different pasta salads.
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Re: Picnic of Two Houses [L] [Self]

Postby ToxicShadow » 08/27/2017 12:50 PM

Once she figured they were generally cool enough to not burn her hand if she touched them, she used one hand to stir and flip the noodles around, bringing the warmer noodles under the direct stream of cool water from the faucet. She repeated this step a few times until she determined that all of the noodles were cooled.

Afterwards, she moved the faucet back to the other side of the sink, and decided to wash her hands once more before continuing on with the next step.
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