12.19.08 - Hare Stew

Location: Redwall Kitchen

Characters Involved: Tameus, Darklett, Taye

There is a peculiar lack of anyone in the kitchen. Cooks, cooks helpers, late-night snackers... nope. No one. No one, that is, except for Tam. Tam who is standing over a cooking pot larger than he is, each foot on the edge of it and a giant ladle in his hands, which he uses to stir the contents. Whether or not he made this all by himself - or picked up where someone else left off? Who knows. But it's /his/ stew now.

Well, the lack couldn't have lasted that long, right? Darklett is a late-night snacker, and he's just on his way in the kitchen to just grab a bite or two when oh dear what is that? Alarmed, the major hops over to the fireplace, until he realizes... Well, whew. No fire. Okay. "...What're you doin', Tam?" He sounds amused rather than on edge.

Tameus has a jar of some kind of herb in his free hand. Basil, rosemary? Oregano? Whatever. And he's liberally applying this to the stew. It's warm, not exactly steaming, but warm - rather good-smelling, actually. "'m makin' a /stew/!" the leveret tells Darklett with a beaming expression.

Taye is quick on Darklett's heels! Which is pretty impressive for a cri- person who is handicapped for a short-term basis only. He crutches into the room, slowing to a stop. Blink-bliiiink.

"...Oh. What's it got in it?" Darklett gets on his toes, looking over into the pot and smelling it. "You did this all yourself?" Taye is not given attention really right now, though the clickclack of crutches does give notice of his presence.

"Maybe prob'ly kinda," is Tam's reply. "'s got 'taters an' carrots an' onions an' all sorts'a things. Y' wann' try some?"

Before Darklett can answer, Tam whips up the ladle out of the stew to offer it for taste-testing. Splatter!

Taye is staying well clear of /that/. He has a little sister and therefore knows this can come to no good end. He shifts his weight from one crutch to the other, ears a-twitch.

Darklett is... splattered. Eh. No big deal. He kind of wipes at his tunic. "Er, don't think I should sip from the ladle you're stirring with, Tam." He looks around and grabs a bowl from one of the cabinets, holding it out for the leveret to pour. "This should do better. Watch for spills," he warns, preemptively!

Tameus wobbles a little where he stands and takes the ladle in both hands. He forgets he has a jar of - basil? It looks like basil, it really does - and this drops from his hand as he tries to perform the maneuver. There's a /crack/ noise as the jar breaks on the edge of the pot.

And the stew gets a big ol' douse of dried-and-crushed basil. Tameus stands with the ladle uplifted, jerking a little at the noise. The contents of the ladle miss the bowl and are dumped on the floor.

Eeeeeer. Someone might want to grab the kid before he ends up stew bait! But Taye's not volunteering. He's got his hands full already! He takes a half-hearted step forward, foreseeing disaster.

It's a big ladle. Like. More shovel than spoon. That's a lot of stew that just got on the floor. Tam smiles oh-so-sweetly.

"Watch... watch it..." Darklett tries to move the bowl to catch as much soup as possible, but... He's also reaching out to try and grab Tameus and steady him, which means almost none of the soup goes where intended and almost all of it goes on the floor. Ahhhhhh.

"'s okay, I can jus' stir 't all in," Tam says reassuringly, and does so. There are .. pieces of broken clay jar. In the stew. And they're stirred in also.

Tasty. Taye looks a little bit sick. Basil is nice, but. It's not /that/ nice. His nostrils flare slightly at the stew aroma. "Tam, you should maybe get down now." Aheh.

"Uh... Maybe we should just dump this stew out, Tam. Don't know if it'd be too healthy to eat parts of a jar." Nor would it be tasty to eat that much basil. Darklett puts the bowl down and goes to scoop Tameus up off the pot to set him down on the floor.

Tameus twists and brings the ladle-shovel-thing up again, splattering more stew as he does. The pot wobbles underneath him, sloshing, and he leans forward to stretch it out. "Taye y' haft' /try/ th--nnfh!" A moment before Darklett can pick the kid up, he loses his footing and falls. Splash.

"Now that's just not good," Taye mutters to himself.

It's a big pot, yes it is. Tam is up to his shoulders in stew. He looks a little ... shocked.

Siiiigh. "Tam, Tam..." Darklett reaches down to at least get the leveret standing up. "Now we have to get you cleaned up..." He glances to Taye. Oh what did you walk into, Lieutenant? :P

Tameus reaches to take ahold of Darklett's forearms and help pull himself up. He's steady for a moment, then slips. "Ow." His hand plunges under the surface of the stew and he draws out a .. potato. A whole potato.

Bad things. Very bad things. Taye stares, completely at a loss. "Uh..." He crutches over, snatching up a towel which he then brings over. Holds out on the tip of his crutch. He's /totally/ not getting that close.

Tameus offers the potato to Darklett. "Here, hol' this."

"So I vote we leave 'n' let someone else clean it up," Taye pipes up. Aheh.

"I think you can just drop that back into the stew, Tam." Darklett /doesn't/ take the potato. The major does turn and roll his eyes at Taye before snatching the towel off the end of the crutch. "C'mon." Darklett puts the towel on the counter and tries to lift Tameus up and place him on the towel... This is ridiculous.

At least he's out of uniform. It would be so unfortunate if that had gotten stewed. Tam looks disappointed as he's lifted out, dripping stew and letting the potato plunk back into the pot. "I was tryin'a make 't f' m' da," the leveret says.

Taye makes an odd snuffling sound. Snuffling because he has buried his muzzle in his elbow for the moment. He clears his throat. Ahem! "Maybe a smallah pot, next time."

"This one was a'ready 'ere," Tam explains. Lifts his eyebrows.

"A smaller pot would definitely be better." The major nods. "Let's get some, uh... More towels." He pats Tameus, and goes to get those towels.

Tameus reaches up to rub at his muzzle, smearing stew across it. Much of the stew is a kind of greenish color. Too much basil. He'll smell of it for a week. "Okay, smaller pot. D' I haft' start o'er, y' think?"

"Yeah, I think you might have to. When you spilled that stuff in, some of the jar got in too, so it might hurt anyone who eats it." The major says it with a hint of consolation as he gathers some towels to dry off the leveret. "You're a mess..." He chuckles, smirking as he dabs and scrubs at Tameus's arms and back.

"But now 'm all out'a that stuff," Tam says, waving a hand. "Th' green stuff. There's n'more left." It's all on him. He's /green/ and .. /sticky/.

"Don't worry, you can make a great stew even without that stuff." Darklett sighs. "Let's... Let's go get you cleaned up, Tam." He starts wrapping the leveret in towels so he doesn't drip everywhere.

Tameus looks plaintively at the stew and then just nods. "'Arper's gonn' haft' gimme a bath," he mutters, and hugs the largest of the towels around himself. "Let's go then."