Kevin & Jean-Paul, Saturday Afternoon
Feb. 27th, 2010 03:15 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs"Hey baby, do you like fine cooking? Cause you know what? I got Swanson's Dinner in the freezer with your name on it." - Jimmy Fallon
He was restless. Jean-Paul knew this because his hands itched to do something. And he was hungry. Thus, he found himself walking to the kitchen. There was only one moment when he came to a section of hallway and he couldn't recall seeing the furnishings in the next section, but the one after that brought the memory together, sewing it shut. One more little piece of himself, his mind, that he could file away as having been repaired.
Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better. What use was the memory of a hallway, anyway? Especially when he wasn't necessarily sure the memory was the right one - it was unlikely anyone would have felt that rearranging the corridors of the mansion in his memory would do them any good, but he was still having trouble after his frustrating session with Doctor McCoy in the Danger Room.
There was some kind of horrible noise coming from the kitchen, though, almost like someone was hammering - were they doing some kind of construction? Had the ceiling fallen in? Temporarily distracted from his thoughts, he walked through the door and found himself looking at a vaguely familiar person bashing what appeared to be a glass bottle against a wooden cutting board. Rather, against the meat on the cutting board.
Jean-Paul blinked. "How badly did the meat offend you, that it deserves this treatment?" He couldn't even really tell what kind of meat it was, save that it might not be chicken.
Kevin looked up, not really having expected to see anyone even though he should've known better. It was the mansion, the kitchen was the most popular room in the whole place. He looked down, hair falling into his eyes, and peered at the half-beaten piece of steak. "Huh?" The narrow opening of the coke bottle came down on the meat one more time before he looked back up at the former teacher. "Ah dunno if meat can offend you unless you're a vegetarian. And Ah'm not one. 'Cause I'm fixing on eating it and all."
"And so you... do this instead of using a tenderiser?" There were a great many things in Jean-Paul's life that had been cut in quarters, but he was pretty sure he at least remembered there being a meat tenderiser or a mallet around the kitchen somewhere. He opened a drawer to see if he could find one, just for demonstrative purposes.
"That's not how it's done," Kevin told him with both a note of certainty and bewilderment in his voice. Why would you use a tenderizer for the meat? That was stupid and not nearly as effective. With the French-Canadian poking through the drawers, Kevin shrugged and went back to beating his piece of meat with the Coke bottle.
Jean-Paul cast a look toward the younger man, one that, had he been paying attention, would have clearly conveyed that he thought the glass bottle a magnificent indicator of insanity. Not that he was one to talk, he supposed. He found the mallet, though, more through luck than anything else, and laid it on the counter. Then he turned to see what he could find in the refrigerator.
Chicken - chicken cordon bleu. He would make that - it was a simple recipe, he'd made it a million times. True, operating in a kitchen with another person making an entirely different dish would be inconvenient, but not impossible. He set about finding the ingredients - cooking for one was a little less interesting than cooking for many, but he could manage. And there wasn't a plethora of chicken in the ice box, anyway.
Seeing that the younger man was still using the bottle, Jean-Paul eyed him narrowly, then nudged the mallet toward him without saying a word.
Blue eyes slipped to the side when Kevin noticed the movement of something silver and dimly reflective out of the corner of his eye. That was a tenderizer thing wasn't it? His eyes narrowed at the objectionable, clearly Yankee implement and he continued on with what he was doing. Kevin may have put a little extra enthusiasm into the next few whacks just to assert his method. Petty? Him? Nah!
Jean-Paul put the cling film on the counter and put the single chicken breast he intended to work with on it, then folded it over so he could flatten the chicken without having to worry about cleaning the counter afterward. The young man was still hammering his meat with the bottle. Jean-Paul would need that mallet shortly, but he nudged it toward the other man... his head tilted to the side a bit, though, because he seemed quite proficient when it came to wielding glass bottles as deadly weapons.
Kevin's eyes slipped to the side and narrowed once more. He took a moment to stop his punishment of the beef so that he could rather pointedly push the mallet back toward the Quebecois. "Ah think it's tryin' to escape," he told the older man. What was it with people? They just got weirder and weirder the closer to the North Pole you got.
"I think the meat, it is begging for a respite," Jean-Paul countered, ignoring the niggling feeling that there was something he'd missed. He'd not had any of those jarring, disjointed moments where it was obvious that parts of his memories had been stitched together in the wrong order. He didn't know what it was that he might have forgotten, but it couldn't possibly be anything of any real importance. And Jean-Paul was looking forward to doing something he found relaxing - enjoyable, even. All the banging, though. "The surface area you're covering with the mouth of the bottle, it is taking you three times as long to prepare the meat as it would take to use the mallet. Do you have anger issues you are working through? I would find this frustrating, were I you."
"Ah'd worry 'bout you more'n me if you can hear a dead piece of cow begging. Might be something miswired in there or somethin'." Kevin tapped a finger to his temple to indicate he meant he thought Jean-Paul might be crazy.
He stopped the beating he was giving the meat to poke at it, test out how tender it had gotten with his apparently inferior surface area. It was coming along about right it seemed. The young man shrugged. "It's just how it's done. Not really in for anger issues really. Got enough hammering and soldering and sawing metal to take care of 'em if Ah did, Ah guess." He gave the mallet a significant look before looking back up to Jean-Paul's eyes. "You got impatience issues?" Northerners. They were always in such a hurry for everything. Couldn't even take the time to beat their meat the right way. Shame.
"No," Jean-Paul said, tone somewhat distracted. He picked up the mallet himself and began the careful process of thinning the chicken. "I just do not understand the point of this." He gestured toward the bottle, not letting himself dwell on how badly wired he might or might not be. Though, really, it wasn't a question of 'might,' was it? Pretty much nothing was the way it ought to have been in his head. His time on Muir Island with Jeanne-Marie, not to mention the months he'd spent alone, had proven that to him on so many different levels.
Once the meat was flattened, he took care to make sure the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs were all properly laid out, then put the cheese on the chicken and... stopped. There was nothing else there, in his mind. The neat follow-through, the recipe he knew by rote - it just... ended. Sliced in half. Gone. There was no telling when the rest of it might turn up, but for now, the important thing was... he didn't actually know what to do next. This left Jean-Paul just staring at the cheese on the raw chicken, hands frozen in midair.
Kevin had gone back to his enthusiastic, familiar routine of beating the meat with the Coke bottle. "Maybe that's 'cause I'm young and over abundanced with energy? Or, y'know, maybe 'cause Canadians are like Yankees. Dunno how to do anything the right way, just wanna get it over with." He had a moment of wondering whether or not northerners jerked off the way they spoke and walked, fast and rushed like they wanted it out of the way. That'd be a shame.
By the time Kevin was finally done and had come to be thoroughly satisfied with the level of tenderness when he poked at the meat, Jean-Paul had gone silent. Maybe he'd finally given up the crusade for the mallet. Kevin set the Coke bottle aside and started to move on so he could actually fry the steak. When he looked up, though, he saw the man frozen in mid-air - pretty much literally. Eyes moved from the cheese covered chicken to the hovering hands to the man's confused expression. "Stick it in a frying pan," he offered. "Solves all problems."
"No," Jean-Paul said slowly, suppressing the sudden surge of anger he felt as it coiled low in the back of his mind, tightened across his temples. "No." He wanted to say something about how he was not simply Canadian. He was French-Canadian. There was a great deal of difference. They savoured life, took time to enjoy it. But he couldn't work the words past the frustration that even this, the soothing, the simple - even this had been violated. It made no sense. There was no reason other than pure malice to have robbed him of these memories.
Mon Dieu, he thought, trying to keep himself calm. "That... that is not how it goes."
There was a shrug and a general overview of the ingredients the man had laid out. "Well it looks like you've got all the fixings for fried chicken. And it looks like it really wants to be fried chicken. With cheese. Cheesy, fried chicken." That was weird. Whatever, the guy was part French too, right? They did weird stuff with food. Really weird stuff. And ate snails. They were not to be trusted. "Cheesy fried chicken could work. Ah mean, if we're talkin' desperate times Ah could always start frying bacon so you had the grease from it and all." Kevin trailed off with the sneaking suspicion he was not necessarily helping.
"Bacon?" Jean-Paul blinked, coming out of his frustration for a moment to look at the younger man. He was fairly certain there wasn't any bacon involved in Chicken Cordon Bleu. But he did like bacon. Slowly, he nodded, treading suddenly unfamiliar territory. He saw no reason he couldn't enjoy... fried chicken with cheese and... bacon? None of this is right, he thought, knowing it was true and unable to figure out which memory slotted into the one that had been torn to shreds. "I can... try that." What he really needed, though, was one of the cookbooks he'd left in his suite. He wasn't going to let this young American know that, though. He would save his reading for a time when he was by himself, away from prying eyes that would know he was less than he had once been.
Kevin nodded and went to the refrigerator. "Bacon. Everything's better with bacon. And stuff that's not better with bacon is better cooked in bacon grease. If that doesn't fix it, sugar will." None of this likely made sense to anyone above the Mason-Dixon line, but Kevin had long lost hope for them in the kitchen. Really, you could only make miracles so many times and people from up north had long spent all theirs. Pulling the bacon out of the fridge, Kevin went about getting a pan and setting everything up on the stove for the frying. His steak could wait a bit. After all, there would be bacon and bacon was God.
Jean-Paul wrinkled his nose at the thought of sugar and bacon making chicken better, but part of that was mostly that his memories dropped off so immediately that he had nothing with which to refute the young man's assertions. Still - sugar on chicken? Unless it was a glaze, but that didn't seem to be what the young man was telling him.
This was why he'd been eating pre-packaged food.
Still, he got a potato out of a basket on the counter and cleaned it, getting it ready for the microwave. After putting it in a plastic bag, he followed the directions on the inside door of the machine and set it to cook, then turned back to frown at the chicken. Raising a hand, he rubbed at one eye with the heel of his palm, then rubbed his thumb over his temple in soothing circles. This was giving him a headache, knowing there were things missing and being unable to piece them together.
"I do not believe that bacon is part of this recipe..." But it didn't seem entirely off, either. Shrugging to himself, though, he took the cheese off the chicken and got a different kind out. Swiss was all well and good, but he knew, at least, that it wouldn't go as well with bacon as cheddar. The thyme in the bread crumbs would be alright with it. He hoped.
"Does it matter if it's part of the recipe?" Kevin laid a few strips in the pan and turned to look at the older man. "Ah mean, the whole point of cooking is to improvise it and find new ways to make old stuff, right?" Except for how some things you just didn't mess with. Like your momma's fried chicken and barbecue. "If it works then it works and that's all that matters. And chicken fried in bacon grease sounds...kinda good actually."
"If you would like to have a heart attack before the age of thirty, oui," Jean-Paul said, not really thinking. Then he eyed the pan with the bacon in it and said, "Or twenty-five."
A hand waved dismissively through the air. "That ain't true. My grandma smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and she lived on bacon and sausage. She didn't die until she was ninety-eight. They just tell y'all that to get you to buy health food." The bacon was starting to sizzle in the pan. "'Sides, Ah'm young. Strong. Durable. Whatever."
Young and strong and durable. He supposed the young did think themselves invincible - God knew he had when he was that age. "So you think," he muttered. Still, the bacon did smell good. He did like it. "How do you feel about butter? Butter - it is an important ingredient in French cooking."
"Margarine's forbidden. It's the Devil's work. No decent person uses margarine. Butter...it's sacred. What bacon or sugar can't fix, butter can." Kevin nodded sagely. Butter completed the holy culinary trifecta of Southern cooking. "How many people you think really get blockages from that? And how much you really think it's worth it to worry 'bout when ya might end up with a blocked artery or somethin' anyway? Ah'd rather eat good food than worry 'bout it later. Ah'm healthy enough. Good lecture without being a lecture. Try it on someone who sits on the couch all day, though." It wasn't particularly obvious but Kevin was not someone who sat on the couch all day. He was someone who hauled large pieces of metal around, lifted weights and worked near fire. He wasn't worried about the cholesterol, which made flipping the strips of bacon over that much more satisfying right now.
"Oui," Jean-Paul agreed, nodding on the point about bacon. "It is more satisfying, in its way, and you are less likely to overindulge in the unsatisfying alternatives..." Which still left him looking at the chicken and the cheese, along with everything else, and not quite knowing what to do with them, though he did at least have an image of what the end result was supposed to look like. It definitely didn't involve bacon, but he was far happier to let the Chicken Cordon Bleu die a quiet death now that there was some form of amusement to distract him. And at least they could agree on butter.
"Hm...Ah guess. Never really thought 'bout it like that." He guessed Jean-Paul sort of had a point there. If you got full on stuff that maybe wasn't that good for you but was satisfying you'd stop eating. It was sort of that whole 'all things in moderation' outlook on life. Since the only thing Kevin really did in abundance was be antisocial and introverted he couldn't really say much on that point of view.
Paper towels were laid out on a plate before Kevin turned the bacon strips over again. He pulled the ones that were done out of the pan and laid them out over the paper towels. The rest he kept watching and flipping over.
Jean-Paul snuck around the counter, as much any man could sneak in a kitchen laid out this way, and stole one of the pieces of bacon. "Mm... good." He then turned and started taking care of the chicken itself. He dipped it in the egg and then the seasoned breadcrumbs. Then he put it on a clean plate and set it beside the younger man. He seemed quite competent with the spatula - the bacon hadn't burned yet, at least. "I think baking the cheese and extra bacon on top would be good, oui?"
Kevin frowned a little at the plate of battered chicken. "Yeah, that could work. But you oughta re-batter that chicken. Once ain't enough. Not if you want it to be good." Egg, flour, more egg, more flour then you fried it. 'Cause that was how it was done. It was how his momma had done it and how his grandma had done it and how Kevin had always done it. And it was good that way. You dip it in once and it just wasn't right. Didn't look right, didn't taste right, didn't get crispy enough. It was a travesty really.
Brows rising a bit, Jean-Paul said, "You would like to show me how it is done, then? Since I do want it to be good. There are extra bread crumbs." He gestured toward the plate upon which the unused bread sat. "I promise you, I can ensure the bacon does not burn."
Kevin eyed Jean-Paul warily, then looked at the bacon and back toward the man. Then he held out the spatula handle first. "Alright, but this is a lotta faith Ah'm handin' over here." Only not that much because Kevin would still eat burnt bacon and he knew it.
With Jean-Paul at the helm of the bacon, Kevin took up the plate of half-battered chicken and went back over to the breadcrumbs and egg. He whisked the egg a bit with a fork, then laid the once battered chicken into it. A fork skewered it through one end so he could flip it over in the egg, then he pulled it out and set it into the flour he'd pulled out for his steak. He forked some flour on top of it, then flipped it over and forked some onto the neglected bits. Once Kevin was thoroughly satisfied it was saturated in layers of egg and breadcrumbs and flour he put the chicken back onto the plate and carried it over to the new Master of Bacon to check on his progress. Kevin wasn't sure if a Frenchman could be trusted with bacon, honestly.
"You look very unimpressed with the way I am cooking the bacon," Jean-Paul commented, taking another rasher of bacon from the pan before checking the others. "I promise you, I will not burn it." Still, the young man's assertions had begun to amuse him, now that he'd entered into entirely new territory. Yes, he was still frustrated that he couldn't remember how to make the original dish, but he'd figure it out once he returned to his suite. For now, it was distracting, having this boy instructing him in the finer arts of frying food.
"Just not sure how trustworthy you are. 'Won't burn it' ain't exactly the sorta word that instills assurance and confidence in a person, y'know?" Actually it sort of did the opposite but Kevin was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be his reaction. The bacon seemed alright though. It didn't look raw still or horribly unwell, like it was shriveled and begging for mercy or anything.
He eyed the younger man for a moment, then let a small smirk curl up one corner of his lips. "I am fairly certain," Jean-Paul said, "That I have been cooking for longer than you have been alive." And doing a great many other, less noble things as well. Part of the reason he'd enjoyed cooking as much as he had was because he'd gone without when he was younger, remembered the knot of hunger in his stomach that never seemed to go away, no matter how many scraps he'd pulled from dumpsters and garbage bins.
Of course, he was a far cry from that now - and remembering that led to memories of Belmonde, true memories, which took him right to the false memories as well. His jaw tightened as he tried to think of something else.
Kevin shrugged. "There's a guy who was in my drawing class last semester who was in his fifties and had been drawin' since he was a kid. Still didn't seem to understand a person is seven heads high. Didn't like me much for bein' better'n him at it either. Point bein' that length of time you do somethin' doesn't necessarily mean you're any good at it. Might be really bad at it but just keep on doin' it anyway." But he also wasn't taking the spatula away from Jean-Paul, and indication that he didn't think the bacon was in any sort of immediate danger.
"Does height in a drawing depend on the size of one's head?" Jean-Paul asked, taking the slight shift in topic and going with it, as it was better than the alternative. "If someone's head is quite large, they are then taller, oui? But what of those people who have very small head, but very long legs?"
"They're not proportional," Kevin told him. He took a few steps back and squinted a bit at Jean-Paul. Then he raised his hand, framing the top and bottom of Jean-Paul's head with his fingers and then measuring out the height down the older man's body. Seven heads. "Congratulations, you're proportional. People are, generally, seven of their own heads tall. Your head is one seventh of your total height if that's an easier way to look at it. People with small heads and long legs probably have short torsos. Or are just abnormal or disproportionate."
Jean-Paul half expected the young man to start squishing his head, as people sometimes did for amusement. It wasn't something he particularly understood, but he wasn't one to judge the things that others found amusement in. "Thank you," he said, nodding gravely. "Please, continue to edify me in the proper culinary technique for frying chicken."
The Southerner took the spatula from the Quebecois with slightly narrowed eyes. "D'you always talk like that?" Wow, that was rude. Kevin mentally chided himself. "Ah just mean, most people don't really use that sorta vocabulary unless they're bein' rude usually's all." He moved into place in front of the stove and scooped the waiting chicken up with his spatula so he could place it gently into the sizzling bacon grease.
Brows rising a bit, Jean-Paul shrugged. "It is only vocabulary." He considered it for a moment, though, running the sentence through his mind again. "Yes, I speak that way normally. I am sorry, if it seemed rude. That was not my intention."
Another shrug. "Nah, it's fine. Ah just don't know you, figured Ah should check. Not like you'd fess up if you didn't talk like that all the time, but at least then you'd need to make the decision to lie to me over somethin' sorta stupid. That'd say a lot about you."
Jean-Paul wasn't entirely sure what to do with that statement. Perhaps it was the division between Quebec and the rest of Northern America that made the intent behind it unintelligible. He would attribute it to that, since everyone outside Quebec had strange ideas about how things worked, anyway. "Do you typically judge people based on their vocabulary?"
"Yeah, everyone does. You'd be lyin' if you said you didn't. Way people speak says somethin' about them. People make all sorts of judgement about class, education, manners. It's not always correct the assumptions they make, but everyone makes 'em. Just like everyone's shallow and everyone wants to be romantically involved with someone they find physically attractive. Y'know how people say 'looks don't matter' but you know they do? Same thing." At least Kevin was honest about it, though, right?
"I suppose the comparison stands," Jean-Paul said, though his eyes narrowed in thought. He shook his head, though. "The vocabulary - it is beaten into us in school. The higher the schooling, the harsherl the beatings. As I said, I meant no offense." Then he said, "So yes, please show me how to correctly fry chicken."
He glanced over to Jean-Paul and gave him half a smile, the right corner of his mouth pulling upward into the expression. "Alright, so lesson number on, y'gotta double batter your chicken. Egg, flour, egg, more flour. There's spices and stuff but that's not really the point right now because we're all past it and all. But ya gotta do it twice. You went with breadcrumbs the first time so this is gonna be...interesting.
"But you generally want some pepper in there, maybe a bit of cayenne or hot sauce depending what ya like. Frying's just fryin' honestly. Not sure how many ways you can really do it. But there's no sense using oil to do it when you can just use drippings from something else. Bacon grease? Always good. For everything. Okay, Ah've never fried chicken in bacon grease before but bacon makes everything better so we'll see." He paused in his speaking and looked at the other man. "Maybe you should shred up some cheese while the chicken's frying?"
Shaking his head a bit, mind still tinkering with the thoughts the younger man had provoked when it came to vocabulary, accents, class, and society, Jean-Paul picked up the cheddar cheese and rooted around in a cabinet long enough find a grater. Those were things he didn't typically let himself think about. He preferred to deal with rights, making sure that people without voices were heard, as cliche as that sounded. "Bacon grease would work as well as any oil, when it comes to frying. There is thyme in the bread crumbs. For flavour."
"The chicken's the flavor. And the pepper and stuff." Thyme. Who put thyme on their fried chicken? Kevin shook his head. "Yeah, well, the important thing's not really whether or not bacon grease'll work. Of course it'll work. It'll fry it just fine. The thing's whether or not it tastes any good. 'Cause if you're not willing to eat it then the whole point's lost, isn't it?"
"Oui," Jean-Paul replied, nodding as he set about grating the cheese. "But chicken has very little flavour of its own. But, since there will be bacon in the final dish, I think it will do well." He finished up with enough cheese to actually taste once it was melted, then tucked the rest of it, along with the slices of Swiss that they hadn't used, back into the refrigerator. Busying himself with his back to the younger man, Jean-Paul said, "Merci. I appreciate the suggestion."
"Just doin' my part to convert the ignorant masses." You could hear the grin in his voice when Kevin said, "All hail bacon!" With that he flipped the piece of meat over and surveyed it to judge how well done it was and how much longer it would need. His neglected, beaten steak was calling him after all.
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. He'd just turned to say something else entirely when something very like an explosion came from the microwave.
Kevin jumped a little, though it didn't seem to make it past his insides since he didn't actually move. He looked over at the microwave and blinked. "Uh, you put something in there?" And then wire it to destroy the microwave?
"My... potato, oui," Jean-Paul said, inching toward the microwave, which was still going. He pushed the 'end' button on the front, then opened the machine cautiously - yes, there was his potato. In bits and pieces all over the inside of the microwave. "Merde," he whispered, not knowing what he'd done to make it explode, simply knowing that he'd never actually caused anything of the sort to happen before.
"Yeah, maybe you should stick to bakin' your potatoes in the oven. Like normal folk. Exploding stuff is fun in theory, but bad in practice. Especially if you're blowing up food. Now you're down a potato and the microwave might hold it against you." Kevin flipped the chicken again.
"It is not on fire, at least," Jean-Paul said, sighing as he took up the paper towels to clean the microwave. "I have cooked potatoes this way many times and none have done this." Even the plastic bag had been blown up. Jean-Paul could, quite literally, think of nothing that he'd done wrong which would have resulted in this mess. "Merde," he repeated, voice dropping off as he threw the wasted potato in the bin.
It wasn't as though he'd have realised he'd forgotten anything, was it?
"What's that mean?" Kevin was guessing it was Jean-Paul's expletive of choice but other than oui and menage-a-trois Kevin didn't exactly understand French. He only spoke three languages: English, Bad English and Southern. None of those even vaguely resembled French because he was from Georgia, not Louisiana. There was no Cajun or Creole in him.
Jean-Paul paused, then shrugged and said, "Shit." He went back to cleaning out the microwave. "It is... not polite." But he wasn't going to apologise for saying it, because he'd just blown up his potato. And now his meal looked like it was going to consist entirely of chicken and bacon. There was nothing he could do about it now, unless he wanted to put another potato in, and he wasn't particularly interested in that, since he didn't know what he'd done wrong the first time.
"Ah was gonna go with 'rude.' Ah guess 'not polite' works, too." More people than not swore, it seemed. Who was Kevin to judge them for cursing up a storm if it's what they wanted to do? Besides, Jean-Paul had managed to blow up a potato. Kevin wasn't sure how you actually managed that but he had, so he guessed the expletive was appropriate.
"It is that, also," Jean-Paul said, keeping further commentary to himself as he finished cleaning the microwave. Sighing softly, he settled himself on the floor and let his head rest against the cabinets behind him. It seemed he couldn't even manage to cook something simple for himself without ruining it. This wasn't an auspicious beginning to his stay here at the mansion, but the third time was the charm, or so they said.
Kevin watched the man on the floor and frowned. He seemed a lot more upset about that potato than Kevin would've thought a person would be. Maybe he'd really wanted that potato? Did people crave potatoes? Kevin thought people only craved stuff that wasn't good for them, like chocolate and cake and stuff. Maybe Quebecois craved potatoes. Shouldn't that be the Irish? Kevin shrugged and dangled a piece of bacon down in front of the man's face without a word. Bacon made everything better.
"It is a miracle," Jean-Paul murmured, staring up at the bacon as it hovered above him. "Food of the gods, hanging before me." Reaching out, he took the bacon from the tongs and ate half of it in one bite. "Merci." He was tired already - tired of getting things wrong and knowing it, tired of leaving things out entirely and not realising it. Jean-Paul was tired and this chicken was going to be horrible purely by dent of him having had anything to do with its cooking. He didn't move from where he'd settled on the floor, elbows resting on his drawn-up knees.
He tipped his head to the side, finishing off the bacon as he watched the younger man pull a baking sheet from one of the cabinets. "You cook often, oui?"
"Yeah. My mom died when Ah was pretty young. Daddy worked 'til pretty late so Ah figured out how to cook so he wouldn't have to. By time Ah was ten Ah was doin' all the cooking on the weekdays and some of it on the weekends, too. That way he wouldn't have to worry 'bout it when he got home or anythin'." Kevin shrugged a little. "Ah'm not exactly King of the Kitchen, but Ah'm good at what Ah know."
He pulled the chicken out of the pan with the grease and laid it down on the non-stick surface of the baking sheet. Kevin found the shredded cheese and spooned some over the chicken, careful not to spill. He alternated layers of the shredded cheddar with the bacon he'd crushed with the back and side of the spoon. It was something other people would have been able to do by hand but gloves interfered with doing it the normal way. Once the cheese and most of the bacon was used up he slid the baking sheet into the oven he'd set to three-hundred-fifty degrees. With that done he set about battering his piece of steak he'd been bludgeoning when Jean-Paul had entered the kitchen.
"And you are frying the steak the way you fried the chicken," Jean-Paul asked, trying to convince himself to stand so he'd seem a little less pathetic should anyone else come into the kitchen. "What sorts of things do you do, besides frying things?"
"Bake, broil, barbecue?" He quirked an eyebrow as his eyes flicked down to the man still on the floor. "It's not like Ah can't do somethin' other than fry stuff. It's just that Ah wanted fried steak and then you and the chicken had that disagreement and all." Kevin held up the battered piece of beef, surveyed it closely and set it down into the pan of bacon drippings.
"That's an... interesting way of putting it," Jean-Paul said, nodding to himself as he finally pushed himself up to stand again. "Having a disagreement with a piece of meat, I mean." He caught sight of an apple on the counter and picked it up, tossing it from hand to hand for a moment before finding a knife and slicing into it. Not the best thing to have with chicken, bacon, and cheese, but there were worse things, too.
Leaning his hip against the counter, he cut the apple into manageable bites, then slid half of them onto a plate for himself and half onto a plate for the younger man. It wasn't difficult to notice the fact that the younger man was almost completely covered in cloth and wearing gloves - it made sense that he'd used the tongs to handle the bacon and pretty much everything else as well, which was why Jean-Paul pulled a clean fork from a drawer and put it with the plate. "My name is Jean-Paul."
"Ah know who you are," Kevin told him with a nod. "Kevin." He wasn't the sort of person to offer his hand to someone upon introduction. The contact thing, it made anxiety prickle up his spine, raise the hair on the back of his neck and almost make his skin crawl because he wanted to jump out of it so much. Too many things could go wrong. Instead he raised his chin a bit in a half nod of acknowledgment. He eyed the plate of apple slices for a moment, then picked up the fork that had been laid on his plate and speared a slice. "Thanks."
"My reputation precedes me?" Jean-Paul asked, not sure whether to be amused by that or not. "Should I ask you to not believe most of what you have heard?" He had the distinct impression that he'd disliked this young man, prior to actually meeting him. Now, though, he saw no reason to hold on to that emotion. And then he remembered Jay's hand, the injury he'd received when he'd last seen Kevin during his visit to the West Coast Annex... and it all fell into place properly.
Or, well. Parts of it all fell into place properly. He still couldn't work up the energy to dislike the man who'd essentially cooked his chicken for him after he'd been unable to remember how to do it himself.
"Ah haven't heard anything, actually. Don't read the journals much, don't really talk to anyone who would talk about someone else or really many people at all. All Ah know is you used to teach lit last year. Ah've just got a habit of being uncommonly aware of new people when they show up to the school. Kinda gotta be. Ignorance," he trailed off, expression closing down to something grave. "When Ah actually come out of the woodwork ignorance can get people hurt's all. So Ah've kinda gotta know who is who and who knows not to be stupid 'round me." Yet Kevin was so hyperaware of where people were in relation to him all the time that it had to be pretty quick stupidity to get past his own reflexes. He had been tracking Jean-Paul's motions discreetly every time the man moved.
"I would not make a good teacher now, I think," Jean-Paul said, shrugging away the reminder of how things used to be. It was a stark reminder, though, one that brought him back to the fact that there was something in him now which he'd never encountered before - the power to hurt others. And he couldn't control it - he'd guessed what caused it, but there'd been no confirmation, he hadn't been back long enough to really figure anything out. If he was being honest with himself, he'd avoided speaking to anyone - the thought of someone going through his mind again made the skin between his shoulder blades itch, much the way it did when he knew others were watching.
Something seemed to darken in the older man's expression over that. Kevin took note of it and shoved away his own thoughts of what happened when people assumed he was normal. Or as normal as anyone else around there. He chose to quirk a little half-smile in the other man's direction. "Yeah, gotta agree there. Ah mean, that chicken won the fight pretty quick. If you're not up to standing up to the chicken and puttin' your foot down you'd never survive the teenagers."
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, snorting quietly despite himself. "This is true. It is... not something that I feel I will miss, necessarily. It is..." It was more that he didn't like having the option taken away from him out of hand. It bothered more, knowing that he'd been the one to take it away from himself, eliminating the possibility of it for the sake of the children who might or might not be able to trigger this new and violent power of his. He was nearly forty - he should have been past learning his powers. "A nuisance." He left it at that, eating a piece of apple to occupy himself whilst Kevin's steak fried. "Will you make the... roux? This is not what you call it - where you add flour and water. Or milk?"
An eyebrow arched upward. A roux? He looked thoroughly puzzled for a bit before Kevin realized what he thought Jean-Paul was talking about. "Gravy? Ah've never made gravy from bacon. Hm...it's possible. It'd be sort of weird, though. Ah mean, bacon and chicken and beef all ran off into it somehow or another. Could be an experiment. All else fails there's probably someone who'd eat it. Like Kyle if it's not on his Bad Plan list." He didn't say anything about Jean-Paul and teaching. It seemed like a sore spot.
"Bad Plan list?" Jean-Paul asked, one brow rising as he went to the refrigerator. "What would be on this list?" Pulling the milk from the refrigerator, he put it on the counter near the younger man and then went back to eating the apple. "Unhealthy things? Or things that disagree with the stomach?" He suddenly had the urge to bake a pie, but it was possible that would end as poorly as the Chicken Cordon Bleu had, so he decided to work make the one in his freezer when he got back to his suite. "Also, I will at least try the... gravy? Oui, the gravy."
"Ah dunno. Stomach Ah guess? Stuff he can't eat because his mutation means his body will be really, really unhappy with him? Never asked him 'bout it all that much except Ah know he can eat my chicken." Which was to say Kyle could eat Kevin's fried chicken. It was entirely possible that Kevin wilfully ignored that there was any other method which with to cook poultry.
Kevin checked the chicken in the oven before he bothered to pull his steak out. The cheese looked good and since the chicken had been mostly cooked to begin with he was pretty sure it was done. He pulled the baking sheet out with a pot holder and set it onto two empty burners of the stove. Then he pulled his fried steak out of the pan and set it on a waiting, empty plate. The heat on the burner was turned down a little and Kevin let the drippings cool off from their bubbling before adding in a bit of flour. "Brave man, trying concoction gravy. Ah like that in a person. You get to stay."
Dipping a half-bow in the younger man's direction, Jean-Paul said, "Oui, it is the true test of bravery, eating unfamiliar and possibly disgusting things." The kitchen smelled good now, though, and he was distracted by the sight of his chicken emerging from the oven. If he attempted this recipe again, he decided he'd simply bake the chicken covered, then let the bread crumbs crisp while the cheese and bacon melted together. It would likely taste alright, but it wasn't very pretty. Of course, it wasn't as though he intended to serve it to anyone but himself, anyway. "Pardon, I am going to get the chicken."
It seemed the polite thing to do, if Kevin was worried about harming people, to let him know that he intended to start moving in closer proximity. Jean-Paul grabbed another plate, shifting the chicken over to it before cutting it in half. There was a great deal of cheese and bacon on this. "Would you care for half?" He asked, pushing the plate closer to the younger man, just in case. "You did the work, after all. It is only fair."
"No, thank you," Kevin replied politely, head shaking a bit. "It's your chicken. 'Sides, Ah've got bludgeoned steak." He grinned at that and glanced over his shoulder at the Coke bottle responsible for said bludgeoning. The milk came next into the pan with the flour-thickened drippings. It was obviously old hat for Kevin, something he'd done numerous times before. He wasn't even worried about how long it might take to do it as his steak sat there cooling on the counter. Gravy didn't take that long. After some thought Kevin added, "Unless you want half of the steak? Then it'd be an even trade."
"I would like to try it, oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "I do not believe I have ever had steak prepared in this manner. And I believe the gravy might go better with the steak than the chicken." He popped another piece of apple into his mouth after saying that, then moved to slide half of the chicken onto the other man's plate.
"Yeah, gravy and cheddar aren't really made for each other. Feel free to divide up the steak then while Ah do this." Sharing was caring, or something like that. Kevin was going to go more with the more the merrier for now. As in more kinds of meat was better. Beef? Check. Poultry? Check. Pork? Check. All the major food groups were accounted for. And cheese. That could be a secondary level food group. A little more milk was poured in and Kevin's wrist kept rotating in a rapid motion so he could whisk all the contents of the pan together properly.
"Merci," Jean-Paul said, slicing the steak in half and moving one portion over to his own plate. "It is too bad my potato exploded," he continued, tone philosophical. "Something other than meat would be a good thing here, I think."
"Pfft..." The sound was utterly dismissive. "You don't need anything other than meat. Might be carrots or something in the fridge if you're really worried about 'balanced diet' or somethin'." Vegetables were good. Kevin liked vegetables. He wasn't against them, he just didn't see the necessity for them in every meal. It was entirely possible this was because he normally included vegetables in his meals so he wasn't overly pressed about it.
"Hm..." Jean-Paul moved back to the refrigerator to see if he could find any carrots. This was a mismatched meal, if ever he'd seen one. The thought made him smile just a little as he pulled the vegetables from the lowest drawer. "Not need, maybe, but want." It would be an interesting meal, at the very least.
"Oh, well if you're bringing in want then Ah can't really argue against it, can Ah?" Kevin grinned a little and eyed his gravy. It looked about done. "Hm...so, you think you're ready for gravy surprise here?" He turned off the burner completely and went to get a spoon figuring spooning a small amount on a section of steak was the way to go initially.
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, putting the carrots on the counter near the plate of apples. "Adventure in a pan. It would go well over potatoes or rice, would it not? If it is edible, of course." He'd used rues many times himself, but never something quite so... unique. "It is entirely possible that it will be amazing and neither of us will ever be able to recreate it."
"Just our luck, huh? Dunno 'bout rice though. Rice should have butter. Lots and lots of butter. Gravy, hm..." he trailed off, but wrinkled his nose in disagreement. Gravy went on potatoes or meat. Or biscuits. Maybe he'd make biscuits tomorrow morning for breakfast if this turned out alright. Kevin spooned a small amount of gravy on a corner of steak on each of their plates for a taste test and then set it aside. He cut off the corner of the steak on his plate and very carefully wrapped his lips around the fork, clearly used to having to be careful with such things. There was never anything so disgusting as food that was decomposing in your mouth because somehow it hit the corner of Kevin's mouth instead of his lip. He chewed thoughtfully.
Jean-Paul hummed a neutral sort of sound as he sampled his own piece of meat and bit of gravy. It was... an odd taste, but not bad. "Some black pepper," he said, "And a bit of salt. It's an interesting combination. I think it blended together well."
It was a little...weird. It mostly tasted like beef gravy but there was the bacon in there too. Chicken, well, chicken didn't really lend itself much to gravy so Kevin didn't pick up on that. It could definitely use some pepper. Overall though it was edible. Maybe even good once you got used to it. He sprinkled some pepper into the liquid and mixed it in before spooning more gravy generously over the rest of his steak. "Could be worse."
He was restless. Jean-Paul knew this because his hands itched to do something. And he was hungry. Thus, he found himself walking to the kitchen. There was only one moment when he came to a section of hallway and he couldn't recall seeing the furnishings in the next section, but the one after that brought the memory together, sewing it shut. One more little piece of himself, his mind, that he could file away as having been repaired.
Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better. What use was the memory of a hallway, anyway? Especially when he wasn't necessarily sure the memory was the right one - it was unlikely anyone would have felt that rearranging the corridors of the mansion in his memory would do them any good, but he was still having trouble after his frustrating session with Doctor McCoy in the Danger Room.
There was some kind of horrible noise coming from the kitchen, though, almost like someone was hammering - were they doing some kind of construction? Had the ceiling fallen in? Temporarily distracted from his thoughts, he walked through the door and found himself looking at a vaguely familiar person bashing what appeared to be a glass bottle against a wooden cutting board. Rather, against the meat on the cutting board.
Jean-Paul blinked. "How badly did the meat offend you, that it deserves this treatment?" He couldn't even really tell what kind of meat it was, save that it might not be chicken.
Kevin looked up, not really having expected to see anyone even though he should've known better. It was the mansion, the kitchen was the most popular room in the whole place. He looked down, hair falling into his eyes, and peered at the half-beaten piece of steak. "Huh?" The narrow opening of the coke bottle came down on the meat one more time before he looked back up at the former teacher. "Ah dunno if meat can offend you unless you're a vegetarian. And Ah'm not one. 'Cause I'm fixing on eating it and all."
"And so you... do this instead of using a tenderiser?" There were a great many things in Jean-Paul's life that had been cut in quarters, but he was pretty sure he at least remembered there being a meat tenderiser or a mallet around the kitchen somewhere. He opened a drawer to see if he could find one, just for demonstrative purposes.
"That's not how it's done," Kevin told him with both a note of certainty and bewilderment in his voice. Why would you use a tenderizer for the meat? That was stupid and not nearly as effective. With the French-Canadian poking through the drawers, Kevin shrugged and went back to beating his piece of meat with the Coke bottle.
Jean-Paul cast a look toward the younger man, one that, had he been paying attention, would have clearly conveyed that he thought the glass bottle a magnificent indicator of insanity. Not that he was one to talk, he supposed. He found the mallet, though, more through luck than anything else, and laid it on the counter. Then he turned to see what he could find in the refrigerator.
Chicken - chicken cordon bleu. He would make that - it was a simple recipe, he'd made it a million times. True, operating in a kitchen with another person making an entirely different dish would be inconvenient, but not impossible. He set about finding the ingredients - cooking for one was a little less interesting than cooking for many, but he could manage. And there wasn't a plethora of chicken in the ice box, anyway.
Seeing that the younger man was still using the bottle, Jean-Paul eyed him narrowly, then nudged the mallet toward him without saying a word.
Blue eyes slipped to the side when Kevin noticed the movement of something silver and dimly reflective out of the corner of his eye. That was a tenderizer thing wasn't it? His eyes narrowed at the objectionable, clearly Yankee implement and he continued on with what he was doing. Kevin may have put a little extra enthusiasm into the next few whacks just to assert his method. Petty? Him? Nah!
Jean-Paul put the cling film on the counter and put the single chicken breast he intended to work with on it, then folded it over so he could flatten the chicken without having to worry about cleaning the counter afterward. The young man was still hammering his meat with the bottle. Jean-Paul would need that mallet shortly, but he nudged it toward the other man... his head tilted to the side a bit, though, because he seemed quite proficient when it came to wielding glass bottles as deadly weapons.
Kevin's eyes slipped to the side and narrowed once more. He took a moment to stop his punishment of the beef so that he could rather pointedly push the mallet back toward the Quebecois. "Ah think it's tryin' to escape," he told the older man. What was it with people? They just got weirder and weirder the closer to the North Pole you got.
"I think the meat, it is begging for a respite," Jean-Paul countered, ignoring the niggling feeling that there was something he'd missed. He'd not had any of those jarring, disjointed moments where it was obvious that parts of his memories had been stitched together in the wrong order. He didn't know what it was that he might have forgotten, but it couldn't possibly be anything of any real importance. And Jean-Paul was looking forward to doing something he found relaxing - enjoyable, even. All the banging, though. "The surface area you're covering with the mouth of the bottle, it is taking you three times as long to prepare the meat as it would take to use the mallet. Do you have anger issues you are working through? I would find this frustrating, were I you."
"Ah'd worry 'bout you more'n me if you can hear a dead piece of cow begging. Might be something miswired in there or somethin'." Kevin tapped a finger to his temple to indicate he meant he thought Jean-Paul might be crazy.
He stopped the beating he was giving the meat to poke at it, test out how tender it had gotten with his apparently inferior surface area. It was coming along about right it seemed. The young man shrugged. "It's just how it's done. Not really in for anger issues really. Got enough hammering and soldering and sawing metal to take care of 'em if Ah did, Ah guess." He gave the mallet a significant look before looking back up to Jean-Paul's eyes. "You got impatience issues?" Northerners. They were always in such a hurry for everything. Couldn't even take the time to beat their meat the right way. Shame.
"No," Jean-Paul said, tone somewhat distracted. He picked up the mallet himself and began the careful process of thinning the chicken. "I just do not understand the point of this." He gestured toward the bottle, not letting himself dwell on how badly wired he might or might not be. Though, really, it wasn't a question of 'might,' was it? Pretty much nothing was the way it ought to have been in his head. His time on Muir Island with Jeanne-Marie, not to mention the months he'd spent alone, had proven that to him on so many different levels.
Once the meat was flattened, he took care to make sure the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs were all properly laid out, then put the cheese on the chicken and... stopped. There was nothing else there, in his mind. The neat follow-through, the recipe he knew by rote - it just... ended. Sliced in half. Gone. There was no telling when the rest of it might turn up, but for now, the important thing was... he didn't actually know what to do next. This left Jean-Paul just staring at the cheese on the raw chicken, hands frozen in midair.
Kevin had gone back to his enthusiastic, familiar routine of beating the meat with the Coke bottle. "Maybe that's 'cause I'm young and over abundanced with energy? Or, y'know, maybe 'cause Canadians are like Yankees. Dunno how to do anything the right way, just wanna get it over with." He had a moment of wondering whether or not northerners jerked off the way they spoke and walked, fast and rushed like they wanted it out of the way. That'd be a shame.
By the time Kevin was finally done and had come to be thoroughly satisfied with the level of tenderness when he poked at the meat, Jean-Paul had gone silent. Maybe he'd finally given up the crusade for the mallet. Kevin set the Coke bottle aside and started to move on so he could actually fry the steak. When he looked up, though, he saw the man frozen in mid-air - pretty much literally. Eyes moved from the cheese covered chicken to the hovering hands to the man's confused expression. "Stick it in a frying pan," he offered. "Solves all problems."
"No," Jean-Paul said slowly, suppressing the sudden surge of anger he felt as it coiled low in the back of his mind, tightened across his temples. "No." He wanted to say something about how he was not simply Canadian. He was French-Canadian. There was a great deal of difference. They savoured life, took time to enjoy it. But he couldn't work the words past the frustration that even this, the soothing, the simple - even this had been violated. It made no sense. There was no reason other than pure malice to have robbed him of these memories.
Mon Dieu, he thought, trying to keep himself calm. "That... that is not how it goes."
There was a shrug and a general overview of the ingredients the man had laid out. "Well it looks like you've got all the fixings for fried chicken. And it looks like it really wants to be fried chicken. With cheese. Cheesy, fried chicken." That was weird. Whatever, the guy was part French too, right? They did weird stuff with food. Really weird stuff. And ate snails. They were not to be trusted. "Cheesy fried chicken could work. Ah mean, if we're talkin' desperate times Ah could always start frying bacon so you had the grease from it and all." Kevin trailed off with the sneaking suspicion he was not necessarily helping.
"Bacon?" Jean-Paul blinked, coming out of his frustration for a moment to look at the younger man. He was fairly certain there wasn't any bacon involved in Chicken Cordon Bleu. But he did like bacon. Slowly, he nodded, treading suddenly unfamiliar territory. He saw no reason he couldn't enjoy... fried chicken with cheese and... bacon? None of this is right, he thought, knowing it was true and unable to figure out which memory slotted into the one that had been torn to shreds. "I can... try that." What he really needed, though, was one of the cookbooks he'd left in his suite. He wasn't going to let this young American know that, though. He would save his reading for a time when he was by himself, away from prying eyes that would know he was less than he had once been.
Kevin nodded and went to the refrigerator. "Bacon. Everything's better with bacon. And stuff that's not better with bacon is better cooked in bacon grease. If that doesn't fix it, sugar will." None of this likely made sense to anyone above the Mason-Dixon line, but Kevin had long lost hope for them in the kitchen. Really, you could only make miracles so many times and people from up north had long spent all theirs. Pulling the bacon out of the fridge, Kevin went about getting a pan and setting everything up on the stove for the frying. His steak could wait a bit. After all, there would be bacon and bacon was God.
Jean-Paul wrinkled his nose at the thought of sugar and bacon making chicken better, but part of that was mostly that his memories dropped off so immediately that he had nothing with which to refute the young man's assertions. Still - sugar on chicken? Unless it was a glaze, but that didn't seem to be what the young man was telling him.
This was why he'd been eating pre-packaged food.
Still, he got a potato out of a basket on the counter and cleaned it, getting it ready for the microwave. After putting it in a plastic bag, he followed the directions on the inside door of the machine and set it to cook, then turned back to frown at the chicken. Raising a hand, he rubbed at one eye with the heel of his palm, then rubbed his thumb over his temple in soothing circles. This was giving him a headache, knowing there were things missing and being unable to piece them together.
"I do not believe that bacon is part of this recipe..." But it didn't seem entirely off, either. Shrugging to himself, though, he took the cheese off the chicken and got a different kind out. Swiss was all well and good, but he knew, at least, that it wouldn't go as well with bacon as cheddar. The thyme in the bread crumbs would be alright with it. He hoped.
"Does it matter if it's part of the recipe?" Kevin laid a few strips in the pan and turned to look at the older man. "Ah mean, the whole point of cooking is to improvise it and find new ways to make old stuff, right?" Except for how some things you just didn't mess with. Like your momma's fried chicken and barbecue. "If it works then it works and that's all that matters. And chicken fried in bacon grease sounds...kinda good actually."
"If you would like to have a heart attack before the age of thirty, oui," Jean-Paul said, not really thinking. Then he eyed the pan with the bacon in it and said, "Or twenty-five."
A hand waved dismissively through the air. "That ain't true. My grandma smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and she lived on bacon and sausage. She didn't die until she was ninety-eight. They just tell y'all that to get you to buy health food." The bacon was starting to sizzle in the pan. "'Sides, Ah'm young. Strong. Durable. Whatever."
Young and strong and durable. He supposed the young did think themselves invincible - God knew he had when he was that age. "So you think," he muttered. Still, the bacon did smell good. He did like it. "How do you feel about butter? Butter - it is an important ingredient in French cooking."
"Margarine's forbidden. It's the Devil's work. No decent person uses margarine. Butter...it's sacred. What bacon or sugar can't fix, butter can." Kevin nodded sagely. Butter completed the holy culinary trifecta of Southern cooking. "How many people you think really get blockages from that? And how much you really think it's worth it to worry 'bout when ya might end up with a blocked artery or somethin' anyway? Ah'd rather eat good food than worry 'bout it later. Ah'm healthy enough. Good lecture without being a lecture. Try it on someone who sits on the couch all day, though." It wasn't particularly obvious but Kevin was not someone who sat on the couch all day. He was someone who hauled large pieces of metal around, lifted weights and worked near fire. He wasn't worried about the cholesterol, which made flipping the strips of bacon over that much more satisfying right now.
"Oui," Jean-Paul agreed, nodding on the point about bacon. "It is more satisfying, in its way, and you are less likely to overindulge in the unsatisfying alternatives..." Which still left him looking at the chicken and the cheese, along with everything else, and not quite knowing what to do with them, though he did at least have an image of what the end result was supposed to look like. It definitely didn't involve bacon, but he was far happier to let the Chicken Cordon Bleu die a quiet death now that there was some form of amusement to distract him. And at least they could agree on butter.
"Hm...Ah guess. Never really thought 'bout it like that." He guessed Jean-Paul sort of had a point there. If you got full on stuff that maybe wasn't that good for you but was satisfying you'd stop eating. It was sort of that whole 'all things in moderation' outlook on life. Since the only thing Kevin really did in abundance was be antisocial and introverted he couldn't really say much on that point of view.
Paper towels were laid out on a plate before Kevin turned the bacon strips over again. He pulled the ones that were done out of the pan and laid them out over the paper towels. The rest he kept watching and flipping over.
Jean-Paul snuck around the counter, as much any man could sneak in a kitchen laid out this way, and stole one of the pieces of bacon. "Mm... good." He then turned and started taking care of the chicken itself. He dipped it in the egg and then the seasoned breadcrumbs. Then he put it on a clean plate and set it beside the younger man. He seemed quite competent with the spatula - the bacon hadn't burned yet, at least. "I think baking the cheese and extra bacon on top would be good, oui?"
Kevin frowned a little at the plate of battered chicken. "Yeah, that could work. But you oughta re-batter that chicken. Once ain't enough. Not if you want it to be good." Egg, flour, more egg, more flour then you fried it. 'Cause that was how it was done. It was how his momma had done it and how his grandma had done it and how Kevin had always done it. And it was good that way. You dip it in once and it just wasn't right. Didn't look right, didn't taste right, didn't get crispy enough. It was a travesty really.
Brows rising a bit, Jean-Paul said, "You would like to show me how it is done, then? Since I do want it to be good. There are extra bread crumbs." He gestured toward the plate upon which the unused bread sat. "I promise you, I can ensure the bacon does not burn."
Kevin eyed Jean-Paul warily, then looked at the bacon and back toward the man. Then he held out the spatula handle first. "Alright, but this is a lotta faith Ah'm handin' over here." Only not that much because Kevin would still eat burnt bacon and he knew it.
With Jean-Paul at the helm of the bacon, Kevin took up the plate of half-battered chicken and went back over to the breadcrumbs and egg. He whisked the egg a bit with a fork, then laid the once battered chicken into it. A fork skewered it through one end so he could flip it over in the egg, then he pulled it out and set it into the flour he'd pulled out for his steak. He forked some flour on top of it, then flipped it over and forked some onto the neglected bits. Once Kevin was thoroughly satisfied it was saturated in layers of egg and breadcrumbs and flour he put the chicken back onto the plate and carried it over to the new Master of Bacon to check on his progress. Kevin wasn't sure if a Frenchman could be trusted with bacon, honestly.
"You look very unimpressed with the way I am cooking the bacon," Jean-Paul commented, taking another rasher of bacon from the pan before checking the others. "I promise you, I will not burn it." Still, the young man's assertions had begun to amuse him, now that he'd entered into entirely new territory. Yes, he was still frustrated that he couldn't remember how to make the original dish, but he'd figure it out once he returned to his suite. For now, it was distracting, having this boy instructing him in the finer arts of frying food.
"Just not sure how trustworthy you are. 'Won't burn it' ain't exactly the sorta word that instills assurance and confidence in a person, y'know?" Actually it sort of did the opposite but Kevin was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be his reaction. The bacon seemed alright though. It didn't look raw still or horribly unwell, like it was shriveled and begging for mercy or anything.
He eyed the younger man for a moment, then let a small smirk curl up one corner of his lips. "I am fairly certain," Jean-Paul said, "That I have been cooking for longer than you have been alive." And doing a great many other, less noble things as well. Part of the reason he'd enjoyed cooking as much as he had was because he'd gone without when he was younger, remembered the knot of hunger in his stomach that never seemed to go away, no matter how many scraps he'd pulled from dumpsters and garbage bins.
Of course, he was a far cry from that now - and remembering that led to memories of Belmonde, true memories, which took him right to the false memories as well. His jaw tightened as he tried to think of something else.
Kevin shrugged. "There's a guy who was in my drawing class last semester who was in his fifties and had been drawin' since he was a kid. Still didn't seem to understand a person is seven heads high. Didn't like me much for bein' better'n him at it either. Point bein' that length of time you do somethin' doesn't necessarily mean you're any good at it. Might be really bad at it but just keep on doin' it anyway." But he also wasn't taking the spatula away from Jean-Paul, and indication that he didn't think the bacon was in any sort of immediate danger.
"Does height in a drawing depend on the size of one's head?" Jean-Paul asked, taking the slight shift in topic and going with it, as it was better than the alternative. "If someone's head is quite large, they are then taller, oui? But what of those people who have very small head, but very long legs?"
"They're not proportional," Kevin told him. He took a few steps back and squinted a bit at Jean-Paul. Then he raised his hand, framing the top and bottom of Jean-Paul's head with his fingers and then measuring out the height down the older man's body. Seven heads. "Congratulations, you're proportional. People are, generally, seven of their own heads tall. Your head is one seventh of your total height if that's an easier way to look at it. People with small heads and long legs probably have short torsos. Or are just abnormal or disproportionate."
Jean-Paul half expected the young man to start squishing his head, as people sometimes did for amusement. It wasn't something he particularly understood, but he wasn't one to judge the things that others found amusement in. "Thank you," he said, nodding gravely. "Please, continue to edify me in the proper culinary technique for frying chicken."
The Southerner took the spatula from the Quebecois with slightly narrowed eyes. "D'you always talk like that?" Wow, that was rude. Kevin mentally chided himself. "Ah just mean, most people don't really use that sorta vocabulary unless they're bein' rude usually's all." He moved into place in front of the stove and scooped the waiting chicken up with his spatula so he could place it gently into the sizzling bacon grease.
Brows rising a bit, Jean-Paul shrugged. "It is only vocabulary." He considered it for a moment, though, running the sentence through his mind again. "Yes, I speak that way normally. I am sorry, if it seemed rude. That was not my intention."
Another shrug. "Nah, it's fine. Ah just don't know you, figured Ah should check. Not like you'd fess up if you didn't talk like that all the time, but at least then you'd need to make the decision to lie to me over somethin' sorta stupid. That'd say a lot about you."
Jean-Paul wasn't entirely sure what to do with that statement. Perhaps it was the division between Quebec and the rest of Northern America that made the intent behind it unintelligible. He would attribute it to that, since everyone outside Quebec had strange ideas about how things worked, anyway. "Do you typically judge people based on their vocabulary?"
"Yeah, everyone does. You'd be lyin' if you said you didn't. Way people speak says somethin' about them. People make all sorts of judgement about class, education, manners. It's not always correct the assumptions they make, but everyone makes 'em. Just like everyone's shallow and everyone wants to be romantically involved with someone they find physically attractive. Y'know how people say 'looks don't matter' but you know they do? Same thing." At least Kevin was honest about it, though, right?
"I suppose the comparison stands," Jean-Paul said, though his eyes narrowed in thought. He shook his head, though. "The vocabulary - it is beaten into us in school. The higher the schooling, the harsherl the beatings. As I said, I meant no offense." Then he said, "So yes, please show me how to correctly fry chicken."
He glanced over to Jean-Paul and gave him half a smile, the right corner of his mouth pulling upward into the expression. "Alright, so lesson number on, y'gotta double batter your chicken. Egg, flour, egg, more flour. There's spices and stuff but that's not really the point right now because we're all past it and all. But ya gotta do it twice. You went with breadcrumbs the first time so this is gonna be...interesting.
"But you generally want some pepper in there, maybe a bit of cayenne or hot sauce depending what ya like. Frying's just fryin' honestly. Not sure how many ways you can really do it. But there's no sense using oil to do it when you can just use drippings from something else. Bacon grease? Always good. For everything. Okay, Ah've never fried chicken in bacon grease before but bacon makes everything better so we'll see." He paused in his speaking and looked at the other man. "Maybe you should shred up some cheese while the chicken's frying?"
Shaking his head a bit, mind still tinkering with the thoughts the younger man had provoked when it came to vocabulary, accents, class, and society, Jean-Paul picked up the cheddar cheese and rooted around in a cabinet long enough find a grater. Those were things he didn't typically let himself think about. He preferred to deal with rights, making sure that people without voices were heard, as cliche as that sounded. "Bacon grease would work as well as any oil, when it comes to frying. There is thyme in the bread crumbs. For flavour."
"The chicken's the flavor. And the pepper and stuff." Thyme. Who put thyme on their fried chicken? Kevin shook his head. "Yeah, well, the important thing's not really whether or not bacon grease'll work. Of course it'll work. It'll fry it just fine. The thing's whether or not it tastes any good. 'Cause if you're not willing to eat it then the whole point's lost, isn't it?"
"Oui," Jean-Paul replied, nodding as he set about grating the cheese. "But chicken has very little flavour of its own. But, since there will be bacon in the final dish, I think it will do well." He finished up with enough cheese to actually taste once it was melted, then tucked the rest of it, along with the slices of Swiss that they hadn't used, back into the refrigerator. Busying himself with his back to the younger man, Jean-Paul said, "Merci. I appreciate the suggestion."
"Just doin' my part to convert the ignorant masses." You could hear the grin in his voice when Kevin said, "All hail bacon!" With that he flipped the piece of meat over and surveyed it to judge how well done it was and how much longer it would need. His neglected, beaten steak was calling him after all.
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. He'd just turned to say something else entirely when something very like an explosion came from the microwave.
Kevin jumped a little, though it didn't seem to make it past his insides since he didn't actually move. He looked over at the microwave and blinked. "Uh, you put something in there?" And then wire it to destroy the microwave?
"My... potato, oui," Jean-Paul said, inching toward the microwave, which was still going. He pushed the 'end' button on the front, then opened the machine cautiously - yes, there was his potato. In bits and pieces all over the inside of the microwave. "Merde," he whispered, not knowing what he'd done to make it explode, simply knowing that he'd never actually caused anything of the sort to happen before.
"Yeah, maybe you should stick to bakin' your potatoes in the oven. Like normal folk. Exploding stuff is fun in theory, but bad in practice. Especially if you're blowing up food. Now you're down a potato and the microwave might hold it against you." Kevin flipped the chicken again.
"It is not on fire, at least," Jean-Paul said, sighing as he took up the paper towels to clean the microwave. "I have cooked potatoes this way many times and none have done this." Even the plastic bag had been blown up. Jean-Paul could, quite literally, think of nothing that he'd done wrong which would have resulted in this mess. "Merde," he repeated, voice dropping off as he threw the wasted potato in the bin.
It wasn't as though he'd have realised he'd forgotten anything, was it?
"What's that mean?" Kevin was guessing it was Jean-Paul's expletive of choice but other than oui and menage-a-trois Kevin didn't exactly understand French. He only spoke three languages: English, Bad English and Southern. None of those even vaguely resembled French because he was from Georgia, not Louisiana. There was no Cajun or Creole in him.
Jean-Paul paused, then shrugged and said, "Shit." He went back to cleaning out the microwave. "It is... not polite." But he wasn't going to apologise for saying it, because he'd just blown up his potato. And now his meal looked like it was going to consist entirely of chicken and bacon. There was nothing he could do about it now, unless he wanted to put another potato in, and he wasn't particularly interested in that, since he didn't know what he'd done wrong the first time.
"Ah was gonna go with 'rude.' Ah guess 'not polite' works, too." More people than not swore, it seemed. Who was Kevin to judge them for cursing up a storm if it's what they wanted to do? Besides, Jean-Paul had managed to blow up a potato. Kevin wasn't sure how you actually managed that but he had, so he guessed the expletive was appropriate.
"It is that, also," Jean-Paul said, keeping further commentary to himself as he finished cleaning the microwave. Sighing softly, he settled himself on the floor and let his head rest against the cabinets behind him. It seemed he couldn't even manage to cook something simple for himself without ruining it. This wasn't an auspicious beginning to his stay here at the mansion, but the third time was the charm, or so they said.
Kevin watched the man on the floor and frowned. He seemed a lot more upset about that potato than Kevin would've thought a person would be. Maybe he'd really wanted that potato? Did people crave potatoes? Kevin thought people only craved stuff that wasn't good for them, like chocolate and cake and stuff. Maybe Quebecois craved potatoes. Shouldn't that be the Irish? Kevin shrugged and dangled a piece of bacon down in front of the man's face without a word. Bacon made everything better.
"It is a miracle," Jean-Paul murmured, staring up at the bacon as it hovered above him. "Food of the gods, hanging before me." Reaching out, he took the bacon from the tongs and ate half of it in one bite. "Merci." He was tired already - tired of getting things wrong and knowing it, tired of leaving things out entirely and not realising it. Jean-Paul was tired and this chicken was going to be horrible purely by dent of him having had anything to do with its cooking. He didn't move from where he'd settled on the floor, elbows resting on his drawn-up knees.
He tipped his head to the side, finishing off the bacon as he watched the younger man pull a baking sheet from one of the cabinets. "You cook often, oui?"
"Yeah. My mom died when Ah was pretty young. Daddy worked 'til pretty late so Ah figured out how to cook so he wouldn't have to. By time Ah was ten Ah was doin' all the cooking on the weekdays and some of it on the weekends, too. That way he wouldn't have to worry 'bout it when he got home or anythin'." Kevin shrugged a little. "Ah'm not exactly King of the Kitchen, but Ah'm good at what Ah know."
He pulled the chicken out of the pan with the grease and laid it down on the non-stick surface of the baking sheet. Kevin found the shredded cheese and spooned some over the chicken, careful not to spill. He alternated layers of the shredded cheddar with the bacon he'd crushed with the back and side of the spoon. It was something other people would have been able to do by hand but gloves interfered with doing it the normal way. Once the cheese and most of the bacon was used up he slid the baking sheet into the oven he'd set to three-hundred-fifty degrees. With that done he set about battering his piece of steak he'd been bludgeoning when Jean-Paul had entered the kitchen.
"And you are frying the steak the way you fried the chicken," Jean-Paul asked, trying to convince himself to stand so he'd seem a little less pathetic should anyone else come into the kitchen. "What sorts of things do you do, besides frying things?"
"Bake, broil, barbecue?" He quirked an eyebrow as his eyes flicked down to the man still on the floor. "It's not like Ah can't do somethin' other than fry stuff. It's just that Ah wanted fried steak and then you and the chicken had that disagreement and all." Kevin held up the battered piece of beef, surveyed it closely and set it down into the pan of bacon drippings.
"That's an... interesting way of putting it," Jean-Paul said, nodding to himself as he finally pushed himself up to stand again. "Having a disagreement with a piece of meat, I mean." He caught sight of an apple on the counter and picked it up, tossing it from hand to hand for a moment before finding a knife and slicing into it. Not the best thing to have with chicken, bacon, and cheese, but there were worse things, too.
Leaning his hip against the counter, he cut the apple into manageable bites, then slid half of them onto a plate for himself and half onto a plate for the younger man. It wasn't difficult to notice the fact that the younger man was almost completely covered in cloth and wearing gloves - it made sense that he'd used the tongs to handle the bacon and pretty much everything else as well, which was why Jean-Paul pulled a clean fork from a drawer and put it with the plate. "My name is Jean-Paul."
"Ah know who you are," Kevin told him with a nod. "Kevin." He wasn't the sort of person to offer his hand to someone upon introduction. The contact thing, it made anxiety prickle up his spine, raise the hair on the back of his neck and almost make his skin crawl because he wanted to jump out of it so much. Too many things could go wrong. Instead he raised his chin a bit in a half nod of acknowledgment. He eyed the plate of apple slices for a moment, then picked up the fork that had been laid on his plate and speared a slice. "Thanks."
"My reputation precedes me?" Jean-Paul asked, not sure whether to be amused by that or not. "Should I ask you to not believe most of what you have heard?" He had the distinct impression that he'd disliked this young man, prior to actually meeting him. Now, though, he saw no reason to hold on to that emotion. And then he remembered Jay's hand, the injury he'd received when he'd last seen Kevin during his visit to the West Coast Annex... and it all fell into place properly.
Or, well. Parts of it all fell into place properly. He still couldn't work up the energy to dislike the man who'd essentially cooked his chicken for him after he'd been unable to remember how to do it himself.
"Ah haven't heard anything, actually. Don't read the journals much, don't really talk to anyone who would talk about someone else or really many people at all. All Ah know is you used to teach lit last year. Ah've just got a habit of being uncommonly aware of new people when they show up to the school. Kinda gotta be. Ignorance," he trailed off, expression closing down to something grave. "When Ah actually come out of the woodwork ignorance can get people hurt's all. So Ah've kinda gotta know who is who and who knows not to be stupid 'round me." Yet Kevin was so hyperaware of where people were in relation to him all the time that it had to be pretty quick stupidity to get past his own reflexes. He had been tracking Jean-Paul's motions discreetly every time the man moved.
"I would not make a good teacher now, I think," Jean-Paul said, shrugging away the reminder of how things used to be. It was a stark reminder, though, one that brought him back to the fact that there was something in him now which he'd never encountered before - the power to hurt others. And he couldn't control it - he'd guessed what caused it, but there'd been no confirmation, he hadn't been back long enough to really figure anything out. If he was being honest with himself, he'd avoided speaking to anyone - the thought of someone going through his mind again made the skin between his shoulder blades itch, much the way it did when he knew others were watching.
Something seemed to darken in the older man's expression over that. Kevin took note of it and shoved away his own thoughts of what happened when people assumed he was normal. Or as normal as anyone else around there. He chose to quirk a little half-smile in the other man's direction. "Yeah, gotta agree there. Ah mean, that chicken won the fight pretty quick. If you're not up to standing up to the chicken and puttin' your foot down you'd never survive the teenagers."
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, snorting quietly despite himself. "This is true. It is... not something that I feel I will miss, necessarily. It is..." It was more that he didn't like having the option taken away from him out of hand. It bothered more, knowing that he'd been the one to take it away from himself, eliminating the possibility of it for the sake of the children who might or might not be able to trigger this new and violent power of his. He was nearly forty - he should have been past learning his powers. "A nuisance." He left it at that, eating a piece of apple to occupy himself whilst Kevin's steak fried. "Will you make the... roux? This is not what you call it - where you add flour and water. Or milk?"
An eyebrow arched upward. A roux? He looked thoroughly puzzled for a bit before Kevin realized what he thought Jean-Paul was talking about. "Gravy? Ah've never made gravy from bacon. Hm...it's possible. It'd be sort of weird, though. Ah mean, bacon and chicken and beef all ran off into it somehow or another. Could be an experiment. All else fails there's probably someone who'd eat it. Like Kyle if it's not on his Bad Plan list." He didn't say anything about Jean-Paul and teaching. It seemed like a sore spot.
"Bad Plan list?" Jean-Paul asked, one brow rising as he went to the refrigerator. "What would be on this list?" Pulling the milk from the refrigerator, he put it on the counter near the younger man and then went back to eating the apple. "Unhealthy things? Or things that disagree with the stomach?" He suddenly had the urge to bake a pie, but it was possible that would end as poorly as the Chicken Cordon Bleu had, so he decided to work make the one in his freezer when he got back to his suite. "Also, I will at least try the... gravy? Oui, the gravy."
"Ah dunno. Stomach Ah guess? Stuff he can't eat because his mutation means his body will be really, really unhappy with him? Never asked him 'bout it all that much except Ah know he can eat my chicken." Which was to say Kyle could eat Kevin's fried chicken. It was entirely possible that Kevin wilfully ignored that there was any other method which with to cook poultry.
Kevin checked the chicken in the oven before he bothered to pull his steak out. The cheese looked good and since the chicken had been mostly cooked to begin with he was pretty sure it was done. He pulled the baking sheet out with a pot holder and set it onto two empty burners of the stove. Then he pulled his fried steak out of the pan and set it on a waiting, empty plate. The heat on the burner was turned down a little and Kevin let the drippings cool off from their bubbling before adding in a bit of flour. "Brave man, trying concoction gravy. Ah like that in a person. You get to stay."
Dipping a half-bow in the younger man's direction, Jean-Paul said, "Oui, it is the true test of bravery, eating unfamiliar and possibly disgusting things." The kitchen smelled good now, though, and he was distracted by the sight of his chicken emerging from the oven. If he attempted this recipe again, he decided he'd simply bake the chicken covered, then let the bread crumbs crisp while the cheese and bacon melted together. It would likely taste alright, but it wasn't very pretty. Of course, it wasn't as though he intended to serve it to anyone but himself, anyway. "Pardon, I am going to get the chicken."
It seemed the polite thing to do, if Kevin was worried about harming people, to let him know that he intended to start moving in closer proximity. Jean-Paul grabbed another plate, shifting the chicken over to it before cutting it in half. There was a great deal of cheese and bacon on this. "Would you care for half?" He asked, pushing the plate closer to the younger man, just in case. "You did the work, after all. It is only fair."
"No, thank you," Kevin replied politely, head shaking a bit. "It's your chicken. 'Sides, Ah've got bludgeoned steak." He grinned at that and glanced over his shoulder at the Coke bottle responsible for said bludgeoning. The milk came next into the pan with the flour-thickened drippings. It was obviously old hat for Kevin, something he'd done numerous times before. He wasn't even worried about how long it might take to do it as his steak sat there cooling on the counter. Gravy didn't take that long. After some thought Kevin added, "Unless you want half of the steak? Then it'd be an even trade."
"I would like to try it, oui," Jean-Paul said, nodding. "I do not believe I have ever had steak prepared in this manner. And I believe the gravy might go better with the steak than the chicken." He popped another piece of apple into his mouth after saying that, then moved to slide half of the chicken onto the other man's plate.
"Yeah, gravy and cheddar aren't really made for each other. Feel free to divide up the steak then while Ah do this." Sharing was caring, or something like that. Kevin was going to go more with the more the merrier for now. As in more kinds of meat was better. Beef? Check. Poultry? Check. Pork? Check. All the major food groups were accounted for. And cheese. That could be a secondary level food group. A little more milk was poured in and Kevin's wrist kept rotating in a rapid motion so he could whisk all the contents of the pan together properly.
"Merci," Jean-Paul said, slicing the steak in half and moving one portion over to his own plate. "It is too bad my potato exploded," he continued, tone philosophical. "Something other than meat would be a good thing here, I think."
"Pfft..." The sound was utterly dismissive. "You don't need anything other than meat. Might be carrots or something in the fridge if you're really worried about 'balanced diet' or somethin'." Vegetables were good. Kevin liked vegetables. He wasn't against them, he just didn't see the necessity for them in every meal. It was entirely possible this was because he normally included vegetables in his meals so he wasn't overly pressed about it.
"Hm..." Jean-Paul moved back to the refrigerator to see if he could find any carrots. This was a mismatched meal, if ever he'd seen one. The thought made him smile just a little as he pulled the vegetables from the lowest drawer. "Not need, maybe, but want." It would be an interesting meal, at the very least.
"Oh, well if you're bringing in want then Ah can't really argue against it, can Ah?" Kevin grinned a little and eyed his gravy. It looked about done. "Hm...so, you think you're ready for gravy surprise here?" He turned off the burner completely and went to get a spoon figuring spooning a small amount on a section of steak was the way to go initially.
"Oui," Jean-Paul said, putting the carrots on the counter near the plate of apples. "Adventure in a pan. It would go well over potatoes or rice, would it not? If it is edible, of course." He'd used rues many times himself, but never something quite so... unique. "It is entirely possible that it will be amazing and neither of us will ever be able to recreate it."
"Just our luck, huh? Dunno 'bout rice though. Rice should have butter. Lots and lots of butter. Gravy, hm..." he trailed off, but wrinkled his nose in disagreement. Gravy went on potatoes or meat. Or biscuits. Maybe he'd make biscuits tomorrow morning for breakfast if this turned out alright. Kevin spooned a small amount of gravy on a corner of steak on each of their plates for a taste test and then set it aside. He cut off the corner of the steak on his plate and very carefully wrapped his lips around the fork, clearly used to having to be careful with such things. There was never anything so disgusting as food that was decomposing in your mouth because somehow it hit the corner of Kevin's mouth instead of his lip. He chewed thoughtfully.
Jean-Paul hummed a neutral sort of sound as he sampled his own piece of meat and bit of gravy. It was... an odd taste, but not bad. "Some black pepper," he said, "And a bit of salt. It's an interesting combination. I think it blended together well."
It was a little...weird. It mostly tasted like beef gravy but there was the bacon in there too. Chicken, well, chicken didn't really lend itself much to gravy so Kevin didn't pick up on that. It could definitely use some pepper. Overall though it was edible. Maybe even good once you got used to it. He sprinkled some pepper into the liquid and mixed it in before spooning more gravy generously over the rest of his steak. "Could be worse."
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Date: 2010-02-28 04:07 am (UTC)I'll make you a batch with margarine and one with real butter and you can be the judge. *grins*
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Date: 2010-02-28 04:09 am (UTC)Oh you so lie. You'd send me the margarine cookies but you'd eat all the butter cookies.
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Date: 2010-02-28 04:18 am (UTC)And... you're probably right. But that'd at least send the message.
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Date: 2010-02-28 02:40 am (UTC)*muah*