So he sat down, rubbing his dog’s ear when the dog leaned against him. “Thank you for coming over. I really appreciate it, even if it was a shitty chore. It’s one less thing for me to do and I can seriously start on other projects.”
“You’re welcome. It’s good to be of assistance – especially since you’ve got so many other things up your sleeve to get done.“If they were able to help check off the more mundane of tasks, Saima was glad to have proven themselves useful.
They were a good friend, especially considering Ludwig’s awkwardness at small talk. He’d have to remember not to be so rude the next time. Thankfully tea was a good repayment, so it was all even, right? Right.
Bringing the cups and pot over, he set them in front of Saam. “Do you want anything else?”
If nothing else, Saima had developed a strong sense of patience especially since they had their own moments of not being particularly graceful in social moments.So such a minor fault would be easier forgiven as far as they were concerned.
“..Don’t think so – between the tea and the lemon juice, I should be just fine.“
Perhaps it wasn’t best to talk about the weird friendship/competition he and Japan have between themselves, so he dropped the subject completely in favor of staring out the window until the kettle started to rattle, signalling it was about to boil.
Whisking it off the stove, he poured it into a teapot and shook out what he thought was a good amount of tea leaves into the water. “Almost ready, sorry for the delay”
While that line of thought had been dropped, they idly continued to enjoy the food in front of them. “It’s fine, I was perfectly willing to wait for it to be ready.“ Good tea was worth waiting for even if it was just to accompany some food.
“Business and whatnot. Hopefully I can drop by Tokyo while I’m there to see Japan. She’s been busy, so I’m excited to see her and tell her off for not moving her bank from London to Dusseldorf.”
“Ah fair enough.“ The thought of Ludwig being excited to tell Japan off causes Saima to just focus on the bread for a moment. “But at least you’ll get to see someone and maybe catch up a bit despite all the business stuff as well.“
“I hope so. I had reservations about it but once I tried them, they were good.” Their conversation about lemons had gone on for what felt like forever but it was the only thing he could think about, and he cast about frantically for a new topic. “I have to go to Beijing soon. It hardly ever snows there, so it’ll be a nice break from the cold of December.”
While they were content to remain quiet after that, having exhausted everything there was to say – the mention of Beijing piqued some curiosity. “Oh, that’s pretty interesting – talk about a real change of pace. Why are you going over there anyway?”
“It’s fairly simple. Just cut them halfway through, then kinda. Just, shove sugar in the cuts and put in a jar and fill with more lemon juice and sugar, and seal. I suppose there’s a more refined technique, but I’ll have to ask Italy. You’re supposed to keep the jar in a dark place and turn it upsidedown weekly, I think”
They pay attention to the instructions, saving in the back of their head to try later on. “Yeah that doesn’t seem too bad at all. Might get the job done well enough for those lemons to work well.”
“Yeah? I was thinking like a lemon cake, with a layer of lemons on the bottom. An upside down cake. You could probably also use them in tea, if you want lemon and sugar”
They think for a moment before slowly nodding. “Yeah, that actually would be pretty nice. And it could be a nice accompaniment to tea, I really have to look into pickling lemons in sugar.”
“Supposedly you can pickle them in sugar, not salt, but I haven’t tried that. It seems like it would be good in dessert though.”
“Huh. That might be interesting to try. Would make for a different tasting result – could very well complimentary with sweeter things.”
The small bottle is set in front of them and he starts to sit before standing and getting the jar of pickled lemons out. “It’s strange, but I like them. They’re good in seafood.” One slice was fished out and he laid it on his filled pita.
“Huh. I can see how that might work within seafood. The flavor might add to whatever other flavors within those dishes.” It just kind of makes sense for the combination of pickled lemons and seafood although they never tried it personally.
“I think we have lemon…. No, we have pickled lemon, which is not good in tea. Will lemon juice work?”
“Yeah – no for pickled lemon. But lemon juice should work just fine. I only need a little bit of it anyway.”
Seekesotsibteadmist 