#// ooc. i don't think i need to clarify what the soap herb mentioned is. also the flour bit is referring to cricket flour

[crystalmarred]

What types of meals does Kijin like to prepare the most? Is he more of an exact measurements kinda culinarian or an eyeball everything? How good is he at improvising? How often does he pick up new recipes?

— BASED ON CONVERSATIONS ;; ( @vierandancer )

"Uh..."

X'kijin paused, eyes wide and almost owlish as he gazed at the other person who had a... notebook in hand of all things. Something about it brought him no small amount of discomfort, given how little he liked to talk about himself and how infrequent he'd felt noticed in the things he did.

Hell, it had taken some of the Scions a while to figure out he'd helped more than a few times with meal preparation at the Rising Stones, most especially when they'd taken to helping Yugiri and the refugees.

"I... like making most things?" It was a non-answer, one he could tell disappointed the... reporter? Was that who this person was? What had gotten them interested in his cooking...? "I... prefer to make Ala Mhigan dishes, so... more often meat-based than not."

"You don't really need exact measurements most of the time," he said, slowly finding the same confidence he had in his cooking in his explanation of it. Though he wasn't about to confess that that was in part because he'd been unable to read half of them. Numbers only got one so far. "You can 'eyeball' seasoning. It's not like alchemy where too much or too little of one thing can effect the potency or the quality."

That answer came a little differently with baked goods, of course. He'd learned the hard way that too much yeast in bread was... not good.

"Some things are easier to improvise than others. Like coriander has some good alternatives, but apparently some people think one of them tastes like soap?"

X'kijin didn't really agree, but he just... tried to avoid it, best he could. Coriander wasn't rare enough to warrant feeding people what tasted like soap to them.

"You'd usually make flour with a grain, but you can also make flour with other things, like certain bugs, which is great for one allergy and horrible for another."

"But, uh—" A pause as he tries to come back to himself, to feel a little more like the person he often tried to portray himself to be. Calm, even, uncaring, despite the sparkle that appeared in green eyes when the subject had come up to start. "I like to try out new recipes as often as I can. Which... isn't that hard, considering how many places we go, but..."

He cleared his throat, repositioned his glasses on his nose.

"Is... Is that it, or...?"