It was a little less than two hours after sunrise when others began rising from their beds, the scent of bread and cinnamon rousing them from their dreams. Yawns and shuffling feet filled the air with sound as the curious padded down the stairs to figure out where the heavenly scents were coming from. In fact, as they crowded around the kitchen entrance, they noticed that the kitchen table had been covered in a cloth and several plates placed upon it. And upon those plates were slices of toast, some that smelled of cinnamon, sliced apple pieces and halved plums that were glistening, with heat rising from the rich flesh. There was also the pot of opened marmalade, a pot of coffee and another of tea.Patrick was already sitting at the table gleefully looking over the spread, ready to eat, but refraining himself with difficulty. He had been here a while, wanting to grab a cup of coffee before Tyler could restrict the amount of sugar he added to the beverage. He"d found one of the two girl cousins, Autumn cooking and couldn"t help but drool as the scent of roasting plums emanated from the oven. She"d worried over the fact she was using the kitchen without permission, but Patrick had dismissed her concerns. They were men bound by their stomachs and her food was about to fill them; there was no way they"d be upset and even if they were, judging from the heavenly aroma"s, it would not be for long.
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And so the pair had begun to chat about what Autumn was baking and the girl had expressed her wish to make cinnamon toast to go with the baked plums, but in the absence of b.u.t.ter was worried for the outcome. Thus they had mixed a little oil with the spice and sweetener, but it didn"t spread upon the thin cut crust as well as she would like. Patrick had had an epiphany; what about the mutated apples? Not only was the contents of the Apple-shaped sh.e.l.l soft and oozed oil, it was a tad sweet in it"s fresh ingredients flavour. They had struggled to open one, but one they did, Autumn was able to mash the oily fruit together with the sugar and cinnamon and produce something more familiar. Patrick couldn"t wait to taste it.
Autumn, who was standing holding a bowl of toasted nuts to add to the table, glanced up and noticed all of the large, hungry eyed men currently staring at her, as well as a wide eyed teenager and the two other women. "Ah, I hope you don"t mind," she said, paling a little. "I cooked breakfast..." the volume of her voice became smaller with every word as she wondered if she hadn"t gotten carried away. After all, this was the food that Dexter and his men had gathered... although Patrick had encouraged her, even helped her... she had still used a good amount of the ingredients without permission.
The oriental man that the others called Ren gave her a slight smile, his eyes like crescent moons as he said; "I am going to call for Nathan. He and Lucy would like this breakfast, I believe."
"He"s not in the house?" Autumn wondered aloud, but he had already disappeared from sight. The other newcomers were also curious; the house was large and secure, why live elsewhere?
"Nathan doesn"t do well with lots of noise or people," Dexter said as he came in first to snag a piece of cinnamon toast. "He lives in a cottage in the gardens. Little Lucy took a shine to him, so she and the dog moved in with him."
"Oi!" Patrick complained as Dexter took a large bite of the toast. He"d been waiting the longest, he couldn"t wait to taste the adapted toast recipe that he"d helped come up with, so why did Dexter get to eat first?
"Autumn, you... you can cook?" Jimmy stared wide eyed as other shuffled past him to grab a plate and pile it with food.
"Hey! At least wait for everyone!" Patrick pouted, but quickly placed a piece of toast onto his plate before it all vanished.
"I can make more," Autumn rea.s.sured him, thinking of the other loaf she had left aside. She had ended up baking two loaves of bread, thinking it could be saved for lunch and dinner. There were a lot of mouths to feed after all. However, she"d used more than half a bag of flour in producing them, which made her feel a bit guilty.
"You can cook..." Jimmy repeated, so why had they suffered so long on tin veg and soups?
"Be nice," Jonah told him, giving his girl"s cousin a tap on the shoulder in encouragement. "It"s not like we had a working oven or decent ingredients for her to work with."
"But..." Jimmy sighed heavily. That was not the point! He"d had to heat up all the food for the last three months to feed everyone!
An adorable tiny face appeared, peering over the edge of the table and small chubby fingers reached for a piece of toast. Autumn melted. "Let me help," she said and broke up a piece of cinnamon toast upon a plate as well as checked the temperature of a plum and cut it into small chunks for the girl. Lucy rewarded her with a grin.
As every last crumb was eaten and the beverages vanished, so did most of the kitchen occupants. No one wanted to deal with the washing up. Tyler sighed and complained about lazy-a.r.s.ed men as he filled up the water bottles Autumn had used to make the drinks. The girl just giggled and placed freshly boiled water into the sink in order to clear up. "Ah, thank you for the breakfast," Tyler said, politely expressing his grat.i.tude.
"It"s okay," Autumn blushed. "I like to cook."
"That"s all well and good," Tyler replied, a little bluntly, startling the young woman, "but if you wouldn"t mind speaking to me about it in the future."
"Oh, okay," Autumn"s expression fell and the sense of guilt that had vanished as she"d watched everyone enjoying her food swelled to larger proportions.
"It"s only that I need to keep an eye on our supplies," Tyler continued. "You"ve seen that lot, if I hadn"t kept a tight rein on our food, they probably would have consumed it all by now... well mostly. There would still be flour and a few other things. None of us can cook anything beyond simple meals. We haven"t had bread since a couple of days after the end."
Autumn smiled, realising that he was not angry, just concerned and continued to listen to the man"s complaints.
"Somethings can be replaced, thanks to Nathan"s garden and abilities," he glanced outside the window to see the young man pottering once more in amongst the vegetable beds. He hadn"t come in for breakfast, there had been too many people although the noise level had been low enough with all mouths stuffed full. He"d eaten some toast and jam in the garden with Ren Zexian, before getting to work. "But others can"t be. That"s why there"s a rule that we can only have one cup of tea of coffee a day. It didn"t go down well at first, but they will be the ones complaining when we no longer have access to caffeine!"
Autumn giggled beneath her breath. It seemed Tyler was very much a man with a sharp tongue, wide eyes and soft heart. "I used a fair bit of flour," she admitted.
"Yes, well," Tyler said, partially in agreement. "It"s not like it was doing anything else sitting there in the cupboard. And when it is gone, it is gone, can"t do much about it."
"But we can replace it," Jonah had been pa.s.sing the kitchen after discussing a few things with Dexter.
Jonah did not want his squad to become lazy and lax; a burden on this new base, eating without doing much else. Yeah, relaxing a little, after the vigilant days sweeping through property after property, struggling with evolving undead and the horrifying realisation that their own base was no longer secure, was necessary. It would boost the moral and minds of his people and would be good for his girl and their unborn child. But Jonah wasn"t the sort of person to leave debts unpaid. Dexter took them in. His squad needed to work to pay them back, but what could they do?
Sure, Dex and the guys were still building the wall, so man power was needed. But it was not as if any of his people particularly had any ability in construction work. Listening to Tyler and Autumn talk about supplies made him think about heading back out, in a few days, to grab more for all of them, as well as... "The fields were seeded just before the apocalypse and although they haven"t been tended to, some of the crops have survived; we noticed on the way here. We can probably grab some wheat grain, maybe some more corn and potatoes."
"We"d probably want to plant the grain," Dexter rubbed the stubble upon his cheeks. "That"s if anyone knows how to make flour from wheat, anyway."
"I do," Autumn admitted. They"d learned that in school and as it happened to be a.s.sociated to food, she had remembered it well. Grinding the grains might be difficult though... "and if it helps, I also know some ways to make vinegar and yeast."
"Vinegar... can you make pickles?" Tyler asked, his mind always considering ways of preserving food for a comfortable winter. She nodded in agreement. Tyler began to mutter beneath his breath, wondering how many decent empty jars they had, before firing questions at her regarding equipment and ingredients.
As the pair discussed things, Dexter felt a bit of the weight lift from his shoulders that he hadn"t realised he"d been carrying. It seems he"d been as worried as Tyler about getting through this winter and the early spring. Not to mention future ones when their supplies of tinned and packaged food would be even less. If the young woman had some knowledge on how to preserve food, it was priceless thing. "This girl," he murmured quietly to Jonah, his eyes curving as his smile grew wider, "you didn"t realise that you"d found such a treasure, did you?"
"No clue," Jonah admitted, giving this girl who"d stood in her cousin"s shadow quietly for so long a second look. It was hard to imagine that the girls were cousins that had grown up together; his bright, little Brooke and the quiet, plain Autumn. A smile appeared upon his own face; he was glad the girl had found some place to bloom. Maybe, his Brooke would stop worrying about her so much now.