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It was fun for a long time but towards the end it just started to drag

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Total Members Voted: 28

[wierd]

"Just don't lose it." Weird said irritably. The improper sleep he had been getting lately was making him snappish, and he was well beyond caring about it anymore. It had literally been months since he had slept well. "I'm gonna go see what I can conjure up in the kitchen. If bio-warfare is off the menu for tonight, I need something else to do. Might as well... but no promises."

Weird thought he saw a sparkle of mirth in hugo's impossibly expressionless scaled face.  Some bastard part of him wanted to make a horrible holday fruitcake out of spite, but he shot it down internally, and reflected negatively on the impulse. Sure, he disliked the holidays, and was practically ebeneezer scroodge incarnate, (with the power to go tell the ghosts of christmas past, present, and future to go F*ck themselves) but that was no reason to ruin it for everyone else, and certainly not Hugo. Guy had it hard enough as it is. Hugo probably needed this emotionally. He would treat it cordially. --but if he wants christmas carols, the war's on! he thought to himself, pleased with the internal compromise. Something other than mystery mutant meat tallow roasts coming from the kitchen would be a welcome change, even if he would be the one cooking it.

Flashing a warm smile in response to the mirthful twinkling in Hugo's unblinking eye, weird bowed, and made for the hallway he had come up just minutes earlier.

"No promises on what gets conjured, mind!" He shouted over his shoulder with a chuckle, before disapearing into the fortress gloom.

[Gizogin]

[Seriously, what's with the fruitcake hate?  Why is it so prevalent in this country?  A real fruitcake is rich and delicious; it's the American predilection for flavorless sponge that's the problem.  (Nah, I jest.  I genuinely do like fruitcake, though.)]

[Zanz, I only got the first PM from you.  It barely had anything about the crystals, so I don't really know enough to continue.  I have no problem with you taking over X for however long you need to get the information across, if that would work best for you.]

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

[Zanz, I only got the first PM from you.  It barely had anything about the crystals, so I don't really know enough to continue.  I have no problem with you taking over X for however long you need to get the information across, if that would work best for you.]

Must've accidentally close the tab, like I thought I did.  I resent it.

[wierd]

[The itinerary for the menu:]

Whole roasted turkey, with "mashed potatos"(actually, steamed and peeled bloated tubers, mashed up, whipped with a little milk, and lightly salted.)

Turkey gibblet gravy
Strawberry and cremecheese danishes
Bread pudding
Saltwater taffy
Cinnamon hard candy (after careful extraction of the cinnamon he won off askak)
Steamed eggnog (warning, made with super crazy rum.)

Caveat: all the milk in the fortress is either sour by now, or has been condensed then canned, or is dehydrated.  I am going to go with condensed and dehydrated.

Contemplated "christmas tree" crochenbush, but that's just too damned labor intensive, and also highly obscure unless you live in europe.  A yule cake is straight out not happening. (unless it's really just a really humongously big cinnamon roll instead.)

The cinnamon hard candy and the taffy are both fairly seasonal, and the taffy would be fun for the kids. (Needs to be pulled, afterall. Just make sure they wash their hands first.) The cinnamon hard candy won't be red though. No food color. Probably be a light golden color.

Chocolate is out of the question. Carob can't be made from the variety of honey locust pod collected. Needs middle eastern locust for that. No hot cocoa, no fudge, no peanut clusters.

Black Walnut divinity might be possible... need marshmallow extract, or vanilla extract to make.

Sorry about all the candies... but from waaaay back in my childhood, that's the best thing I remember about christmas, was helping grandma make holiday candies. Grandpa loved black walnuts, and the walnut divinity was almost exclusively for him. 

A possible fudge substitute called "aunt bills" might also be possible.

Open to other suggestions, but keep it in line with what the fortress larder is likely to contain.


*chemistry nerd notes:

"Cream of tartar" is really just refined tartaric acid. It is a common precipitate from wine making.
Since dwarves make wine in abundance, I would presume we have a heafty supply of raw tartaric acid salts building up in the wine barrels, that just need a little repeat crystallization to purify.

Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda, can be artificially synthesized using a combination of the solvay process, calcination of the raw soda ash to get sodium hydroxide lye (as a purification step. The sodium hydroxide is highly hygroscopic, and will form highly pure solution from dry powder if allowed to draw moisture, leaving the far less soluble calcium compounds behind.), then bubbling carbon dioxide through the solution under pressure. "Elf friendly" soap can be produced without wood ashes this way as well.

Weird likely already has bicarbonate of soda on hand. It is an essential cleanup material when dealing with strong acids. We have all the materials to make it already.

[WillowLuman]

[Don't overwork yourself, we're not quite on the big day yet (let's say it's the night of the 22nd of Obsidian). In the future, we might get something chocolatey from our neighbors, Thari having needed a way to produce cocoa butter for religious purposes.]
 
[Now onto the rats, but you'll need to write their response. No idea how they'd react.]

Shortly after Wierd left, HugoLuman heard scampering from somewhere further off in the fort, coming closer. After a few minutes, the sound of tiny feet arrived outside the door, and stopped. Sniffing. Slowly, a small rat-like head, with odd blotches of hair, appeared tentatively in the door. When it looked at him, HugoLuman snapped up the book. Fortunately, he did not, as feared, choke on it.

"Er, hi there little buddy?" he hazarded.

[Oliolli]

22nd of Obsidian you say? Is winter solstice a thing in the world we are in?

[WillowLuman]

[Most cultures usually have some observance of the solstice, it being the shortest day of the year (places with "arrived on the calendar" seasons probably wouldn't notice.) Dwarves, underground as they are, probably pay less attention to the stars or the sky, but for ourselves, we still have our home holidays, just for shits and giggles.]

[wierd]

[I would think dwarves would tend to pay attention to the seasons, since even underground, the impact is sufficient to regulate what crops can be grown. EG, you cant grow sweetpods in the month of obsidian. Only plump helmet and dimple cup. This means the dwarves would have their own reasons for celebrating a return of warmer conditions.]

[as for the reactions of the rat creatures, the ball's in your court. As I said in the PM, the means of how you go about your methodology are strictly up to you. Personally, I would expect the single creature encountered to be a scout, and to scurry off to report on its findings.]

[In regard to the crochembush, it's JUST a bunch of profiteroles (creme puffs) stuffed with pastry creme, and stuck together with toffee. One of the few items we would probably be able to make with surplus foods that wouldn't involve eating mutant, and the toffee part would probably fit in well with the previously mentioned crop restrictions on the winter months. The most exotic ingredient is vanilla extract in the pastry creme, which can be substituted with a wide variety of other flavorings. Stuffing with jam or jelly instead of pastry cream would diminish the need for evaporated milk almost completely, other than what was needed to make the choux pastry itself.]

[WillowLuman]

[Dwarves would certainly follow the seasons, but would probably not give as much significance to astrological events such as the solstice or constellations. They'd be more concerned with underground events, like the varying levels of the water table.]

The rat scurried off back down the hall. "Skittish... I was afraid of that..." sighed HugoLuman. After a few seconds, though, the fading scurrying sound was replaced by the scrabbling of several sets of little feet, coming closer. "Or perhaps not. Hmm."

[wierd]

[I have silly thoughts...]

[Urist McChild: if "santa claus" comes to give presents to good girls and boys, how does he get inside?"

Hugo Luman: why, he comes down the chimney of course, but that's for human children. For little dwarves like you, perhaps he comes in another way?"

Urist McChild: "how does he get passed the spinning serrated discs and the magma traps?"

HugoLuman: VERY carefully.

Urist McChild: Is he a kobold? I thought kobolds only TOOK things!

HugoLuman:   ............]

[LOL, I am bad.]

[WillowLuman]

[He knows where all the traps are, just like the caravan, but unlike them he always gives and never takes! Except maybe some purring magot milk and plump helmet biscuits, if you leave them out for him. And if you hang up your pigtail fiber sock, he may even leave mugs in it! Just for you! If there are too many traps, he might send his loyal wamblers over them, bearing the presents. Beware, for naughty little dwarves have to fish their presents out of the cage traps!]

[wierd]

[The evil Mr Scroodge in me wants the children to become excited and expectant of presents, only to not have any given, and wonder why they didn't get any.... then for Joykill to tell them that it's because they were naughty, and poked the dragon with sticks. as-is, we are gonna need some miniforges, musical instruments, and other toys. Although, come to think of it, dwarven children would absolutely *love* to get socks for christmas.]

[WillowLuman]

[Oh, don't worry, I've got a +suprise+ planned. You'll see. With any luck, it won't turn out a !!surprise!!]

[wierd]

Weird wandered around the disorder that was the fortress kitchens. Motley patchwork jobs on the masonry spoke of last fall's disaster. Finally, he settled on the one he had cobbled back into service the last time he had gone on a cooking binge, then crossed the hall to the food stockpiles to see what they had available.

Lard. As always. Lots and lots of lard.
Milled cavewheat flour, about 30 bags.
Dwarven sugar, 10 bags.
Eggs, countless numbers of dubious freshness. Most were probably just a light tap away from causing an explosive miasma in the stockpile. He'd ignore these for the time being.... he'd have to give them the "floating" test in a bowl of water to be sure.
Milk... a similar story. Several barrels had soured, and were now filled with nausea inducing clumps of what used to be milk. Careful inspection revealed a few metal drums containing canned, pastuerized milk. Maybe the dwarves did pay attention to him afterall when he mentioned such things in the dining hall? It too would stand some testing before being used though.
Strawberry and prickleberry preserves. Copious quantities.
Cheeses. Those almost never went bad, as long as the wax rind was intact.
Several barrels of plump helmets, unmilled cavewheat, and sweetpods.
Unholy amounts of potted mystery meat products.
Rendered chickens and turkeys.
A few salted whole hams.
Bloated tubers, left over from the emergency food collections last fall...
And misc "prepaired meals" of varying levels of edibility.

He sat down on a milled goods barrel containing dimple dye that had been tipped on its side, and began contemplating just what he could come up with. Pretty much everything seasonal required butter, which he wasn't gonna get from homogenized and pastuerized milk. Grudgingly, he began looking at the lard stockpiles....

Contrary to what playing DF would have you believe, lard most vertainly DOES have quality levels. Anything from the disgusting soupy filth of strained bacon grease, to the waxy, brittle texture of fine tallow.  For baking, he needed the latter.. especially if he intended to use it as a poor substitute for butter when making pastry dough. The runny stuff simply didn't have the right properties.

Salt. He needed salt.... the lard would have to be lightly salted to serve as a replacement for quality butter.

"Of course. They don't have any f*ing salt!" He cursed to himself, agitatedly. He'd have to make a several hour trip to the ocean to procure some.... again. He wondered about these dwarves sometimes. Salt was one of those absolutely essential seasonings, and, like the total culinary vacuum that dwarven cooking represented, the absence of the stuff was poignant.

A small problem. It was nighttime, and the boogeymen would be out gibbering and uttering profanities in the cold winter night air.

He frowned, set his jaw, straightened his posture, and marched out of the stocks for his room, clipping a tangled pile of dusty, unopened barrels on the way, knocking out out of the stack, and sending him face down on the stone floor.

"Goddamnit!" He shouted angrily, extricating himself from the tumbled over barrel that had caught itself on, and rolled under him when he tripped on it. In anger, he kicked the wooden lid, splitting the crappy and rushed wood top in two, and spilling out a white, coarse pigtail bag filled with small dark beans, the latter spilling out a tiny sample onto the floor.

"Wait a minute..." he mumbled, reaching down and grasping one of the tiny dried beans from the floor and giving it a closer look. "Is this?........"

He scratched it against the hard stone and brick floor, and relished in the delightfully welcome and familiar scent. Somebody had found coffee. Oh lord, there *was* a god!

"We had coffee this whole time, and nobody told me?!" He shouted rhetorically into the gloom, before grinning like a madman, and scooping up the coarse bag over his shoulder, like a demented mockery of santa claus.  Take THAT you scurrying little bitches! he thought to himself excitedly. Oh yeah! Some dark roast coffee, and I can beat your little bitch asses at the sleep deprivation game! Hah!

Cackling like a madman, he hauled his treasure off to his quarters. He'd pervert his titration burette and alcohol burner into a scientific grade drip style coffee maker, have a hot, revitalizing cup of delicious coffee, then slip his special magic gloves on for a nice midnight stroll to get some seasalt. He grinned. Things were looking up.....

[WillowLuman]

[But might caffeine be hostile to the dwarven body, it being so alcohol dependent?]

[Shouldn't have to worry about Bogeymen, they only attack lone people and there's always at least someone on watch duty. And Roead killed the bunch that used to haunt here anyway. At least, he killed the lucky ones.]

[I'd always assumed dwarves just mined salt, or got it from some cave things. But maybe those beards are concealing huge goiters...]