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Kami smiled again, setting her pumpkin down with a soft huff. "That's very generous. We might stop by sometime, and you two can visit whenever you please, of course." she said. "Our garden is coming along fairly well, too. Keanu's just recently started planting vegetables out front." she said, chuckling a bit.

Keanu giggled, and readjusted his hold on the pumpkin. "I love my plants!" he said, glancing over at his little garden as they passed by the front of the house. He couldn't wait until he had his own delicious food growing. His thoughts were suddenly distracted by her suggestion, and his eyes went wide. "Hey, that's a great idea!!!" he cried, nearly dropping the pumpkin in his arms.

(Gah, sorry I didn't post yesterday ;_; It's been so hectic IRL, it's driving me crazy. I hope we can get this done soon(though it is very cute and fun), because I need to make some sort of entry about baking the treats before the halloween party hits.)

Keanu smiled widely, hauling the pumpkin in and scurrying back out for the next. "I like plants too! We just started planting onions!" he said, smirking proudly. He had weeded out the soil and planted them almost all by himself, with a bit of help from kami on weeding and readying the soil. He got excited all over again as the topic switched. "Yeah!" he looked up at his mother hopefully, wanting her approval.

Kami chuckled. "It's true! Gardening is great fun." she agreed wholeheartedly, before catching the look from Keanu. "Of course, sweetheart." she said, winking. Thank goodness it was a relatively simple costume. She didn't have much to work with other than the clothes she'd taken with her to the island. She grabbed to more pumpkins, eager to get them all in the house. "We'll need to get started right away if we want to get everything ready in time for the party." she said, happy to see keanu nodding in his enthusiastic little way.

Kami smirked a bit. "Hey, you do that too?" she laughed, pumpkin seeds were a great treat, and she was certainly planning on saving all the seeds she could. "Yep. We'll have it all ready for the party, no problem." Kami reassured, and saw them out to the door.

Keanu looked a little sulky, and gave Nehanda a short hug. "Bye-bye, 'Handa." he said, waving as they left. "See you at the party!!" he called, and looked up at kami, still a little sad to have to part with his friend.

Kami smiled happily, then set a fond hand on keanu's head. "That was fun, eh? Now...." she smirked, and ushered him inside, ignoring the surprised squeak he gave as he skidded inward, still thinking of Nehanda. "We have a good deal of work to do...So I think we should get started right away." she said, smiling as he nodded. "Thatta boy." she said, and grabbed several of the smaller pumpkins. Smaller pumpkins, she had read, often had smaller pumkpins were larger in flavor.

Keanu smiled weakly, and grabbed a couple of the cookbooks down. He had gone over the pumpkin pie recipes and felt he was ready, mostly. He was happy because he would be getting to help in a lot of the steps. He watched as Kami chopped a pumpkin in half, removed the 'guts', and set the halves aside. The guts were saved in a few large plastic bowls, to save the seeds.

"Okay, Kea. We need to let these pumpkin shells cook for a bit, as you remember, so in the meanwhile, we can seperate the seeds." she smirked, and handed him one of the bowls, carrying the other two to the table. She set another bowl down for the seeds, and both Aerandir and girl began to seperate the seeds from the goop.

"How come we're picking out the seeds, momma?" he asked curiously, looking down at the seeds in his hand.

"Because they're very good snacks, almost like sunflower seeds." she explained. "We'll roast them for a while with a little salt and they'll be perfect for the party. Plus I'm sure we'll have loads left over, from all the pumpkins Foenix brought." she said with a chuckle.

*a while later*

Kami pulled the pumpkin shells out, a smile on her face. "Looks like they're ready! I'll scrape and you mash." she said, smiling as she started to scrape the gooey, melted innards of the shells into a measuring bowl, which Keanu would then puree with a fork. They'd need enough for about 6 or 7 pies she figured, more than plenty to give each caretaker and their Aerandir child a serving if they wanted it, granted you could get at least 5 servings from each pie. Kami sweatdropped. The whole ordeal for them was nothing but a huge mathmatical equation, or so she thought. Scraping out all of the goo she could, she set the shells aside. "Make sure to get it nice and smooth." she said, and started scraping into another bowl. Each pumpkin yielded about 4 cups of the stuff each, so she;d been right to cook three halved pumpkin shells.

Keanu beat the gooey substance with his fork, working easily. He was used to such tasks as mixing and beating, and set the bowl aside to recieve the next, until both he and kami were beating the stuff. "Did you get the crusts?" he asked, glancing up at her.

"Of course! Can't have pies with crusts. I made a couple days ago, before Foenix brought them. Thank goodness I thought to bake enough." she said with a touch of relief. "Keanu, this stuff's pretty ready. Go into the cooler and grab the other ingredient, and we can start up with the pie filling." she said, concentrating on smoothing the contents of the final bowl. The total was three bowls, each containing it's share of 4 cups pureed pumpkin goo. She patted his head as he piled the things they needed on the counter. A carton of eggs, container of ginger, salt, cane sugar, cinnamon, a small container of nutmeg that Keanu had ground the day before, a small packet containing smashed cloves, and finally, a much larger container, a pitcher of sorts, of cream. Keanu wasn't sure how it had come, but kami must have brought it from the Centre kitchen.

"Here we go." Keanu said, panting a little. "Now we get to make up the pies!" he said cheerfully, smiling as Kami brought the pie crusts out. They looked just right, perfect for their pumpkin pies.

"I think you know what to do. We'll work together, and bake two of these at a time, and have them done this evening." she said, hoping there'd be enough room in their cooler to store overnight until the party. She shrugged the matter from her mind, and began adding what she needed to her fillings mixing bowl, glancing over every so often to admire her little boy, who would glance down to check his cookbook before measuring each ingredient into the bowl.

Keanu was indeed careful. He didn't want to botch a single pie, inwardly scared of letting his friends down. So he measured it all out carefully. Two eggs, lightly beaten, followed up by the two cups of pumpkin puree. After that it was small additions of the many spices. He referred to the ingredient list and his measuring spoons for those.


In short, Keanu didn't skip a beat. He mixed the filling well before pulling over the first pan, and pouring it the stuff, making sure to scrape as much as he could from the walls of the bowl. He could see Kami reach this step as well. They would repeat this several more times until each pie pan was filled nicely with the filling, and Keanu could almost smell the ginger and pumpkin together, unable to wait until they were cooked. He sighed happily as Kami let him wash his hands, looking back to watch her open the oven.

Having set the ovens to preheat a shoprt while earlier, while still filling the pies, Kami was pleased to see that the temperatures were just right. "Alright then, Keanu, we have room enough for two pies, and a pan of those seeds. Go grab the seeds from the table, that's a good boy." she said, gently easing in two of the pies, side by side. Taking the pan from Keanu, she slid it in on the bottom, and closed the oven door, quickly grabbing the egg timer from the counter. "Okay....we're gonna bake these for 15 minutes at this temperature, then lower it and bake for another 45. Help me watch the clock, because we need to take out those seeds in about fix." she said, and sat down at the kitchen table.

Keanu gave a sage nod, and plopped himself down on the floor.

It went on for the rest of the evening, until both kami and her little one thought they would quite drop. While the pies had been baking, she surprised Keanu by bringing out a kit she'd put together for caramel apples, and they had made a good 22, enough for every Aerandir on Cetalu and their caretaker to have apiece. Keanu had thought he'd never seen so much sgar used in something in his life, and couldn't wait to taste the treats they were making when they went to the party. The apples were stuck into two shallow boxes and stacked in the corner, just as the final few pies were coming out. He swelled with pride at the wonderful aroma that filled their house. Not a single pie had burnt, much to his surprise, and he felt wonderful inside. "They're okay, right momma?" he inquired, watching her dip a butter knife into the edges.

"They look just fine to me, love." she said , showing him the knife. "See, the knife is clean, which means that they're baked all the way through." she explained, holding back a yawn. She smiled as she saw how relieved he looked. She had been rather anxious about the cooking too. The ovens in the houses weren't exactly what one could call up-to-date, but they had certainly served their purpose. And little Keanu had worked so hard, making the fillings, and watching the timers carefully. Not a thing had gone wrong really, with the exception of a few burnt pumpkin seeds. But, there had been plenty more, and they had three bags of seeds, good for filling bowls for the party. Not only that, three of the larger pumpkins had been left over, which Kami didn't really know what to do with. Thy would simply worry about them later. She wasnted to give keanu the chance to make a jack-o-lantern though, so that would be a sure thing for one of the big squashes.

As the evening wound down, around 8pm, Keanu gave a tired sigh. The last pumpkin pie was wrapped in a careful layering of plastic wrap, in order to keep it fresh through the night. The apples sat in their box, and all the pumpkin seeds one could wish for were bagged and ready to be snacked upon, whenever that happened to be. "Momma, I'm sleepy..." he said, rubbing one of his eyes. He leaned against the wall, wings adroop.

"You've done a wonderful job, Kea. Everyone's going to love your pies tomorrow night." Kami said, and picked him up, kissing his forehead. "I think we both need a good night's rest. We can put your costume together bright and early in the morning." she said, smiling as he did, at the mention of it.

Keanu yawned, and wrapped his arms around his mother, completely tuckered out. He hardly noticed as she carried him up to their room and tucked him gently into bed, putting his favourite plush under his arm, and gave him a good night kiss. He was out in an instant, happy thoughts of what tomorrow held, and the good smells of the desserts he'd helped create floating through his sleepy mind.

Kami smiled softly, gazing down upon her little chef fondly. She would be joining him shortly, after cleaning up the kitchen, and placing the pies and apples in a safe place, making sure Mazin was kept out of the kitchen. Satisfied, and tired, she crept into bed to dream of what the next day held.

Kami sighed softly as she scribbled softly, pen recording all she chose to wrote in her and keanu's journal, which had survived the recent natural disaster. She continued to be incredibly relieved that everyone had survived the incident, in her opinion it could have been a lot worse than it had.

April 8th

Keanu, besmudged with dirt, sat in the kitchen, scribbling quietly in a small book that his mother had given. But, it wasn't just any book! His mother had told him that she'd wanted him to start keeping a journal of his own. Keanu had been delighted about this idea, and had agreed to start writing right away. He'd even decorated the front with pictures of plants and flowers.

The little badger looked thoughtful as he wrote out his very first entry, not exactly knowing what to put down. Kami had said to put down thoughts, and recent events if he wanted, so he did his best.



Keanu smiled happily as he closed the book, and hopped down, darting out to the front yard again to return to weeding.

April 16th

The sun shone pleasantly through the kitchen window to illuminate the morning's activities. Once again, the little Aerandir and his mother were busy at work in finishing the latest project. Keanu wondered sometimes why he hadn't been able to learn very many dinner recipes, but pastries and baked desserts were always a little more challenging, or so he saw it. They did often make up simple dinners anyway, adding different spices to chicken or fish to make interesting and different tastes, and following no recipe in particular. You couldn't usually throw things together with cooked desserts and expect it to turn out well, most of the time.

The little boy was peeling apples, very carefully, as was his mother. She hadn't wanted him to do it, for fear of him cutting himself, but he had managed to con her into it...afterall, how was he ever going to be able to cook if he couldn't do it himself? He was very careful with the knife, working slowly and carefully.

After the eight apples had been peeled, and cored, Kami explained the next step. "Now, this can be applied to quite a few situations. He need to slice the apples up so they'll be able to go into the pie, of course." She started on one apple, as an example, until she had 8, relatively equal pieces. "See how similar in size they all are? The more uniform they are, the better they'll cook. Now, you cut them again..." she cut the slices carefully once again, so they resembled cubes, almost. "You don't want to cut up the slices randomly, or too thick or thin. Pieces that are too big won't cook thoroughly, and pieces that are too little or thin will be too mushy."

Keanu listened eagerly, and gave a nod, taking an apple to try himself. He did well enough, and smiled as his head was ruffled gently. "Is that good?" he questioned, beginning to dice up the slices he had made.

"Looks good to me." Kami smiled, watching. She was still a bit nervous, but glad to see that Keanu was making a good effort to take things with the knife slow and careful. "You can apply this to other foods as well. Especially with stews and such. You want everything to cook through the way it's supposed to."

Keanu smiled, and nodded in understanding. It did sound sensible enough, and he made a mental note to add it in a journal entry later. He worked to slice and dice the rest of the apples, and looked pleased as he finished the last one, proud over the job he'd done with them. "Now what?" he glanced up at his mother, and over toward the cookbook.

"Well, Keanu, you'll probably be excited to learn that you'll be able to use your mortar for this job." she chuckled a bit, reaching into the bag that he;d the remaining supplies they'd need to finish the pie. "You need to grind up some cinammon to put in there, and all I could find in the community kitchen were sticks of it."

Keanu perked up, excited indeed. "Really? Great!" he reached to take the cinnamon stick, and moved across the kitchen to take the tool of his trade from it's spot on the counter. He sat down on the floor near the pantry and proceeded to grind the odd stick up, content over using the grinding bowl.

"Cinammon is a type of bark, did you know that? It's used in lots of desserts...we used it in our pumpkin pies, remember?" she chuckled, rather wishing she'd thought to get sticks instead of premade powder back then. "Be sure to grind it very finely, if you can." she said, offering a teasing sort of challenge.

"Oooh!" Keanu blinked, looking down at the stuff. A bark...he'd have to try to research this stuff a bit. He had known it was a common dessert spice, though. He worked at it for a short while longer before getting up, and putting the mortar on the counter again. "How much will we need for the pie?"

"About half a teaspoon...we can save any that's left over for future pies." she said with a smirk, and began dumping the diced apples into a big bowl. "Now we can put everything together. Mix everything in so the apple pieces are coated well." she said, and went to get the dough for the crust they'd made the previous day.

Keanu carefully measured out the half teaspoon of cinnamon, a tablespoon of flour, and a cup of the sugar Kami had brought, mixing it all in with the cubes. Smiling mischievously, he snuck one of the pieces to eat, enjoying the sweet taste, feigning innocence with a giggle.

"Alright, little guy, now we need to put everything together." she pulling out a mat, and sprinkled flour over it. She put one of the dough pieces down, and handed Keanu the rolling pin. "All we need to do is roll the dough and fill the pie, then it'll be ready to bake. Try rolling the crust out. It's a little tricky to get it to the right thickness, but you'll get the hang of it."

Keanu nodded, and started to roll, letting his mother guide him, helping him to keep equal pressure as he rolled the pie out. After a short while, she flipped it over and sprinkled it with flour, and let him continue. "How flat does it have to be?" he asked, trying to look across at the cookbook again.

"An eight of an inch, it says...I'd say it looks about right." she said, rolling it out a little bit more. "I'm going to put it in the pie pan. You can start rolling the cover." Kami gently folded the rolled out dough in half and transferred it to the pan, pressing the dough down gently. She moved back to Keanu with a smile. "I'll finish rolling that out. Why don't you go fill the pie?"

The little Aerandir complied happily, and bounced to where Kami had once stood, pulling the bowl over, and starting to spoon the apples in. He packed them in carefully, and when he was finished, the apples formed a mound, like the cookbook said it would. "Done...what next?" he looked over to see how his mother was doing.

She moved over, having rolled out the top crust, and had made a small bowl of a mixture of egg and water. "Now we get to put the top crust on. Good job with the filling." she transferred the top crust on in a fashion similar to the way she had put the pan crust in. She trimmed away the excess dough, and brushed the eggy mixture along the edge of the bottom crust before laying the top on. "Alright. Just pinch the edges together, and roll it against the top edge of the pie pan." she advised, and stood back to let them do it.

Keanu smiled, and went to work, pinching and folding, making a neat, wavy pattern until the entire circumfrance of the pie had been closed. "I know what's next." he said, taking one of the peeling knives to make slits in the dough. "To let the steam out..." he said, proudly. He remembered it from going through the recipe beforehand.

"Very good, Keanu." Kami praised, and brushed on a light covering of the egg-water mixture, sprinkling sugar on afterwards. She smiled happily, and picked up the pan. "It's ready for the oven." she announced, and opened the door to the oven, placing the pie in carefully. She'd preheated it to 425 f, at which it would cook for about 20 minutes. Then she'd lower it to 400 for another 20 minutes of cooking, and hopefully nothing bad would happen.

Keanu smiled, and yawned, moving to sit down at the table. Cooking could be tiring sometimes, especially since they'd woken up early to avoid having to cook in the heat of the day. He'd stay close though, to see how the pie turned out, laying his head on his arms, he watched the oven, giving another little yawn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Keanu woke to a gentle shaking. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but Kami had seemed to have taken over watching the oven, and a nice nap had been very tempting. He yawned big, and rubbed his eyes, looking up at his mother sheepishly. "Sorry..." he sniffed the air, which was perfumed quite exquisitely with a sweet smell. "Is it...done?" he blinked, and smiled at the sigh that met him on the counter.

Kami chuckled softly. "I watched the oven. I think you did very well, but you'll have to learn to work the oven in the future." she said, picking up the pie to show Keanu what he had created. "We can taste it when it's cooled.

Keanu purred at the site. He felt lucky that they should be able to create yet another good pie. Cooking could be unlucky, he was aware...would it taste alright? It certainly looked alright...nearly as perfect as the picture in the cookbook. "Wake me up when that is?" he smiled playfully, fluttering his wings as his mother pet him after setting the pie down.

"I will." she chuckled at her sleepy boy, and scooped him up, carrying him out to the living room and setting him upon the couch gently, pressing an affectionate kiss to his forehead before returning to the kitchen to clean up a bit, a proud smile on her face, believing her little one had once again completed a job well done.

June 8th

Keanu poked at the oddly colored envelope warily. They had never gotten mail that was this colorful before. "Momma, what's inside of this?" he asked, resisting the urge to open it. It was his his though, so of course he wouldn't. Kami told him it was rude to open things that didn't belong to you.

His mother chuckled softly. "It's a surprise...I think you'll like it, but you'll have to wait till the end of the month until it opens." she explained, and patted his head. She knew what would come out, or had an idea, but didn't want to tell him. She herself didn't know how it could be possible, but if griffins could be born out of artifacts and jars, Kami supposed that anything could happen.

"How come, momma?" he persisted, and picked up the letter, sniffing it curiously. He liked the colors, but what could be in here that was so special? It couldn't be food, or some sort of toy. Maybe it was a new recipe...but why would Kami make him wait till the end of the month? He looked up expectantly for his response.

"You'll see, love." she said with a smile, and ruffled his hair. He could be so cute. "I told you it was a surprise." she chuckled, and turning to leave the room. "Oh, and, not that I think you will, but trying to open it early will prove useless..." she chuckled, and moved off to read.

Keanu pouted a little, having considered it, mischievous thing that he was. "Fine..." he said, and left the letter alone, figuring he'd go out and play. No use dwelling on it when he had the entire month ahead of him.