Tarte Tatin for Two Big Eaters (2)
"Hmm..."
Even after Karem abruptly covered the pan with dough, pulled out six more pans to repeat the exact same process, and shoved them all into the oven, Alicia still refused to lower her guard.
"What did I tell you?"
"That sweet smell is starting to fill the air."
"Well, the method may be eccentric, but the taste ought to be fine."
Alicia finally dropped her suspicion.
The caramel scent grew richer with every passing minute. The abundant fragrance of autumn, condensed under high heat. She couldn't help herself. It smelled delicious.
She had fled right before a meal, after all; her already-activated stomach was trembling at the aroma of fruit stewing in caramel. The frequency only intensified the hotter the oven grew.
And so Alicia waited beside Gordon with an endlessly solemn expression—until at last the words she had been waiting for left Karem's mouth.
"Looks like they're just about done."
Karem peered into the oven, then immediately opened it. Six pans, waiting only to be eaten, billowed hot steam into the cool air.
"So we can eat them now! What an utterly promising smell!"
"What happened to the person who was so suspicious?"
"Suspicious? I know no such person. Who would ever doubt Karem's skill? Alicia believed in Karem from the very beginning!"
As if to say so hurry up and serve them, Alicia seized her utensils and her eyes shone.
"You were full of suspicion right up until the smell appeared, though."
"W-well, yes, I may have doubted for a moment, but it is also true that I believed in Karem, so it is not a lie!"
Gordon needled her with words, and Alicia flinched as though caught red-handed and scrambled to explain.
"All right, I get it. I'll just take the plates for now."
"Hm? About the plates—wait. Karem."
Alicia's eyes, enchanted by the sweet dessert aroma, suddenly wavered wildly.
"Your hand—your hand! Smoke is coming from your hand!"
"Pardon? My hand?"
What was this about now? Karem glanced down. The hand gripping the handle of a cast-iron pan fresh from the oven was sizzling, white steam rising from it.
"It doesn't feel hot at all."
"How can that possibly not be hot?!"
"Ah, have I never shown Lady Alicia?"
Thinking it over carefully, he realized he had only recently been approved, and beyond Catherine, Mary, and the mages of the tower, he had never demonstrated it to anyone.
Karem set the inverted pan and plate on the table for a moment.
"It's like this."
Crackle-crack—
He drew up his holy power and exerted force; ice crystals sprouted across his hand and arm.
At the sudden display of holy power, Gordon whistled.
"Whoa. After getting dragged around by Lord Iona like that, your control's gotten pretty precise."
"If I hadn't mastered it, I'd have kept getting hit, after all."
"Well, yeah, that figures."
...Wait. The nuance there was odd.
He didn't say it aloud. Instead Karem fixed Gordon with a sharp, suspicious glare.
"You seem to pick things up faster through experience than words, so I mentioned that to Lord Iona."
"So the fact that Lord Iona hit me was also—?"
"Nah, that's just Lord Iona's teaching style."
Suspicious, but there was no proof. And Alicia kept shooting him meaningful looks. The meaning was obvious.
Karem seized the pan again, held the plate firm, and flipped the handle in one swift motion. The moment he felt the weight settle onto the plate, he lifted the pan away.
"There. It's finished, so please dig right in."
Upon the plate, freshly harvested fruits lay glazed in caramel, tinged a rich golden-brown. The thick, sticky caramel sauce pooled atop the pastry like rainwater after a shower, gleaming.
The process may have been eccentric, but the result was splendid.
"It does look a bit thin, though."
"Ah, you'll understand once you try it."
"You mean there's a reason you made it this thin?"
"Well... I suppose so?"
Karem trailed off with a questioning lilt, muddying the answer.
In truth, even he didn't really know the reason. Or rather, there probably wasn't one to begin with.
Tarte Tatin was a classic example of a dish born from a mistake. The story went that someone had been trying to bake an apple pie, botched it, had guests waiting and no time left, slapped it together somehow—and to their surprise it was a hit and became famous.
At least, that was how Karem remembered it. And it wasn't exactly wrong.
"How frustrated I was tasting only a single pancake!"
In truth, Alicia wasn't particularly curious. After all, with food—a dessert—right before her eyes, what else could matter more?
She speared the thin tarte with her fork, unable to wait any longer, and let her hand guide the knife. The piece of tarte sliced through without resistance. She lifted it on her fork; thick, sticky caramel sauce slowly dripped from the gap.
A mere (though rather large) single pancake. Before she could even feel unsatisfied, her appetite had been thoroughly teased. Alicia immediately ate the tarte on her fork.
Crunch—
"Hm?"
The moment the tarte touched her tongue and she withdrew the fork—crispness. A texture utterly different from its thoroughly stewed appearance.
But the crisp sensation lasted only for that first instant. Afterward, only the feel of soft pastry, carefully layered and steeped in sweet caramel sauce just as it looked, remained on her tongue.
"It seemed to crunch for a moment there."
Yet as she adapted to the rich caramel aroma, and with each chew the soft, yielding apples and pears and other fruits released their juices, that thought was pushed aside.
Yes—whether it had been an illusion or not hardly mattered. Completely different from what one expected of a "tart," the dessert before her eyes was, save for that first texture, pure softness.
Perhaps because of that softness, before Alicia could savor the taste any further, both flavor and texture vanished like a receding tide.
"It's as though autumn itself has been gathered into a single pan and baked for eating."
"They're a little bruised on the outside, but these are perfectly good fruits harvested just now."
"However, Alicia has one complaint."
"A complaint?"
That was rather shocking. He had some confidence in his skill, so it hit all the harder. From the rather finicky Catherine, or from Mary-who-loves-flour-butter-milk-cream, perhaps—but a complaint from Alicia's mouth?
"This... thin tart. It's too thin, and that is my complaint."
Perhaps because she had just eaten a thick pancake, her mouth and stomach felt not merely teased but downright dissatisfied. Alicia pouted her lips and poked the tarte tatin with her fork. The stewed apple wobbled limply.
"I agree. Karem, this tastes good, but it's so thin it barely feels like I've eaten anything."
"Is that why you're eating it like that right now?"
Gordon nodded and took a big bite of the tarte tatin he had rolled into a lumpy cylinder and speared on his fork.
"Mm. Yeah. Doing it this way, it finally feels like a proper bite."
"Good heavens. To think there was a method of eating it like that."
"Why don't you try it this way too, Lady Alicia?"
"I would have done so even without your saying so!"
Alicia immediately supported the underside with her knife and folded the tarte tatin over and over with her fork. She speared the uneven tarte-tatin roll—bumpy from the fruit—and took a great bite.
Squelch—
"Mmmmh!"
As she chewed the forcibly thickened roll of pastry and stewed fruit, the butter, caramel, and juices that had been absorbed and condensed exploded outward, flooding her mouth.
The satisfaction that only came when her mouth was truly full. The texture that, even if soft, could only be felt after layers had been stacked again and again. And the sweetness that erupted like a flood.
Yes. This was it. Exactly this.
Everything Alicia had wanted was right here.
"Ah, you're not really supposed to eat it that way originally."
"If you try it like this once, you'll change your mind."
"No. I think I can imagine how it feels."
Pastry thoroughly steeped in butter-laden caramel until soft, plus that final bottommost sheet of crisp pastry the caramel never quite reached. Rolled thick and bitten into a full mouthful—there was no way it wouldn't taste good.
"If I eat some too, there might not be enough."
"What? Not enough? Hmm... yeah, there probably won't be."
Gordon looked at the pans resting on the outdoor kitchen shelf, slowly cooling, and nodded.
For an ordinary person, two would already be filling. But the two people seated here did not qualify as ordinary. For two of the biggest eaters in Winterhome, five?
Even twice that would be nowhere near enough. Three times might fill them up.
"Per person, you mean?"
"For me, about that much. The young lady would eat a bit less than me, I suppose?"
"What nonsense!"
Alicia, who had been focused on her tarte-tatin roll(?), flared up as though she had just heard something utterly outrageous.
"How can you say such a thing to Alicia! Or—wait! Clearly Gordon is spouting rubbish so he can snatch Alicia's share and eat it hims—"
"But Lady Alicia, you do eat less than me."
"Alicia has never seen such a thing."
"I have. You ate less than me."
They said men remained boys no matter their age; the sight of a full-grown adult teasing a child was childish in the extreme.
"That said, I won't be making any more for you."
"Eh? Why not?"
At the sudden bad news, Alicia's face went as blank as if she had just witnessed a bolt from the blue—no, as if she had watched the sky itself collapse.
If her blood sibling Robin, only a few years her junior, had been watching, he would have scolded, Is that really something to be so shocked about, you pig?—but to Alicia it was a matter of the utmost seriousness.
Of course, there was a proper reason.
"We still have a little time, but lunch hour is coming up soon."
"Ah."
To be precise, there was still ample time until lunch itself. But factoring in deciding what to make and then actually making it, it was not so ample after all.
Carrying Alicia to the greenhouse. Chatting. Making the tarte tatin. Making portions for Corvus and Flora as well. By the time all that was done, the remaining time would be rather tight—that was Karem's assessment.
"In that sense, these are the last of your shares."
"Hrmmm."
"One each should be enough for Corvus and Flora's portions..."
If that was the case, then even if it was insufficient, Gordon could not very well throw a tantrum demanding more. Insufficient as it was.
Gordon's gaze naturally drifted toward the remaining tarte tatins being neatly plated. Alicia's did the same.
Naturally, the two big eaters' gazes collided in midair.
"..."
"..."
Zing— zing— zing—
By every nickname she knew and every nickname she didn't, Alicia had no intention of yielding. She had fled while still unsatisfied, and just when she thought she could finally eat her fill—she needed to eat even more, if anything.
Gordon, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to yield. If the amount was short, he could simply drop by later and cadge more. Besides, Flora had recently started learning to cook, so he could eat that too. The only reason he was doing this now was simply to tease Alicia.
"Well, you two work out who eats how much."
Karem turned his back on the table and sighed at the mountain of pans.
Anyway, start with Flora and Corvus's portions. With that thought, he took the pans that had held the tarte tatin one by one and set them back on the burners.