A few minutes after leaving, Ranma casually walked back into the dojo with a few books.
During that time Akane had slowed down her attempts to nab rice grains to do a little thinking. Coincidentally in her lazier efforts to nab the rice grains she’d actually managed to almost get one into the cup.
Having calmed down a little with her thoughts, Akane smiled at Ranma and patted her lap. “Here, come lay your head down here.”
Staring briefly, Ranma shrugged and picked up his chopsticks. After pausing to pick up a few grains of rice and flick them into the cup to clean the floor a bit, he sat down and experimentally laid his head in her lap.
Lap Pillow was something he knew about of course, one of those special little things a girl could do guy, a fair bit more tame than Naked Apron at least. Until Akane finished her training though, he was definitely going to draw the line at her pulling out an ear pick.
Still, the contented smile she gave him as he glanced up at her was worth it.
After the strangeness of the moment passed, Ranma began reading his book and Akane casually returned to picking up rice grains.
Nabiki at one point came in, intent on teasing the couple. On seeing Akane in a bunny maid outfit picking up some invisible little things with chopsticks while lap-pillowing a book reading Ranma, she quietly turned around and left.
About an hour later Akane had an announcement that surprised Ranma since he expected to get through his book first. “I’m done with what I can reach Master Ranma.”
Looking around, Ranma realized they still had most of the day. “Okay then, you wanna learn how to cook today?”
Heart thumping, Akane certainly hadn’t expected for Ranma to actually encourage her to cook, much less actually go through the effort of teaching her. “Yes!”
Popping up into the sitting position, Ranma waved at the floor with his book. “Then grab the ones that got away.”
Wanting to get to something fun, Akane went for the nearest grain of rice only to once again send it skittering away.
At that point Ranma had some training wisdom for her. “You know why you have to pass this to cook, right? You gotta have control. Just calm down and take your time.”
Sighing as Ranma went back to reading his book, the bunny maid took a deep breath to relax herself. Although it was fewer grains to hunt down and capture, moving them all the way to the cup took a lot more effort since she had to move while holding the grain. Still, it only took her another twenty minutes to finish gathering them all up. “I’m done.”
Keeping his page in his book, Ranma closed it up to give Akane his attention. Pausing to gather up the supplies, he led her back to the kitchen. Once there he consulted with Kasumi about what she would be cooking and what veggies she needed prepared.
With his list of targets, Ranma gathered a knife, cutting board and a carrot. After prepping the carrot by trimming the ends and peeling it, Ranma set about demonstrating basic knife usage to his student. Tucking his fingers in, he patted the side of the knife blade against his knuckles. “Hold the veggie like this so you don’t cut your fingers, you actually wanna keep the side of the blade touching your knuckles.”
Holding the carrot in place, he slowly sliced through the carrot. “Put a little downward pressure and then slice forward. Just let the knife do the cutting and gently press down on it. Line up the next slice so you get even pieces.”
Then just like that he put the knife down on the board and stepped aside. “Okay, do it slowly, step-by-step, just like I showed you.”
Swallowing deeply at the idea of a mishap with a sharp object or simply failing and embarrassing herself, Akane reluctantly tried holding the knife and carrot as ordered. To her surprise, once she tried it, it actually made a bit of sense. The flat of the blade was so wide it actually let her know exactly where the knife was by feel with her knuckles acting as a safe guard. Actually slicing the carrot was amazingly easy, but left her with one question. “How do I get the carrot to move?”
“Ah.” Realizing he hadn’t covered that little bit, he supposed she hadn’t figured it out on her own. “Just use the heel of your hand to slide it forward without moving your knife or fingers. There’s a few hidden arts that work like that too.”
Realizing how easy it was to actually slice a carrot up, partially because the technique she learned kept her going slowly due to wariness of the blade, Akane felt like she’d just learned a secret technique. She knew enough to know this wasn’t quite how Kasumi chopped up carrots either, causing her to wonder where Ranma had learned it.
The truth however was much simpler. Kasumi had learned to cook from her mother, so she knew the family recipes and the techniques that went with those recipes. Like Ukyou with Okonomiyaki, she was very good with what she knew and didn’t have much need to learn anything new.
Ranma on the other hand learned almost everything from books, although a lot of his actual techniques were applied martial arts practice. He knew some basic recipes, how to tweak them for his taste, and most importantly for Akane, he knew all the standard cooking techniques. He’d never actually used the knife technique he’d taught Akane before, but knew that was exactly what she needed to learn to make progress.
Nodding happily at Akane to acknowledge her progress, Ranma peeled and prepped another carrot for her. That he did it with his bare hands instead of using a knife was not lost on Akane.
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(Posted Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:06)
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