Current Events > Teen Titans CYOA: Romance Resurrected Part 21

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A

From there, you all go to the gift shop.

"I guess the Jungle Book exhibit is a really big deal," Raven says.

Everywhere you look is Jungle Book merchandise, many of it also connecting to the exhibit, "Walt Disney's The Jungle Book: Making a Masterpiece."

"We should get these hooded sweatshirts," Roselind says.

"Yes," Rebecca says. "Why do we have to grow up?"

Rebecca and Roselind show you, and it does read, "Why do we have to grow up?" on the left part of the chest.

"You grow up so that your parents don't have to take care of you anymore," your mother says.

"These are almost $80," you say when you see the price tag.

"So?" your sisters, and even your mother, say.

"I think you two should go on a tour around the world when you're older," you say to your sisters. "You'll learn the value of money when you have to get by on your own."

"I'll buy them the sweaters," your mother says with a smirk.

"Oh, how about this for you, Raven?" you say. "The Nightmare Before Christmas, storybook edition."

"Oooh, yeah!" she says. "Thank you."

Your family also buys a set of Jungle Book Colonel Hathi mugs. They're nothing too special, they just have a nice illustration of Colonel Hathi and the exhibition logo on them.

As your visit winds down, you start thinking about lunch.

A) Go to a restaurant
B) Go to your restaurant
C) Have a homecooked meal

C.

C

C

bump, will try to get this later

C

"How about another homecooked meal at our place for lunch?" you ask the group as you exit the building.

"Really?" your father says. "Aren't you going to get tired of cooking with Christmas so close?"

"Well, seeing as how he opened a restaurant," your grandmother says, "that wouldn't be very professional of him."

You all have a little laugh before returning to the cars, and then returning to your home on Ledyard.

"So what're we having?" Raven asks.

"Well, I need to see what I have in the kitchen," you say.

You get inside the house from the garage, let your parents and grandparents in through the front door, then go to the kitchen while the others relax in the living room.

As you take inventory of your refridgerator and freeze, you see lot of different types of cheese, a lot of different types of meat, and you need to use those up before they spoil.

A) Make burgers
B) Make a pizza
C) Make rice balls

C

bump

C

Pokmon will always make me think of jelly doughnuts instead lol

C

"Alright," you say. "Today's lunch will be rice balls."

"Rice balls?" your sisters say.

"Yes," you say, "known as 'o-nigiri' in Japan. I could use some help preparing some of this."

"Isn't it just rice?" your mother says. "In balls?"

"O-nigiri often have filling," you say. "Meats and vegetables. I need help preparing those, and then in molding the rice balls themselves."

"I can help," Raven says as she floats her way over.

"Thank you," you say.

You dispense four cups of rice, which should be more than enough for the eight of you. You get all of that boiling in one big pot while you hurry to the different fillings.

"We're going to have pork belly with garlic and honey," you say, "negishiodare, and shio kombu cheese."

"Negi what?" she asks.

"Green onions and chicken."

"Oh."

"Here," you say. "I'll help you get started on the shio kombu."

You bring out ingredients, such as soy sauce, mirin, sugar and thin kelp sheets.

"Boil the kelp in all this," you say. "Then mince it up before adding a tablespoon of white sesame seed powder and a teaspoon of sesame oil. You can also cut up this cheese into cubes while you wait before mixing them together. After that, wet your hands in this bowl of salted water and grab the rice to mold it around a few cubes of cheese. Then you just wrap in a bit of the nori seaweed and that's a rice ball."

"Wow, this might be something I can actually make myself," Raven says.

While Raven cuts the cheese, no pun intended, you start on...

A) The pork belly
B) The chicken and onions

A

bump

A

A

You put together two teaspoons of grated garlic, two tablespoons of honey and one tablespoon of sake with 50 grams of miso. You boil pork belly meat in a pot, gradually adding water over a 30 minute period. Then you throw the pork and the garlic-honey mix into a plastic container to season it. Normally, you'd pickle the meat, but that requires having it sit overnight. This will just be a garlic-honey glazed pork belly version.

After the seasoning settles in a bit, you quickly grill up the pork belly and then cut it nice and thin. As for Raven, she's mixing the cheese cubes with the shio kombu blend. Then the two of you both wet your hands with the salt water and start molding rice around the fillings.

"The technique is not to make actual rice balls," you say. "Instead of rolling your hands like with Play-Doh, you instead cup your hands. They'll end up somewhere between a triangle and an oval, but that's the goal. It allows them to sit up on a plate, or in packaging for store bought o-nigiri."

Raven nods as she puts the rice around the cheese and shio kombu. She gets the hang of the triangular shape and has a good layer around all sides of the filling. You help her cut a bit of nori to attach to the rice ball, and that's the first couple of o-nigiri.

"Good work," you say before giving Raven a little kiss on the forehead.

"Thank you," Raven says with a soft smile. "So do you want me to help with the chicken one?"

"Well, yes, we can divide and conquer that," you say. "You can make one mix while I make the other. You take a quarter teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and a whole teaspoon of sake. After that, finely chop up the spring onions."

"Okay," she says.

While Raven sets to work on that, you put a half teaspoon each of grated ginger, chicken bouillon and sugar, as well as a half tablespoon each of sesame oil, sake, and white sesame seed powder all together into a bigger mix. Then you remove the tendons from the chicken breasts and perforate with a fork.

"You got the mix?" you ask Raven.

"Yes," she says as she hands it over.

"Very good. We'll take these heat resistant bowls, and while I rub the chicken with the salt-pepper mix, you take this blend I made and mix it with the onions."

"Okay," she says again.

You rub the chicken down, she blends the onions with the ginger mix, and you wrap the chicken up.

"Microwave that for 90 seconds on the default setting," you tell Raven. "I'll heat this up for three minutes on a gentler setting."

Raven nods and heats the ginger onions. In the wait, you mold another pork belly o-nigiri and set it with the others. The 90 seconds are up, you put the chicken in and change the heat setting before getting it going. In those three minutes, Raven makes more cheese rice balls while you make more pork rice balls. That's seven total by the time the chicken is done heating.

Once the chicken cools down enough, you break the meat up by hand, throw it together with the onions, and do a quick taste test.

"Alright, that's good," you say. "Let's mold some rice balls."

The two of you wet your hands again, mold the rice around the negishiodare, and have your first two chicken-and-onion o-nigiri. After that, it's all about rotating through the three flavors until all the ingredients are used up.

"There's still some rice left over," Raven says as she looks in the pot. "Anything you can do with that?"

"Not something that'd be enough for everyone," you say. "Unless... No, this isn't the right kind of rice for making mochi."

"What? You can't pull some kind of food alchemy?" Raven teases with a smirk.

"Not unless you want mochi that tastes like asparagus," you say.

"Oh, like it'd go that badly," she says. "C'mon, we can give it a try together. Christmas mochi for dessert."

A) Give it a try
B) Pass on experimenting

A.

A

A)

bump, will try to get to this tomorrow but things are really busy this weekend

bump, sorry about not getting to it

ugh I'm too damn busy these days. I swear I will get this.

A

"Well, alright," you say. "If the two of us work together, we might be able to get this right."

You go to the rice and trace an Alchemy circle over it.

"Wow, that's a pretty complex one," Raven says. "Is that... ten rings?"

"This is why food Alchemy is complicated," you say. "All the elements and traits that go into a food item pile up. Here's a quick trick to make it easier to read."

You put a miniature seal on each finger of your right hand, and then grab the rice's seal. You pull up and the circles become a cylinder of ten layers.

"We need to find the layers describing the rice's length and it's stickiness," you say. "Mochi is made from 'mochigome,' a short-grain glutinous rice."

"Right, okay," Raven says.

You and Raven look up and down the cylinder, and you even rotate a few layers.

"Oh, here," Raven says. "Layer four, 'length'."

She rotates that around and points out the section.

"Good eye," you say. "Hmm... Then this should be its value. Obviously, go smaller."

"By how much?" Raven asks. "I can't tell if that's a percentage or a unit symbol."

"Well, I don't think that number is 100," you say, "so don't go with a percentage. Though, I will say mochigome tend to be about three-fourths the size of a normal grain."

"So that'd be 75 percent," Raven says. "What's 75 percent of not even a centimeter?"

"Well, one centimeter is 10 millimeters," you say. "75 percent of that is seven-and-a-half. Let's try that."

"Okay," Raven says.

She takes care of changing the value in that line, and you move on looking for the 'glutinous' element and things like that.

"Oh, there it is," you say. "Hiding on the backside of layer six."

"Obviously just making a number bigger isn't the way, right?" Raven says. "That'd be far too easy."

"Right," you say. "This is going to be more like a puzzle, putting things in a certain order to realign the rice's consistency."

You grab at this line and bring it out to get a better look.

fA5}A

"Oh..." you both say.

"So..." Raven says. "Is this about rearranging things?"

"It could be about rearranging, removing or even repeating," you say. "And we only get one chance."

"Oh..."

A) Rearrange
B) Remove
C) Repeat

B

A

A

"Let's try and rearrange things," you say. "We may only get one chance, but simply rearranging things might be the least risky."

"Okay," Raven says. "But then... What do we move around?"

"Hmm..."

You look the string of symbols over again.

fA5}A

"A lower case F, capital A, the diphthong AE, the number 5, curly bracket, the degree symbol, another capital A, a stylized cross, and possibly the sun."

"Could the fact there are two capital A's be a clue?" Raven asks.

"Hard to say," you say. "It is interesting to see that. With nine symbols, that is just an absurd amount of possibilities. But two symbols that are the same considerably reduces those possibilities, as well."

"Right, a factorial of nine becomes a factorial of eight," she says. "Instead of over 360 thousand, it's just over 40 thousand. But 40 thousand is still pretty absurd."

"It is," you say. "We could put them together, keep them apart, and even then, where? Would they be together at the beginning, the end, or somewhere in the middle?"

"Are you trying to make me feel bad for suggesting to do this?"

"No," you say, "why would I do that?"

You look at the string of symbols again.

A) Put the letter A's together at the beginning
B) Put the letter A's together at the end
C) Use the letter A's to bookend the string

C

bump

C

C

"Well, let's just go for something simple," you say. "We'll bookend the whole thing with the letter A's. That's the furthest apart they can be and it gives... a bare minimum sense of symmetry."

"Okay then," Raven says.

You and Raven work together to pull the letter A's to the ends. She takes the one on the left and that's a bit easier than you taking the one on the right.

Af5}A

You and Raven lock it in, you push the cylinder back down, and the circle takes effect. The rice grains all shorten, but you reach out to test the important part.

"So?" Raven asks as you squish a grain. "Does it feel right?"

"Yes! This is, well, not perfect, but it feels about as close as we're going to get without just buying mochigome."

"So now we can make mochi?" Raven asks.

"Yes," you say. "But that in itself will be a bit tricky. There's an almost game like component where someone bashes the rice with a special mallet, and the other turns it over."

"Oh, interesting," she says. "But sounds a bit dangerous. What if the timing is off and someone gets hit by the mallet?"

"True," you say. "That is a risk of it. But maybe..."

You use Summon circles to make two white rabbits. You have them take the rice as it is inside the pot and they set up on the counter.

"Alright, you two," you say. "As rabbits, you are perfect for the ceremony of mochitsuki, because it's just like the legend of the rabbits making mochi on the moon."

The rabbits salute you back, and then you equip one with the mochi hammer. It has a skinny handle and uneven head so as to reach into the pot. The other is to be the rice flipper.

"Ready," you say. "Bash!"

The first rabbit hits the rice in the pot and it makes a little *tonk* sound.

"Flip!"

The second rabbit turns the rice 90 degrees.

"Bash!"

*tonk*

"Flip!"

There's a barely audible flopping sound as the rice turns over.

"Bash!"

*tonk*

"Flip!"

*flop*

*tonk*

*flop*

*tonk*

*flop*

*tonk*

*flop*

"Aww, so cute," your sisters say as they look into the kitchen.

"Faster, faster," you say to the rabbits.

*tonk*
*flop*
*tonk*
*flop*
*tonk*
*flop*
*tonk*
*flop*

Okay, that's looking good," you say. "Let's get some sugar in there to keep it going."

You shake sugar in before the flip, so it becomes tonk, salt, flip.

*tonk*
*shk*
*flop*
*tonk*
*shk*
*flop*
*tonk*
*shk*
*flop*

"Good, good," you say. "Now for a flavor..."

A) Strawberry
B) Peanut Butter
C) Chocolate

A

bump

A

A

"Let's do a pretty simple one," you say as you go to the refrigerator. "We'll mash up some strawberries and wrap them in mochi."

You put the half a dozen strawberries you have, put them in a big mixing bowl, and with Raven's help, you mash them up and add just a bit of sugar to help with consistency. The rabbits finish mashing the rice into mochi, and you use a tablespoon to scoop the strawberry jam you've made.

"We do roll these into balls, right?" Raven asks.

"Yes," you say. "And then smoosh them just enough to be shaped like macaroons."

"Oh, right, they are a little flat on top," Raven says.

The two of you go as quickly as you can from scooping the strawberry jam into pieces of mochi, rolling them, and then putting them on a tray.

"We'll chill them in the refrigerator until we eat them," you say.

You manage to make 15 good sized mochi, and a sixteenth that's smaller. With there being eight of you, the person who gets the smaller mochi can be seen as some kind of winner.

"Does the winner get something?" your sisters both ask.

"I suppose so," you say. "The winner gets to decide dinner."

Your sisters are happy and they go to the table for the o-nigiri lunch. You and Raven serve the rice balls, and you make sure to get yourself...

A) A pork belly o-nigiri
B) A chicken o-nigiri
C) A cheese o-nigiri

B.

A...

bump

another bump

one more bump

A.

A

... a pork belly o-nigiri. You like that one best. The rest of the family takes an o-nigiri at random. You pour glasses of lemonade and everyone digs in.

"These are rather nice," your mother says. "It's like a meal all compact into one thing."

"Which one did you get?" your father asks her.

"Chicken, I believe," she says.

"The cheese is very good," Grandfather Sixth says. "Very cheesy."

You take a bite of your pork belly o-nigiri and enjoy the tender, honey-glazed meat mixed with the rice.

"I really like the pork belly," Raven says. "It's really juicy."

"Agreed," you say. "It turned out very nicely."

"Is that because you made that one yourself?" Raven asks with a smirk.

The two of you chuckle, and you make sure to get another pork belly for your second o-nigiri.

"Can we do the mochi roulette now?" your sisters both ask.

"Alright, hold on," you say. "Not everyone scarfed down o-nigiri like you two."

You deal out the first eight mochi, and then set the second eight out on a little spinning plate. The little mochi goes around and around, and it lands on...

"Sixth!" you say as your grandfather wins.

"Haha!" he says as everyone else applauds. "So I decide dinner plans, yes?"

"That was the plan," you say.

"Then I want..." he says while thinking. "Something meaty! Steak, bacon, beef. Something to really sink my teeth into."

"And spoil your diet even further," grandmother says with a smirk despite the scolding.

A) Beef Cutlet Donburi
B) "Lavish" Roast Beef
C) Sirloin Steak

B

B

B

"Then how about what I like to call 'Lavish' Roast Beef," you suggest. "It has a wonderful cream sauce made from horseradish, yogurt, anchovies and artichoke hearts. That way it's savory yet healthy. Plus, we put a poached egg on top."

"Oooh," he says. "I do like the sound of that."

"So do I!" your sisters say.

"Well everyone can have a plate," you say. "I have plenty of everything."

With dinner decided, you all eat the mochi and enjoy the sugary strawberry jam inside the sugary, mushy rice paste. Then Raven has a sudden giggle fit.

"What's so funny?" you ask.

She does her best to calm down so she can also finish chewing the mochi to then swallow.

"The strawberry is so red against the rice," Raven says. "It looks like I just bit into some poor little snowball creature or something."

"That's a bit morbid," your mother says.

You look at the mochi, thinking of it that way, and you can't help but smirk while also feeling bad for these imaginary snowball creatures.

"And yet," you say, "it does look like that."

Your mother looks at her own mochi and stifles a snorting snicker as best she can.

After everyone eats up their mochi and the plates are all put away, your parents and grandparents give your and your sisters and even Raven a hug good-bye before returning to the hotel.

"Now for our lazy arts 'n' crafts afternoon," you say.

"Yay~!" your sisters say.

They go to their room and bring out their knitting kits. You bring out your pendulum painting kit and get started on those mandalas.

The assembly required on the pendulum isn't so bad, it's mostly cardboard and string to make a rather small tripod. The paint colors are black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink. Which is perfect, because those are all colors that work for everyone in the group. You decide to start with...

A) Robin
B) Cyborg
C) Starfire
D) Beast Boy

C