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Remus is bouncing around the common room, bored out of their mind. Did they want to draw? Tell Patton about the best tarantula species? Start a fight with Roman? Flip every chair upside down? Remus just couldn't find something fun to do! Logan was sitting at the table, filing minor facts while Remus reeked havoc for the last hour. Logan decided that he wanted a break and Remus seemed to be very worked up, so he thought maybe a shared activity would be agreeable. “Hey Remus, would you like to make a pie?”
Remus turned to Logan surprised by the sudden question. “Sure” Remus said, skipping over to Logan at the table, “Yogurt pie?” Remus offered while smiling maniacally. Logan raised an eyebrow “lemon meringue.” Logan rose from his chair and walked toward the kitchen. Remus followed excited for something to screw up. Logan turned to Remus as they entered the kitchen, “Remus before we begin I would like to propose a compromise.” Remus wasn't thrilled to hear whatever rules and restrictions Logan had to lay down. “Remus I know you have, well, peculiar tastes but I would like to share this pie with the others. So in place of substitutions or additions to my recipe I will provide you with an entire set of food colours that you may add into whichever parts of the recipe you choose, additionally you may end your participation at any point that you no longer feel this activity is engaging for you . Does that sound agreeable?” Remus thought it over for a moment and decided that he wasn't stuck finishing it once it got boring so he would accept the terms of Logan's pie making. “No deodorant? I think I can do that. But its gonna look like shittttttt.” Logan shook his head in agreement, he knew this would be the oddest looking pie he had made but the point was the activity not the end point.
Logan pulled out a set of mixing bowls and a bag of flour. Logan then recalled his notebook and turned to the page labelled ‘lemon meringue pie’, “Remus, can you get the butter from the fridge?” as Remus retrieved the butter Logan set his notebook into a book holder and began measuring the flour into one of the bowls. Remus put the butter on the counter as Logan pulled a cutting board and knife out, Logan cut a chunk off the block, set it aside then stated “First, wash your hands, then cut the larger chunk of butter into about 1 inch chunks.” Remus responded “So like eye ball size?” Logan nodded accepting that Remus was trying, in his own way, to make sure he was following instructions. Logan retrieved the sugar as Remus violently chopped the butter, sending a hunk flying at Logan, hitting him in the hip.
Logan looked at the lump on the floor and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Pfft” Logan giggled lightly and set the sugar down. Reaching back into the cupboard and produced a small colourful box, “The food dye, as promised.” As Logan handed the box to Remus, he took the eviscerated butter from Remus and dumped it into the flour bowl, adding a pinch of salt and some sugar. “ you may add whatever colours you wish at this point, then would you squish the butter into the flour until you have pea sized pieces.” Remus looked to the box in his hand and pulled the blue dye out and squirted a fair amount out into the bowl. When pea sized blue chunks were achieved Logan pulled a small bottle of vodka out of the freezer and set it on the counter as he got some cold water from the sink. Remus spotted the bottle and snatched it, Logan turned to see Remus begin chugging the vodka, “Remus! Put that down for a moment.” Remus sneered at Logan but lowered the bottle having already drank a third of the bottle. “I just wanted a little sippy!” Remus whined as he tried to ignore how painfully cold the vodka was. Logan was glad he only needed a tablespoon or two and mixed half water and half vodka and alternated pouring some in the bowl and mixing until the pie dough came together. “ logan took a swig of the remaining vodka and handed the rest to remus. Remus added milk and some peppermint syrup to the bottle and downed it. Logan wrapped the disk of dough and placed it in the fridge. “Okay, that needs to rest for about an hour, would you like to watch a deep sea documentary while we wait?” Remus didn't say a word and launched himself toward the couch with Logan walking over behind him.
About two hours later Remus had fallen asleep leaning against Logan, as the documentary ended Logan contemplated putting on another show rather then wake the ball of chaos that looked so peaceful at the moment. Logan decided the pie must be finished and slowly got up letting Remus softly fall to the couch cushion. Logan turned the oven to 425°, pulled the dough out and rolled it to the specified size. Placing it in the pie plate and waiting on the oven to finish heating up he looked to the doorway and saw Remus rubbing sleep from his eyes and a chunk of hair sticking up at an odd angle. “Did I fall asleep?” Remus looked to Logan and remembered they were making pie. “I was gonna come wake you in a moment to ask if you’d like to add a specific colour to the lemon filling.” Logan didn't wait for a response and began gathering all the components for the filling. “What’s next teach?” Remus wandered over to Logan and looked at the pile of stuff. “I need a saucepan, we measure everything out into the pan” Remus found the pan while Logan zested a lemon. Upon Remus placing the pot on the counter Logan began dumping the zest, juice, water, starch, and sugar.
Remus looked over Logan's shoulder and grabbed the set aside butter, tossing it into the pot and splashing some out of the pot. “Ok last thing is the egg yolks. Remus do you want to stick your hands in egg?” Remus grinned “I’d love to, dork.” Logan cracked all 4 eggs into a clean bowl and let Remus scoop the yolks out with his faintly blue hand. Logan looked to Remus “Please wipe off your hands so as to not spread egg whites everywhere, Then pick the colour” Logan found a whisk while Remus wiped his hands on his shirt and added some blue, turning the filling a ugly green as Logan stirred it to break the yolks. Logan set the pan aside on the counter as he put the pie crust in the oven. Logan set a timer and turned to Remus “We have ten minutes to wait, which was your favourite sea creature?” Remus lit up and began rambling about how he had no favourite and they were all so creepy. The timer went off, Logan pulled the crust from the oven and took a pastry brush and a new egg and coated the entire crust placing it back in the oven.
Logan turned back to the uncooked filling and placed it on the stove top turning the heat to medium, whisking slowly as he and Remus continued to converse about which is a better cephalopod, squid or octopus. As the filling got to the correct thickness Logan took it off the burner and placed it onto an unheated burner, as to focus on the crust again. Logan pulled the crust out of the oven, now golden brown, and placed it on another unheated burner. Logan turned to Remus, “Remus can you pour the filling into the crust without spilling?” Remus looked back to Logan with the look of someone who's been caught in the act. While Logan was focused on the crust Remus had scooped some of the filling into a bowl and added black food colour to it. “Sure thing, dweeb.” Remus poured the main green portion into the crust then poured the black into random spots and got a fork out to swirl the black around making a marbled pattern, Logan took the warm pie and tapped it on the counter to level the top some more. “We need to make the topping, which is an Italian meringue. I’ll make the sugar syrup if you beat the egg whites.” Logan procured another pan and instructed Remus to add a small squirt of lemon juice and whisk until he had a semi soft foam. “So what you’re saying is that I get to beat the shit out of these unborn children? Sweet!”
Remus was smiling a little too wide for Logan's comfort but he decided to just focus on the sugar syrup. “Logan doesn't meringue usually have cream of tarter?” Logan wasn't expecting such a well informed question and allowed a small smile to form on his face “You’re right Remus, meringue uses an acid to help stabilize the foam. I use lemon juice in this application because it adds some lemon flavor to the topping.” Remus added some red food colour then furiously beat the egg whites splashing some onto the floor but mostly keeping his sloshing mess contained. Logan heated the sugar and water until it turned clear then put a candy thermometer into the burbling liquid, waiting for the temperature to be in the right area. Remus had finished whipping the egg whites just as Logan's syrup got to temperature.
“Now is the slightly more complex portion. I need to slowly pour this hot syrup into the egg whites while you keep whisking. After that we need to keep beating it till it cools to near room temperature. The bowl will get quite warm, I would suggest you place the bowl onto a surface that should allow you to hold only the upper edge” Remus grabbed the towel from the oven handle and wet it in the sink, placing it on the counter and placing the bowl on top. “Ready” Remus started whisking again as Logan poured a small stream of hot liquid. Remus whisked for a few minutes more until he got bored. Logan took over the whisking with zero hesitation, he was going to stick to his word. Remus was free to leave at any moment. As Logan continued whisking Remus wandered into the common room and sprawled himself onto the couch.
Remus yelled from his spot on the couch “How long does it take to cool?” Logan ducked his head through the doorway “Somewhere around twenty minutes, it’s cool enough now to handle the bowl. Do you wish to return when it is room temperature? Because of the nature of meringue you can shape it in some interesting patterns.” Remus grunted in response and laid there, imagining octopus and other sea creatures roaming around the room until he heard Logan call him back to the kitchen. “Ok, meringue is cooled I’ll let you shape it into whatever pattern you wish.” Remus took the bowl and spatula and formed the pink fluff into an cartoon octopus on top of the pie, making sure to get to all the edges like Logan instructed. Once the octopus was complete Logan was unsure if he wanted to hand a torch to Remus and decided he would toast the meringue himself rather then risk the entire mindscape being set ablaze. As Logan finished toasting Virgil popped up sitting on the counter, “I smell marshmallows!”
“Why hello Virgil, what you are smelling is meringue and the pie is not done until it has cooled for at least a few hours, so please refrain from sullying the counter while we're baking, “I HELPED!” Remus shouted from where he was standing off to the side, Virgil hadn't seen him and jumped back smacking his head on the cabinet. “I'm out.” Virgil sank down disappearing from the kitchen. With Virgil's short visit over, Logan placed the pie in the fridge.
Several hours later Logan called all the sides to the kitchen to present the pie.