Work Text:
Tweek absolutely adored summer. He was perpetually cold, but he loved soaking up the sun's warm rays.
The summer didn’t necessarily agree with him; his pale skin burned super easy, and he avoided bugs like the plague.
But one thing he especially loved about the summer was all the berries that were around.
Tweek loved to cook and bake seasonally, making weekly trips to the local farmers' market to get whatever produce was in season. This was a way to support small local businesses, which, being a small business owner himself, was very important to him.
Cooking seasonally was also an excellent way to get the most out of your produce.
It was also nice because then you didn’t get so tired of the same produce, and it forced him and Craig to try new things.
Craig loved cooking new things, but he struggled a lot with different or unexpected food textures. He also did not like it when his food touched the plate, but another win for the farmers market was that one of the local potters had adult versions of those little kid plates that had designated sections, so that problem was solved.
Craig did most of the cooking, which his mom had taught him when he was young. Laura recognized that her son was very off-putting and had the social skills of a wet carrot, so she wanted to teach him a skill so he would have at least one attractive quality because she knew he wasn’t going to find a wife (or husband) on his own.
Tweek didn’t care, though; he liked all 6’6 of his sarcastic, cranky, blunt, apathetic, and socially inept husband, just precisely the way he was.
Also, Tweek couldn’t cook to save his life. He tried, but his kitchen skills only included breakfast foods and baking. One night, he felt so bad because Craig was having a rough day, and Tweek wanted to make one of his favorite dinners, simple box mac and cheese, but he burned the milk.
After that, Craig agreed to do all the cooking for the house, and Tweek did the grocery shopping because Craig hated the grocery store.
Tweek just made sure to keep the house stocked with plenty of chocolate and sweet treats.
It was a pretty easy task because, on the one hand, Tweek baked when he was anxious. There were many times Craig woke up in the middle of the night to brownies being made because Tweek had a panic attack, couldn’t sleep, and didn’t want to bother Craig. Even though Craig told him every single time to wake him up, he didn’t want Tweek to have to deal with that himself.
Another reason there were always baked goods was that he made all of the baked goods for his coffee shop fresh every single morning. So if there were any leftovers, he took them home to his friends or neighbors of his mom, or he took them to the food bank. He often would bake stuff to take there; he was a firm believer that everyone deserved a treat.
The summer was great because blackberries were in season. One of his favorite things was fresh blackberries. He made all sorts of things with them, including canning a lot of them for jam.
With the fresh blackberries, he made pies, cookies, and different pastries. But his favorite was blackberry cobbler. It was quick and easy and so good.
The only problem was finding people to supply his berries. But he could usually bribe Craig, Stan, Kenny, or any of his friends to pick them for him with the promise of baked goods as a reward.
There were three reasons Tweek wouldn’t pick his berries: the first being that he’s busy working at the shop all day. The second being that, honestly, he didn’t want to. It was way easier to bribe his friends
The final and most significant reason he didn't pick his blackberries was that Tweek was super allergic to bees.
Tweek went into full-blown anaphylactic shock from bee stings. They found that out the hard way in Craig’s backyard when they were kids.
A few years back, he and Craig were picking blackberries, and he got stung. They ended up spending the rest of the weekend at the ER while he recovered.
It saved everyone a big headache just having other people do it.
Today was no different; Craig and his niece, Ruby, were put to work because Craig wanted blackberry cobbler, so Tweek handed him a bowl.
They were out for about two hours and came back with an entire large colander and a giant Pyrex bowl full of plump, juicy berries still warm from the sun.
“Is this enough pumpkin?” Craig said grinning.
“Shut up, oh my god, you two really went above and beyond.” Tweek teased.
Craig set down his bowl on the counter and pulled Tweek into a kiss.
“Ewww,” Ruby said, feigning disgust.
“Of course, your sister taught her to do that,” Tweek said, shaking his head and smiling.
Tweek took the bowls and carefully washed the berries. And measured out eight cups of them into the buttered pan he had sitting on top of the already preheated oven.
He sprinkled a little bit of sugar over the berries before mixing his topping.
He meticulously measured two cups of flour and two cups of sugar and cracked in two eggs, mixing until the mixture was the consistency of wet sand. While he did this, he melted a stick of butter in the microwave.
After topping the berries, he gently poured the butter over the crumble topping and put it in the oven to bake for around 45 minutes.
In the meantime, they watched Ruby’s current favorite movie, KPOP Demon Hunters, which Tweek had to admit was pretty good.
The oven dinged, and Tweek pulled it out after the top was golden brown and the berries bubbled like lava underneath.
While it cooled, Tweek went to the garage freezer to get out the vanilla bean ice cream he had made the night before.
He plated everyone’s dessert and set the table with glasses of fresh-squeezed lemonade.
It warmed Tweek’s heart to see his loved ones so happy. Overall, it was a perfect summer day.