Build their own fire? Well, okay. It wasn't that difficult. Her dad had taught her how to light a match up for pranking purposes back when she was at home. Vivi wondered why they couldn't just use a simple Incendio, really. It would've been easier, but that's probably the real reason and essence as to why this class was partly Muggle Studies. She shrugged. This would benefit her outside of Hogwarts, anyway, considering that she was underage.

Vivian went over to take some wood. She looked over at Professor Stewarts's fire, and followed her steps and took five pieces as well. Just to be sure, you know. She went back to her place and arranged them properly. Brrr... it was cold. Seriously. She had to double time a little bit. With a matchbox in hand, she took a match out and lit it. However, the flame didn't last long since a blow of strong wind blew it. She pouted, and tried again. Once the match sparked, she immediately threw it on her pile of wood.

Aaahhhh, fire. Warmth. This was good. Kind of made her forgot her tummy grumbling. Did they have marshmallows to roast after this lesson? Vivi remained hopeful.

Hady saw you little sister Noelle. She sent the younger girl a smile in return before catching the look she got from Professor Stewart. A questioning one really. "It's just a warming charm Professor," she explained with a light smile. You know, to help out the younger ones that were freezing.

The thought of building a fire didn't really faze her to much. It was simple enough really. Gather wood. Stack wood. Light a match. Light the wood with the match. Hence fire. Easy really. What they would be doing after they had made their own little fire she didn't know and really she wouldn't worry about it just yet either.

Getting to her feet she gathered the proper amount needed before returned to her seat. Stacking the five pieces one on top of the other didn't take much time at all. Picking up the matchbox she took out one match and quickly struck it along the side until it caught aflame. With her now lit match in hand she dropped it onto her pile of wood watching as it slowly caught on fire the flames growing until it was burning brightly before her. Not that she really needed it much seeing as she wasn't cold but at least it was pretty to watch for the time being.

Close? Close enough for candy huzzah!

The Curly Top bounded to his feet, beaming at the brunette Professor as he collected the wood and matches to build their fire. Truly he appreciated the shout out Prof.

But although making fire can get this Gryffindor all buzzed over it, the cold can be a powerful motivator, so there Tenacius went moving as quickly as he could, stacking up the wood just as the Professor has demonstrated. Then he paused: Wait wouldn’t they be needing some tinder for this? All the cookouts they had and camping almost always needed tinder to start off with. Hmmm....

The Gryffindor struck the match and held it under the wood pile. The flame was licking the wood pile but it wasn’t catching on. He tried again this time trying to hold the match on top of the wood pile. It would turn the surface of the wood somewhat ashen but that’s just about it.

Eh he just knew he needed tinder.

Tenacius was shaking the matchbox trying to think of ways how to get this started without having to sneakily shoot a spell into his pile. Because pretty Professor wont be happy about that that’s for sure.

Well, he's gonna have to be a bit extra resourceful, so there he goes digging his hand into his book bag and grabbing a parchment that had-- oops doodles-- yeahhhh better burn the evidence hehehhe.

He ripped the parchment into pieces, scrunched them up then carefully tucked the pieces in a few choice places amongst his wood pile. Strike a match, drop it in-- and flame on! Lovely lovely fiery glow now building into stronger and higher flames as the wood pieces have finally started to catch on.

Any and all hope he'd had for this lesson immediately went out the window. Jaemin's expression immediately went sour and, nose wrinkling with obvious disdain, the small Slytherin gave the Muggle Studies professor a LOOK. Again? REALLY?

"It's Song. My name is Song," he said, irritation tingeing his twelve year old voice. It wasn't even the difficult part of his name! It was a word, in English too! It was December already, for Merlin's sake. Surely that was long enough that she could get his name right. "I'm not past tense."

Trying to ignore the annoyed prickling in his skin, Jaemin went about attempting to set his fire. For someone who loved plants and nature, he had never been big on camping and stuff like this... but he was sure he knew enough to get it going. He set up a few logs, then went about shredding a piece of paper, because starting fires was so much easier with kindling. A matchstrike later and the small pile of paper atop one of the logs was burning merrily, slowly but surely spreading its warmth to the logs. Jaemin kept his hands away from it, however, tucking them inside his pockets as he watched the fire grow with a frown.

Sung. Honestly.

"H-hello Profesoor," Kitty answered Stewart's greeting, feeling just a little guilty for not saying hello in the first place. Oh well. Now she had.

They were going to build their own fire - muggle style? Although Kitty had grown up surrounded by muggle items, lighting a fire just wasn't one of the things she had learned. But she knew how to do it from reading about it and watching it done in movies. First Kitty went over to take wood and bring it back to where she was sitting. She gratefully took the matchbox when it was handed to her and immediately tried to light a match. Snap! Oops. "I snapped it." She held up the broken pieces rather dopily, but everyone else was busy making their fire and it didn't seem such a big deal, so she put the pieces on top of the wood (to be burned) and took out another to try again.

Soon a small fire had been started over her wood. The first broken match was the first thing to be devoured by the flame, then the branches and larger wood pieces.

Janelle listened as Professor Stewart explained what they would be doing first. Building a fire. Ok. Maybe they would be brewing a potion by moonlight. So as the professor built a demonstration fire, Janelle took note. She had built a fire without magic before, but she wanted to do it properly........as instructed.



Just then, a word from Echo. Did she want to work together. Janelle turned to the Slytherin with her reply. "I think we're each supposed to make our own fire..........but, that doesn't mean we can't work together." Yeah, this was going to be fun. "I think we'd better go get some wood. We can make our fires right next to each other. That way we can help each other when we need it." Great idea, yeah?

Janelle went up and got some pieces of wood and returned to the spot where she would be building her fire. Hopefully next to Echo. Ready to work, Janelle bent down on one knee and began to arrange her pieces of wood. She peeked up at the professor's arrangement and tried to duplicate it. When she was satisfied, she stood up and surveyed her work. Not bad. Having an idea, Janelle searched around for a couple of small sticks on the ground, making sure they were nice and dry. When the box of matches came around, Janelle took one. Then she struck it against the box until a flame erupted. Moving close to the wood pile, she placed the match against the stick and hoped it would catch. Eventually it did and Janelle placed the stick between the larger pieces of wood. Holding her hair back with her hands, she blew gently until the fire began to spread to the other pieces of wood. Yep, she had a fire. Janelle walked over to Echo and handed her the matches. "Ok partner, it's your turn."

"sounds good to me" she said while making her way over to get some peices of wood. Stacking them like a box her wood was starting to look like a little house. "cool" looking over at some other students they seemed to be putting dry little sticks in the middle of theirs. Echo followed suit and added some to hers.

Echo Watched as Janelle got her going "ohh nice fire Janelle" now it was time for her to light hers. Grabbing a match Echo struck it on the side of the box thingy, like she just saw Janelle do. It caught fire. She placed it carefully and quickly in the middle of her house and it started to burn.

"ohhh fun, that was my first time building a fire" she kind of wanted to do it again. he he he

Moving closer to her newly made fire it instantly started to warm her up. "ohhh thats so much better" nice and toasty.

Though the cold wasn't exactly pleasant, Maddie quite liked being outside in the fresh air. It was a welcome change to the library where she'd been spending most of her free time these days, and not for napping purposes which had been the norm up until now. The added bonus of this being part potions lesson had the brunette feeling quite content and so she went and gathered the wood she'd need and returned to her spot, setting each piece down thoughtfully. Once she had the formation she was sure would work best, she lit a match. The first blew out thanks to the winter wind coming off the lake. Noting this, she used her hand to shield the second match as she lit it, protecting the small flame just long enough to set her wood on fire.

Okay, not the fastest way to warm yourself but it worked.

From the start, Brooklyn hadn’t thought that a joint lesson between Muggle Studies and Potions, out in the cold, was a good idea. Warming charms could only do so much, and nearly every potion they’d brewed lately had some sort of magical aspect to it. That didn’t even count the fact that most potions were just magical in general, aside from maybe healing potions and poisons. Neither of those seemed particularly interesting at the moment. Nor did having to collect firewood by hand and light it with matches, and yet they were being expected to do just that. She’d been half-tempted to try and convince someone else to do the collecting and the rest of the work for her.

Yet, that would have entailed asking for help, and seeing as nobody offered, she ended up taking her time in collecting whatever dry branches she could find amongst the snow and everything else. She even utilized a bit of driftwood, just because it was there and seemed to have been ignored by the others. It would work okay for whatever they were doing. The cryptic hint that they would be making something but not necessarily a potion hardly piqued her interest, either. Instead, she simply cleared a spot on the ground and used a few matches to light a respectable fire, wishing it hadn’t reminded her so much of camping with her grandparents way back when she was tiny. She was perfectly capable. She just preferred using charms to do the work.

Rooney was a fan of the cold. Unless it was cold to the point that his gloves needed gloves and his hat needed a triple layer. He still had no idea what he felt about both of these subjects combined.. Muggle Studies and Potions had very little in common, unless you considered a medicinal view or perfumes. Right? He didn't know what this was going to be about, but...he knew that he wasn't the biggest fan of creating fires by themselves. Were the Professors aware that some of these students were only 11 and matches were definitely not the best thing to be giving to them. Were they really able to supervise all of them at one time? Surely not.

One of them had a lesson on drawing and even let people leave if they didn't want to draw and the other had let Rooney make an absolute fool of himself with that love potion. And for some reason... Professor Stewart seemed to be everywhere that Rooney was. Anything that happened and she was there. All meetings and she was there. She either really enjoyed people knowing who she was or...she was nosy as a brown noser.

Whatever, though. He was too cold to not make a fire and he had plenty of practice with it after camp that summer. PLUS...he was an excellent whittler, so he didn't even need the matches, but matches were the task. So he'd use them. Sigh. The Ravenclaw gathered his wood together into an appropriate shape, crossing some over to stack and shoved a few smaller shavings inside and around the perimeter. Kindling was good for the soul. So was oxygen. Hence the gaps between his wood pieces. A correct strike of the match and his little fire was on it's way.

BURN BABY BURN.

POTIONS INFERNO

Not a huge fan of the cold, Esme was pleased that they would be lighting fires to help keep themselves warm. Obviously heating charms would have done the trick instead, but since this was a joint class involving MUGGLE Studies, it wasn't surprising that they were going down the non-magical route.

She was totally fine with this.

Remembering all the camping trips that she had been on with her family, Esme gathered a few pieces of wood while not really paying attention to the number. The important thing was that it kept her warm. Thank Merlin she knew how to use matches because they could be rather troublesome with the risk of accidentally burning oneself. They didn't scare her since she was used to them what with all the times that she had lit things like camp fires and candles.

Smiling, she stacked the wood and then struck a match. It immediately caught fire and was tossed into the wood pile. Now she just needed to wait for the flames to reach a decent amount and she would be all toasty and warm. She couldn't wait to find out what potion they would be working with today but there were a few ideas that she was entertaining.

Wait they needed to start a fire? Don't mind if I do is what this Slytherin thought. He got together his wood the Professor gave them and the matches he kept close by. It was kind of cold here too. He rubbed his hands to keep them warm. He decided to make his wood pile in the shape of a teepee. He then got scrap parchment from his backpack and put them in the wood pile. The paper helps spark the fire and make it last a little longer. Once he set up his teepee formation after a few countless tries, he got his pieces of paper all in their proper places and then got his matches.

He rubbed it against the sandpaper side of the match box and heard the click. He did it a couple times till he heard a...

Hhhhhhiiiiissssssssss

He heard the hiss of the fire and he put it near the paper and then it went out. Well onto his second one. He rubbed it against the box till he saw the new spark and then he covered it and saw his fire began to be lit. Man this wood must be good stuff. He felt the wave of heat and he waited to learn what they were gonna do next.

It was silly to use a Muggle stick to make a fire when their wands could do it a hundred times more quickly, but Dot was game. Actually, she was warm and comfortable and willing to do things the hard way. For now. Probably why she'd turned her pile of sticks into a piece of modern art rather than a proper fire set-up... but then wood was wood. It would burn however it was stacked, right?

When the matches made their way to her, Dot pulled one out of the box and looked at it doubtfully. "Incendio," she whispered, pointing the match at the sticks, but nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. Sigh. She rubbed it against the edge of the carton, and although it snapped off in her hand, the second match lit quickly. Dot dropped it on her sculpture and hoped it would light up.

OOC: Fårikål is the name of the stew, and it's pronounced as forrycall

Art was oblivious to the cold looks from the students, and he smiled jovially at all of them as they came down to the lake. He was very excited about this! And he stood back, listening and watching as Kay demonstrated the fire building aspect of the class. He walked around to make sure nobody was about to set something they shouldn't be on fire, and to see if anyone needed help. The fires lit up around him, and it was nice and warming.

Once the fires had been lit, he wheeled the very large, charmed esky out to the middle. And another pile of things in a very heavy crate. "Now, I bet you're all getting hungry?" he asked them. "We're not going to be m-making a potion but a meal! For dinner! I always found cooking to be a-a good practice for uhh... for potion making. You need to-to measure the ingredients, and follow a recipe, and time it. So, we're going to be making Fårikål, which is a-a traditional Norwegian dish, and Damper, which is an Australian's Bushman bread!" he was happy. Food from his homeland, Norway, and bread that they could cook in the embers.

Setting up

He went to the fire Kay had built and set up his cauldron on a tripod. "I have enough of these tripod stands to go around," he said. The extended length ones. They didn't want the cauldron to be IN the flames, after all. And then he dug a small hole in the ground, near the fire. He got back up and handed all of the students a recipe card for both of the recipes they would be making today.

Gathering ingredients

Art reached into the esky and pulled out one of the many crates of ingredients, which he and Kay had organised. He held it up to the class. "In each crate is approximately the right weight of ingredients, but you'll need to-to double check. Keep the leftovers aside because we'll give them back to the kitchen when we're done." No waste. "There's ingredients for both dishes in here. Just keep the damper ingredients aside for now."

Preparing the Fårikål

SPOILER!!: Fårikål Recipe Card

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 2 ½ kg lamb on the bone cut into 3cm slices OR a meat alternative for vegetarians
• 2 green cabbages
• 500ml water
• Salt + pepper

Method

1. Cut the cabbage into quarters down the core and cut each quarter into 3-4 wedges (keeping part of the cabbage core intact on each quarter, to hold it together).
2. Pour the water into the cauldron.
3. Place a layer of meat/vegetarian protein, then a layer of cabbage into the pot, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.
4. Repeat this layering process until you have used up all the ingredients. The final layer on the top should always be cabbage.
5. Cover with cauldron lid.
6. Cook for 1 hour until the meat is tender.
7. Serve with damper and juices from the bottom.

"We'll get started on the Fårikål first! If there are any v-vegetarians or... or vegans, we have some... some," he went to the esky, "Tofu, and assorted legumes for you to-to use instead of the meat. Just put the lamb back in here and get what you prefer to use."

He set up his little area, pulling out a chopping board, a knife, his scales, and measring cups.

On the chopping board went the lamb, and Art started to cut it up, into about 3cm slices. He weighed it until he got to 2.5kg and put the rest back into the bag. "Meat done, we move onto the cabbage. Now we need to k-keep the core attached to each slice. Because we don't want a sloppy cabbagey stew." He demonstrated by cutting the first cabbage in half, starting across the core, and then each half into two, and then each quarter into three. "Then we measure our water," which he did. He measured 500ml from the water bottle, into a measuring cup, and put the bottle back into his crate, to use in the damper. "Now we put it all together! The water goes into the cauldron first, then we do a layering process. A layer of-of meat, or vegetarian protein, then a layer of cabbage, and then a sprinkle of pepper and salt. Repeat until everything is uesd up, and make sure you finish with a layer of cabbage on top." He demonstrated this as he finished with a layer of cabbage, which was then sprinkled with pepper and salt. "And now we cover it with our cauldron lids. I have pl-plenty of spares. And time it for an hour." He set his little timer.

Preparing the Damper

SPOILER!!: Damper Recipe Card

Ingredients (Serves 4-6)

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup water

Method

1. Add salt to flour.
2. Add 1/4 cup water.
3. Mix and form into a round loaf.
4. Dig a foot-deep hole near a fire and add 2 shovels of hot coals and ash.
5. Add damper mixture to a camp oven (traditional cast iron round pot with lid).
6. Cook for 40 minutes.

"And for the damper, we just get our cast iron pot, there's plenty over here," which he showed the class. A nice round pot which would fit into the hole he had just made. "Into the pot we put all of the ingredients and we mix it with our hands." He measured the cup of flour, and the water, and added a pinch of salt. His hands went into the gooey dough and started to mix it all together, and then formed into a round loaf. "We keep the-the dough in the pot, and put the lid on. And this will cook IN our hole," he said with a big grin. How great! He got a little metal shovel and added two lots of the hot coals and ash to the bottom. "The hot coals and ashes from the fire that-that YOU built will go in-into the b-bottom of the hole, then your cast iron p-pot on top, and then we let it cook." He did all of this and set his timer for 40 minutes. It was going to be a while to wait for food, but they had some snacks. He pulled out a big bag of marshmallows from the esky, found a long stick on the ground, poked it through the marshmallow, and roasted it.

SPOILER!!: A break down of your tasks/OOC bits

• Build a fire
• Put your cauldron over the flames with the extended length tripod, for cooking the Fårikål.
• Dig a little hole in the ground, which will be for cooking the damper.
• Gather the ingredients, and cook the Fårikål over the fire in your cauldron.
• Gather the ingredients, and cook the Damper in the cast iron pot.
• Have some marshmallows by your fire.
• We're going to eat as a group, so just RP up to that point.
• Clean your equipment the Muggle way! Water from the bottles can be used and rags have been provided.

Excuse the MEGA post, I just want it all out there so that you can get on with it in your own time without waiting for us to post.
You have approximately 48 hours with this activity and then we will move on.
There is no post limit for this, but have a look here for a 'guide' as to what we're looking for.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact myself or Ali. <3

Food! That sounded great to Olly. He knew that he was going to get hungry really soon, even if he was feeling fine right now. It meant that the potion - er, dinner - would be done right about when he most wanted it. Hopefully. He went to get a tripod stand from the professor and set it up above his fire. It was pretty cool. He had sort of been wondering how exactly they were going to be able to make a potion, but it all made sense now. The digging of the hole was not completely clear but he supposed it would be eventually. Everything always had a reason. His job was just to follow the rules, and he was usually fine with that. So he dug the hole.

Alright, now it was time to actually make the potion. Food. Why were they making food again? This was potions class, not cooking class. Oh well, Olly didn't care, he was getting food out of it. Food that he couldn't pronounce, but food nonetheless. He took the ingredient crate, and then took out all of his supplies. Scales and other measuring equipment were the most important at the moment because he needed to make sure he had the right amount of ingredients. And a chopping board, that was very important too because it was time to chop the cabbage.

He cleaned his knife with a quick "Scourgify," and started chopping. Quarters and then wedges. He got four wedges out of most of the quarters, but only three out of some of the others because the sizes of the quarters were not exactly uniform. He repeated the process for the second cabbage. And he had to cut the meat too. He put that on the cutting board and cleaned his knife again. He cut it into slices, doing his best to get each of them as close to 3cm as possible. At least if it wasn't exact, it wouldn't matter as much in cooking as it could in potion making.

Next was putting water in the cauldron. That seemed easy enough. Olly took out his wand and was about to cast the spell when he saw the professor using a water bottle. Sure enough there was one in his ingredient crate. He raised his hand. "Sir, why can't we just use aguamenti?" That's certainly what he wanted to do, but since the professor didn't, he wasn't going to either. He cleaned his measuring cup - "Scourgify." - and measured out 500 mL from the water bottle to pour into his cauldron.

Fårikål? What exactly was Fårikål?

Hadleigh blinked several times at Art when he told them this is what they would be preparing today. It was no potion she had ever heard of before that was sure. Probably because it wasn't a potion at all but a stew.

They were going to be making food. Well erm alrighty-o then. That was sort of like making potions being as directions needed to be followed in order to prepare the meal properly. Something like this should've been expected really since it was a joint lesson with muggle studies.

Listening quietly to what all had to be done Hady accepted the recipe card before rising to her feet and heading over to where the crates were. She gathered herself everything she would need for the meal having to make two trips just so she wouldn't end up dropping anything. Once back at her own little 'work station' she laid everything out around her making sure she did in deed have what was needed. When it was all in order she pulled out her wand and cast a very well placed 'scourify' on everything she would be using and then on her hands as well. Things had to be clean.

First she laid out her meat potion on the clean cutting board. Taking her knife she carefully began to slice the lamb into roughly 3cm slices until she had as close to the 2.5kg that was required. What remained went right back into the bag. Putting the sliced lamb onto a clean plate she then re-cleaned both the cutting board and knife. Now it was time to cut the cabbage. This took a few moments as it needed to be sliced down the middle in half but at the same time she had to make sure the core remained intact while doing so. Then each half was cut in half again and then those halves were then sliced into wedges of three of four. It wasn't to difficult once she got going.

Next came the water. Hady took the water bottle from the crate and measured out 500ml into the measuring cup. Into her cauldron it went. Now to layer her ingredients for the Fårikål. A layer of lamb was laid over the water and then a layer of cabbage followed by a sprinkle of both salt and pepper. These steps were repeated a few times until the top layer was cabbage. She then placed the cauldron lid on top of it. Perfect.

Hady then once more used 'scourgify' on her hands and all her supplies before putting away everything she wouldn't be needing for the next part. This was mainly to get it out of the way and to cause less confusion. Once she had that finished she carefully went about setting up her tripod over the flames of the fire she had build earlier. It only took a couple of moments to get it set up right and to make sure it wasn't wobbly or loop-sided at all. Lastly the full cauldron was set on top of the tripod of the flames of the fire she had built before she set her small timer for one hour exactly.

And now that her Fårikål was all prepared and cooking it was time to move on to the Damper.

The Slytherin heard the Professor mention they were going to cook? Wait a minute he thought potions was about making well ya know potions and not food? He scrunched his nose when he heard the name of the dish. He wasn't much for trying new things. He was never an adventurous eater. Well he knew one thing for sure he wasn't going to eat it. Plus the name Fårikål sounded weird enough. So now he needed a tripod? He shrugged and grabbed a tripod from the potions professor. He tried to set it up over the fire and it fell every time. He dug some holes near the fire to keep the tripod in the sand. There perfect. Now he saw the ingredient card for this dish that he would have a tongue twister saying it. He observed and read it over.

It didn't sound so bad once he knew the ingredients and he saw there was going to be cabbage. He scrunched his nose and he didn't like cabbage. He could hear his mother nagging him, "You won't even taste it.." Lies woman. Lies. He saw the Professor show them how the task was done and he wa intrigued. He thought it was interesting. Now onto cleaning his cauldron so she could work on it.

"Scourgify!" he said and his cauldron was squeaky clean. He measured out the water 500 ml and then went onto cutting his ingredients.

Time to actually make the food. That was the part Olly was looking forward to, not just preparing. Preparing the ingredients had made him a bit hungry. Technically the part he was most looking forward to was when it was done cooking and time to eat, but since he couldn't just skip to that art the preparation and cooking had to be completed first. He took a slice of the meat and placed in in the bottom of his cauldron, then he laid a layer of cabbage over that. Finally he sprinkled salt and pepper over both of them. He did it again. Meat, cabbage, salt and pepper. He kept repeating it until there was nothing left to use. His final layer of cabbage went on top and he finished it off with a bit more salt and pepper.

So far it looked like it was going to be pretty good. Olly wasn't sure how he felt about so much cabbage, but he didn't mind it too much. He liked food in general and wasn't very picky about what he ate. Especially when he was hungry. And he was getting there. He closed the lid on the cauldron and set the timer. Exactly one hour. That was a long time to wait, but at least he would be kept busy making the bread.

they were going to be what?! cooking?! Oh no no no... Miranda didn't cook... She had never even made toast let alone make some weird Norweigian food! she folded her arms across her chest. She wasn't just chilly she was unwilling to even think of doing what the professor had instructed the class to do.

Ohh!! They were going to be cooking! Azura LOVED to cook! Well, she loved to bake, but cooking was pretty much the same thing. A recipe, ingredients, and it all came together in the end! Though it was on a stove and not in an oven! She was super excited about this though, and she paid careful attention to what she needed to do!

First, she walked over to get one of the tripod stands, she totally knew why they needed these, to keep the heat even so everything would cook well. It's why she usually placed the things she was baking in the middle rack of the oven, even heating on all sides.. Though of course, stew was different from cake!

She took the stand, and set it up over her own fire, poking at the flames a bit to make sure it was going to be able to heat her stew evenly.. Once she was satisfied with how the flames were.. She put her cauldron on the ground though.. She would put it on the heat when it was ready..

She then dug a little hole by her fire.. and wiped her hands.. There!

Now she went to go get the ingredient for the stew! Whew.. The uhh.. crate was kind of heavy! She took it back to her fire, and then moved back towards the Professors to get a few more pieces of wood! She wanted to make sure that her fire didn't go out! She didn't want a half baked stew of course!

There! She made it back to her spot, put the extra wood next to her cauldron.. All right! Cooking time was next!

Oh wow, Echo thought that this joint class was going to be so easy. Guess again, this stuff was hard and plus they had to do muggle things the muggle way and COOK!!! Shes never cooked anything in her life, making sandwiches totally didn’t count…. Did they?

The fire burning nicely Echo grabbed one of those tripod things and put if over her fire. She was being extra careful and she made sure that it was directly in the middle. Well look at that her first thing she needed to do, was fairly easy….. what came next didn’t seem so. Echo had to dig a hole… ewwwwww… She didn’t want to get her fingers in the dirt!! Looking around for something that she could use to dig she spotted a fairly large stick. ”yesss” she said while going to pick it up. Moving closer but not too close Echo started with the stick to dig her hole… she was curious on how big the hole needed to be but once she thought it was big enough she stopped, but laid the stick near the hole in case she needed it again.

Looking back at her list she now had to gather the ingredients for the thing she was cooking and she wasn’t going to try to pronounce it. There seemed to be so many things, 2 ½ kg lamb on the bon… ohhh she spotted that first and put it in her basket, she saw the measuring cups for water, she can just use Agumenti for that… little things of salt and pepper…. And last thing she grabbed was the 2 green cabbages. Looking back down she had all the ingredients that she needed.

Cooking, alright as long as she didn’t burn or cut or hurt herself she would be okay right?....

The Cabbage seemed to have a lot of instructions but she followed it to a tee and she moved it off to the side… waiting for the water. Grabbing the measuring cup and her wand she used the spell to make sure that she had 500ml of water. Once it was at the limit Echo stopped the flow and poured the water into the cauldron.

Echo took the meat and salt and peppered everything along with giving the cabbage a nice salt and peppering too. She started to place everything into the Cauldron. First that went in was the meat, then she placed some cabbage…. Then she continued her layers under all meat and cabbage were used up… water was almost up at the top too.

Bending over she grabbed the lid and covered it quickly… well so far so good. She was actually surprised how well she was doing. Her list said that it needed to be cooked for an hour!!! How long were they going to be down here for??? Sitting on the ground near her fire to keep warm she sat and waited for the food to be cooked.


Time to wait an hour.

Stew. They were making stew and bread. Maddie wasn't particularly fond of cooking, though when she did cook, she liked to think of it as being similar to potions, too. Still, she would've much preferred brewing something that would be useful to her in the future. It wasn't like she was going to be making this again.

Once instructions had been given and the brunette was sure she was clear on what they were meant to do, she stepped away from her small fire to procure herself a stand for her cauldron. It would've been wise to set these up before their fires had been lit, if you asked her, so she really took care not to burn herself as she placed it over the flame. Taking out her dragon hide gloves, she tested the legs of the tripod by shaking them a little, wanting to be sure they'd hold. With a satisfied nod of her head, she then set her cauldron in place. There, that was one step done. "Scourgify." And now she could move on.

Digging a hole wasn't exactly easy given the temperature outside and Maddie found herself warming the dirt beside her fire with her wand before even bothering to try. It delayed her only a few minutes, really, and once the ground was warm, she made quick work of making herself a hole. Mentally checking that off the list, she cleaned her hands and went off to retrieve a crate full of ingredients.

Seriously? They had to make their own fire? Scarlett sighed. She knew the whole point of Muggle Studies was to do things the muggle way and everything, but it was, quite frankly, exhausting most days. She took the box of matches and continued building her fire out of the kindling as the professor began to explain what they were doing. They were cooking some sort of Norwegian dish? Uh, ok, sure. This couldn't have been done INSIDE?

She lit the match and tossed it on her sticks, and a few seconds later the little fire she'd made had become engulfed in the flames. Good, that part had been easy! Now she had to get started on this cooking thing. This food better be DELICIOUS and make freezing outside worth it!

She took her cauldron, which she had thankfully cleaned before she came down for the lesson so she didn't have to do it the muggle way, and placed it on her fire using one of those tripod things. Now she had to dig a hole? She decided to just use her hands - she had gloves on already - and dug a little hole in the ground. She eyeballed the ones that her classmates were making and tried to make them around the same size...since it hadn't been specified, this would just have to do!

Kitty became interested when she heard they were going to be cooking. Back at home, Kitty's mom had taught her how to cook using a muggle made stove. It was kind of cool, but Kitty had only used it a few times and that was years ago. (The stove was just one of the many muggle inventions they had collected in their large mansion.) But cooking over a pit was not something Kitty had experience with. Unfortunately, the only other time Kitty had been this close to a cauldron not being used for making potions was last year when Ursula the Hag had tried to eat them all during their first and only Divination lesson that term. But she was willing to give it another chance.

First she took the ingredient list ("Thank you Professor") and read through it. Yummy. Then she went over and retrieved a tripod for her cauldron. It reminded her of a telescope that she had seen in a Muggle movie, because the telescope was also on top of a tripod.

At that moment Kitty began developing a runny nose. GAA!! It must have been brought on by how cold she had been. That would not look good. Kitty pulled her scarf up over her face to block anyone from noticing. UGH!

It helped that the professor had couched the cooking as a potions lesson, because Dot was very good at potions and very bad at cooking. Was there really a correlation between the two, or was the professor being generous? If it was just chopping and measuring and stirring, then Dot should be a master chef in the making.

She found that hard to believe, though.

Prep work first, then, and she'd shove down her doubts in the meantime. Dot gazed into her cauldron, wondering if it was really safe to cook FOOD in it. They were allowed to use cleaning charms, right? No one had said otherwise... She gave her cauldron a good scrub out with a flick of her wand before moving on to set up the extended length tripod. Must be needed to get better distance over the fire for their... fancy... stew. Strange that it needed height instead of just lowering the flame, but since Dot wasn't a cook, she'd trust the good professors for now.

Once the tripod was set up, she hung the cauldron on it and let the entire thing get warm. She had a hole to dig, and this was another task that Dot really didn't want to do by hand. Dirt was her least least favorite thing, especially if they were about to cook and eat a meal. Hand-washing didn't seem readily available out here... But she didn't want to get herself into trouble by pressing the professors' better natures. With an exaggerated sigh, Dot set about digging her hole by hand. Well, okay, she had a trowel thingy, but still. No magic.