Participants:
| Scene Title | Where Hae All the Foodies Gone? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A grocery store in Manhattan yields some new acquaintances |
| Date | January 9, 2011 |
Manhattan Grocery Store
Late morning is the best time to buy groceries in Bradley Russo's opinion. Actually, that's not entirely true. Early morning is the best time to buy groceries, BUT late morning is an adequate second. Earlier customers get the best pick of produce, the best pick of herbs, the best cuts of meat, and the best pick of the day's spices.
Whistling Teenage Dream while he works, the host grasps a single apple from the large pile and tosses it lightly in the air and catching it in a plastic bag. The flimsy kind that rips easily. But it catches the fruit anyways, bringing a bright toothy grin to Russo's face.
He doesn't look professional today, dressed in his blue jeans, peacoat, and blue button up shirt, especially not as he adds more and more produce to his basket. He does a little twirl and shuffles to the tomatoes, choosing several very particularly in order to maximize on the genius of his spaghetti sauce.
grocery stores are places that a great many people visit. Sometimes it's here, sometimes it's there. Michelle is somewhere in the grocery store, doing her thing, and Brennan is meandering through the produce as well, some fresh fruit already in the cart, a carseat with blanket perched near the handles and likely concealing a sleeping infant.
The physician dressed much the same as Russo is, oblivious for now that Russo is just adjacent fondling and petting the tomatoes with abandon while he's grabbing some cucumbers, making sure there's no blemishes and dumping it into a bag, keeping an eye on the carseat for any movements or sounds.
Food is a necessity. If you want to stay alive you need to eat. And since Koshka has once again been left more or less to her own means, she gets to pick out the foods this time.
The sound of a cart, one wheel slightly squeaky and none wishing to go directly straight, moves down an aisle and toward the fruits, seemingly of it's own accord. Koshka's feet are resting on the lower brace, arms and upperbody leaned forward over the basket. That basket, by the way, already contains a fine selection of goodies. Cookies, popcorn, and enough candy to make a dentist see dollar signs. Two cases of pop rest amongst the jumble of treats.
There many be a few reasons for someone like Huruma to be skulking around in here; maybe she's here cause the grocer is an ally, maybe she's here because she wants to find a specific spice, maybe she is here because Bradley Russo was here first. Whatever the reason for her being here, at the very least she is able to blend in more than she used to, if only because she doesn't want to call attention to herself. Bootcut jeans, a long black tunic, and a brown leather coat, open to the warmer air of the store. She does have a canvas bag with her, though it only seems to hold a couple of things by the time that she reaches Produce.
Her eyes are a fluid brown today, contacts giving her some more normalcy as they study the aisle and its occupants. Before long, Huruma is going along towards the cut herbs rather than the prepackaged plastic bags and cases of.
Fondling the tomatoes is about right as he gives another two a gentle squish before lifting it to his nose and taking a deep sniff. It seems not any tomato will do, each has to pass this rigorous inspection. He chooses three of them, setting them aside before reaching for another flimsy grocery bag and tosses them in the air for a quick juggle into their aformentioned home. It really is unfortunate that juggling is not his forte, for this is how he operates when he shops— one part business, two parts pleasure. Particularly as with his mini juggle he lacks control, it's been too long since he's juggled last.
His lopsided grin becomes a little more uneasy as he tosses two up in the air and only one returns… uh-oh… tomato overboard…
plop. Not where Russo likely intended, and down in top of the blanket that covers the carseat then rolls down the side to the rest of the cart. Brennan glances over at the noise, down to his child then to the tomatoes when he see's one in the cart that he hadn't gotten around to getting yet.
Then to Brad. About to utter a curse, he pauses, recognizing who it is, and refrains from uttering said curse words but checking on his son peering beneath the cover. "If you wanted my attention Brad, you could have said hello instead of pelting my son with tomatoes" No smile, but there's levity in his voice, as he glances around to see who all saw this.
And see's Koshka. Up go his brows, surprised.
There's the apples and… there they go. Koshka's cart overshoots its mark and thuds into a melon stand. Once stopped, the teenager steps onto the floor and backtracks several steps to the Granny Smiths, blue eyes lifting to peer toward Brad and Doc Brennan. She'd missed the tossing about of tomatoes, but the comments surrounding the activity from a familiar voice required attention.
As if it's every day she's out shopping, Koshka gives Brennan a small nod and Russo a vaguely reserved look. Nope, everything's completely normal.
Huruma watches most of this altercation through the fish-eye mirror in the corner of the ceiling and wall close-by, looking quite unimpressed by Bradley's juggling- for the most part. It tells her that he has a bit of a sense of humor, if anything. She tucks a few bundles of greenery into one of the flimsy plastic bags off of a roller, tucking it into the canvas one at her elbow. She casts a look after Koshka when she bumps into the melon stand, and one unseen by her comes rolling roughly in Huruma's direction. Any reason is a good one.
The tall woman shifts and steps over to pick it up, and only putting it down onto the top of the pile when she sidles around the stand itself, wandering closer to the master of tomatoes under the guise of checking out some very ugly radishes.
"Whooops!"
That plop sound isn't exactly music in Brad's ears. Unlike the doctor, the host cringes and then manages a very lopsided grin and a bright flash of his teeth as charming as he can make them. "Sorry Doc, just— " he glances down at his basket "— grocery shopping. I'm sorry…" he glances down at the son and holds up a single hand. "Not always the best way to shop, but— " he shrugs and arches a single eyebrow before his eyes track back to Koshka and then to the tall Huruma, the ever-present smile extending as he does so.
His eyes widen, however, when Huruma tracks to the radishes. "Don't. Those… no. Just, don't." The instruction is abrupt and then followed up by some measure of apology as Brad splays his hands in front of him, "It's not… they're just not very good." He actually slides closer to the radishes, "Not properly grown. Not to make them flavourful or really worth eating…"
"Are you the vegetable whisperer?" Brennan accuses genially, looking to the radishes, Huruma, Brad, Koshka. Koshka's cart. "Please tell me Koshka, that someone is with you and you are not grocery shopping for yourself" He looks in the cart of the teenagers, and reaches for the apples. Only healthy thing in the cart. "Who's here with you" Lower voiced, looking around.
Already reaching for some apples herself, Koshka gives Brennan a curious look. Blue eyes move past the doctor to Russo and then a little further to Huruma then back to Brennan. "Yeah, I got someone waiting outside for me." It's a lie, but one that hopefully doesn't show. While reachable by phone, Sable's left the teenager to enjoy the sights so long as she's back before curfew.
Huruma is already those few inches taller, and with the boots on her feet- it lets her look down to him when Bradley sidles up to offer radish commentary. She studies him for an awkward length of silence, pursing her lips tightly. "Sometimes nutrition matters more than what it tastes like, mister …Russo? From Sunday nights." A slight tremor of a laugh is in some of that.
"I am quite educated in choosing m'own vegetables, I think." Huruma is a big girl, she can handle a few tasteless radishes if she needs to. Her tone is reassuring, even with such mundane of a topic. "I am not here for these anyway."
"Something like that. Growing up my mom had a vegetable garden and a penchant for good cooking that she passed onto me." Russo's smile hitches up on one side and he muses, "In another lifetime I would've made a really awesome gay househusband." His tomatoes are put into the plastic baggy and then gently placed into the grocery basket.
He turns to face Huruma and nods, "I'm sure you can, I just… It should taste good. Food is an experience not just nutrition. It should be accompanied with all of the smells, textures, and sights of art. It's not something that just happens. It's something we create." The notion of not being here for the radishes though, "Why're you here then? I noticed they're out of mushrooms." He sighs, "Were you here for them? I'm a little choked because I liked them in my spaghetti sauce…"
Someone is waiting for her. Brennan regards the teenager for a moment, brief, so brief, before nodding. "Get some other healthy stuff. Candy, not very good for you" He admonishes Koshka before turning back to his own cart, check on the sleeping newborn and comment. "Choked up over Mushrooms. Maybe if you were Mario Batali. And now you'll make that finacee of yours a good husband"
A bag and more apples than one can eat in a week are added to her cart, with Koshka watching the trio of adults surreptitiously. She snags one of those melons as well, one near the top so the rest don't go tumbling, though its placement in the basket is less than careful. Pushing away from the produce, and hopping back onto the back of the cart, the youth makes her way toward the checkstands, only once glancing over her shoulder before she rounds out a turn and disappears.
It's more about nutrition to Huruma, frankly- always has been, even if she can enjoy something delicious. Plus, she has to think about those other seventy people while she scopes out grocers and brothers- not that she knows the latter fact. To her, he is just That Guy for now. Or the Gay Househusband. That part does make her smile thinly, though the expression is an honest one. Cute, smart, and a cook? Really, now.
"Herbs, spices. Looking for deals…" Huruma's volume has lowered, picking up when she looks back to him, a drawl snaking out. "Per'aps this calls f'you t'try something new." She means instead of mushrooms.
Russo wags a single finger, "Mushrooms are hard to be without! They accent and transform the flavour of my spaghetti sauce." There are few things in life that animate Brad more than politics. Food is the exception. In fact, his hands do half of his speaking for him in large overemphasized motions. "A thick sauce full of nutrients isn't something to be neglected. Just think of the smells mixing together, boiling together, that cozy feeling it creates in your home— and yeah, I'm cooking for Nicole tonight. And someone else. Just important that it's good because… nutrition and health are so important but enjoyment. Pleasure.. the feeling of eating.."
"Maybe I should try something new," he agrees with Huruma as his nose wrinkles upwards, and he glances between them. "What do you think? What should I change?"
"You and Michelle. You both seem to talk about food like it's sex in a bowl. I don't know whether I want to eat that spaghetti or make love to it" Brennan dryly comments, fiddling with a soother under the shield that is the baby blanket. "Maybe I'll have to invite you over to our place, you and your fiance so that you and Mish can cook and Nicole and I can wait" Brennan offers a smile to Brad and HUruma, though the black woman is a stranger to him.
Huruma seems to be entertained by this conversation, if not Bradley himself. "I had a sauce at a restaurant months ago, artichoke in place of mushrooms… I suppose that if you cook them with it long enough, it should get sweeter…" She doesn't know much about cooking itself, but she does know what she likes when she goes out. Her eyes track up to Brennan and then to his cart, a still gaze examining the car seat placed there with him. "Your little one needs something."
Just a note before she grins down at Russo. "You are a lucky boy, such excellent metabolism t'counteract th'cooking. I wouldn'mind a househusband myself…" Alright, now she is just teasing him, but it is certainly out of her sparsely used pocket of fun.
"Food is like sex, especially Moroccan which you eat with your hands. It's sensual," Russo presses with a broad grin although he stipulates, "although hopefully not better than. I would consider it a pleasure to cook dinner with another foodie." His gaze tracks between them with a cluck of his tongue, "I don't meet enough of them. Sometimes I wonder where all of the foodies have gone and where we can find them— " One of his pale blue eyes winks with a nod. "Nicole doesn't mind cooking although I don't think her love for it matches my own."
"And mmmm. I do like artichokes. That could embolden the flavour, sweeten it, richen it, give it depth, and grounding— " Russo is nearly in another world as he discusses the food, his tone semi-dreamy in doing so.
The comment on his metabolism pulls him out of it as he pats his stomach, "Good genes I guess. And lots of exercise. My producer keeps me on a tight leash— " he chuckles and winks again as his head shakes. "I just like to cook. Not so good at the cleaning part though— "
"Then Nicole will just have to do the cleaning. He who cooks, rests. Everyone else cleans up. " He's surprised by Huruma's comments regarding the baby and sure enough, when he looks, there's a face starting to screw up, complain about the lack of a soother in his mouth. "Set up a day Brad. Bring your family. More than welcome. Michelle will be overjoyed" Soother in the childs mouth, baby sated, going back to being an emotional pool of contentment on Huruma's radar.
"I feel bad for whoever does, judging by th'propensity of men towards making a mess." Huruma doesn't say anything about food this time, carefully, trying to avoid Russo totally going off the cliff regarding how awesome his spaghetti is going to be. She wouldn't be surprised if he came in his pants right there in the store, to be honest.
"I can tell you I'ave never thought of food as being as good as sex. But I am glad that it brings you so much joy."
"That sounds great, Doc. I'll get Nicole to set it up— she's the keeper of the day planner." Russo's smile ticks up higher if at possible as he remembers the task he has that brought him here in the first place. He nods at Huruma and shrugs, "I have a cleaning lady. I try to clean the kitchen but it's not as good as the days mom used to do it." He winks again.
"Anyways! I should get back at it. I have people I need to cook for who… well, they'll be hungry by the time it's ready. Nice chatting with you both!" And with that he gives them both a two fingered wave as well as a firm nod of his head.
"Be well, I should find Michelle before she thinks I abandoned her" Brennan doesn't know HUruma, and s it's just a nod of his head as he puts his hands on the cart, starts off in search of his wife so they too can go home, make dinner.
Huruma smiles to herself. He does a hell of a lot of winking, doesn't he? But, in the end, she can feel the things that don't show on his lovely little mug, and those are the things that she studied the most. "Good luck," She sidles left to examine something else along the aisle, voice smooth. "See you around, mister Russo."