Preparation.
The Curator had no idea how to make a pie, but that was okay. If the self help books it found in the library (it tried to find books on making pies fit for human consumption, but most of them were intended for blatantly non-human consumption. It still had no idea how addition of cement into the filling was supposed to aid in muscle sculpting.) was of any value, then all that mattered was having the right frame of mind and confidence. There was also the issue of stirring, of course, and making sure the oven wasn't too hot (the oven was never too hot), but practically every other obstacle, the book suggested, could be overcome by simply believing in it enough.
With that in mind, the Curator decides that there is no issue with the fact that it had failed to find the recipe book that one of the visitors to the museum recommended to it in the library (it was, to be fair, a big library, and finding a particular book among all those books was nearly impossible). Surely, as a god who hoarded knowledge, it would be able to replicate something as simple as a pie without consulting the recipe books.
"So, uh, why do you suddenly want to bake a pie?" the Eye asked as she dug around an exhibit of a kitchen now commandeered for culinary purposes, making faces at the old pans and ingredients she pulled up. "Are these even safe for using?"
"Everything in the museum is preserved in perfection, it'll be fine," the Curator said imperiously. "Besides, can I not do something nice for people sometimes?"
"Fair enough."
At some point, the two cloaked beings decide that having two people.. god... things prepare a pie was a bit too much of a hard work, so the Eye leaves to grab a passing Custodian. The Custodian for its part appear mostly confused and annoyed that the Curator and the Eye have decided to neglect its duties for a few hours to bake a pie, but obeys its lords anyways. The Eye and the Custodian looks at the Curator, waiting for the next direction.
It is at this moment that the Curator realizes that it has no idea what it is doing, but it is not about to let its two subordinates discover this. After all, the self-help books said that fear and lack of self-confidence was infectious, and showing either so early on in the great work would certainly poison the final product. So the Curator starts signing and ranting out a list of ingredients that the pie will need.
The Custodian obediently scampers about the kitchen gathering up the ingredients: from baskets, boxes, subterranean vaults, etc, as the Eye watches with increasing incredulous eyes. Eggs, milk, butter, four, and as many bowls and cups as the Custodian could carry in its lower two arms are soon scattered all over the table at the center of the kitchen. Some of the ingredients that the Curator has listed off in panic appear more correct than other.
Admittedly, the Curator itself doubted that it would ever use cloves of garlic or green peppers in a pie, but it was important to be prepared just in case.
With that, it is time to start working.
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Fillings
"First, we must--"
"So what kind of pie are we making, exactly?" Eye says, worry apparent in her eye as she stares at the eclectic bunch of ingredients in the table. She suspisciously picks up a single carrot. "Carrot pie? Is that even a thing?"
The Custodian shrugs with all 6 of its arms.
"I was thinking of making pumpkin pie?" the Curator offers. It liked pumpkin. Children made interesting carvings out of them, so it had taken to keeping a small stockpile in case another child wandered accidentally into the library.
"I think it should be blueberry," the Eye interjects.
"Maybe it can be filled with cinnamon instead?" the Custodian signs with 2 of its arms.
"It can be all three," the Curator said. The Eye raised an eyebrow. Custodian shrugs again, as if completely used to the Curator's whims. Curator decides to begin with the pumpkins. It has no idea why, but the Eye refuses to help with this particular section of the baking process, so the Curator has the custodian smash up some pumpkins, spreading orange insides everywhere. The Curator wipes a chunk of pumpkin off its robes (the Eye looks unharmed, having taken cover behind a chair when the Custodian first brought up its fists) and signs towards the Custodian to begin putting the pumpkin inside a bowl. It is a purple, large bowl perfect for mixing ingredients. It is pretty proud of its choice of bowl. There the insides are further smashed into pulp. The Eye's eyes are comically big now.
Next comes the cinnamon. Unfortunately the kitchen does not have any cinnamon powder that it could use, but there was a rather large stockpile of cinnamon sticks. The Custodian smashes them over the bowl, powdering. By the time the Custodian is finished, its robes are covered in fine brown dust. It does not look particularly happy.
Next comes the blue berries, and to nobody's surprise it turns out that the Eye has been nibbling on them from the start. She hisses like an angry cat when the Curator snatches away the bag of blueberries from her blue-stained fingers. "That was for everybo-" the Curator begins when it feels somebody tugging on its robes.
The Custodian shakes its head and signs: "Just let them have this one. She's been really craving surface world fruits," it says. Its mouth is covered in cinnamon powder. Everytime it breathes, a lungful of cinnamon powder escapes from its insides.
"CONSPIRACY!" the Curator bellows and picks up a long wooden spoon, holding it up like a sword. The Custodian picks up 6 different kitchen implements with six of its limbs without missing a bit before lunging. The Custodian's spoon turns out to be the one it was using mix the ingredients together and little flecks of pumpkin paste and cinnamon go everywhere as it strikes. The Eye hurriedly reminds them both that they have work to do with the pie.
The Eye finally relinquishes the bag of blueberries when the Curator allows her to have a handful of them to chew on their own. The Eye leaves with her handful, stretches out on her stomach on the floor, and begins nibbling on the berries, apparently done with helping for the day.
The Curator attempts to paste and crumble the blue berries like they did with the cinnamon sticks, but it just results in messy juices being spurted everywhere, so it just dumps the rest of the contents of the bag into the bowl and hopes for the best.
The Eye, finished with her blueberries, picks herself off the floor, licking her fingers. The Custodian tries in vain to remove the brown stain from its robes. Curator realizes that it has still not added any eggs which it's pretty confident is part of all baking process, and attempts to remedy it immediately, and task the Custodian with breaking the eggs.
The Custodian obediently breaks a dozen eggs into the bowl. An impressive amount of yolk gets into the bowl. An equally impressive amount of shells go into the bowl. The Curator decides that this is not really concerning. There is a lot, admittedly, it has decided was not really concerning, but it refuses to lose hope. As long as everything is stirred together enough, it'll be delicious and everyone will love it. Hopefully anyhow.
The Curator ends up dumping a little of everything into the bowl. Sugar, flour, honey, some butter, etc, pretending to measure carefully. Custodian continues destroying the eggs with a neutral expression on its face before handing the leftover shells to the Eye, who puts them into another bowl and smashes them into fine powder with a mallet. The Curator is not sure why the last part is necessary, but it's not like it's hurting anyone, so it allows it.
"Now comes the stirring," the Curator says, handing the Custodian a clean scoop and nodding. The Custodian's hands begin moving at incredible speeds as the Eye and the Curator both run for cover.
Few seconds later, approximately 90% of the content of the bowl is on the walls. Custodian offers an apologetic shrug. "It's fine," the Custodian says. "Let's just pour what we have left into the crust."
"Oh yeah, the crust," says the Eye.
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Crust
Nobody has any idea how to make a crust, so the Eye takes a rolling pin and flattens out some bread while the Custodian takes them and makes a vaguely bowl shaped thing. When they bake the thing, the bread should be toasted, and then they'll be solid, so it'll be alright. In the meantime the Curator desperately tries to use dabs of the filling to glue the bread together. The Eye is now trying to get the fire started at the kitchen. None among them knows at what temperature a pie cooks the best, so the Curator suggests turning it to the highest temperature possible by throwing as many kindling and charcoal into the firepit as possible. The Custodian agrees that this is a wonderful idea and really, the three of them make the best possible team.
..............................................................
As the pie sits in the oven and the raging inferno that is alight in the firepit, the three robed figures ponder the mess created in the kitchen exhibit. The walls are covered with filling, there is a bowl of finely ground egg shells that nobody has any idea what to do with, and a bag of flour has been tipped over and is now pouring silently into the tiled floor much to the Museum's distress.
"Gross," is the Eye's observation for the day. The Curator nods. It was pretty gross.
"Maybe the museum could just eat it?" offered the Eye. Curator shook its head. It would not use the museum on some frivolous task such as cleaning. Besides, what if it ate some priceless artifact in culinary history?
This is the moment when footsteps echo from the museum's halls and a horde of children* who have been trapped in the museum for subjective years enter. "Oh, what's going on?" one of them chatters excitedly. "Are you cooking? I want to cook too!" She runs excitedly into the kitchen, stepping over the spilling bag of flour and spilling more of them onto the floor. (the museum weeps). "Wow! I can see you put everything you had into it!" she nods approvingly at the tabletop of ingredients and the raging inferno in the oven. "But you know what? I think it could use more heat!"
A lot of thing happened at once after that, some of them more than others. Here's the thing of something that happened more.
-Oven caught on fire.
-One of the children began using the opportunity to cook something other than a pie and started trying to make noodles from the spilled flour on the floor, saying that it would be a shame to waste them.
-The first child to enter shouted encouragement as the cooking child started beating up the flour and vegetables together as if it will magically make noodles happen somehow.
-An older and more responsible child rushed forward to grab a towel to stamp out the fire.
-Another custodian wandered in, lured by the Museum's howls and the loud noises, decided that it was not its problem, and wandered away.
-The oldest child among them stood slackjawed and horrified at the chaos that broke loose.
After the fires are stamped out and the pie miraculously recovered from the wreckage of the exhibit, curator lets out a contented sigh. The pie is charred black, but the Curator is confident that it'll be delicious.
Step 5: Enjoy
Pie is good, the Curator thinks. Not as good as some it had eaten while wandering the human world, but not bad for a first attempt--despite how burnt it is.
Somehow there is enough pie for everyone. The Eye and a child makes horrid puns on how horrible running a bakery would be like and what a crumbly job they did on this pie. Children chatter over what exhibit they found in the museum, and the responsible child talks excitedly about a long lost book on history that she found in the library. A younger child makes a comment that his mother's pies taste better, and is immediately ribbed by the one sitting next to him. A few of them talk about the make believe fortresses of books they constructed in the Library corner, much to the Custodian's growing horror.
There's a place for everyone here, the Curator thinks, and for a moment the Curator allows itself a delusion that maybe it finally has a family worth sharing its story with. The moment quickly passes, however, and the Curator is back to being the imposing and tall figure at the dinner table. The pie did not turn out exactly how it wanted, but it can learn eventually.
It's done good, the Curator thinks. But there is always a margin for improvement.
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Serves one Family (and a god)
*it should be noted that mortals of all ages pretty much all look like children to the Curator at this point.