Reaction Shot: Today's Menu for the Emiya Family Ep 1 (Or, everybody eats and nobody dies!)

[spindizzy]

Once upon a time while looking for icons, I discovered that Today's Menu For The Emiya Family is a show that exists! It's a cute little series that appears to be set in the happiest timeline, where all of the Masters and Servants are living happily, not committing murders, and cooking together instead!

... It's delightful, it's so pure, I love it. I'm so happy that for once, it was me that got to bring a Fate series to Lex instead of the other way around, and that it's so lovely! It's basically the Fate/Sweetness & Lightning fusion AU, and I am so here for it.

(Apart from the fact that Shinji is still alive and in people's lives, because I straight up hiss at the screen whenever he appears. GO AWAY SHINJI, YOU DON'T DESERVE NICE THINGS.)

But, because I do, and because I cope with nice things by capslocking: reaction shot!

• But look! This is the one and only Fate series where they can show you a park full of children and you don't have to worry about something horrible happening to them! This is so nice!


• ... I just really love domestic fluff about battle-hardened warriors, okay, that is my jam, so Saber and Shirou cleaning house gets me where I live.


• The food in this show is so pretty. I know a lot of it isn't supposed to be fancy things, but it still looks cool!


• I LOVE THIS INTRO OF EVERYONE COOKING TOGETHER AND COMING TOGETHER TO EAT, OKAY, THAT'S JUST SO WHOLESOME AND KIND AND SWEET. Also I need to find that icon post full of sweet icons from this intro, actually, because I could see me getting a lot of use out of them.


• Saber's joy when faced with new food is so pure? Because I know that Heroic Spirits are summoned with the knowledge that lets them function in the time that they're summoned to, but would that have covered any of the foods she'd encounter? Probably not! So she is meeting all of these new and interesting flavours and textures for the FIRST TIME and I have so many emotions about that.


• It doesn't cover knowledge of cultural festivals, so I'm ASSUMING she doesn't have encyclopaedic food knowledge!


• Oh yeah, some of the episodes correspond to events in the Japanese calendar! Which means that as this was the January 2018 episode, the event they're talking about in this episode is New Years! And teaching Saber how it's celebrated!


• I love Taiga being so enthusiastic about food! Shirou side-eying her from the kitchen, Saber listening intently, and just! Such domesticity!


• Taiga brought a kotatsu over to Shirou's house, because of COURSE she did! I love how she and Illya are both just in a house that isn't even theirs, snuggling under a kotatsu. Of COURSE that's what they're doing.


• "I didn't set up a kotatsu because I could see this happening!" Shirou knows his family too well, and now that they're warm and comfy they're never going to leave.


• Illya snuggling backwards under the kotatsu with the blanket pulled up around her ears is SUCH A KID THING! Awww! She's so sweet when she's not in a life-or-death battle!


• Taiga's new year's outfit is AMAZING. I can see what Shirou means about it being the day when she really shines! (He is meaner about it than that, because TEENAGERS.)


• "Taiga in a kimono? That's something I'd like to see!" SABER. I KNOW IT'S BECAUSE YOU GRREW UP A KNIGHT, BUT IS THERE A FEMALE CHARACTER THAT IT HASN'T SOUNDED LIKE YOU WERE FLIRTING WITH.


• Dressing up together! Omg, that's so cute!


• Nope, Saber can't help, she's been lost to the kotatsu too. That's adorable.


• I think mine and Lex's reactions to aprons that just BUTTON was "OMG, I want one," because hello, that looks SO MUCH EASIER than tying a knot behind your back!


• What'll we cook today kids!


• IT REALLY IS A COOKING SHOW AT HEART, LOOK AT THIS EXPLANATION OF HOW TO MAKE BROTH. Although I really wished it listed amounts for ingredients – I guess if you're someone who's cooked enough, like Lex, you can look at the recipe and how many people you have to feed and kinda guess at the quantities? Or maybe it's like cooking shows over here, and there's actually secetly a website somewhere with the full recipes written down?


• Speaking of writing it down, I DID transcribe the recipe and I'll dump it at the end – if anyone wants to look it over and see if it's an actually feasible recipe, rather than anime nonsense, I'd be interested in the answer! I don't cook, so this is straight up out of my skill set entirely.


• Oh! When it shows him cooking, Taiga and Saber and Illya have left! I guess they're off trying on kimonos? ... No, wait, that's just the regular table, not the kotatsu, so I guess this is a flashback to him making the broth. I'm paying attention, I know what's going on.


• Taiga flailing for oranges without getting out of the kotatsu is the real struggle here. And then she rolls one to Saber, because Saber is part of this family too!


• I just really like the imagery of the street light blinking on outside while they're all snuggled up warm and safe inside. Every other Fate series is horrifying, they deserve this sweetness.


• Are they all just having a nap there? Because if so that's REALLY CUTE! If you're on my draft filter, you know that characters platonically napping together is my weakness!


• I'm really glad that there are two canon ignorant foreigners asking the questions that I also don't know the answers to, because I'd be very lost otherwise. (Explaining the meaning behind foods to Saber! This is good!)


• SABER GETS FULL SHOUJO SPARKLES AND FLOWERS WHEN SHE LIKES FOOD! EVERYONE GETS A MISTY CAMERA EFFECT! THIS IS THE MOST WHOLESOME FATE SERIES OF THEM ALL, OH MY GOD.


• Look at this montage of everyone ringing in the new year! (Ahhhh Rin, why are you bringing in the new year alone! Sweetie, no! Is it because literally all of your clocks are still set to the wrong time? And where is Archer?)


• *HISSES AT SHINJI*


• Sakura and Rider are going out together for new years! That's so nice of them!


• ... I like that Saber and Shirou are just there like "Man, I hope no one's a dick at the temple tomorrow. It's really easy to just NOT be a dick."


• "So that we can be near each other forever." OH MY GOD SHIROU YOU ARE THE MOST AWKWARD PENGUIN AND YOU ARE SO SWEET. PLEASE ALL OF YOU ENJOY LIVING IN THIS HAPPY TIMELINE, JUST BECAUSE YOU'VE EARNED THIS ESCAPE FROM HORROR AND TRAGEDY. ;_______;


• (Man, I love it when characters saying each others' names feels significant, that is a GREAT trope.)


• The misty little credits sequence is pretty sweet too, because LANCER AND TAIGA HANGING OUT! (I ship it, okay), and SAKURA PUTTING A SCARF ON RIDER, and the ARCHER COOKING FOR RIN OMG I DIE. Also I'm impressed that the LITERAL DEAD FATHER FIGURE is allowed to show up in the line-up of characters, but Assassin has to be represented in cardboard cut-out form. Poor Assassin, he never gets to go to the weird spin-off series.

But yeah, I really like Today's Menu for the Emiya family. It's sweet and wholesome and kind, and I kinda love that it's just a load of people who we've seen trying to kill each other being domestic together like it's a perfectly normal thing. A+ work everyone involved, please keep that up.

Oh, and as promised, the recipe included in the show for toshikoshi soba, with all the attendent provisos that I don't cook, I cannot judge how accurate or reasonable this recipe is, and I take no responsibility if it kills you after you try it. I googled it and the recipes online seem to match up, so it might NOT kill you, but I am not to be trusted on stuff like this beyond "That's what the tv said!"

Ingredients: sweet rice wine, sugar, soy sauce, kelp (soaked overnight), bonito flakes, leeks (chopped finely), mustard spinach (boiled and cut into bite-sized slices), fish cake (sliced into eight-millimeter chunks), shrimp, eggs, flour, water, oil for deep-fat frying, soba noodles,

Broth:

Fill a saucepan with sweet rice wine. Bring it to a boil to let the alcohol evaporate. Turn down the heat, add sugar, and cook until it dissolves. Add soy sauce (In the show, it looks like he's added about a ladle-ful? Which I know is not a scientific measure.) and heat it at a low simmer so it doesn't burn. Once it starts bubbling around the rim of the saucepan, and you see white foam rise to the surface, turn off the heat and skim off the foam. Set it to one side to cool, and your broth is done.

Kelp broth: Combine water and kelp, leaving it to soak, pour it into a saucepan, then remove the kelp just before it comes to a boil. (He does it with chopsticks.) After lowering the heat, add bonito flakes, and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. Later, strain it with a straining cloth, and you'll have kelp broth!

Tempura:

Remove the shell and digestive tract from the shrimp, then cut of the tip of the tail to remove any liquid. Then rub and rinse the shrimp with a little salt, potato starch, and sake. (He then appears to put them in a lined tray and covers them.)

Next, the batter: Mix the eggs thoroughly with cold water. Then after adding flour and stirring, coat the shrimp with the batter and deep-fry them at 170 to 180 degrees Celcius. (He fishes them out and appears to drain them of excess oil.)

Now, combine the broth with the soup broth, and season to taste. After boiling the soba noodles al dente, rinse them under cold running water, then drain them. Ladle the broth onto the noodles you've heated up in hot water, and your shrimp tempura is done! Mustard spinach, fish cakes, japanese leeks, and citron rinds are your garnish.