Modern AKOTSK men in the kitchen headcanons - Part. 2
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Following the unexpected success of the part one of my ‘Men in the Kitchen’ series, I’ve decided to bring you this part two.
Join me and my standards, which are far too high for what’s usually on offer.
Don’t forget to check out the Masterlist pinned to my profile.
Enjoy the closet!
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LYONEL BARATHEON
Since Lyonel is reluctant to answer your questions, one day whilst he’s out you decide to rummage through his house.
Amidst guitar picks, chains and rings made of stainless steel, jumbled notes and photos of Dunk that you shouldn’t even know exist, you finally find his collection of recipes in a hidden compartment in the kitchen.
It is an old tin box repurposed from a packet of biscuits that is no longer in production.
Inside are clippings from old magazines, postcards, restaurant napkins, faded receipts and various scraps of paper on which recipes are written in different handwritings.
You know that Lyonel has travelled and continues to travel often, and unlike other people, he doesn’t collect magnets, figurines or T-shirts, but asks the people he meets for their recipes to try out.
There are different dates, from different places, some even in languages you don’t know.
Lyonel connects with people not only through music but also through food: you can see it on Friday evenings at his place, in the way he manages to make do with just a few ingredients, in the way he often asks if you’ve eaten, and you can see it now in that tin box.
You begin to see this in his kitchen too, a place you visit often but are only now really noticing: a colourful, almost untidy space, yet one that has been shaped over time by what he has learnt and experienced.
You decide not to ask him any more questions about where he learnt to cook, but instead ask him about his travels, and there you see a new side of Lyonel: philosophical, nostalgic, wise, with a gentle laugh that contrasts with the thunderous one that earned him the nickname ‘the laughing storm’.
It becomes a ritual: Lyonel and you find yourselves in his kitchen, alone this time, you’re the one cooking for him, and in return he tells you one of his stories.
You never ask him if they’re true or made up.
Some seem surreal, others don’t seem quite up to Lyonel’s standard, but you don’t mind because you love listening to him.
No one in the group knows about this little ritual, and Lyonel has never told anyone about it.
One day he asks you to write down on a piece of paper the recipe for the cake you’d brought along one of those afternoons.
He keeps that piece of paper in that box.
MAEKAR TARGARYEN
Maekar’s kitchen resembles an impenetrable black fortress: ultra-modern, black, with neon lighting, the black wood of the cabinet fronts contrasting with metal details and the black marble worktop.
Everything is in its precise place.
None of his children dares to touch even a single piece of cutlery, knowing their father’s obsessive tidiness.
His recipes, tried and tested over time, are stored in large, bound ring-bound notebooks with black leather covers and the family crest in gold.
The collection is kept on a special shelf in the kitchen, high enough to prevent the children – or anyone else – from reaching it.
Once, you found one of the recipe books open on the kitchen island: he was writing a new recipe to add, in extremely elegant cursive handwriting with clean strokes and no smudges of black ink.
There are no loose pieces of paper, nor any post-it notes or notes of any colour other than black.
You think back to that time when, jokingly, you asked him what would happen to those cookbooks after his death, and he replied that he would be buried with them.
Taking advantage of his absence, you decide to leave a trace of your visit.
When Maekar returns home and checks the recipe book, he finds the imprint of your lipstick on the bottom of a new blank page.
Maekar smiles, removes the page and decides to cut a strip from it to make a bookmark, which he then laminates it.
He keeps it as if it were one of his greatest treasures, not only for his cookbooks but also to slip between the pages of the books he reads.
Once, Baelor saw it and teased Maekar, asking him whose kiss it was, but he says it’s a secret he’ll take to his grave.
BAELOR TARGARYEN
Myriah, his mother, left her recipes to Baelor, particularly those for traditional Dornish desserts.
He keeps them in a special box for collecting recipes, which his children gave him as a birthday present.
It sits above the kitchen hood, displayed like a trophy, in a shade of red.
When he feels homesick and his children are away at university, Baelor chooses a recipe and devotes himself to it in the quiet of his small kitchen.
Baelor’s kitchen is simple yet cosy, it radiates warmth during the autumn rains and cold winters.
The cherry wood worktops, which complement the cream-coloured cupboard doors, make it feel less cold and austere than Maekar’s.
When you’re feeling down or don’t really feel like talking about it, Baelor brings out the box and asks you to pick a recipe at random, and you spend the afternoon baking that cake.
Amidst the eggs, flour, cream and baking, the tension eases and, little by little, you start to open up.
You love it when he chuckles under his breath, especially when you get a step in the recipe wrong.
Baelor never tells you off.
On the contrary, he calmly tries to work out with you what went wrong, without ever raising his voice.
Come to think of it, you’ve never seen him get angry or lose his temper straight away.
He always tries to reason things out and keep a clear head when there’s a problem.
He’s a great listener, especially when you’re sitting with a slice of cake and a cup of hot spiced tea from Dorne.
VALARR & DAERON TARGARYEN
Daeron started living with Valarr after Aerion tried for a second time to cook something for you, setting the kitchen on fire again.
The kitchen in their flat is a basic, no-frills IKEA model, with a small area set aside as a makeshift mini-bar.
Daeron is in charge of the drinks and dishes, whilst Valarr does the cooking and the shopping, as the last time Daeron tried to go shopping, he bought nothing but alcohol and a frozen pizza.
When you’re too busy to go home, you often pop round to Daeron and Valarr’s place, and after having lunch with them, you all dive straight into an afternoon study session.
It’s no bother for them to have you there, on the contrary: thanks to you, Daeron gets decent marks, whilst Valarr manages to carve out periods of intensive study, leaving him time for activities outside university without the anxiety of not having managed his studies properly.
Daeron knows you like sweet cocktails, so he’s come up with several twists on the classics.
He often uses you as a guinea pig for new concoctions to serve at the bar where he works at night.
He doesn’t have a recipe book: he knows the measurements and methods by heart, better than the notes he’d take for an exam.
Valarr, on the other hand, has a black-and-red recipe book that you gave him for his birthday a few years ago, in which he jots down his recipes and sticks a photo of his favourite baked goods on every page.
On the page dedicated to his famous cinnamon roll recipe, there’s a photo taken in Baelor’s kitchen showing you, him, his father and Daeron as you plate them up straight out of the oven.
DUNCAN THE TALL
Thanks to your tips, Dunk has started to get much more organised in the kitchen.
He lives in a small flat half an hour from university.
As he’s renting, he can’t decorate it quite as he’d like, but he’s found a way to make it his own.
The fridge is covered in magnets chosen by Egg, used to pin up the meal planner, the shopping list, and a few photos of Friday nights at Lyonel’s, his stepfather Arlan’s farm, his rugby team, and day trips with Egg...
You decide to give Dunk a present: a leather ring-bound notebook on which Tanselle has drawn a tree with a comet in the background, and, in the space of an afternoon, you manage to copy out all the recipes.
As soon as Dunk saw the present, he started crying, and Egg asked Tanselle if she could draw him a three-headed red dragon for his school notebook.
Dunk knows your favourite dish: when you’re having a bad day or you’re upset, he’ll cook it for you whilst asking what’s wrong.
AERION TARGARYEN
After racking up huge bills at luxury restaurants and being banned from some of them, Maekar decided to tighten the purse strings on his son.
That’s why Aerion, one day, asked you to teach him something, rather than going to his father.
Aerion has spent a fortune on refurbishing the kitchen and on utensils he doesn’t even know what to use.
At first, your early lessons with him would end with him huffing and giving up at the first sign of trouble, leaving you frustrated and out of touch for two weeks.Aerion comes to visit you at home, bringing you a slightly burnt cake with salt instead of sugar as a gesture of apology.
After that day when he tried to kill you with that cake, you decide to go back to your lessons, and with a great deal of patience, Aerion finally manages to cook the most basic dishes.
With your help, Aerion discovers he’s good at making lasagne, and, to your surprise, you have to admit that his is better.
Aerion often sends you, Valarr and Daeron photos of the dishes he prepares.
Daeron has promised you free cocktails for a year for saving yet another kitchen from the flames.
Maekar is eternally grateful to you.
