When the soup lands in front of him, John peers into the bowl. It's full of a clear liquid of some kind, looking slightly thickened and glossy, and floating in the liquid are... well, he's pretty sure they're mushrooms (it smells of it), but they're not mushrooms that he's at all familiar with, looking wavy and unusually shaped as opposed to the rounded cap versions he's eaten. (There are a few with rounded cap, but those aren't the right shape or color that he's used to either.) In addition to the mushrooms, there are green leaves and stems from some plant (though he has no idea what plant it is), and bits of onion, which he thankfully can identify. It smells warm and strongly of mushrooms, and his stomach growls, but... "Where... is it getting all of this food?" he asks, suddenly thinking in more detail about this. "Is it... um... safe to eat?" He whispers the last part quietly so as not to offend the house (though maybe the house can hear them anyways? He hopes the house can't hear them anyways), but if they're wild mushrooms then he probably... shouldn't be eating them, right? 

"Oh, absolutely," she assures him. "The house wouldn't serve us anything that might hurt us, and believe me, it knows. House-spirits like this can find out about people's allergies before they do. As for where it's getting the food, I did bring a few groceries this morning, but the house has a supply contract with the woods and that's where it'll be getting most of the main ingredients. If you're not comfortable with Mystery Woods Mushrooms, and really no one in their right mind should be comfortable with Mystery Woods Mushrooms from someone they don't trust an exceptional amount, I promise the house won't be offended if you skip the soup."

From the... forest? 

John... isn't sure how to deal with this. On the one hand, Rosy is sure it's safe so maybe it is, and also he doesn't want to offend the house (even if it's not offended somehow it seems like the wrong thing to do), but on the other hand... it's wild mushrooms and those are supposed to be super poisonous (or be drugs, which John also doesn't want), and well, the allergies thing is encouraging but also what if it's going off of like, 1800s ideas of what's edible and what isn't and there's lead in there. Or something. (There's probably not lead in there... right? Fuck.)

He's not sure how to deal with this problem, so instead he peeks over at the basket that Rosy just opened. Inside are some sort of bread object (muffins?) which are a shiny toasted brown color on their craggy tops and a paler cream-yellow-brown (there's a number of colors there, all of them tasty looking) on the sides and the valleys between the crags. They certainly smell good, and are probably a lot simpler to deal with than the soup. John starts to reach for one, and stops. He's not sure if he's supposed to (he probably is though right?) and also he's not entirely sure how he's supposed to be eating it (what plate does he put it on? Is it for dipping in the soup?). "What groceries did you get?" John asks, as a bit of a delaying tactic, hoping Rosy will grab a bread object and demonstrate what he should be doing. 

"Flour and baking powder. Those are the really tricky things, nearly everything else it can get from the woods."

Rosy has no fear of the bread objects. She grabs one and puts it on her bread plate, cracking it open to reveal a warm steamy interior of fluffy white breadlike substance. "There should be," she starts, and then trails off as the cart returns, laden with a pitcher of water and two little dishes with adorable little triangular pats of butter clustered upon them like tiny groves of yellow cartoon trees. "...butter around here somewhere, thank you, house."

The pitcher pours each of them a glass of water, and the butter dishes settle into place, and Rosy butters her biscuit as the pitcher finds a place on the table within reach and the cart trundles off again.

"Anyway." She takes a bite of buttered biscuit. "Damn that's good. I'm nearly certain that's freshly churned deer butter, by the way. —anyway, would it make it easier for you to make your own decisions about the soup if I promised to avoid it in solidarity? Or alternately if I didn't do that?"

John, who has been following suit after Rosy (splitting the extremely good tasting-looking muffin (biscuit?) looking object to a wave of fresh bready steam, taking one of the butter cones from his butter cone forest to spread it on as it melts so deliciously-looking in between the little holes and crags, and lifting the buttered pastry thing to his mouth) -- pauses, mouth open. "Deer butter?" he asks. Goat cheese is a thing, so goat milk (oh he's heard of that one) and goat butter must also be things, and deer are mammals... but still. He eyes the object slightly incredulously, suddenly feeling self-conscious about his reaction. (He's being so impolite! But... deer butter. What will it taste like? Will it be ok?) 

"Deer butter!" She cheerfully takes another bite. "It's shockingly delicious. Like, yes, weird, I get it, but apparently the house just gets deer milk from the woods and that's what it uses for everything and it works great."

John steels himself slightly, and takes a small bite. 

It's... good! It's different from normal butter, the flavor is slightly different in some manner he's not quite sure of, and it's... thicker and creamier than butter normally is, in addition to being smoother, somehow. It's not quite the same experience as butter (cow butter, that is) normally is, but it's... enjoyable. "That's... good!" he says, his surprise still evident in his voice. He takes a larger bite, and savors it some more. The biscuit (it's definitely a biscuit, even if it's not round or flaky) is warm and delicious and incredibly fluffy. "Gosh, yum," he adds, between bites. (Rosy won't mind him talking with his mouth full? He's not supposed to do that, but she probably won't mind right? She doesn't seem to be minding, or even have noticed, good.) 

"I know right!!" Nomf. Happy little wiggle.

"Anyway, my question stands regarding the soup."

...right, the soup. 

John takes another (delicious) bite and stares at it. For all its... unfamiliarity, it does look good. (And smell good.) "Are you... sure, um, are you sure it's not going to hurt us?" he asks. He looks up and around as though he can see if the house is listening. (It answers with the lights, maybe he can?) "Like, even though it doesn't know anything about modern medicine or anything like that?" That's... about as close as he can get to mentioning his worries about the lead. (There's almost certainly no lead involved... right? And if there is, one dose probably won't hurt him, right? Right??) 

"...I'm trying to think of ways to phrase this that are reassuring to normal people... um, it might not know things about modern medicine exactly, but it does know a lot about what is and isn't safe to feed people, because—it would be contrary to the nature and purpose of a house-spirit to poison someone by accident. Hospitality is part of it and hospitality means attending to the needs of your guests. So, like, I would expect it to not serve wheat to someone who didn't know they had celiac, even though it has no reason to know what celiac is and even though the person would have no idea they should request anything about that, because it would be able to tell that that would be a harm. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," John says. "So it knows about harms that other people don't, essentially?" (Should he ask? He's going to ask.) "So it would know about, like, lead, or mercury, or stuff like that, even before everyone else in the um, scientific community did?"  

"Oh, definitely! No worries there."

"Oh, okay good," he says with some relief, and takes another bite of his deer buttered (and tasty) biscuit and contemplates. If the house knew about stuff like lead before everyone else did (and also wow is that a relief, by the way, and he feels bad for doubting it now), then there's almost certainly no way that it would be poisoning him with mushrooms. In fact, if the mushrooms were poisonous to specifically him, it wouldn't feed him any probably. (It might be a good idea to not eat anything from Rosy's bowl, maybe, just in case, though he suspects that the food was made together and not separately. Though who knows how an intelligent house prepares food.) He chews and swallows. "I think... I think it's probably fine?" he says, still chewing. He doesn't have any good reason to be afraid of the mushrooms now (whatever lingering feelings he's having at the moment are, well, silly), and it would be... impolite to the host (or well, to the chef? Rosy said she won't mind, so she probably won't) if he doesn't at least try some. 

"It's still okay if you don't want to try the soup! I don't want to pressure you into anything. If you'd rather skip the soup today and have dinner with me here another time after you've had longer to process the implications of the magic house, that's fine too."

"You're not pressuring me into anything!" John says, possibly too quickly. "I just... I should be able to do this. I want to be able to do this." He eyes his tasty biscuit, but does not take another bite. He should take a bite of something else first. He puts the biscuit down on the little biscuit plate, takes a deep breath, picks up the spoon, steels himself, and takes a bite, making sure to get a large piece of mushroom in there.

It's... delicious. The mushroom is oddly meaty of all things, but still tasting very much of mushroom, and the broth is savory and light, tasting of more mushrooms and vegetables. The green leaves are somewhat bitter, but in a way that makes him want to eat more rather than less. And... nothing tastes of poison, and his heart hasn't stopped, and his tongue isn't turning blue (technically he can't see his tongue but it doesn't feel any bluer than normal) or numb and he's not hallucinating pink elephants. (Or elephants of any color, really, or any other creature that shouldn't be there in any shade or hue.) "It's... also good," he says, chewing and swallowing with caution but also with enjoyment. He takes another spoonful, still a bit tentative, pausing just before he puts it in his mouth. "You should try it!" and then he completes bite number two. 

She tries it.

"Wow. Pretty spectacular," she agrees. How about a bite of biscuit with that? Oh, great plan. The house's reputation as a chef is thoroughly deserved. She wonders idly what it would think of a modern recipe book, and then what it would think of modern recipe websites, and then she's picturing the house browsing YouTube and she may be cackling a little. Okay, if she gets this place an Internet connection she is going to have to lay down some serious ground rules. Rule one: Absolutely no breaking the Veil Laws even if it's by accident even if it's because you don't know any better because you're a house. Can the house even communicate in language, given a computer to do it with? Food for thought... help, how does she explain to John where her brain just went.

John is... distracted by the delicious mushroom soup, but not so distracted that he can't see Rosy grinning to herself like she's delighted by something, and he's certainly not missing the cackling. "I... what are you thinking about, exactly?" he asks her, a little tentatively. (Not wanting to be impolite or distract her or be too invasive or anything like that.) 

"Wondering what this place would be like with an Internet connection. To look up recipes on. Though it might be impaired in using the Internet by not being able to type. Words are hard when you're a house."

No words? "Wait, then how does he -- it -- um, the house understand you?" Well that was stupid, also what pronouns does he even use. "Or is it understanding you in some way that isn't really words, per-se? Or something?" 

"Hmm, sort of something in between? It can understand words because it can understand me speaking to it, because it can understand—my communicative intent, I guess you'd say? But that doesn't help going the other way."

"Oh." John's not sure how that works, really, but, well, it is magic. "So wait," he adds, with creeping concern that he doesn't fully understand, "does that mean the house can't really understand me? It can only understand you? Or can it understand my communicative intent too?" 

"Sort of? I'm not an expert on the theory, but I think it works something like... it has to get to know you before it can understand anything more than a vague overview of what you're talking about. It can cheat with me because I'm a Blake, but anyone else, it'll take a while of them being around and—existing, interacting with it, not necessarily trying to communicate but, like, being open to its presence?—before it can hear them clearly."

"Oh. Okay." John sighs and looks sad for a moment (still not entirely sure why; he wants to give the house compliments but doesn't know how), and then looks up and says, "I guess you can tell the house for me that I really like the food so far? Does that work, at least? Or wait, should I wait until we're all done for that? Or should I try saying it anyways so the house will get used to me? How... how does this work, exactly." He's... having troubling figuring out what to say, apparently, and babbling a bit. Ugh. It's okay, it's fine, Rosy doesn't seem to mind? 

"'I like the food' is not a super complicated message, I bet it's figured that much out already, but sure. Hey, house, my boy likes the food. You can say it yourself too if you want!"

He blushes at that, and the bit where she calls him her boy (it's true though, he likes it even though it makes him blush), and says (blushing even more), "hey, house, this soup and biscuits are really good, I'm um, looking forward to seeing what you do with the rest? Of the meal, that is. Thanks! That is, um, thanks so far!" He blushes even yet more.