Michael finished making the drinks and sat down at the board. He filled his pipe with a special wizarding blend of pipe tobacco designed to not be harmful to pregnant women. It was made of comforting herbs, and it had a deep, nutty, almost cinnamon-y scent to it. It was designed to have s soothing effect not only to the smoker but anyone else who smelled the smoke. Khaat had no idea where Michael had found it, but she found that the very aroma of it, so close to her face, took away every trace of the residual anxiety from her very busy and uncomfortable couple of days in the wet and the cold.
Khaat looked back and saw even her father had decided to give in to its gentle effects and lean back in his own chair and rub away some of the ache in his head, by rubbing his temples.
"I don't know where you got that, MIchael," Kate sighed, stretching her sore muscles from all the work, "but do get Robert some, would you?"
"I got it in Bangladesh," Michael said.
"When were you in Bangladesh?" Robert frowned.
"Never you mind," Michael said
Angus smelled the tobacco and said, "Oh, I know that stuff. Some of the clients on my yacht smoke that in the evenings. It helps them sleep, they say. Alright. Lets start by toasting some nuts." He drew out a couple of cookie sheets and spread a single layer of nuts on each one. One was with cashews for some cashew brittle. The other was a sheet of mixed nuts for the candy coated ones. "That won't take more than a minute maybe two. The minute you can smell warm, toasty nuts, take them out. They can burn and get bitter really quickly. Then we'll make a couple of sugar glazes. Thats' all there is to it."