#they get revived. salmon dinner i guess | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peace-coast-island · 3 years

Text

Diary of a Junebug

An egg-cellent day for an adventure

It's another fun filled day of baking sweet treats at the camp as we've got a surplus of eggs to use up. Good thing Emilia decided to drop by along with her daughter Michele Toni for a well deserved mother-daughter weekend. I was hoping for the day when Emilia would stop by for a visit and now she's here!

(Psstt... Andrea, Selene, Paget, Lena, Rini, Malka, Kate, Annie, and Luciana- camp's open all year round for visitors so if you can, come on over!)

Along with collecting eggs scattered across the camp and making baked goods, Emilia's also filming a travel-style vlog for her channel Emilia Eats. She mainly does recipe videos with an occasional vlog, something she's been doing for about ten years now. Along with making videos Emilia runs a local catering company of the same name.

I've always loved Emilia's cooking and baking - it's one of the many things I look forward to when I visit home - second to my mom's, of course. Also I love her videos as she's got a sweet personality that makes me feel enthusiastic about baking. I've saved a lot of her recipes for reference and sometimes I just like watching her videos just to see old friends like Serena, Tony, and Michele.

I'm glad to see Emilia in a much better place. We caught up a bit at the wedding, where I got to know Michele Toni a bit more as well as catch up with her dad. The past few years have been rough on them but now it looks like things are finally settling down for Emilia and Mr. Phillips.

Little Michele Toni's so cute, she's almost like a mini-me of Emilia. Hard to believe she's a toddler now and it's so cute seeing her take an interest in baking! I always love seeing her "cooking" alongside her mom in various videos.

Around the time before Michele Toni was born, Emilia was going through a rough time. Up until then, the Phillips-Conrad family were a happy bunch. The family had a bit of unwanted publicity as Mr. Phillips was, and still is, a big name in town, so the fact that he, a white man, adopted two young black girls was something the media wanted to dig up dirt on. Truth is, there was nothing to stir up - Emilia and Michele's mom and Mr. Phillips were good friends and he was always like a father figure to the girls. Both didn't have much living family so they assigned each other as godparents to their kids.

For years they were a happy family - Emilia, Tony, and Michele. Tony was the one who helped Emilia get started with her channel, teaching her how to film and edit videos as well as get more views. Michele was the one who helped Emilia come up with recipe ideas and in the videos where she's featured, the two would often talk about their mom. Emilia always spoke fondly of her as did Tony while Michele would listen intently when the two told stories of the past. Those videos are always bittersweet to watch, especially now that Tony and Michele are gone.

Things changed when Tony went off to college, traveling abroad and rarely coming home. Michele also went abroad and later got caught up in a hectic, stressful lifestyle, leaving Emilia in Rosevine balancing her life as a baker and a Galaxy Fighter. We all had a feeling that Tony and Michele were going to leave while Emilia stayed so it was expected that the three would go their separate ways. They were still a close knit family though - none of us suspected that something was wrong.

The deaths of Tony and Michele were a huge shock to the community. Both were struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction as their lives took a toll on them. Tony died from a drug overdose and Michele drove off a bridge, both were at their lowest point due to unlucky breaks. Then months later Serena died in the Crystal Shadow War so in that time span Emilia lost her siblings and best friend.

It was a difficult time for everyone. I was also going through some rough patches myself so you can imagine how bad it was. Pretty much everyone I knew from home was going through a terrible time because the universe somehow decided to be a dick and throw all these tragedies at us.

Thankfully, those days are behind us. Months later I opened the camp, Emilia and the other Galaxy Fighters had their spirit revived thanks to a band of adventurers - I guess you can say the darkest hour is just before dawn. Not everything's perfect right now, but we're all doing a lot better, and that's what matters.

Along with some new friends sort of turning Rosevine upside down, Emilia was in for another unexpected turn. Not too long after Serena's death, Emilia started seeing some guy who wasn't good for her. Then Michele Toni was born and she was probably the best thing to ever happen for her mom and grandpa in light of the tragedies that plagued them. It wasn't until last year when Michele Toni made appearances on Emilia's channel and stole the show. Seeing the two of them bake together makes me so happy - and I'm glad that Emilia finally feels comfortable embracing her role as a mom.

Michele Toni had a lot of fun bringing us eggs she found while exploring the camp, her favorite place being the beach. Emilia says her favorite hangout spot is Sunburst Island because it reminds her of her family's summer home in Watercolor Vineyards. I've never been there but from how she, Tony, and Michele described it, the island sounds beautiful!

While sightseeing and scavenging for eggs, Emilia filmed for her vlog and caught me and Daisy Jane up on everything that's been going on at home. Selene, Arianne, and Vitoria are up to the usual, their latest adventure happened to be with Team Magic involving smoke screens, zombies, and frozen tidal waves. Kate's got a big tennis match coming up while Malka has a concert in a couple weeks. Rini and her grandma are doing well, running the shrine as usual and planning for their yearly spring trip to Tranquility Falls. Lena and Annie are busy at the hospital saving lives and helping others. Paget's doing all right, holding her own, taking it one day at a time. Andrea and Robin are doing their best too, keeping up with Selene and the others. Luciana's checking in on everyone as usual, coming to the rescue in the nick of time.

Hunting for eggs was a lot of fun! Emilia showed off her powers a little for the campers. As a Galaxy Fighter, she's Guardian Cyclone and her powers involve manipulating air into wind, creating powerful blasts that can be as strong as a hurricane. Since a good batch of the eggs are in hard to reach places (Why, Zipper, why?), it's a good thing we have Emilia here to help her out because she's currently the tallest person here right now, she's an agile climber, and can use her powers to drop eggs that are impossible to reach. In a stroke of luck, not a single egg was broken - and we were kinda rough with them.

Once we were satisfied with the amount of eggs we collected (maybe not satisfied but you can only collect so many eggs before you get annoyed by them popping up everywhere you go), it's time to get cooking! For savory dishes we made a bunch of quiches to put many of the eggs to good use and so we can freeze them for later. We made a bunch of different kinds - spinach and feta, four cheese, kimchi, salmon and cream cheese, shakshouka, garden veggies, sausage - it's a good thing we labeled everything! Of course, we used Emilia's trusty old recipe for a buttery, flaky crust that's not only delicious, but easy to make and freezes well.

The desserts was where we went all out. I happened to score a nice bargain with a barrel full of perfect peaches so we made a lovely pie with those. Daisy Jane taught us how to make egg tarts, a sweet treat I haven't had in forever. Coco made carrot cake cheesecake bars, Claude baked a giant quadruple chocolate mousse cake, and Dora made a lovely assortment of digestive biscuits to go with freshly brewed tea. Emilia made up a recipe on the spot - lemon vanilla cardamon bars - which turned out really good.

Since the lemon vanilla cardamon bars were such a hit, Emilia's gonna make a recipe video of it - at the camp. I still can't believe that Daisy Jane and I are gonna be on Emilia Eats - first for the vlog, now a recipe video! It's taken her years but Emilia plans to get most, if not all, her friends to appear on her channel. She plans to get Team Magic on next as she's planning a video with Mariposa and Skully, developing a recipe with Angie, figuring out what she wants to do with Luna that won't blow up the kitchen, and waiting on Pippa and Willow.

I can't wait to see what Emilia Eats has in store because Emilia's been knocking it out of the park lately! Her videos have always been consistently good but in the past few months she's been putting a lot more heart into it. Even when times were tough, Emilia always managed to put on a brave face. I remember watching her videos during those times, how despite everything that was going on, Emilia continued making recipes. We all have our different ways of coping with grief and hers was to continue with business as usual, which can be a good and bad thing.

Hanging out with her and watching her play with Michele Toni, I know for sure that Emilia's going to be all right. We can't undo the past and bring back lost loved ones, but we can carry on. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I think I see a little bit of Michele Toni's aunt and uncle in her. She's definitely got her mom's heart and spirit.

After a fun day of collecting eggs and baking, it's time for a well deserved bonfire dinner of quiches, seafood chowder, and freshly baked sourdough bread. Then tomorrow will be more egg hunting, baking, filming, and good old camping fun!

#animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #Diary of a Junebug #headcanon ramble

3 notes · View notes