Tea

Though not fussy about his food, Tyson loves his drinks. Especially tea.

Tyson always keeps his cupboards well-stocked with drinks, even though he sometimes forgets to keep stock of his food.

The tea-bags* and loose leaf teas (kept in small bottles; like spices sometimes are, and are in his home) he always has in his cupboards are, in alphabetical order:

• Blood Orange, Herbal Tea/Loose Leaf
• Caramel and Vanilla, Black Tea*
• Ceylon Silver Tip, White Tea/Loose Leaf
• Cherry, Loose Leaf
• Coconut, Loose Leaf
• Darjeeling, Black Tea/Loose Leaf
• Dragonwell, Green Tea/Loose Leaf
• Earl Grey, Black Tea*
• Grey Dragon Tea, Loose Leaf
• Gunpowder, Green Tea/Loose Leaf
• Hazelnut, Loose Leaf
• Honeybush Hazelnut, Loose Leaf
• Honeycomb, Loose Leaf
• Honeycomb and Camomile, Herbal Tea*
• Jasmine, Loose Leaf 
• Jasmine and Pomegranate, Herbal Tea/Loose Leaf
• Nettle, Loose Leaf
• Nettle and Peppermint, Green Tea*
• Peach and Cherry Blossom, Green Tea*
• Peppermint, Loose Leaf
• Pomegranate, Loose Leaf
• Red Bloom, Loose Leaf
• Spearmint, Loose Leaf
• Tiger Eye, Loose Leaf
• Vanilla, Loose Leaf
• White Tea, White Tea*
• Wild Berry, Black Tea*
• Yunnan, Black Tea*
• Yunnan Pu Erh White, Loose Leaf

Every now and again he may have different flavours somewhere in the cupboards, usually just to try or as a gift from Jethro.

Tyson will usually either put two spoons vanilla sugar or honey in his tea, but never milk.

A lot of the time Tyson will use an infuser with loose teas from several different websites and brands, but when he does buy bags it will usually be from Twinings.

Cooking

Though still not great at cooking food when heat is required, Tyson is best at cooking fish. He can usually guess how long they need on the spit before burning, but that’s simply having cooked them more when surviving on his own. A combination of ‘I need to eat this and live’ & ‘I need to eat this, not immediately throw it up again’ were strong teachers.

When it doesn’t require heat, Tyson can actually make rather delicious food. This includes being able to make different types of sushi.

Ice-cream is one of the things outside of ‘needs heat’ cooking that Tyson can actually make delicious versions of. 

Bread is amongst those foods that Tyson knows how to make and, whilst he’ll spend half the time whining about how the dough sticks to his hands, making bread is something Tyson genuinely enjoys doing. He finds it to be a very satisfying process and he’s always proud of what he makes. 

Tyson knows how to make matzo ball chicken soup.

Though he usually favours buying fresh coffee when going to meet with the Moriarty Mirrors, Tyson will carry around a flask of coffee that he brewed himself too. Typically, Tyson will make Turkish brew coffee (finding the way it’s made rather relaxing), but he’s also been known to make a fantastic drip cold brew.

As a general rule of thumb, there are only a handful of foods that Tyson knows how to make, but - outside of fish - when Tyson knows how to cook something, he will make the most delicious, Michelin quality versions of those foods.

Despite his apathy towards eating and general disinclination towards all foods regardless of taste, Tyson actually has a rather good palette. He can tell when a different ingredient has been used in a dish, how to compliment flavours with each other, and what herb/spice is missing for most types of food straight away.

Bread

Bread is important to Tyson:

For the most part, Tyson’s rather relaxed in his practice of Judaism, but it is still very important to him. He may only make the effort to eat Kosher on Saturdays, but he makes sure to each Kosher on every Saturday. Sharing meals is an important part of Jewish culture, even more so ‘breaking bread’, specially Challah.

If Tyson is willing to share bread - not a sandwich, but specially a loaf or roll of bread - with you, you are very important to him. Even if the bread he offers you isn’t Challah, the symbolism is still there to Tyson. He’s unlikely to explain how important sharing bread is to him, unless directly asked, because - for the most part - Tyson keeps his religion private.

If Tyson is willing to share actually Challah with you on the Sabbath, you are something Tyson is willing to die for.

If someone rejects Tyson’s offer of bread, he’s unlikely to take offense; being someone who views eating a chore generally, he understands not wanting to take the food. The exceptions to this are people Tyson knows to be Jewish - as he’d expect them to understand the symbolism - and people who he’s explained the meaning to. Even if the bread isn’t eaten, Tyson prefers that the person accepts the bread from him. 

Amongst Tyson’s many other food quirks, he can comfortably eat bread on its own without complaint. However, he hates eating sandwiches without butter in them as he finds them too dry; even if they already have something like jam in them. That is most likely a carryover from packed lunches of varying quality made by the staff at the family manor when Tyson was at primary school.

Bread is amongst those foods that Tyson knows how to make and, whilst he’ll spend half the time whining about how the dough sticks to his hands, making bread is something Tyson genuinely enjoys doing. He finds it to be a very satisfying process and he’s always proud of what he makes.

Take-Out

Given Tyson’s erratic schedule and almost allergic reaction to any cooking that requires heat, it’s not surprising that he tends to rely on pre-cooked meals and take-out.

Of course with access to the web’s resources Tyson has no trouble getting restaurant quality food delivered, but for the most part, Tyson prefers to take out two birds with one stone by going out for regular take-out whilst taking his dogs for a walk.

Since rice is Tyson’s favourite food, he’s unlikely to get tired of take-out anytime soon. He usually orders Japanese, as practically everything is safe to give to his dogs as treats when he has leftovers, and Indian purely as an excuse to munch on poppadoms and naan bread.

Alongside his habit of bringing food and drink when meeting people, Tyson will almost always make a point of bringing takeout when joining people on stakeouts. With Lex that usually means KFC, but when Tyson’s meeting with an employee of the web that he isn’t as familiar with, he usually defaults on Chinese and vegetable Chow mein.

As Sebastian’s favourite meal is Chicken Tikka Masala, Tyson has a tendency to avoid it, but he will always jump at the opportunity for Bò Lúc Lắc, Kim’s favourite food. Whenever he’s in New York, Tyson always orders Pad Kee Mao for Dick and when Nate’s not making him join the other man for brunch, he’s feeding Tyson Dim sum.

Ice-Cream

Tyson’s favourite type of ice-cream is raspberry ripple, with sea salt ice-cream coming a close second.

Usually, however, Tyson eats Häagen-Dazs Vanilla ice-cream cups or White chocolate Magnums, because ‘consistency and avoiding overwhelming his easily shattered appetite’ is the name of the game.

There is usually some kind of dog-safe ice-cream in his freezer and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew Ice Cream stashed in there for the days when Tyson babysits James.

Ice-cream is one of the things outside of ‘needs heat’ cooking that Tyson can actually make delicious versions of.

Drink and a sandwich

Beyond more obvious defences, Tyson has dozens of pre-prepared lines to help conversations go smoothly and several strategies to help endear himself to other people.

One of Tyson’s main strategies is bringing a drink and a sandwich to a meeting for the person he intends to meet.

This works for several reasons. The first one is that it forces Tyson to actually attend the meeting. After his time fleeing the army on scraps, he hates to waste food and if he’s brought food for someone else, it would be a shame to waste it by not attending the meeting.

The other part is that Tyson knows this will generally endear him to the person he’s meeting, because it looks like he went out of his way to do something nice for them; and if knows anything about their tastes, that he picked something he knew they would like.

Which in turn helps Tyson stay comfortable and confident, which means his stutter isn’t as bad and Tyson can converse more fluidly rather than relying on the practised turns of phrases that whilst useful also add more distance between them and make it harder to find his true comfort zone around people.

Sensory Overload

When it comes to sensory overload, Tyson is the most susceptible to scent and temperature. Sight will get to him occasionally, but touch and sound are the rarest.

Tyson is incredibly vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by the smell of food. He’s a little sensitive towards strong perfumes or detergents, but those annoy him rather than forcing a reaction as the smell of food can.

He doesn’t cope with sudden hot weather all that well. Tyson will be the first to flop down on a cool tile floor and start spooning a slushy. Heat has always gotten under Tyson’s skin easily, and that has only been exasperated by how many awful memories Tyson had associated with hot places.

Since Tyson had learnt how to ‘control’ his Synesthesia, his vision has far less clutter and he finds himself getting overwhelmed less often.

Much like a cat, Tyson can get overstimulated by being touched. Overwhelmed by so much contact, especially after sex. However, since Tyson doesn’t let people touch him too often, he tends to avoid getting overwhelmed by that.

Extremely loud sounds will affect Tyson as they would anyone else and aren’t really a factor in Tyson experiencing sensory overload.

Milkshakes

For not being all that fond of milkshakes, Tyson ends up drinking a lot of milkshakes. It’s one of the few guarantees in his fridge.

He is sick to death of artificial banana, chocolate, and strawberry, but Tyson has an ingrained compulsion to make sure he’s always getting some form of calcium; from a childhood calcium deficiency that led to weak ankles.

He’s managed to shake the tick now, but one of his OCD twitches was having to tap the top and bottom of a milk cartoon three times before pouring himself any milk for the better part of his teens and twenties.

Another factor is that Tyson knows that milkshakes tend to have a high amount of calories for how easy they are for him to consume. It means that, even on days where Tyson fails to eat more than a slice of toast, he’s not burning more calories than he intakes by drinking them instead.

That is the same reason you won’t find ‘low calorie’ versions of food in Tyson’s home at all.

Food Quirks

Unsurprisingly, Tyson has several quirks when it comes to food and drinks. Three of these are impulses related to his OCD:

1. He has to have the handle of his mug facing left when he isn’t holding it but others mugs can face any direction.
2. When being handed a food and drink, Tyson will always take the cup in his right hand and the food in his left hand.
3. When eating from a bowl he stirs clockwise twice, then takes a bite, then stirs anti-clockwise twice, then takes another bite.

Tyson is one of those people when it comes to chocolate bars, always biting it into separate parts: be it nibbling off the chocolate coating first or biting off the back to eat the filling before the wafer. This also includes biting off the toffee/chocolate from a toffee/candy apple before starting on the fruit.

He does something similar with sandwiches actually. He tends to favour buying subs, but whenever he’s eating a sandwich with crusts, Tyson will eat the crusts off first before eating the rest. The exceptions are tuna melts or chess toasties where he’s more concerned about not burning his hand with cheese that has reached nuclear levels of temperature.

When eating a meal, Tyson will focus on one type of food before even thinking about tasting another. Usually, that means eating all his meat before turning his attention to vegetables or pasta. Sauces and gravies are the exceptions, he can mix those with his food without feeling off.

Similarly, Tyson tends to view soup as something to dip crunchy things in or retrieve delicious chicken/dumplings from rather than an actual meal. It’s one of those foods that he can mindlessly eat without wearing out what limited appetite he’s managed to summon up.

Bread is very important to Tyson and he can comfortably eat bread on its own without complaint. However, he hates eating sandwiches without butter in them as he finds them too dry; even if they already have something like jam in them. That is most likely a carryover from packed lunches of varying quality made by the staff at the family manor when Tyson was at primary school.

Options

Tyson tends to get overwhelmed by having too many options, that aren’t related to a mission he needs to accomplish, and tends to prefer letting others make the choice instead.

Given a thousand options and variables to complete a mission for the web, Tyson will patiently work through them all until he finds the best one; or the one that would please the Moriarty Mirrors the most, whichever the case may be. The same could be said for his days in the army as a strategist.

In those cases, Tyson finds it much easier to make a decision, because it affects more than just himself. He has a responsibility to fulfil, rather than his own needs which Tyson will gladly leave to rot. He’ll make a decision if pressed, if Tyson has to make a choice, but he finds it uncomfortable.

His entire childhood Tyson was groomed to be a perfect heir to the Delaney family legacy. He was expected to follow his father’s footsteps and obey without argument. Then in his one spark of rebellion, Tyson ran away to join the conformity and obedience of the army.

Then Tyson found himself securely under Sebastian’s thumb, before becoming the loyal pet of the Moriarty Mirrors. Independent decisions, not hinging on what someone else wants or needs, are uncomfortable for Tyson to make. He never really learnt how to.

With food, this applies thrice over. He has an appalling low appetite anyway, so when Tyson is presented with too much food, he gets overwhelmed and loses all desire to eat. Especially if it’s a lot of foods with strong smells, then Tyson can end up with sensory overload all too easily.

Food

Tyson’s preference in food is plain.

He tends to eat the same food over and over again. Even when he prefers the taste of something else, Tyson will typically keep to that habit, as a way of keeping some control - however small - over his life. He needs that routine and structure.

When Tyson doesn’t like the taste of something, he will still eat it. He has such apathy towards eating things he likes that disliking it really doesn’t change much. It’s a chore, nothing more, to Tyson.

That said, raspberries are a sure fire way to get him to eat something, and Jasmine takes advantages of that whenever she can. He may not eat anything else that goes into his care package, but she can be certain that he’ll eat the raspberry and white chocolate cookies she makes.

Sandwiches are also a good way to distract Tyson into eating, something he can hold in one hand and continue working with the other, passively eating without realising he’s doing so. Once the timing is figured out, one almost finished sub sandwich can easily be swapped out for a fresh one without Tyson registering the change.

His favourite food overall is rice. Plain rice, pilau rice, brown rice, rice pudding. Doesn’t matter, just rice.

His apathy towards food and the Moriarty Mirrors lack of care for their own health has created an odd balance. Tyson has to pull himself out of long work sessions and order food to make sure that the Moriarty Mirrors eat. He makes sure to gets food that’s healthy and tastes good, because it’s not only him eating.

In turn, the Moriarty Mirrors give Tyson plates of apple slices to keep his blood sugars going during long jobs - to keep him focused and working properly, to keep him entertain and providing the ideas they want from him - which means they’ll end up getting food for themselves in the process.

Seafood & Fish

Though still not great at cooking food when heat is required, Tyson is best at cooking fish. He can usually guess how long they need on the spit before burning, but that’s simply having cooked them more when surviving on his own. A combination of ‘I need to eat this and live’ & ‘I need to eat this, not immediately throw it up again’ were strong teachers.

When it doesn’t require heat, Tyson can actually make rather delicious food. This includes being able to make different types of sushi. However, he usually prefers to simply order sushi and prepare fish for his dogs instead. He gives his dogs a lot of fish to keep their coats glossy, and simply because they like it.

When it comes to most meats, Tyson dislikes smoked meat, but fish is the one exception. Whilst he generally likes most types of jerky, Tyson honestly hates fish jerky and wrinkles his nose at it when he gives some to his dogs. It feels like they are betraying him honestly.

When it comes to seafood, Tyson’s opinion varies a lot depending on the type, but he’s generally content to eat it and he certainly doesn’t have any allergies. He dislikes the texture of squid and octopus, but Tyson doesn’t mind the taste when they’re in something.

On their own, Tyson doesn’t like prawns, but he loves prawn flavour. Prawn toast is one of the few things that Tyson will eat without complaining about not being hungry or eating being a chore. He likes prawn cocktail crisps and he can be kept quiet for a while with an actual prawn cocktail.

He is largely impartial about crab and lobster. He thinks that they’re fine, but if those same flavourings and sauces were on chicken, he would like it even more. Though that may simply be a lingering rebellious streak from his father’s favourite food being crab rangoon.

Similarly Tyson’s mental association to awful family dinners - paraded out as one of the Delaney heirs and being forced to schmooze to gain additional funding for the university - has completely ruined oysters and clams for Tyson. He’ll usually eat anything, no matter of his opinions on it, but Tyson will refuse to eat either.

Soup, Volume 2

To no one’s great surprise when The Colonel gets sick, he’s an awful patient to deal with and to even less surprise, Tyson will always sit by his side regardless with the patience of a saint; a stupid, stupid saint who never learns his lesson.

During one of the times that Tyson came across a sick Sebastian trying to attack him and, rather than doing the sensible thing and simply running for the hills, decided to stay and nurse him back to health, Tyson ended up making his brother’s chicken soup for him.

Chicken noodle soup with matzo balls, a staple of any Jewish families recipe book. Jethro’s version isn’t anything especially unique, but it’s the only version Tyson would ever make. With ginger, chives, celery, and honey; and more red onion and leek than strictly necessary.

Tyson was honestly expecting Sebastian to throw the soup at him or immediately attack him after he was finished with it, but instead, Sebastian took the soup, sighed, and told Tyson to go. Naturally, he couldn’t resist making a threat about reclaiming him later, but he let Tyson go regardless.

The importance of sharing bread.

For the most part, Tyson's rather relaxed in his practice of Judaism, but it is still very important to him. He may only make the effort to eat Kosher on Saturdays, but he makes sure to each Kosher on every Saturday. Sharing meals is an important part of Jewish culture, even more so 'breaking bread', specially Challah.

If Tyson is willing to share bread - not a sandwich, but specially a loaf or roll of bread - with you, you are very important to him. Even if the bread he offers you isn't Challah, the symbolism is still there to Tyson. He's unlikely to explain how important sharing bread is to him, unless directly asked, because - for the most part - Tyson keeps his religion private.

If Tyson is willing to share actually Challah with you on the Sabbath, you are something Tyson is willing to die for.

If someone rejects Tyson's offer of bread, he's unlikely to take offense; being someone who views eating a chore generally, he understands not wanting to take the food. The exceptions to this are people Tyson knows to be Jewish - as he'd expect them to understand the symbolism - and people who he's explained the meaning to. Even if the bread isn't eaten, Tyson prefers that the person accepts the bread from him.

Steaks

Tyson likes his steaks rare to medium rare.

Fruit juice

Tyson's favourite summertime drink is a homemade drink Jasmine had taught him to make.

By hand he makes apple, cranberry, and cherry juice* then sweetens them with two tablespoons of brown sugar (in total not for all). He mixes them into a jug so it is 3 : 3 : 2 for apples : cranberries : cherries. Rather than using ice to keep it cool, which would dilute the flavour, he freezes some cherry juice to use instead so as they melt it evens out the flavours to 3 : 3 : 3.

*Though he dislikes cherries he is fond of cherry flavoured things - sweets, juices, etc - just not the actual fruit. He suspected that this had something to do with the texture as he's not too keen on grapes either.

Tyson cannot cook.

But that doesn't stop him making delicious food.

He can make you mouth watering foods - sushi, carpaccio (a dish made from thin strips of raw meat), salads, almost all deserts, and more - so long as he didn’t had to cook. When heat came into the mix Tyson was completely useless which is why he lived almost entirely off of take-outs and microwaveable meals. He didn’t have a particularly sweet tooth and he usually couldn’t be bothered making a salad, he’d just nibble on carrot sticks instead.

He often joked that his dogs ate better than him, this was quite frankly true. He gave his dogs the same natural feed, twice a day, as he had given the service dogs he’d trained in Turkmenistan. He felt it was best to give dogs a natural feed because it helped their teeth and coat stay strong and glossy. He’d give his dogs an egg (with shell), either half a raw chicken (with bones) or two fillets of fish (with bones, two fillets being the equivalent to a full fish), a spoonful of honey, a fish oil capsule, and a handful of rice - all raw, aside from the rice. This was closest to the natural diet they’d have in the wild, it was best for them.

Tyson's food preferences

Tyson's preference in food is plain. He tends to eat the same food over and over again, with the occasional switch the something with more flavour. His overall favourite food is rice.

The first item is what he usually eats, and the second item is what he may have instead:

• Cherrios, Chocolate Shreddies
• Plain Rice, Golden Rice 
• Vanilla Ice-Cream, White Chocolate Magnum 
• Tuna, Cod
• Lemonade, Pepsi
• Water, Orange squash
• Cheddar cheese, Wensleydale cheese
• BLT, Tuna Sandwich 
• Apple juice, Orange juice
• Monge tu, Sweet Corn
• Carrots, peas
• Raspberries, blueberries
• Strawberries, blackberries
• Apples, Pears
• Oranges, Bananas 
• Lasagna, BBQ ribs
• Double cheese pizza, Hawaiian pizza
• Japaneses take out, India take out
• Mushroom soup, Tomato Soup.
• Edinburgh rock, Sherbet lemons 
• Sour coke bottles [sweets], gummi bears
• Cheese and Onion, Salt and Vinegar crisps
• Jasmine and Pomegranate tea, Coffee
• Peppermint and Nettle Tea, Earl Grey Tea
• Hazelnuts, Walnuts

Foods/Drinks that he generally dislikes:

• Marmalade
• Cherries
• Peppers
• Melons
• Peaches
• Waffles
• Liquorice
• Anything spicy
• Anything with alcohol in it
• Smoked meats, other than fish

Soup

Jethro used to sneak Tyson out with him on summer nights so that they could swim in the creak after the area became a national park and they couldn't go in the day time.

Once they went in the late Autumn and Tyson got hypothermia. Jethro left so guilt he stayed at home with Tyson until he got better, as their father worked all day he didn't notice and Jethro phoned the school to say they both had chicken pox so they school wouldn't tell their father they weren't at school. It was during that week the Tyson learned to cook chicken soup by watching Jethro make it for him. Now whenever Tyson is ill he makes chicken soup like Jethro made it even though the recipe isn't as nice to him as the canned soups.

He knows Jim's coffee order of by heart. When he's gone to make a cup of tea in the mornings he has found himself accidentally making Jim's coffee instead.