“Silk, as I said before, I will be going out to my Sister Marielle’s mansion today.”
That’s what I called out to Silk when she came into my bedroom that morning to get ready for the day.
Today was my day off from work, and I had told Zak, as well as Silk and Frosty, of my scheduled plans.
The third daughter of the Tizar family, Sister Marielle, is married to the president of the Adalard Trading Company in the royal capital. The Adalard Trading Company was one of the three largest merchant houses in Elementia.
It was a highly unusual thing for a marquis to marry into a merchant family, but when it was one of the three major trading houses, there were some people who could be convinced that it wasn’t all that impossible.
On the contrary, it was common for the second son of an aristocrat to enter a commoner’s home as the son-in-law of the only daughter of a nobleman or the son-in-law of the heiress of a merchant family.
“Yes, miss, I hear you. I will send the carriage to the front door in about 20 minutes and I will prepare for you to be ready at that time.”
“Thank you, then please.”
“I’ll make sure the head chef also makes a box of sweets for you to take, so don’t worry.”
That’s right, I had talked with the head chef to prepare a new pastry for today.
“Yes, those snacks turned out great, I’m looking forward to bringing them with me.”
“Yes, it was a very tasty snack, wasn’t it? The young lady really does know a lot of things, doesn’t she?”
“I’m just a glutton, and I can make anything if I ask the head chef. It’s really amazing.”
In fact, I had been making various attempts to recreate the food I enjoyed in the other world with the ingredients we had here. I had tried a lot of things myself, but I often made them only after consulting with the head chef. If I looked for same kind of ingredients, sometimes I could find them. I was very happy when I amwasable to make them in the same way.
Anyways, I received a letter from Sister Marielle, and today I was going to visit the house where she lives.
However, this wasn’t the first time I had been to the mansion. I had actually been there twice before.
We often exchanged letters and gifts as part of our sisterly relationship as Tizar sisters, and Marielle had asked me if she could manage some of the shade bee’s honey. It was more than three years ago now.
She told me that it was so good that when one of her customers came to see her, she served the dessert with shade bee honey and was asked if she could sell it in her shop. I heard the man was running a confectionery shop for the aristocracy, called ‘La Dia.’ I remember hearing of it before. As I recall, it was a shop where Filgred sometimes bought sweets for me.
She told me that the owner was a long-time friend of Mr. Valdis, the president of Adalard, and the husband of Marielle.
“I don’t need a lot. He asked me if I would be willing to sell him a bottle of 1000 milligrams a month for wholesale.” That’s what Sister Marielle said.
1000 milligrams was almost the same as 1000 ml in the previous world, so I figured that wouldn’t seem to be a problem, but I talked to Zak about it, just in case. (By the way, 1000 milligrams would be 1 reeler in this world)
Zak said that it was fine as long as they didn’t find out that the source of the honey was from the Duke of Valmonter’s estate. I was concerned that if they found out that I was distributing from Zak’s territory, people would start asking for things from all over the place. Zak had no idea how to make money using Cross Island. He was not in need of money at all.
The shade bee was only found on Cross Island. They were pretty, round, golden-colored bees with black eyes, which is why they were called shade bees. They had a golden fuzz on their chests. In size and shape, they resembled the carpenter bees of my previous life.
But their beehive looked like a larger beehive. They were hanging from the branches of the trees in the forest.
On Cross Island, where various flowers were in full bloom, there was always so much honey flowing down from the beehive that if you put a container underneath it, you could get 2 reelers from a hive in one night. That is to say, about two liters in my previous life units.
It was easy to tell when a shade beehive was nearby because of its sweet smell. It is said that the shade bee is very gentle and will not attack if one does not have a harmful intention. It is also said that they can feel people’s words rather than understand them.
I heard that the dwarves and elves planted many flowers on the island for the bees in return for their honey.
I also heard from somewhere that humans and non-humans alike loved the shade bee’s honey, so many hoped that it would be bottled and sent out regularly from Cross Island. This kind of communication with the island seems to be handled by Filgred through Frosty.
Although other non-human beings also come from the Cross Island to help out on this side of the island, Shion Castle is large and complicated, so I never got to meet them in person. Occasionally from a distance, I have seen someone I have never met before planting new flowers in the garden or redecorating a room over there.
In any case, ever since we started distributing honey from the shade bee to La Dia, more and more people seemed to be interested in the new product–the Shade Bee Honey Cake. Since it could only be made in small quantities and was rarely eaten, it seems to have become even more popular.
After a while, we then started to sell 5000 milligrams of shade bee honey every month, and then started receiving a box of Shade Bee Honey Cakes from my sister each time. It was a simple cake made with plenty of honey and eggs–very similar to a moist sponge cake or a castella. It was a revolutionary treat in this world.
Currently, it seems to have become the signature pastry of La Dia. The luxurious dough made of eggs and honey, thanks to the honey from the shade bees, gives the pastry an extremely fine and moist texture that cannot be found anywhere else. The dough has a solid, heavy taste, but the exquisite sweetness that melts in your mouth makes you want to eat more.
***
This morning, Zak and I had breakfast on the terrace away from the house. I made the breakfast.
I told Silk that it was okay for me to take care of cooking the food and cleaning up, and then I put the breakfast I made on the wagon to push it to the terrace.
It was nice to eat surrounded by greenery and listening to the birdsong. As the breeze passed by, I could smell the refreshing green scent.
This morning I served French toast and ham and eggs, with a side salad of fresh vegetables from the vegetable garden out back. I used a large white plate to carry everything. This style of serving was the way it was done in my previous life.
I was worried that it might not be suitable for him as a royal, but Zak told me, “You can make it the way you want Fii. I’ll eat anything you cook.”
I guess the main point of a salad is the dressing, a mixture of oil, spices, and lemon or fruit juice, so one can eat a lot of raw vegetables. They don’t have anything like this in this world yet.
The drink was a large cup of milk tea.
As promised, a blue magic circle floated out onto the terrace and Zak appeared.
“Good morning, Zak.”
“Good morning, Fii.”
As usual, I said my morning greetings. I put my hand around Zak’s waist and gave him a hug. Then I looked up at him.
The height difference between us made this arrangement unavoidable. Hmm.
I always love the moment when I look up at Zak’s face and our eyes meet. This is the moment when I look up at Zak’s face and we look at each other, and I can’t help but smile because I’ve been so happy all morning.
He looks down at me quietly and strokes my hair.
As for the food, french toast was something that never existed in this world. But bread still came in all shapes and sizes. Soft, freshly baked bread would be baked and served by the head chef at Shion Castle. This French toast was made using the bread that the head chef baked. Yesterday, he gave me some for today’s breakfast, so I got to use it.
“Zak, is it good?” I watched Zak as he used his knife and fork to eat his French toast in a beautiful manner.
“Oh, it’s very good. Fii is a great cook.”
“Hehe”
I took my time and let the bread absorb the liquid I’d made with eggs, milk and honey. Then I scarfed down the thick, fluffy French toast I’d baked and smiled with a mouthful of honey and butter in my mouth.
I always felt embarrassed whenever Zak complimented me. But I was very happy just to be here.
I taught the head chef about the French toast a while back when I first arrived here, and now it’s becoming a standard breakfast dish for the head chef of Shion Castle. A thick slice of country bread is slowly baked with sheep’s butter from Cross Island, then the egg, milk, and honey are absorbed into the bread.
The thickly sliced bread dough fluffy, and the sweetness of the elegant shade bee honey that was generously poured on top was irresistible. I preferred to bake it just enough to brown it a little bit and eat it. It was nice to bite into a freshly made hot piece of something crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
Sometimes on my days off from work, I would cook breakfast away from home. I let Silk and Frosty know ahead of time if I was going to make it myself, and I would invite Zak to join me for breakfast on the remote terrace.
I’ve been surprised by the extravagant and abundant ingredients that have been available since I first arrived at Shion Castle. The meager repertoire of food that I had cultivated during my time as a commoner in Elementia was not suitable for Zak’s palate, so I recalled a lot of culinary knowledge from my previous life and compared it to the ingredients. I wanted him to eat good food, that’s why I dug into my memories.
On his days off, Zak always wore loose-fitting clothes, unlike his work clothes. Normally, Zak’s work clothes were the clothes of a high-ranking magician, but on his days off he took off his magician’s jacket and wore a knee-length jacket of soft silk, and ankle-covering pants of matching fabric. There were slits on either side of the hem of the jacket to allow for easy movement, and a sash wrapped around the waist. Kind of like a long shirt?
I guess the closest thing to something from my previous world was that it looked like the long, white clothes worn by Middle Eastern men. The fabric was more soft, though. The neckline could be collared, or it could be a standing collar, and so on. And most of the time, beautiful embroidery was done around the sleeves, hem and neck with thread of the same color.
The colors of the clothes were the same on top and bottom, such as black top and bottom, light purple top and bottom, and white top and bottom. At first glance, Zak always wore a gem, with embroidery of the same color on it. The shoes were not boots, but rather soft leather indoor shoes. They looked like loafers.
Today he had a light purple sash wrapped around the top and bottom of a white fabric. Very beautiful. It looks like Frosty always prepared an outfit for Zak to wear. I think he has a wonderful sense of choosing things that suit him very well.
“I’m going to visit my sister Marielle this afternoon.”
“Oh, I understand. Be careful, and don’t be too late.”
“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”
I looked at Zak with a laugh as he was staring at me. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I came home late.
“Oh, I’m sorry I was late the other day.”
“You don’t have to apologize over and over like that, so don’t worry about it.”
That being said, I felt more and more regret.
The last time I went to my sister’s place, I left a little late because I was too busy talking to her, and I made Zak worry about me. Before I knew it, the time had passed and I had to leave in a hurry. That’s why I was late for dinner and I felt very sorry about it.
***
The main residence of the Adalard Trading Company is located in what is also known as the intermediate area where the common people’s wealthy people live.
The common people could only enter the nobles’ living quarters if they had a permit, but the nobles could go to the common people’s city and they wouldn’t need a permit. Before my memories of my previous life returned, the gap between the lives of the nobles and the commoners was a normal thing, but when my memories of my previous life returned, I became somewhat hazy whenever such things were involved.
The mansion where Sister Marielle lives is an airy, exotic, Southern Hassad-style mansion with a large conscious of the Rhodocaius style of architecture, along with tall tropical trees that resemble date palms.
I’ve been here twice and I like the atmosphere, it’s very bright. The walls are made of bright orange-colored soil, which is very nice. Bricks of the same color are used for the walls and flowerbeds, and the plants are rare and unusual, creating the illusion of coming to a different country. Security is provided by private troops.
I wanted to come here to study and hear the stories of the trade fair, as they distributed not only domestic goods, but also food and household goods from the east and south. On the way to and from my sister’s mansion, Filgred would take me back and forth in the carriage of Shion Castle.
Today’s souvenirs for sister Marielle were ‘Fresh Caramel’ and ‘Date and Nut Syrup Cake’. The chef made them with sheep’s milk and butter from Cross Island and shade bee honey. There were two types of the caramel, one with nuts and the other with chopped dates.
The other was a baked cake made with dates, which I also made after consulting with the head chef, based on my memories of my previous life. When it came to souvenirs for the Trading Company, it was more pleasing to have something unusual prepared, so I always thought about what to bring.
In Elementia, sweets were considered to be something for the nobility, and commoners never had a chance to taste them unless they were wealthy. Butter and honey were not easy to find, much less raw caramel, and caramel itself which did not exist here. When I lived there with my family, there was never an opportunity to eat sweet things.
It would be nice if I could create an environment where children could go and buy sweets more cheaply, like in the old Japanese candy shops, even if it was just one piece of candy at a time with an allowance.
The sweets that I remember from my previous life, which could be easily made with what we had in the fridge, would be very valuable and expensive here.
A raw caramel was as simple as boiling down honey, butter and milk. If you boil it down hard, it became a caramel.
I wrote down the recipe and gave it to the head chef of Shion Castle to make, and when I explained it to him, he was very surprised. If you added salt, it became a salted butter caramel. If you added milk or softened the mixture, it became a raw caramel. If you made it hard, it became candy. As for the ingredients you could use, you could get them on Cross Island, so you could make them all you want…
“Thank you, young lady! It’s amazing. Thank you for showing me how to make this candy. It’s a recipe I’ve never thought of!”
I was more surprised because the head chef was so impressed. I was impressed once more with the raw caramel. It was so good, one could make a whole restaurant out of it. The slight bitterness of the caramel when the honey and butter were burned to a crisp, and the elegant sweetness of the shade bee’s honey was irresistible. The saltiness and richness of the butter on top of that was out of this world.
“Ooh, delicious! How delicious, I think I’m going to drop my hat!”
I threw a large piece of raw caramel into my mouth and chewed and bit down on it. Sweet and happy. I enjoyed the bouncy, soft and sticky texture. The rich sweetness of the caramel and the nice scent of butter surrounded my nose. Oh, I didn’t think I’d be able to eat raw caramel in this world. Of course, I knew it would be delicious because the ingredients are honey from the shade bees and sheep’s milk of Cross Island. Sheep’s milk is higher in fat than other ingredients and cow’s milk, so it was a great way to make cheese, and it was also richer and more delicious. Even if I said that though, there was no such concept here.
“Miss, I’ve never had such a sweet taste in my life, it’s delicious!”
Even the head chef was holding down his hat with both hands and rolling his eyes, just like me. I knew that feeling.
I had also wanted something to wrap the caramel with, so I explained it to the head chef. I thought about wrapping them up in oil paper, but if I was going to give them away as a souvenir, I wanted them to be a little bit prettier.
I could have arranged them in a beautiful lidded container, but I wanted them to feel like they were easy to eat.
That’s why I prepared ingredients for the oblate (edible wafer paper) which were made of potatoes and other starches. First, I explained how to get the starch out of the potatoes by actually doing it. We spent a lot of time and effort for research on this, but it was fun.
It’s not particularly difficult to do. You grate a potato and strain it through a coarse cloth in a container of water.
The starch that dissolved in the water collected at the bottom of the water, so you could dump the water on top and leave the starch at the bottom.
Disposing of the strained potatoes would be a waste, so I would use them in other dishes later.
We didn’t have a grater in this world, so I explained to the dwarf uncle on Cross Island and asked him to make some before.
A peeler or a grater from my previous world was something I definitely wanted, so I wrote the size and description on a piece of paper with a pen and gave it to him.
The luxury of having paper and pen at my disposal was still very emotional.
I knew how to take the starch out of potatoes from my previous life. I remembered reading in a cookbook how to make a simple arrowroot tea, so I tried it out in our remote kitchen.
If you poured a little bit of boiling water into the starchy water taken out of potatoes and mix it with sugar, you could make arrowroot teat. If you added some of the ginger-like ‘Jinja’ from this world, you could warm yourself up when it was cold.
I don’t know if this was a meandering remark, but I read in my previous life that starch powder used to be made from dogtooth violets (katakuri plant), but nowadays it was made from potatoes. So if you baked the grated potatoes as they were, you could make potato mochi with a slightly sticky texture. You could also cook it over the fire with other chopped vegetables to make a kind of okonomiyaki. If you added meat-based items, you could eat with gusto. Come to think of it, in my previous life, dates were used as the sauce for okonomiyaki. I just remembered something amazing.
I was troubled when the head chef first started to show interest in these cooking tools, but he calmed down when I told him I had a couple of them and that I’d give some to him later. He seemed very interested in these cooking utensils.
“What can you teach me today, young lady? Let’s get on with it!”
The head chef was ready to cook. Somehow, when the head chef’s culinary skills were added to my ideas, we were able to create delicious meals. I think this is because of the head chef’s great knowledge and skill.
“The master’s appetite seems to have increased compared to before. He seems to be eating much better than before. This is all thanks to the young lady. Thank you.”
“That’s because the head chef is very good at what he does, and Zak’s health has improved in part because of it.”
“Yes, but it’s also thanks to the Lady’s magical power. The inside of the Master’s barrier is filled with cool and refreshing feelings, which is very pleasant for us ‘non-humans’.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right. Well, thank you very much. You always feed me and Zak such delicious food.”
Thank you for everything, everyone. This place had become my precious, irreplaceable home.
By the way, I also asked him if he wanted to dry the starch, make it like hardened paper, and wrapped around the ‘raw caramel,’
At first, he twisted his head around, but when he saw what I wanted to do, but he immediately tried different things.
The head chef was very good at manipulating flames, so he was able to evaporate the water-soluble, thinly stretched starchy water very well. The thin film of starch that was created like a thin skin was peeled off with wind magic.
I had failed several times at first. It was difficult to adjust the thickness of the starch. But once I was able to find just the right amount that wouldn’t break, I made it a several times to make sure the quantity was right, until I was able to make it perfectly.
However, I was able to immediately adjust the starch by letting the chef’s magical power flow through, otherwise it would have been difficult. Thanks to this magical power, we were able to make something strong and durable that was hard to tear and easy to work with.
As a result, it turned out to be a very nice oblate. Would this kind of thing be considered a waste of magic power? vNormally, people with magical powers were noblemen, so they didn’t use their magical powers to cook. It was kind of interesting to see how this kind of thing worked.
I cut them into pieces just right for wrapping with the oblate. The only thing left to do was to cut the raw caramel that had been hardened with a knife, and wrap it up. I wrapped the raw caramel one by one, twisting both ends with the resulting oblate. It was very pretty. I liked that you could see the inside through the caramel.
While I was making these caramels, I wondered if I could make them look like colored cellophane if I mixed red, green, purple, or other vegetable or fruit coloring into the oblate. I thought it would probably be prettier if I wrapped it in that. I would talk to the head chef about it again next time.
I was glad that everyone in the kitchen of Shion Castle, and all the other servants were so happy and surprised when I asked to share a bunch with them.
***
“Oh!! Fiara-chan, what is this lovely thing?”
When I spilled out the fresh caramels wrapped in jewel-like colorful ovals from a pale peach-colored silk drawstring onto a white plate on the table, Sister Marielle squealed at the sight of it.
The white plate was brought to me by the maids here when I asked. I wanted to surprise her.
“Marielle, this is a sweet called ‘raw caramel’. It’s very delicious, so try it.”
“That’s a candy? How do you eat it?”
My sister’s eyes are rounded, so I pull both ends of the caramel wrapper with both hands, right in front of my sister’s eyes, and pull out the contents. Then I put it in my mouth, held my cheeks and smiled. Seeing this, my sister immediately imitated me and put the raw caramel in her mouth.
“!!!”
And, as expected, big sister Marielle put her hands on both cheeks and smiled, too.
The other confectionery was a baked pastry made by whisking sugar and eggs into date syrup and mixing in a lot of dried fruit date flesh and unglazed nuts. This was one of the dishes that the head chef had thought of and made.
“Wow, it’s so good! Both of them are delicious things that I’ve never had before. What are those sweet, delicious things in here?”
“Sister, these are dates, a fruit from the east. It’s dried.”
“Well, it’s so sweet and luxurious. It’s a texture I’ve never had before, and it accents the dough of the pastry, plus it’s got crushed nuts in it, it’s zesty. How delicious!”
I got great praise from my sister. It was quite wonderful.
Afterwards, we had agreed to go to the port city together, so when a carriage was prepared at the entrance, we rode out in it.
Because the port city was a special place, one could not come and go without identification. This is because it was a place where foreign boat passengers also came and went.
This was also the same place I arrived at by boat when Zak first took me to the royal capital.
There were many interesting things here, as well as the Adalard Trading Company’s office.
“Today, you know, I also have an appointment to meet Sörth for the first time in a long time.”
“With Brother Sörth?”
Brother Sörth was the second son of the Marquis Tizar family, the fifth from the top, just below Sister Marielle. He was working for the First Order of Knights at the castle.
“It seems that he’s off work today, and when I told him I was going out to shop with Fiara in the port city, he said he wanted to see you too, so he said he’d show up at the store.”
“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Brother Sörth.”
As the carriage passed through the port city gate, the landscape changed dramatically. The Adalard Trading Company’s carriage smoothly passed through the merchant’s gate with the pass held by the driver.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T/N: This chapter only served to make me hungry while translating TT_TT
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