But suddenly being called my real name by Miss Kiyori made the flesh in my face stiffen. Not only was it awkward to have been caught narrating my cooking to myself, but having a woman around the same age as me calling me by my real name got me all flustered for the first time in a while.
“Um, ahh...” I’m not very good at speaking. I’m confident when I talk to myself, but especially with women, I tend to get tongue-tied. Miss Haru is fine talking on and on by herself so I can have fun just listening, but Miss Kiyori, how should I put this...she tends to ask a lot of questions, so it’s tough when it’s just the two of us.
“...”
But she does patiently wait for me to finish talking, so I feel charged with the responsibility of explaining.
I explained. According to Miss Haru, I needed to sell myself as a chef. She proposed that I should be attracting customers, not the cafe.
Honestly, I don’t really feel like I’m cut out for it. For example, the idea of opening a cooking school for women to gain women customers. She says that people would be happy to reproduce the flavors of the cafe at home.
They might be happy, but the cooking I do isn’t all that complicated, so if they learn to make it at home, I feel like they’ll probably stop coming to the cafe. So though I’m aiming to be a celebrity chef, I’m not really sure how everything will turn out. That’s what I tried to explain.
“Aha. Bringing people together through cooking. Sounds very Miss Haru.” Miss Kiyori nodded. “Mr. Jaysohlbrother, it might not be a bad idea to try it. Restaurants have been completely ignoring the potential of women customers. And I think if you’re teaching them to cook, they’ll be loyal customers, too.”
Loyal customers?
Miss Kiyori explained, her eyes sparkling. “Yes. They’ll be customers, but also apprentices. There are no other cafes like that, so I’m sure word will spread even beyond this city. Once that happens, even people who live far away will be curious about your cooking and come to eat it. And if they like it, they’ll buy the cafe’s seasoning. Once that flavor becomes the flavor of home, they’ll stop in to eat while they’re buying more seasoning. Expand your customer base and keep them. I don’t know much about business, but it sounds like a good idea to me.”
I didn’t really get it at first, but as I thought about it more, it started to sound really smart. Miss Haru really is amazing. That’s what I thought Miss Kiyori was saying. I nodded over and over.
“Also you don’t need to worry. Amateurs won’t be able to reproduce your cooking so easily,” said Miss Kiyori with a smile. “I watch carefully while you cook, but when I go home and try to copy you, I can’t get the same flavor. If you do open a cooking school, please let me enroll.”
Come to think of it, Miss Kiyori did always sit in a place where should could see my station while she waited for Miss Haru. I thought it was because sitting alone on the “terrace” would make her stick out too much, but she was observing my hands so she could learn to cook? Then I should have been explaining what I was doing while I worked—I really owe Miss Kiyori.
“...Umm.” I asked if I could make her something. She ordered tea.
I wasn’t sure if making tea counted as cooking or not, but I figured I would take advantage of this chance and explain the process as I went. “Today’s tea is black naeb.”
“Oh, I love black naeb tea. It has such a sophisticated bitterness.”
I was lost for words. Miss Kiyori said “love” so casually, but the effect was, mm, pretty powerful on me. I knew she wasn’t saying it about me, but it’s just not a word I hear very often from a girl. Yeah.
“Oh right. It’s Miss Haru’s favorite tea, too, right? Is that why you serve it so often?”
She can be merciless at times. I couldn’t deny it, so I couldn’t say anything. I was in the middle of trying to narrate my process, so I wished she would give me a break.
“Uh, so the black naeb tea we serve here is prepared in a pot like this.”
We put a netted bag of black naebs in a big pot and let it soak for two nights. All that water gets thrown out, and then we simmer the naebs for half a day. After that, we cool it down and dilute as necessary to adjust the flavor. Miss Haru seems to like it rather thin, so I add quite a bit of water. When I do that, though, the flavor seems a little lackluster, but when I add sugar or float some tomin leaves on top, she praises it as “tasty.”
“That’s all it takes to make tea. Tea brewed with dried leaves doesn’t taste much different at a cafe versus at home. But there’s another way to make black naeb tea. The people of the eastern side of Seigaya forest apparently use that method.”
“Seigaya...?”
“Yes. Err, it’s not a very well-known area, but they have a different culture from ours.”
They put around ten black naebs in an empty pot and warm them up. They’re naebs that have been dried and rehydrated. This time we were using naebs soaked in water for two days, but actually an hour is enough. And the idea is to use naebs that are as small as possible.
As the naebs warm up, their skin splits, releasing the fragrance of earth alphytemagic. As you continue, though, the scent of the naebs themselves comes out. Then you take them off the heat, put five or six into a cup, and pour hot water over them.
Floating a dried apple flower on top can be good. It’s just to add some flavor, so you take it out before drinking, but whole dried apple flowers release some fire alphytemagic that keeps the drink hot and makes the liquid swirl a bit. It’s fun to look at.
“Wow, it’s so cute. And it smells nice.”
“Now we just wait until it turns the color of the black naebs.”
“...”
“...”
Oops. I ran out of things to talk about. I didn’t factor this waiting period into my calculations. Putting some naeb knowledge on display would have been fine, but I couldn’t think of anything interesting.
“Uh, so the other day Miss Haru—”
“I was also wondering, Mr. Jaysohlbrother. You said you were narrating your cooking, but actually half of what you were saying was about Miss Haru, right?”
“...Yeah.”
“Don’t you think you talk about her a bit too much?”
It felt like all my body’s flesh was being kneaded. It’s true that there aren’t many topics I can discuss. Food and Miss Haru—that’s about it. No wonder even my old man calls me Sumo.
“Why do you suppose the people of Seigaya Forest make their black naeb tea differently?”
“Oh, I think I heard they don’t have as much drinking water as we do here...”
“I see. So they must not drink tea very often, then, huh?”
“They drink it as medicine, and apparently also on special occasions. Incidentally, if you make it this way, you can also eat the naebs.”
Since we have no way to use the drained naebs, we have them disposed of along with the bones. But warmed black naebs soaked for only a few dozen minutes retain their flavor and fragrance.
I spooned up a few and dropped them into Miss Kiyori’s open hand. After inspecting them for a moment, she carefully put one in her mouth as if she were taking a pill.