It was a relief to hear Gabriel’s feedback. “Great,” I said. “I was actually trying to make a soup that would appeal to a wide age range.”
My mother-in-law had pushed for a luxurious shrimp soup, while the head chef had been set on veal. However, I had suggested something simpler that people would find familiar and relaxing.
“We’re not only inviting nobles, after all,” I continued. “I don’t want anyone to be intimidated by the food.” Perhaps it was my interactions with the people in the old part of town that gave me this perspective. “I once asked a neighbor to teach me how to cook, but she told me, ‘I don’t know how to make anything that nobles eat.’ It made me realize that not everyone ate the same things that I had in the past. That was when I first learned that ingredients like goose liver, truffles, and caviar were so costly that commoners could never hope to afford them with their wages.”
Commoners had the impression that royal cuisine was expensive and high-class—so out of reach that a single meal would cost a month’s earnings.
“I was thinking that this soup would feel familiar to them because it uses a lot of Triste’s local specialties, like poultry and medicinal herbs,” I concluded.
“You put a lot of thought into it,” Gabriel remarked.
“Of course.”
The soup would be served first, to warm the stomach and put the guests in a comfortable mood. Then, it was time for the hors d’oeuvres. I felt quite confident in them after hearing Gabriel’s high praise for the soup.
I explained the various dishes that I had packed into the picnic basket. “For the hors d’oeuvres, we have fried potatoes, steamed and simmered turnips, stuffed mushrooms, candied carrots, and jellied shrimp.”
As for the mains, the fish courses were simmered crayfish with medicinal herbs, creamy whitefish gratin, aromatic fried trout, and shrimp soufflé. The meat courses were poultry pie, whole roast chicken, roasted lamb, and grilled skewers. I had cut all of them into bite-size pieces so that Gabriel could sample a bit of each.
“The main courses are wonderful too,” he said. “They all use ingredients that are common in Triste.”
We hadn’t decided on dessert courses yet. For today, I had made just one type.
“I tried making crepes,” I said. “There’s berry sauce inside them. Actually, the highlight of crepes is their crisp shells, so I’d like to serve them fresh if possible.”
“How about inviting a pastry chef to the venue and having them prepare the crepes after guests place their orders?” Gabriel suggested.
“That’s an amazing idea! Everyone would be able to eat the most delicious crepes that way!” I pointed out that it would also be nice if we could prepare several types of sauces and let guests choose which they wanted. That would be more enjoyable for people of all ages. “I want to make the sauces match the colors of your slimes.”
“It’s a great thought, but wouldn’t black and blue be difficult?”
“Now that you mention it, yes. I think sesame would work for black, but is there anything that’s blue?”
Wibble raised its tentacle and asked, “What about making the sauce with a type of blue fish?”
“B-Blue fish?” I stammered. “Um, thank you for your suggestion. I’ll look into it later.”
“Fran, you should be honest and say that it’d never work,” Gabriel said.
“Grr!”
I really did appreciate the input, though. I’ll incorporate blue fish into another dish.
“I’m also wondering about welcome treats,” I said. “What kinds of sweets would work well as easy-to-eat bite-size pieces?”
“Everything you make is wonderfully delicious, but if I had to choose, I’d suggest the baked sweets you used to consign to the pastry store in the old part of the capital.”
“Those are the kinds of sweets commoners love.”
At the time, I had been using old recipes I had learned from nuns while doing charity work with my sister. Much to my dismay, none of my pastries had sold at first. But one day, they’d suddenly started flying off the shelves. I had rejoiced, but later, I had discovered that Gabriel had been buying them all out. Apparently he had attended the soiree where my sister had been banished from the country, her engagement revoked. However, he hadn’t been able to defend me when the verbal attacks had come my way, and his guilt had led him to buy my sweets in an attempt to help me.
I giggled. “All of that time spent baking sweets every day in the old part of town feels nostalgic now. Did you share the sweets you bought with your employees?”
“Of course not! I savored each and every one.”
“But there were a lot, weren’t there?”
“I created an enhanced cold storage to preserve them.”
“I-I see.” I had heard from Solene, my friend who worked at the pastry store, that Gabriel would buy out all of my sweets every time I delivered a new batch. I was stunned to learn that he had been eating them all by himself.
“Before I formally met you, eating your homemade sweets was the only happiness in my life. I had rarely eaten sweets before that, but yours were truly delicious.”
“Thank you, Gabriel.” The pastries I had consigned to the store included soufflés, butter cakes, baked meringues, and cookies. “They’re all things that can be prepared in bulk, so they’ll make perfect welcome treats. I have a better picture in mind thanks to you.”
“I’m glad I could be of help.”
Not only were we enjoying our picnic, we were also settling on ideas for the wedding reception. It was a very fruitful time. With the picnic finished and my choices sorted, it was time for me to go home, but Gabriel asked me to wait.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I’ve been experimenting with the pearl cultivation.”
Emilie had provided us with oysters and grains to get started with. Gabriel explained that he had put the grains into the oysters and submerged them into the lake, which the transforming slime was keeping clean. He pulled on a rope tied to a stake near the water, revealing three oysters in a net. After picking one up, he dipped it in a special magical liquid, prompting it to twitch as if it were having a coughing fit. A few spasms later, it spat something out.
“It’s a pearl!” I exclaimed.
“Yes!”
After coughing up the pearl, the oyster was soaked in water that had powdered magicite dissolved in it. It would stay there for three days before being returned to the lake, where it would rest for half a year.
“The oysters are supposed to be disposed of after producing pearls, but I wondered if we couldn’t keep them alive and reuse them,” Gabriel said.
Emilie had only given us a few oysters to experiment with. If we succeeded, she would lend us more of the oysters the ogre duke’s territory had in captivity. I nervously waited to see the fruits of our labor.
Gabriel picked up our first attempt at an aurora pearl and wiped off the moisture. “Th-This is...”
“Um, how do I put it...?” I murmured.
The pearl was an extremely distorted shape instead of a perfect sphere. To make matters worse, it didn’t have the beautiful aurora coloring. It was a bit of a dirty white. We checked the other pearls, but they were no different.
“What does this mean, Gabriel?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I think I’ll be able to figure out something, though. I’ll take a night to analyze them.”
For now, he’d have to bring the trial pearls home and investigate the issue.
“I’m sorry, Fran,” he said. “I spoiled our enjoyable picnic with these disappointing results.”
“It’s fine. We can’t expect everything to go well right away.”
“That’s true.”
However, when I thought of them as products of Triste, even the dull pearls looked precious. “It’s amazing that we can make pearls in Triste.”
“Now that you mention it, yes. It’s shocking that this region’s lakes have the potential to produce pearls.”
After that, we teleported home and relayed the results of the experiment to my mother-in-law. Although the pearl cultivation hadn’t gone as expected, we had decided on a direction for the food to be served at the reception, so it had been a productive day.
The next day, Gabriel told me the results of his investigation.
“The reason for the pearls’ warped shapes is likely due to our water’s properties differing from that of the ogre duke’s territory. Our freshwater lakes won’t be exactly the same as theirs because of environmental differences. I’ll need to analyze the ogre duke’s territory’s water.”
“I’ll ask Emilie if she can send us some, then.”
“Please do.”
And so, that day, I sent Emilie a letter asking her to provide us with a water sample.