READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 64
Every cook shares a common saying.
The kitchen is a battlefield.
Of course, it goes without saying that it’s not a real battlefield.
It means it’s loud, chaotic, and dangerous.
Especially during rush hours like lunch, dinner, or late-night shifts, cooks find themselves in a bittersweet predicament.
Orders come pouring in non-stop, and there’s no time for the fire to die down, while it’s natural for previously prepared ingredients to run out.
As everyone moves toward their own goals, paths inevitably cross, leading to clashes in the already cramped kitchen, where loud metal sounds and shouts of instructions and curses fill the air.
However, once the busiest peak time passes, there’s a break.
Though it’s called a break, it’s just for a moment.
Immediately, chefs have to get busy preparing for the next service time.
With people constantly on the move and the kitchen’s flames burning bright, it feels as hot as a heatwave even in the middle of winter.
But the space Karem was in did not apply here.
Instead of hot, it was cool—no, downright chilly.
Karem cleared away the piled-up egg shells and surveyed the kitchen.
Among the various chefs bustling around with cooking utensils and prepping ingredients, large wooden blocks, about the size of an adult’s head, were scattered throughout the kitchen.
There was one right behind Karem as well.
It was actively emitting a stream of cold air.
So that’s why everyone’s minds flipped upside down in the desert nation of Adobice.
The hotter it gets, the more cold air it releases; Karem could feel exactly what that meant.
The humid sealed kitchen of spring.
Naturally, it was an unbearably stuffy space.
And as the chefs began to light their stoves one by one, the humid kitchen quickly heated up, and the stationed wooden blocks immediately started releasing cold air.
The already warm kitchen rapidly cooled down.
Was it also a dehumidifying effect? One could feel a dryness in the facilities, tools, and air.
Maybe it would be a good idea to set things up better next time?
Up to that thought, Karem scanned the surroundings.
There wasn’t a leader commanding the current kitchen.
However, it seemed that without a predetermined theme, the chefs were cooking the menu items they were most confident in, leading to a lack of uniformity in the dishes.
The original kitchen owners, the inn’s chefs, were mainly preparing meat and pie dishes.
The chefs from Adobice were working on dishes that resonated with the Middle Eastern vibes of their region.
Chefs dispatched from Winterhome.
Unbeknownst to Karem, those who had been favored and whipped by their superior were quickly moving, visibly tense, knowing their hands held the Duke’s reputation.
“This means we only need to make a few desserts.”
Currently, the focus on cooked dishes was heavily leaning toward meals.
How did he know? Because the common ingredients caught his eye around those preparing desserts.
Fruits aside, if sugar, butter, and eggs were all present, it could only be a dessert that couldn’t be ignored.
There had also been a request to prepare several dishes, including desserts, so they could afford to make all desserts, right?
In truth, he already had everything planned out while preparing the ingredients.
Of course, if Mary, who would be with Catherine now, heard this, she would say, “What confidence does someone lacking skill in baking have?” But Karem had no intentions of playing around.
Two birds with one stone—no, three birds.
With just one item, he could make three types of desserts.
And fermentation wasn’t particularly necessary.
However, the labor required was quite significant.
At times like this, it would be perfect to have Mary around.
With a hopeful glance, Karem looked around, fully aware of where she probably was, but he knew well.
But in that gaze, the first cook to speak to Karem in the kitchen, Alberto, approached discreetly.
“Would you like some help if you’re short-handed? I finished my task long ago.”
“You’re done cooking already?”
“Well, it was a roast pig. I started roasting it over coals at dawn, and it just finished a moment ago, waiting in another room.”
Given that larger dishes naturally require longer cooking times, it was normal for a roast pig to take a few hours.
That being the case, Karem had no reason to refuse.
Gratefully accepting the cook’s help, Karem measured out the milk and egg wash, adding flour, sugar, and salt to create the dough, and cautiously stirred in melted butter.
“Even if it’s for meal pancakes, seems like it’s way too runny?”
“That’s because it’s not a pancake.”
“Eh?”
Spreading the runny batter thinly on a preheated pan like a crepe, Karem quickly cooked it and then left that task to Alberto.
Although he made a small mistake on his first try, he quickly adapted and asked as he poured new batter into the pan.
“Then what’s it called? The method is the same as making pancakes.”
“This is called a crepe.”
“Hmm, a Bersengzeto-style name, I see.”
An adept cook could guess the taste just by looking at the ingredients, cooking processes, and outcomes.
The temporarily dispatched head cook Alberto could do that as well.
While he could roughly gauge the unfamiliar crepe, it was slightly disappointing compared to the image that had formed in his mind of the boy.
And the same was true for those nearby who were quietly observing Karem’s actions with various emotions.
However, it didn’t take long for the meaning reflected in their eyes to change.
Amidst the mockery sent by the original owners of the kitchen, the chefs from Adobice were soon withdrawing their gaze one by one.
Perhaps they had expected too much.
With a young body and small hands that hadn’t even undergone a coming-of-age ceremony, Karem’s movements were certainly quite skilled.
After all, during their long lives, Dark Elves their age had only been spoiled in their parents’ arms, never even close to a kitchen.
Yet, calling him a genius cook favored by the Duke, one might have thought it was based on the barren standards of Europan villages.
They were those dispatched alongside a delegation, working for the royal kitchen under the command of the new king’s favor.
Adobice.
The world’s oldest nation.
Having witnessed the rise and fall of many nations over thousands of years, it too had faced crises but magnificently overcame them with just a bit of help and maintains its prosperity to this day.
Though their kingdom was situated in a desert, they could confidently claim to be richer than any other nation in the world.
The annual blessings of the Sobek River ensured that they would never experience famine.
Being located in the center between the west and east allowed the exchange of goods from both sides, leading to developments in culture believed to be superior to any other nation, and the same applied to cuisine.
Their cuisine was more sophisticated, lavish, and extravagant than anyone else’s.
There was no way they could serve something trivial to the desert’s ruler.
For that reason, most ordinary Europan nations were filled with nothing but mediocrity.
The Kingdom of Seophone’s history was but a fleeting moment to Adobice.
Even the history of the Felwinter Family was relatively long by their standards.
Though it was just a desolate ice town in Europan backwaters.
Even so, having that much history made them expect something, but the results fell short.
At that moment, a Dark Elf cook muttered.
“Hmm? That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
Hey, what do you mean by that?
To see something unfamiliar in the new king’s kitchen, known for gathering all kinds of ingredients in the world?
Slightly turning back to regain their original positions, they were astonished.
Their gazes were fixed on Karem, who was standing on a pedestal.
A boy stirring a bowl filled with cream atop a block of wood emitting cold air.
The bowl in the boy’s hand certainly contained cream.
A cream as thick as the white dye of a painter.
However, in the brief moment they took their eyes off, the cream in the bowl began transforming into a shape they had never seen before.
The liquid white that had appeared like egg whites, powder, and oil morphed into something resembling half-melted cheese with each movement of the newly observed whisk.
Yet that was not where the change in the cream contained in the bowl ended.
The cheerful metallic sounds of the whisk dancing around the dish.
Between that, a sound full of child-like innocence echoed louder, like clumping together flakes of snow.
“This should be enough.”
“K-Karem head chef, what in the world is that?”
“It’s not alive—it’s whipped cream.”
A Dark Elf who had quietly listened to those words reflexively frowned.
“Seems like he lacks a knack for naming things.”
The Dark Elf cooks from Adobice and a few in Winterhome and Obsidianberry who heard this from afar shared the same thought.
It would have been more than appropriate to call it ‘milk snow’ or ‘white silk clouds,’ but to call it whipped cream?
A servant entered the kitchen, sounding a warning to the entranced cooks.
“The guests have started to munch on snacks and chat!”
“Ah! There’s no time for this!”
“Phew, if I had stayed dazed a bit longer, it would’ve been a disaster.”
They almost made the most basic mistake. How could they be in such a situation, with the dish still incomplete, and commit an error not even a servant would?
The kitchen, which had been quiet for a moment, turned back into a battlefield.
However, only a select few were wholly focused on their meals.