Chapter 1: The Ruu Clan's Outdoor Restaurant

1

"Man, this is making me kinda emotional," I said as I looked around.

Currently, it was the twenty-seventh day of the indigo month, four days after we returned from our trip to Dabagg.

It sure was something, thinking back on the path that led us here. And I was certain the women of the forest's edge by my side felt much the same.

It all started three days ago, on the day after we returned from Dabagg.

As we had taken the day off from our business in the post town, we invited Mikel to the forest's edge for the first time in a while so he could teach us how to make dried milk. After that, the time came to give Reina and Sheera Ruu's new dish a taste test.

"There may still be some fine details that we need to revise, but for the time being we consider it complete," Reina Ruu said as she held out a wooden plate with a serious look on her face. Contained within was a soup made using giba offal. "We catch five or six giba a day at the Ruu settlement, and over ten if you include our subordinate clans. Even if only half of those are successfully bloodlet, we still get ahold of a huge amount of innards every day, to the point that it was hard to figure out what to do with all of them."

"And we felt that if it was flavored like this, the townsfolk would at least give it a look, but what do you think? I would love to have you try it and share your thoughts."

I had lots I wanted to say too, but I focused on giving the dish a taste test first.

It was a really simple soup dish, with an underlying note of tau oil. However, the faint aroma of myamuu gave it a great scent.

"Since it's an offal dish, we parboiled it with lilo leaves. Then, for flavoring, we had tau oil, myamuu, sugar, and chitt seeds."

"We used everything aside from the small intestines that are used to make sausages, and for vegetables we had aria, tino, nenon, and pepe leaves."

"Pepe leaves, huh? I see."

Pepe leaves were akin to garlic chives. Apparently Reina and Sheera Ruu had decided to use them as vegetables rather than herbs.

There were no issues at all with the soup's taste. The tau oil and sugar gave it a salty-sweet flavor, while the myamuu and chitt provided a truly stimulating accent. I really couldn't sense the stench from the entrails at all. The unique flavor from the pepe leaves probably contributed a great deal to that last point as well.

Then you had the main ingredients, with all the different types of offal giving it some really delightful chewiness. You not only had the springy large intestine and stomach, but also the heart and diaphragm meat mixed in, which tasted very similar to normal meat, so nothing felt lacking at all.

The dish had hardly used any novel ingredients. But because of that, Reina and Sheera Ruu's pure skill was easy to see from how wonderfully it had turned out.

"Yeah, this is delicious. It's every bit as good as the offal hot pot stew with tarapa that Toor Deen prepared before."

When I said that, Toor Deen turned my way in shock.

"I-I just covered up the stench of the innards with the strong flavors of the tarapa and chitt seeds, so I'd say this dish is far, far better than what I made."

"Your dish had a real hearty flavor, Toor Deen, while this hot pot stew has a bit more of a subtle taste. But I wouldn't say either is better or worse."

Toor Deen looked more and more like she just wanted to run away, but Reina Ruu gently mediated.

"You're more accustomed to handling innards, Toor Deen, so if it really is as good as your dish, then that's an honor. And I also believe that we should share our honest impressions rather than trying to mince words when it comes to cooking."

The young chef didn't seem to know what to say in response.

"Now that I think about it, we've never had a chance to taste your cooking before, Toor Deen. Could you please let us give your offal dish a try sometime?"

"Okay," Toor Deen replied, her face now beet red as she looked down at the ground.

And when Myme chimed in, saying, "I'd love to try it too!" the young Deen girl looked ready to up and faint from embarrassment. "Still, this dish really is delicious! Giba innards are such an interesting ingredient!"

"Yeah, it's every bit as good as karon offal... More importantly, though, you did an outstanding job with the seasoning," Mikel stated with his same sour look as always.

At that, Reina Ruu's expression tensed up a bit as she looked his way.

"Um, thanks to your help, Mikel, we now have a new ingredient to work with: milk serum. Do you think that we should use that in this dish?"

Milk serum was the liquid separated out from the solids during the dried-milk-making process, or what I knew as 'whey.'

As Mikel stroked his square jaw, he muttered, "Milk serum, huh? There wouldn't be any issue with using it. It doesn't have all that strong of a taste to begin with... But you wouldn't see all that big of a change from adding it either, so I don't think there's any need to go out of your way to try it."

"Is that so? Well, it isn't as if we're going to be making dried milk every day, so it sounds good to me if we can avoid having to use milk serum."

"Hmph. You sure are greedy, still wanting to tinker after making a dish this good."

"That's right!" Myme interjected with a smile. "This dish really is delicious! I'd love to have some more until I'm all full!"

"Thank you," Reina Ruu replied with a smile of her own. "It's very reassuring to hear the two of you say that. And it's a true honor too," she added, then shared a joyful glance with Sheera Ruu.

As I looked over at the two of them from the side, I chimed in. "But weren't you talking about unveiling a new dish for the stalls? You plan on serving soup in the post town?"

"Yes. There's only a few, but some stalls in the post town serve soup already."

"Right. But that would require a lot of preparation, wouldn't it? You'd have to prepare tables and chairs, and also plates and spoons too."

"That's true. But the Ruu clan has earned so many coins from food sales that we don't know what to do with them, so I don't believe that should be any issue. And my father's given his approval as well."

"Huh? You already got Donda Ruu's permission?"

"Yes," Reina Ruu answered with a firm nod. "You told us before, didn't you? That cooking would be even more enjoyable if we could feel the same way making food for the townsfolk as we do for our family, and that doing so could lead us to improve even further. Sheera Ruu and I discussed it, and decided we want to serve a soup dish."

"Ah... In other words, you want to experience your customers enjoying your cooking from closer up? And that's how you decided on soup, which would need a place for people to sit?"

"Yes, that's right."

I was seriously impressed. On top of that, from the bottom of my heart I thought it was awesome that a person of the forest's edge like Reina Ruu had come up with such an idea.

"Got it. In that case, let's do everything we can to make it a reality. I figure if we consult with Milano Mas, we should probably be able to work out how to set up some seating."

"Thank you," Reina Ruu and Sheera Ruu replied with proud smiles.

Three days later, the outdoor restaurant was all set up.

First up had been securing the seating. We had a carpentry shop that I was acquainted with prepare wooden tables and chairs, as well as a frame to add a canopy over them. It was the same place we had already used a number of times for totos wagons.

"Oh, so this time you need tables and chairs?" the place's owner asked with a grin on his rugged face as he bit into a giba burger. Aside from just making purchases, we also saw him once a month for maintenance on the wagons, and we made sure to bring the owner, who didn't get around much, a meal from the stalls whenever we visited. "You want to use them outside rather than indoors, right? It would probably be best to put them together cheaply and have you buy new ones once a year. So, how many do you need?"

"Let's see... Can we order five tables that can fit four each, and enough chairs to match?"

"I should be able to take care of that over the course of today and tomorrow. I'll have them ready for you by morning two days from now."

"Huh? You can build them that quickly? Ah, and we'd also like to order a frame for a canopy to hang over everything."

"That's no trouble at all. Your business is really important for us. I mean, you've ordered four wagons in four months."

Just the other day, I had bought new wagons for the small Sudra and Fou clans to do their shopping, and before that the Ruu clan had wanted one for their business, all of which had gone through this one carpentry shop.

The owner tossed the rest of the giba burger into his mouth, chewed it, and then added, "The real difficulty will be preparing that many wooden plates and spoons. We don't handle small stuff like that here, but I know a lot of...