LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 21 – The Kitchen
The elf carried me out of the room, so I guess I could leave the room, just that I needed supervision. I was expecting for her to carry me out of the house, but I was dropped in what looks like the kitchen.
The kitchen was rather strange and definitely wasn’t what I was used to. I saw cutting boards, knives, bowls, and plates, which is why I assumed it was a kitchen, but the other stuff was a bit more confusing. I suppose that the depression in the counter looked exactly like a sink, but there was no faucet so I wasn’t sure. There was also a strange red rectangle on the countertop. The rest of the kitchen was filled with cabinets and drawers. Many of them were labeled, although I couldn’t read what they said.
As I was looking around, she opened one of the cabinets and started pulling out various white powdery substances and then looked at me expectantly. Unsure of exactly what she wanted me to do with those unknown items, I ended up opening the other cabinets to see what was in them. As I wasn’t stopped, I decided it was okay and continued to look into them. I decided against flipping through them as I haven’t washed my hands yet and I didn’t think it was sanitary to just go through food items like that.
Some of the cabinets were flat out empty, and one of them had just a weird red crystal on the bottom with metal racks above them. I had no idea what that was for. A few of the cabinets were refrigerated, as I felt the cool air come out when I opened them. That got me excited, since the elves actually had technology and I could expect some modern comforts. I even found some bottles filled with what smelled like wine, and I was wondering if they’d let me drink it. Surprisingly, there was meat in the freezers. I guess these elves aren’t herbivores like they are often depicted as. In the normal cabinets, there were some loaves of bread, various vegetables, and fruit. I was wondering why they didn’t put the fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator, but if it doesn’t spoil, I guess it’s fine. Somewhat worrisome was that there were mildly poisonous berries in the pantry, but I assume that the elves could process the poison out of them.
There were a few more cabinets above the countertop, but the problem was that I was barely tall enough to even look at the top of the counter, so I couldn’t see what was in them.
Since Anortha took me to the kitchen and was still staring at me, I guess that means it is fine to prepare my own dinner. Unfortunately, when I tried to take some meat out of the freezer, I was stopped. Was I not allowed to use meat or something? I decided to take out all the ingredients I could see to know what I was allowed to take. I had no idea what her standards were, but I was pretty much barred from taking out anything. Or rather, she seemed oddly insistent for me to do something with the white powders that she took out in the beginning.
Giving in, I took a better look at the white powders. If this were back on Earth, white powder would likely be salt, sugar, flour, or illegal substances. I think it’s safe to assume that the white powder that Anortha put in front of me was not drugs. As this was the kitchen, I decided to give them a taste test, and they two of them were indeed sugar and salt. For the other two, I couldn’t tell for sure, but one of them was probably flour? The other one had a rather strong smell, somewhat like cheese, but not really.
I still had no idea what she wanted me to do, and after having a brief staring contest, she went to one of the cabinets and got out a loaf of bread. She pointed to the mix of white powder on the counter, then to the bread, and then put the bread back in the cabinet.
Are these supposed to be bread ingredients? I wondered. I haven’t ever made bread ever in my life, including my previous one, but I do know that to make bread, you probably needed flour and yeast. So is that other powder yeast then?
Asking me to make bread all of a sudden with no instructions is not going to work, so I just looked at the elf. Anortha opened up another cabinet and pulled out a book. She flipped to one of the pages and showed me the contents.
There was a beautiful picture of bread, along with a lot of words underneath it. I assume it was a cookbook, but this is completely useless if I can’t read it.
In the end, Anortha took the book back, and pulled out a scale with some different sized weights. All the weights came in a group of three, each group having different markings on them. There was |, —, X, ├, ╞, ╪, and 正. Since I recognized the symbols on the smallest three weights, I guess the next four characters in their “Roman numeral” scheme was├, ╞, ╪, and 正, in that order.
Anortha looked at the cookbook, put a “╪” weight on one end of the scale, and then dumped enough flour for the scale to balance. She scooped the flour into a bowl, and then put a “X” weight instead and put enough salt to balance and scooped that into the same bowl. She balanced a “—” for the yeast and then balanced a “├” and two “X” for the sugar. Well, except for the sugar she added more than the scale would suggest by far. Guess she likes her bread sweeter?
Anortha clearly wasn’t very patient with the measuring process, since before the scale stopped wobbling, Anortha simply assumed it was enough and dumped the ingredients in the bowl. I was a bit worried, but the ratio being a bit off should be fine.
The next thing she took out was a glass cup with line markings. She took a look at the cookbook, then put her hand over the cup. Her hand started faintly glowing and a glob of water appeared and fell into the cup. She apparently made too much water, so she dumped a bit into the depression in the counter and poured the rest into the bowl.
The casual use of magic in cooking was interesting, but as I can’t just conjure water out of thin air, I was concerned on how was I supposed to get water. This did explain the sink without a faucet though.
She mixed all the ingredient in the bowl, and then kneaded the dough with her hands. I was half expecting her to use magic to do the kneading process, but she didn’t. After a good while, she threw the lump of dough into a pan and then threw that into the cabinet that had the red crystal on the bottom. Her hands began to faintly glow again, and right after that, the red crystal began to glow brightly. She closed the door on the cabinet, and then got an hourglass and flipped it upside-down.
Anortha carried me and the hourglass back to her room, and then she drew a grid on the chalkboard. She drew a circle in one of the grids, and when I looked at her questioningly, she wrote “—|” on the board. Oh right, I did play connect five with her before. Since the bread probably needed a good while to bake, I decided to play.
A few games later, the last bit of sand fell from the hourglass. The elf seemed oblivious to the time, and I had to point it out. Instead of going to the kitchen like I expected, she just flipped it over and continued to play.
I had a few more losses than wins, as I haven’t played in a while, or she got better in the meantime. When the sand hit finished falling again, she still didn’t notice, and I had to wave the hourglass in front of her.
She picked me up and headed to the kitchen. When she opened the door to the oven, what was left was a flat piece of burnt bread. Did she get the timing wrong and left in there for too long? Or was it something else?
Either way, the bread didn’t look edible, and Anortha looked somewhat upset at the result.
In the end, we just went outside the village to gather food ingredients for our meal. Anortha refused to let me gather the neon pink mushrooms, so I guess she doesn’t like eating them. Normally, I’d cook it over a campfire, but this time I have a somewhat modernish kitchen to use. I didn’t actually see anything that looked like a stove though, but surely they had more than just an oven for heating.
When I tried to cut the ingredients up in the kitchen, however, there was a slight problem. I was too short. Anortha ended up having to find a stool for me to stand on. Problem number two was that I needed water to wash the ingredients. It took quite a bit of time to get Anortha to understand that I wanted water, but in the end, she became my personal water dispenser.
Done with the food preparation, I put the ingredient in a pan and looked at her expectantly, hoping she would realize I would like to heat the ingredients. She went to the strange red rectangle and did some magic and then the rectangle started glowing red. I put my hand near it to check if it was hot, and Anortha yanked my hand away from it. Assuming that the glowing red rectangle was indeed hot, I put the pan on it and sure enough, the food began to heat up.
I wondered if the elf would be okay with my rather basic tuber with berry and mushroom sauce, but she ate without complaint, so I guess it was fine. I even messes up a bit as I wasn’t quite used to the heat control, but at least nothing was burnt. Hurray for the fact that water has to boil first before the temperature can get higher. That did mean the sauce was a bit more viscous than intended, but at least that was still passable.
Well it’s good to know that I won’t be forced to eat just nuts, as I can always go and cook something myself. It’s just that if I can’t hunt by myself, and Anortha refuses to let me touch the meat in the refrigerator, I’ll be forced to become a vegetarian. I actually tried a vegetarian diet way back when I was a human, and it worked fine for a few weeks, but after I had a craving for meat and the diet failed. I doubt it’s going to be any better now, so if I get to that point, it’s definitely not my fault if meat suddenly vanished from the refrigerator.