Day or Night, Mind Your Teeth
And so, right in the middle of the kitchen that had once been a warehouse, a long-winded excuse that boiled down to "we still haven't decided on the menu" rang out in full force.
"But we can't just carelessly use such a precious treasure when we can't even get a spare right away! We need to gather a variety of opinions from peop—"
"I'll be taking my leave now."
"Wha—hold on. Hey, Karem!"
Karem turned his back without a moment's hesitation. Jigmeser's eyes went round, and a beat later he shouted in flustered panic.
The walking recipe bundle was about to walk away.
Of course he had to stop him.
But he couldn't.
Whooooooosh—!
"Aaaagh—! A pillar of fire from the pot!"
"Wait, what the hell did you put in the sauce to make it taste like this?"
"Uh, hang on. This meat's looking a weird color."
Accidents erupted all at once.
Karem had fully expected something like this to blow up sooner rather than later.
Jigmeser himself had handed over every single hint.
A crushing deadline.
An unfamiliar kitchen—warehouse.
Unfamiliar expensive ingredients and tools.
That was three separate factors capable of making even veteran chefs slip up. And it wasn't just one person either; it was a whole crew. Even if they were careful, the accidents would come looking for them and go off.
Truthfully, if Alfred had just indulged in a little more ducal extravagance, none of this would have happened in the first place.
It won't turn into a real disaster, right?
He felt a flicker of unease, but he trusted their skill.
Unlike a certain someone who had started cooking half as a hobby and lacked even the basics, Jigmeser and the rest of Winterhome's chefs were proper professionals. If Karem shoved himself into their teamwork, that would be the real interference.
A coworker whose hands and feet don't match? That's just pouring oil on a house fire.
It was like telling someone who'd suddenly grown an extra arm to get used to it already.
That said, he hadn't walked out just to ignore Jigmeser's request. Having an outsider hanging around amid the chaos would only get in the way, and nothing useful was springing to mind right now anyway, so he figured he'd think it through step by step.
Three days left.
Subtract a generous window for actual cooking and that left two.
Plenty of time to conceptualize a dish.
Still, it wasn't without its problems.
"What am I even supposed to make with that thing?"
King Frost. Far too vague a material to work with.
Well, there was actually a ridiculously simple method.
Smash it up and use it as an ingredient.
There were plenty of dishes that used ice, after all.
Just the ice cream and sorbet variations alone easily numbered in the dozens.
But that would completely miss the point.
Jigmeser had said they would use it as a decorative dish. That meant the focus was on spectacle over flavor, and if they dismantled the thing to cook with it, that was the end of the story.
Or maybe there's a way to keep the original form intact...
Something had just clicked into place.
A Canadian snack that made use of the properties of ice and snow.
"Maple taffy."
The method was absurdly simple for something so well-known as a dessert.
Boil down maple syrup, pour it over snow, and roll it up. Done.
Some people just called it a cold lump of syrup, but soft, chewy candies in general were called taffy in English. Pumpkin yeot counted as taffy under that classification too.
Of course he couldn't make it exactly the same way.
For a high noble's banquet, as a decorative dish meant to be used as-is, maple taffy was far too simple, too modest, and frankly, too plain-looking.
So he would put King Frost to work.
"If I pour syrup over that giant fake snowman, it'll be quite a sight in its own right."
Karem closed his eyes for a moment and pictured it.
Syrup boiled down and dripping from the top of King Frost's head would slide down the smooth surface until it lost all its warmth and began to harden cold. Then you just rolled the chewy syrup onto a stick. Done.
Spectacle to watch, and chewy candy to enjoy.
"Well, no maple trees around, so I'll have to use some other syrup."
Even if there had been maple trees, the sugar maple that actually produced maple syrup was a different species entirely and he wouldn't have been able to make the real thing anyway. Since there weren't any, it hardly mattered.
Mulling over which syrup to use, he left the open yard and slowly made his way toward the Mage's Tower.
"It's Karem!"
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump—
A wild bear cub—no, Alicia, who had been trudging weakly down the corridor—came charging toward him.
Winterhome's little tyrant, the fleeing breeze, the bear cub born in human form, the Felwinter family's youngest lady, Alicia the Baby Ogre, please-stop-running-away, and so on—the person with the most nicknames in all of Coldon.
Alicia was bored.
She knew it couldn't be helped.
The people who would normally have played with her (or so she claimed) were rushing all over the castle, sweeping, scrubbing, and decorating. Even Jigmeser, whom she had snuck over to see, was racing around with a soul-drained look on his face.
Her newly made friend Flora also seemed to be cozily wrapped up with Gordon in a way that made Alicia's instincts scream not to interrupt. So Flora was out too.
It was as noisy as Winter-Ascend, yet Alfred was actually enjoying it, and even Baroness Poppins—who would normally have been strict—was so busy she had supposedly put lessons on hold for a while.
Children were sharper than adults gave them credit for.
Alicia was no different; she simply never needed to read the room, so she never bothered. Her gut was telling her loud and clear: this was not a good time for (one-sided) games of tag.
So she had been playing by herself—but even that had its limits, and she got tired of it almost immediately.
"So the second you saw me, you came running?"
"That's right!"
Alicia shouted, planting both hands on her hips with great dignity.
Her thick fur coat made her arms bend at an awkward angle, which only made her look cuter.
"Isn't it lesson time right now? Are you ditching?"
"That's a mean word! Alicia is simply taking a slightly longer break!"
"And getting some fresh air while you're at it, and maybe a snack?"
Alicia flicked her gaze away.
"Papa and Mama and Baroness Poppins are all busy. They said there wouldn't be lessons for a while."
"...So you really do have free time, huh."
Given how hectic Winterhome was—at least as busy as during Winter-Ascend—it made sense. What exactly a governess was so busy with when she wasn't teaching, he had no idea, but she clearly had something to do.
And in that situation, for Alicia to quietly play alone instead of roaming around or going into hiding like usual... thinking of the ordinary Alicia, that was downright admirable.
"Hmm. It feels like you're teasing Alicia somehow—"
Alicia narrowed her eyes and glared at Karem with a long, piercing stare.
"Have you been to the greenhouse? You usually play with Flora just fine."
"Mmm. A few days ago she seemed all cozy and busy with Gordon. I didn't want to interrupt, so I just left."
"Don't tell me you didn't even eat Corvus's snacks?"
"If I call Corvus, Flora notices too."
Fair enough. Lately Gordon had been commuting to the greenhouse morning and night. Flora was basically only coming back to the tower to eat breakfast and sleep, so the two of them must have gotten quite close.
"I've got something Jigmeser asked me to do as well, though."
"Hmm. Is Karem busy too?"
"I've still got two whole days left, so it'll be fine. It's just a snack when you get down to it."
"Then!"
Alicia's eyes lit up as if they might start glowing.
"Taffy's okay with you, right?"
"What is that?"
"Hm?"
Karem hadn't known, but taffy was also a modern candy.
Europa was a mishmash of eras, but it was basically stuck around the medieval period, and taffy candy simply didn't exist there.
The closest thing might have been something like Adobis New Kingdom's ghaz.
"It's candy you make by pouring thickly boiled syrup over cold snow and rolling it up on a stick."
"A new sweet!"
"Yes. It's nice and chewy."
"Chewy, you say."
The Mage's Tower looked exactly the same as when he had left. With no snow falling, Mary's piled-up snow fortifications stood out all the more sharply under the gloomy sky, looking even more majestic for it.
"Karem. Chewy in what kind of way?"
"Hmm. You know the dried sand-turtle dates from Adobis?"
The dried sand-turtle dates from Adobis were so high in sugar that they had a distinctly chewy texture.
"About five times chewier than that. Probably?"
"Ooooh. That sounds exciting. Chewy syrup, is it?"
Pop! Mary appeared out of thin air as if someone had cut-and-pasted her with a computer. A snow shovel was in her hands.
"Ah, Karem Hubae. You've returned. And good day to you as well, Lady Alicia."
"Good morning to Mary too."
"Have you come for a snack?"
"Karem said he would make something called taffy... syrup? Candy? A sweet."
"Oh my. Taffy, is it."
Mary, who had been about to scoop snow, let out a small breath.
"Truly, those ideas of yours never run out no matter how many you peel away. Is this taffy another one of those?"
"Yes. Exactly that."
Karem confirmed the implication that it was a recipe from his previous life. Only Alicia failed to catch on, tilting her head with a series of "huh? huh? what?"
"There's something like that, Lady Alicia. So, is there anything we need to prepare?"
"Just some syrup should do it. Weren't you about to start working?"
"Hmm?"
Karem glanced at the snow shovel in Mary's hand.
Mary followed his gaze, then lightly jammed the shovel into the ground to stand it upright.
"It's not snowing right now, so I can tidy up later. At any rate, syrup alone is enough?"
"Ah, and we'll need sticks too."
"Sticks?"
"We can't exactly pick it up with our bare hands."
"Ah."
Mary opened her mouth slightly, then looked down at Alicia's small, mittened hands.
"Indeed, we'll need those. Lady Alicia, what flavors would you—"
"Orange! Lemon! Butter caramel!"
"That last one isn't a syrup, but it shouldn't matter."
Mary left the snow shovel standing perfectly upright the way it had been when she appeared, and went inside. Karem, left staring blankly after her one-sided flood of words and sudden disappearance, turned to Alicia—who was staring just as blankly—and asked,
"Well, let's make something out of the snow."
"Oh, that sounds fun!"
Materials: snow and a shovel. Product: a makeshift chair and table in the form of snow blocks. He could play with Alicia while they were at it and also have somewhere comfortable to sit—two birds with one stone.
Time was short and he had no real talent for it, so all they managed was a large snow block for a table, but Alicia was delighted all the same.
"The requested orange syrup, lemon syrup, and butter caramel. Delivered."
Mary returned with a pop, carrying a tray loaded with several kettles.
"But what is this snow lump? A block?"
"Alicia made it together with Karem."
"Is that so? Looking again, the proportions and the blunt angles are rather convincing."
"Yes! It was a very satisfying bit of play for the first time in ages!"
Mary praised the plain rectangular snow blocks of varying sizes without a shred of hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Whew. So, are you going to make it right away?"
"Yes. Lady Alicia, which flavor first—"
At the answer of "Orange!" Karem took the kettle Mary held out. Then he simply poured it onto the snow block in front of him.
Syrup that looked a little thin yet still thick and sticky stained the flat snow surface a soft orange as it melted, then suddenly stopped.
He moved the kettle sideways and the same thing happened again, until before long the orange syrup had pooled on the table in a long oval.
"Now if we set a stick on this and roll it up—"
"Alicia wants to try it herself!"
Alicia took the stick Mary offered and clamped it between her teeth.
Then she froze solid. The block was taller than she was.
Without a word, Karem lifted Alicia up. He was startled by how light she was. All that food went into a body this small?
"Karem? Do I roll it like this?"
"Yes. Just set the stick on the taffy and roll it all the way."
He tipped her toward the table, and Alicia set the stick onto the syrup on the snow and spun it round and round.
The thick syrup, chilled cold, rolled up angular and lumpy until it bunched into something like an ugly orange rose. Karem set Alicia back on the ground while she chewed on the taffy still crusted with snowflakes.
"Eat it before it hardens completely and turns rock-solid."
"Chewier than the dates, but a candy with no resistance at all. It's hard and soft at the same time, and so chewy it's fun!"
Alicia seemed more taken with the chewy texture than the flavor itself, and kept working the taffy stick between her teeth.
"Hmm, and it happens to be almost snack time for my contractor as well..."
"Even so, using something like that as a snack feels a little... isn't it too simple?"
"Still, this side's butter caramel looks delicious—"
Crrrrk—
A sound that absolutely should not have been heard.
Karem locked eyes with Mary for a brief moment, then lowered his gaze.
"Huh? Hih...?"
A deflating, whistling noise.
A conspicuous empty gap had appeared in Alicia's mouth.
"Oh. Mary. Kanem. Something feels empty."
Karem and Mary shifted their eyes sideways from that angle.
Stuck firmly into the orange taffy stick, white as snow and utterly impossible, was one hard, small, adorable white tooth.
"...A front tooth?"
"Please hand me that kettle."
At the silent offer of teamwork, Karem passed over the kettle and immediately scooped Alicia into his arms, then bolted into the Mage's Tower.