Extra Story: Peaceful Days

...I think it’s about time I beefed up my cooking skills.

I’d made all sorts of dishes using the ingredients I’d found here so far, but I was just about reaching my limit. I mean, the people didn’t even use broth or anything like that when cooking, so everything just tasted like a big amalgamation of whatever was used to make it. It wasn’t like it tasted bad or anything, though. It was actually pretty good in its own way, and they could even end up with a little broth if they boiled everything just a bit.

Still, it was nothing compared to the food you could get back in Japan.

The real nail in the coffin was the lack of seasonings. There wasn’t any katsuobushi for flavor, and not a single one of those niboshi in sight. No soy sauce, no miso, not even wasabi! That’s not even mentioning that spices were stupidly expensive here.

True, the home-cooked meals I made back when I was working as a waitress got pretty popular after they were formally added to the menu, but I had to really think outside the box to make it work. I had to make the broth for my faux udon by taking the stock I got from drying and grilling different types of fish, or boiling different types of animal bones. But that alone wasn’t enough. Any true Japanese person always had to be on the hunt for that elusive umami flavor!

And so, I got right to it. I didn’t have the slightest clue about where to get that fungus you needed to make miso and soy sauce, let alone how to use it, and I had no idea how in the world you would find wasabi here. But that was what I had my potion powers for! It was just like what that one guy said in that video that was popular a while ago:

It’s not like I’ve been putting this off by saying I was going to do it tomorrow or anything like that, but this is definitely the time for me to just do it!

“Give me a potion that tastes and smells the same as soy sauce, but make it a little bit healthier, and make it appear in a soy sauce jar!”

And just like that, I had my jar of soy sauce, made exactly to order. I guess you could say it wasn’t a “jar” cry from what I had back home! Haha...hahhh... Oh my goddess, that was terrible...

“Give me a small jar full of something that tastes and smells just like miso! And give me something that, oh, you know... Just gimme wasabi!”

“Wh-What is this?!”

“It’s delicious...”

Munch, gobble, smack, snarf...

All right, they love it! That’s some good, old-fashioned Japanese cooking for you.

This should make cooking up any seafood dish a snap. That said, even though we were on a peninsula, we were still far enough away from the ocean that the day I could introduce everyone to sashimi still seemed a long way away.

The five guys working at the Maillart Workshop had always given rave reviews to my cooking so far, but today’s menu was on a whole different level. I’d used soy sauce as a base for the sauce that I used to cook the meat, combining that with something that was somewhat like horseradish. I’d also used a combination of soy sauce and miso to boil and grill up a few other dishes as well. I was finally able to recreate that flavor I’d been searching for all this time... It almost brought a tear to my eye.

I also managed to make miso soup and some baked miso tofu for dessert. I even made some soy-sauce-flavored rice crackers for snacks when everyone was on break in-between work. I was so happy that I didn’t even think about putting together any specific menu, and just made a whole assortment of food. These weren’t exactly the healthiest dishes I’d put together, and I was pretty sure I went over the budget for only making food for one meal... Oops.

“Everything’s been so delicious up till now, but this is the first time I’ve tasted anything like this! What happened that made you put on a spread like this?”

Achille seemed so excited that I answered him honestly. “Nothing really. I just ended up making some new seasoning to try in my cooking. We used this all the time in my country, and I was finally able to recreate that flavor just now.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! You should open up a restaurant if you can make stuff that tastes this good.”

YANK!

Bardot, Carlos, Alban, and Brian all grabbed a different part of Achille before dragging him away to the room next door. A few minutes passed before the five of them showed up again, acting like nothing had happened. Achille seemed a bit nervous as he turned toward me.

“I mean, i-it’d be impossible for you to get this into a restaurant! Y-You wouldn’t get a single customer. Yeah...”

YANK!

Once again, Achille was dragged off into the other room. A few more minutes passed, and the five of them were back, acting like nothing had happened. Again.

“Well, I mean, yeah, it’s good, but it’s not something you should have in a restaurant. Sure, it’ll probably get popular and stuff, but, uh, it’s not something you should feed to customers... And, er...” Achille was so confused by this point that even he didn’t seem to know what he was talking about anymore.

I could pretty much guess what sort of lecture the four of them had been giving him after they dragged him away to the other room. At first, it was probably something like, “What are we gonna do if Kaoru decides to quit her job here to open her own restaurant?!” which was why he panicked and tried to say that my cooking wasn’t up to snuff. As a result, lecture number two was probably more along the lines of, “What if Kaoru loses her confidence and starts adding a whole bunch of weird seasonings instead?!” hence Achille’s confusion over what he should say now.

His eyes kept flitting back and forth to me, looking pretty shook up over what to do.

...I guess I can’t say that for sure though...

The next day, I tried making some of my new and improved cooking for the members of the Eyes of the Goddess.

“““We should open a restaurant!”””

You guys too, huh...

But hold on a second... If I rented out a little shop to open a restaurant and had the kids as my workers, labor costs wouldn’t even be an issue... Wait, no, no, no! That would mean they wouldn’t be able to stand on their own two feet. Even if I taught them how to cook, what would happen when I was gone and they ran out of seasoning? I knew exactly what would happen to the children if the flavor of their food suddenly got a whole lot worse, and they wouldn’t have anyone around to support them.

But there was an even bigger problem before all that: I’d be swamped if I opened up a restaurant! I’d have to always be working, morning to night. I didn’t come all the way to another world just to work myself to the bone! I was going to live a life of leisure at my own pace! I wouldn’t have to worry about money, and I’d have plenty of free time to myself. I was going to spend my days living the easy life as I tried to find myself someone to tie the knot with; that was the life for me!

Heh...

Heheheheheh...

“Uh-oh, here comes Kaoru’s one-man show again...”

“Shh! That just has to be her talking with the Goddess in her mind... Probably...”

“You don’t even believe that yourself, Emile!”

“That look in her eyes is so evil, it just makes her seem like a bad guy who’s up to no good!”

“W-Well... Yeah, I guess...”

And so, Kaoru’s peaceful days continued for just a little while longer...