Chapter 4
At five in the morning, I left the mansion through the back door with the leather pouch held against my chest.
I had often gone to the dawn market in my previous life, too.
When I ran a restaurant in Cheongdam-dong, people thought I was the sort of person who elegantly used tweezers to place flower petals on plates, but in reality, I went to Noryangjin myself every dawn to inspect the fish and argue over prices with the wholesalers.
A chef's work doesn't begin on the plate.
Usually, it begins on the market floor before the sun has even risen.
Cooking begins the moment your clothes take on the smell of fish, your fingertips grow numb with cold, and you have to decide whether to believe a merchant saying today's goods are good.
So I wasn't particularly flustered even standing in a dawn market in an unfamiliar world.
Of course, it was a little strange to see mushrooms the size of chickens writhing in front of me, fish in a tank at a fish shop making sounds resembling curses at the merchant, and some old woman tying up blue-tinged herbs and claiming that eating them at night made dreams more vivid.
Still, a market was a market.
Merchants wanted to sell high, and chefs wanted to buy low.
Dimensions meant little in the face of that simple, time-honored war.
“Why is this goat's-milk cheese so expensive?”
“Chef of House Monbel, this just came in yesterday. Smell it. It's very good.”
“The outside's dried out.”
“Only the outside.”
“I'm saying this because you're trying to charge me full price for something that's only good on the inside.”
The merchant frowned, and I pressed the cheese with my finger.
It wasn't in bad condition.
The inside was quite good, and I thought it could serve as a first course if I trimmed the edges and served it with herb oil.
The problem was the price.
I had to save money.
The money in the leather pouch was Elysia's last fortune and, at the same time, my lifeline.
If I mindlessly blew it all on expensive ingredients, we'd be ruined before Count Klever even arrived.
Fine dining wasn't a business of using expensive ingredients; it was a business of making them look expensive.
Of course, if I'd said that in front of my restaurant's customers in my previous life, I would've been slapped, but inside a kitchen, it was a truth everyone knew.
Good ingredients mattered.
But more important was the order in which you put them out, the story you told with them, and the plate you served them on.
Even an ordinary potato could make a guest close their eyes if you cooked it properly and got the timing of the butter and salt right.
Conversely, even the finest caviar was nothing more than salty little eggs if you plated it like shit.
I bought cheese, small woodland mushrooms, young carrots, fragrant green herbs, raspberries, the hind leg of a deer supposedly caught the day before, and freshwater fish that still didn't smell too strongly of fish.
The venison was expensive, but I needed something to use as the main course.
The meat had a slightly coarse grain, but it smelled good.
If I trimmed it properly and cooked it slowly at a low temperature, I could at least keep a noble from cursing after taking a bite.
“Chef, are you holding some kind of feast today?”
the fishmonger asked.
I thought for a moment before answering.
“Something like a funeral.”
“Who died?”
“Our young lady's funeral before her death.”
The fishmonger looked at me as if I were insane.
When I returned to the mansion, the sun was just rising.
In the kitchen, Marie was washing potatoes with sleepy eyes, and the two servants' faces stiffened as soon as they saw the ingredients I'd bought.
One of them asked cautiously.
“Kyle, how much did all this cost?”
“If you knew, your hands would shake too much to wash them.”
“Then why'd you buy it?”
“I have to sell one meal tonight and make enough for you all to get paid.”
Marie rubbed her eyes.
“With one meal?”
“Yeah.”
“Can that work?”
“I'll make it work.”
I tied on my apron and looked around the kitchen.
I had roughly twelve hours left.
In that time, I had to somehow bring this kitchen up to a standard where it could receive guests.
I had to do everything: prep the ingredients, prepare the sauces, make stock, wash the plates, arrange the parlor, and train the servers.
I remembered staying up all night before opening in my previous life to coordinate the staff's movements.
That had been hell, too, but at least we'd had a dishwasher back then.
“Marie.”
“Yes?”
“From today onward, you'll have to serve, too.”
“But I'm a maid.”
“A maid carrying plates is a server.”
“What's a server?”
“Someone who moves tactfully beside nobles while they eat.”
“That's what I already do.”
“Today, you can't just move tactfully. You have to move as I tell you.”
Marie looked uneasy, but nodded.
I called the servants together.
None of them looked happy.
It seemed word that the family's last money had been handed over to the chef had already spread throughout the mansion.
They looked at me as if to say, That bastard's burning our remaining food budget on plates.
I couldn't really blame them.
If they didn't like it, they could just walk out right now.
“Count Klever is coming this evening. We'll serve him a meal, and the price of that meal will be 150 gold.”
One of the servants choked while coughing.
Marie covered her mouth with her hand, and another maid made a gesture resembling the sign of the cross.
I still didn't know what religion this world followed, but apparently she was reporting the state of my mind to God.
I clapped my hands once.
“Save your surprise for later, and memorize this now. Tonight's dinner concept is The Last Banquet of House Monbel.”
“Does ‘last’ mean we're really going bankrupt?”
Marie asked.
“We're using the word ‘last’ so we don't go bankrupt. Nobles like food with a story more than food that's merely delicious. If you say it's a meal an old house prepared while staking its last shred of pride on it, even the same mushroom soup suddenly seems meaningful.”
“Isn't that deceiving them?”
“Call it presentation.”
“Isn't that the same thing?”
“Similar, but once you charge money for it, it's presentation.”
Marie didn't look convinced, but at least she didn't argue.
I went over tonight's course in my head again.
The first course would be goat's-milk cheese and herb oil.
Whet the appetite without overwhelming it, then tie it to a story about Monbel's old pastures.
The second would be a clear soup made by steeping woodland mushrooms.
If I described it as the old forest of a fallen mansion, or roots that hadn't yet died, it would suit the nobles' sensibilities.
I planned to cook the fish lightly and use only a tiny bit of raspberry vinegar.
The main course would be the venison haunch.
For dessert, a small sweet made with the remaining cheese, honey, and thinly toasted bread.
The ingredients weren't flashy.
Which meant the explanation had to be.
I taught the maids how to set down the plates.
A plate isn't something you slam down in front of a guest.
Quietly, but without looking too frightened.
The explanation couldn't be long.
It had to end before the guest got bored.
Instead, it had to include, in a single sentence, why this dish had to come from this house.
“Explain the first course like this: ‘Young cheese made from Monbel's goat's milk, enhanced with the fragrance of the herb garden behind the mansion. The first greeting from a house that has endured for generations.’”
Marie repeated it and bit her tongue.
“The first greeting from a house that has endured for generations.”
“Your expression is way too funeral-like.”
“You said it was the last banquet.”
“It can't look like a funeral. No noble is going to pay 150 gold for funeral-home food. It has to be sad, but elegant.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I want to put it in terms even I can understand.”
I rubbed my forehead.
Training employees was always difficult. It had been the same in my previous life.
People were harder than cooking.
Sauce reduces when you boil it, and meat cooks if you get the timing right.
But people can be told something five times and still put the plate down backward the sixth time.
Still, Marie adapted quickly.
After repeating it a few times, she gradually got the tone right.
The other servants were awkward at first, too, but they had experience working in a noble household, so their basic bearing wasn't bad.
The problem was confidence.
They had never explained food to guests before.
They had been taught that speaking at length in front of nobles was rude.
“Today, it isn't rude; it's how we earn the high price.”
“Kyle, that sounds really weird.”
“When something's expensive, even weirdness becomes etiquette.”
It was, well, something like a universal truth of the service industry.
The kitchen was turned upside down all morning.
I sharpened knives, the servants washed plates, and Marie washed potatoes while memorizing the explanations.
Uncle Bernard watched anxiously from a distance at first, but eventually couldn't stand it anymore and joined in arranging the parlor.
As befitted an old butler, he had a better sense than I did for creating a space fit to receive guests.
He precisely found places to hide small stains on the worn carpet, positioned the candelabra by the window, and even determined where a guest's eyes would land first upon opening the door.
“Uncle, why are you putting that vase away?”
“It's cracked. You can see it when the light hits it.”
“Good. Let's put that bundle of herbs there instead. It feels like Monbel, and it costs less.”
“You mean to use herbs as decoration?”
“The herbs have to work today, too.”
Uncle Bernard looked at me for a moment, then quietly accepted the bundle of herbs.
Now the people in this house were beginning to resign themselves to it, too.
It was madness, but at least it was progress that everyone had begun going mad in the same direction.
After noon, Elysia appeared in the kitchen.
She was smiling less than yesterday. She looked like she hadn't slept properly, but her eyes were strangely clear.
“You really are preparing it.”
“You paid me.”
“It's my money.”
“Which is why I'm working even harder.”
Elysia looked around the kitchen, then stopped in front of the trimmed venison.
“You're charging 150 gold for that?”
“I'm not charging it for that alone.”
“Then what?”
I paused and looked at her.
“You're what they're paying for, my lady.”
Elysia's eyebrows rose slightly.
“Me?”
“Yes. I make the food, the servants carry the plates, and Uncle welcomes the guest. But you're the host of tonight's dinner. Count Klever is coming to eat proof that House Monbel isn't finished yet.”
Elysia said nothing.
I moved my knife again.
I slipped the tip of the knife along the venison's sinew and shaved away the tough parts in thin strips.
It was good meat. If cooked properly, it would be more than good enough to serve.
“So tonight, don't smile like someone going to her death.”
“Then how should I smile?”
“Smile like someone who's about to wring money out of a rich man.”
Elysia stared blankly for a moment, then smiled.
It was slightly different from yesterday's bright, dangerous smile.
She still wasn't normal, but at least her direction had changed.
The madness that had been pointed toward death had turned ever so slightly toward money.
It was a good change.
In the restaurant business, we called that growth potential.
By afternoon, the sauces were beginning to come together.
The aroma of venison bones, onions, and herbs simmered for a long time filled the kitchen.
The mushroom soup turned out better than expected.
The strained, crystal-clear broth smelled of earth and forest, and the goat's-milk cheese paired well with the herb oil.
The fish had to be cooked at the last moment, so I only prepped it.
I took out a plate and assembled the first course in advance.
A small piece of cheese, a few drops of herb oil, a thin slice of toasted bread, and a single leaf of green herb bought at dawn.
By this world's standards, it would look like an absurdly empty plate.
But the negative space on the plate was doing its job.
As Monbel's first greeting, it wasn't bad.
Just then, the sound of hooves came from outside the window.
Uncle Bernard opened the kitchen door with a stiff expression.
“Kyle.”
“Yes.”
“I can see Count Klever's carriage.”
I washed my hands and dried them with a towel.
My heart pounded.
It was similar to when I'd heard a rumor in my previous life that the first star inspector might be coming.
No, this was tougher.
Back then, failure only meant losing a star, but today, failure meant losing the mansion.
I looked around at the people in the kitchen.
Marie was biting her lip in tension, the servants stood frozen with plates in their hands, and Elysia was watching me from the doorway. Everyone was watching me for what I'd say.
I drew a breath.
“Let's get ready.”
My voice came out calmer than I expected.
“What we're selling today isn't food.”
Marie asked quietly.
“Then what is it?”
I looked at the first course and answered.
“The illusion that House Monbel hasn't gone bankrupt yet.”