293: Beetle

Entering the kitchen, I just wanted to cook something, anything to keep my mind off dealing with the Lukas situation.

The first thing I did was pull out the stock that was slowly dehydrating. It was nearly done, but still a little bit tacky, so I placed that a short distance away from the fire that Crisplet was creating.

“Alright! Time for breakfast!” I said.

I got out some grain flour, eggs, Buvul milk, and sugar. I was going to make some basic pancakes, pulling out a bowl and adding the ingredients before quickly getting a batter together.

I had done this a handful of times, so it was getting easy at least. I also didn’t pay them a lot of mind as they were always there, but I felt like my stats were actually doing something when I stirred like this; my arms never got tired!

Which reminded me, the stream of experience I was getting from Micca selling the products had slowed drastically right now, so I would need to start preparing supplies for her.

With Sylverith here right now, it would be the perfect person to take it back and ensure it would be safe. No one would dare try to rob a dragon, and even if they did, they wouldn’t make it out alive.

Another thing to add to my list.

Getting a pan, starting to melt a large amount of butter. I added a small pinch of salt to the pancake batter, giving it one last mix before starting to cook them.

While the first ones were on, I took out some regular boar bacon, which immediately got Lily’s attention, and started to cut off some thin slices, keeping an eye on the pancakes and waiting for the small bubbles to appear to let me know when to flip it.

“Don’t worry, I’m making breakfast for you too,” I reassured Lily.

Clacks let out a chirp.

“And you,” I laughed.

For bacon I was going to try something new I had read in the royal cookbook, which seemed to be absolutely delicious. It was a honey pepper bacon, and the recipe for it might have been the easiest thing I’ve seen yet.

It mentioned honey-cured as another option but I was not yet familiar with that. For this one though, I simply placed the slices flat on a tray, seasoned with pepper and a drizzle of honey, doing it on both sides, then cooking it in an oven until the fat had rendered and it was crispy. That was it.

I started small, just ten slices of the bacon, pulling out one of the small barrels of honey, and had it ready to go, placing it in the oven. During this time, I had flipped the pancakes and added a bit more butter to the pan.

With that done, I turned my attention to the soup I was going to make for the temple. I didn’t have any more blood owls, but I also don’t think I needed them. I wasn’t trying to make a clear body soup; instead, I was just going to provide them with something that had good regeneration, which I could achieve with almost any soup by adding virfolium, blood tears, or blood owl beak powder.

So, first things first, I needed to create a stock that I would be using today for all of this, and the bones I had in excess right now were boar and buvul, with buvul probably being the easiest to use here.

I didn’t get to put them on a tray before Crisplet threw a piece of coal at me as I nearly forgot the pancakes!

“Thanks, Crisplet!” I said, only to have a small ball of water hit my cheek.

There was a series of chirps as Crisplet let off a small burst of sparks and expressed happiness.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks, Clacks.”

I saved the pancakes; admittedly one side was darker than I’d like, and after putting some more butter in the pan, I started cooking more.

Eventually, Liane would be back, and I’m sure she and Jen would both appreciate food.

I quickly grabbed the bones from storage and started to roast them.

“If I give you too many items, just let me know!” I said to Crisplet.

In return, Crisplet just appeared to puff up, letting off a burst of sparks before I got distracted by flipping the pancakes again.

I had cooked over a dozen pancakes by the time Crisplet let me know the bacon was ready, as Lily appeared sitting by my side, clearly ready to help me taste-test it.

I infused it, not because I thought it would provide any significant buff, it only had +2 endurance and fire immunity, but I figured it would make them more filling for Lily.

Handing over several pieces, I took one myself, noticing that it looked sticky and still had movement when I pulled it out of the oven, but now it was incredibly crispy.

Lily ate hers immediately.

The flavour of it was great; there was the slight gamey tang from the boar, but the saltiness and the honey worked incredibly well together. The unexpected part was the pepper; I used it in most dishes, but here it worked incredibly well, almost made the sweetness of the honey come across as warm and fruity.

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“Good, right?” I asked Lily.

I didn’t get a response, but I did notice two more pieces were gone.

“I’ll cook more. I wonder what flavour we’ll get if we do it to our other kinds of bacon,” I said.

I went back to the cutting board and decided to slice up the rest of that boar belly, getting thirty or so pieces of bacon, before I added that tray to the oven.

I had another problem to deal with, I had run out of pancake batter, which was a problem because I only had twenty pancakes. That wouldn’t be enough for everyone, so I decided to make a second batch of those as well.

On the plus side, I didn’t nearly burn any of them now.

I also cut up two dozen slices each of Drakon and Titan Boar bacon, following the same recipe with pepper and honey, hoping the flavours there would work as well.

I stopped with forty pancakes. I felt that was enough and they were all stored in my storage now. I was keeping an eye on my mana right now; it wasn’t a problem, but I planned to do a lot of cooking today so I might run low later.

Perhaps I should preemptively make some mana restoring food? Nothing as crazy as the eel, but I had powdered mana willow bark, which was an ingredient used in mana restoration, so there should be no reason why I couldn’t use that and make a low or moderate mana regeneration dish or snack to help me out.

I was distracted by that thought as Liane and Jen arrived back at the inn, clearly coming straight to the kitchen with bags of ingredients.

“We’re back! And we’ve got lots of goodies,” Jen said happily.

Liane was looking around, spotting Lily who was now sleeping on the floor. “Is that bacon I smell? Honeyed bacon?!”

“You know it?” I asked.

She looked offended, “Know it? It’s the best snack!”

I laughed, “You can wait till lunch! It won’t be long.”

I ignored her protests and moved to the boxes that Jen was carrying and had put on the counter.

“We got you a variety of items, but you will need to visit the market yourself to really stock up. I’m not kidding when I say the local produce here made the options at the capital feel small, in terms of fresh food anyway,” Jen explained.

“Lots of freshwater seafood here too!” Liane said, coming over, getting over her protests.

“Yes, we got several options for Clacks, from fish to soft-shelled crab, or water beetles,” Jen said.

Clacks let out several large chirps and I looked back to see her climbing to the top of her nest.

I rushed over to grab her, not wanting to see her dive into the counter, bringing her over to the boxes holding all the food.

“No eating it until I prepare it for you, okay?” I asked.

Another chirp as she hopped along the edge of the box.

Looking inside, I was surprised at the variety. The first box had a bunch of fresh vegetables and fruits. Most of it was fairly basic: onions, carrots, small red onions, mushrooms.

But the exciting stuff was the seafood. There wasn’t really any raw meat, but that didn’t surprise me; I’d only asked for small fish.

Jen started to point stuff out. “Here are the small whitebait. I thought this would be great for Clacks. People usually eat these by giving them a light coating in flour and seasoning and frying them, then eating them whole.”

She pointed to fish very similar to what I’d seen Lily catching Clacks already, except maybe a little smaller.

“Next, I wasn’t sure if Clacks eat these, but people certainly do: soft-shelled crabs. They can be cooked in lots of different ways, from frying to boiling, and due to their shell being so soft you just eat them as is, though for these ones you still need to remove the organs,” Jen explained.

Clacks let out a loud chirp.

“I think that’s a ‘yes’ to Clacks eating them,” I laughed.

Jen hesitated a moment, but finally reached further into the box. “These... Liane insisted are good. They are water beetles.”

I saw as she took a small bag containing dozens of black beetles that were no larger than a small mushroom.

Liane took over. “These are actually really popular with people who live along the river. They are a great snack. You boil them and their meat is actually surprisingly sweet. Jen just doesn’t like it because it’s a bug.”

Crisplet sent across a strong feeling of disgust.

Which was immediately countered by Clacks throwing a tiny ball of water at him. It didn’t do anything, just bursting into steam, but clearly Clacks didn’t agree with the disgust comment.

“If you season the water you boil them in, Trev, you can get really nice flavour in them. All you do once they are cooked is remove the shell, and you’ll know when they are cooked because they turn bright orange,” Liane said.

Clacks seemed to be most interested in these. When I pulled one out, she hopped onto my hand, closely inspecting it.

They honestly seemed a little bit too large for her, or so I thought.

There was a chirp as she looked up at me.

“You can try it,” I said.

There was a series of chirps towards Crisplet, before he took the beetle from me, it ever so slightly shifting from black to orange as he moved it to her nest.

Understanding now what was happening, I moved Clacks over to her nest as well, but I didn’t even get to take a step before I felt a peck at my hands.

Looking down, I saw her looking up at me, raising her wings.

With a sigh, I raised her up higher.

She proceeded to dive off my hand and glide with far too much speed directly at her nest, where she did not make a graceful landing at all and tumbled into the nest.

“Are you okay?” I asked, worried.

A series of chirps came from inside, followed by Crisplet letting off some sparks.

To the side, I couldn’t help but notice Jen had a giant smile and Liane was holding back a laugh.

“What?” I asked.

This was all it took as Liane burst into laughter. “You’re like a concerned parent,” she said.

I felt embarrassed, and I’m sure my cheeks were rapidly growing red.

“Right! Out of the kitchen, wake up Hari! I’ll serve some lunch shortly!” I said, ushering them out the door.

The laughter went the whole way. Looking over, I saw Clacks had absolutely no issue eating the beetle, as the carapace was off and she was already halfway through devouring it.

She paused only briefly to give me a soft chirp, which I interpreted as meaning it was good.

“I’ll cook you a bunch more.”