Morcster Chef B3 - Chapter 12 (Patreon)

He set about hanging the sign at the top of the wagon while Malissa took the polishing supplies and got to work trying to make the wagon actually look presentable. Belmont aided her, meticulously getting rid of any smudge of dirt or rot that he set his eyes on.

Ming busied herself organizing the food in a small ice box that she and Belmont had bought. Arek pretended not to notice when she snuck a few snacks out of their supplies and into her own bag. There was only so much food Ming could look at without eating, after all.

The city didn’t seem to care one way or another about their work. Beyond a vaguely curious glance or two, nobody even got close to them. Arek was perfectly happy with that and, as night started to fall, the Happy Sunflowers took a few steps back and examined their work.

It would be a lie to say that the cart had suddenly transformed into a beautiful storefront. The wheels were still broken and the wood was still old. However, it was a far cry from what it had once been.

Polish had been applied to every open piece of wood, giving it a faint sheen. It was pitted from where the rotted parts had been removed and several large cracks ran throughout the wagon. A homely wooden sign hung at the front, granting it the name, ‘Ming’s Snackporium’.

“I love it!” Ming exclaimed. “But why did you name it after me? Not that I’m complaining. I would have done the same thing, but I wasn’t there to choose the name this time.”

“Because you’re going to be our mascot,” Arek said with a wide grin. “It’s a hard sell to get people to eat food made by an orc that nobody knows. But a happy little girl with incredible magic and an affinity for food? That will work much better.”

Ming’s eyes narrowed. “So it’s only got my name so you can make me run around and convince people to come here?”

“Yep.”

“Awesome!”

“It’s quite devious,” Belmont agreed, wiping some of the sweat from his brow. “But what am I supposed to do? There won’t be much more renovations done to this cart, and even if they were, I’m no carpenter. Considering my lack of cooking skills, I doubt I can help much there either.”

Arek rubbed his chin. “Do you want to work with the rest of us somehow? If not, you might still be able to find a job elsewhere tomorrow.”

“If it’s possible, I would like to remain here,” Belmont said. “But I will not hold the group back either. I’ll spend some more time looking for jobs tomorrow like you suggest, then see what happens after.”

“Seems like a good idea,” Malissa said. “So we’ll be going into business tomorrow?”

“Might as well,” Arek said. “We’ll get up early to try to beat some of the other shops to getting open and compete for some customers. Hopefully, word of mouth will do the rest.”

The others nodded. They gave final one look at their hard work, then retired to an inn for the night. Not a single one of them slept well that night. Te excitement and worry of the events the following day held for them kept everyone awake.

When Arek got up the next morning and headed into the hall, Malissa and Ming were already waiting for him.

“You beat me up. Well done,” Arek said. “Where’s Belmont?”

“He went off to hunt for jobs again,” Malissa said as the three headed out of the inn and made for their wagon. “He’ll find us later today.”

“Sounds good,” Arek said. They reached the wagon a few minutes later and Ming pulled the icebox out of her bag of colding, thumping it onto one of the wagon’s counters.

“Isn’t that a bit redundant?” Malissa asked. “An icebox in a bag of colding.”

Ming shrugged. “It’s cold. Where else would I put it?”

“Fair enough.”

Arek popped the box open and scanned through the ingredients. There was garlic, a fair amount of pasta, shrimp, lemons, a bottle of clear liquid, and butter. She’d managed to get everything he’d asked for. Everything had been sorted and ordered into piles.

“This should be perfect for the first day,” Arek said. “Good job, Ming. Any reason why you chose shrimp?”

“The guy selling seafood said that it was pretty popular right now, and he’d already done some preparation stuff on it. Since you don’t have a lot of room to work with, I thought less work would be better. I’ve got more of it, too. That was just all that fit in the ice box.”

“Great thoughts,” Arek said. “I believe shrimp cooks quite quickly as well, so this should work even better than fish for a street food style of cooking.”

“So, how do we start?” Malissa asked. “Or is it still too early?”

Arek glanced up at the sky. The sun had still yet to rise over the horizon, and the world was cast in faint hues of purple and gray. A few people were already out and about in the square, but most of them looked very preoccupied with their own work or setting up stalls.

“There’s some movement, but I think we’re mostly looking at other merchants and people working for large households,” Arek said, rubbing his chin. “Most of these people probably don’t want to buy food from us, but it shouldn’t be long until some people do. That said, the recipe I’ve got in mind isn’t very good once its cold. It has to be made to order, and there isn’t much prep time. Let’s wait about half an hour before we start.”

“Maybe we could go over the recipe so I can help more?” Malissa suggested.

“That is exactly what I was thinking.” Arek grinned. “I don’t really have a name for this, but I know that seafood pairs very well with garlic, butter, and citrus. So that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.”

“Cook the shrimp in butter and garlic, then mix in the pasta?” Malissa guessed. She held up a finger before Arek could respond. “Wait, you’re supposed to cook the garlic first, then add the shrimp, right?”

“Correct,” Arek said. “Just for half a minute or so, to bring the flavor of the garlic out.”

He shuffled through the ingredients Ming had bought and held up the bottle of clear liquid. “What’s this?”

“White wine,” Ming replied. “The guy selling the shrimp said it went good with it.”

Arek squinted at the bottle. He pushed a claw into the cork and popped it out, then took a slight sniff, wrinkling his nose. “It’s strong.”

Malissa sniffed it as well and shrugged. “Smells about normal to me, but it’s been a while since I had any wine. We can’t exactly just serve wine with the meal though. Street food is supposed to be fast and informal, not to mention we don’t exactly have cups.”

“Wine is acidic,” Arek said. “I think it might work the same way the lemon juice would for tenderizing the meat. I’ve heard of people using wine in a sauce and then cooking the alcohol out – maybe we could try for something similar.”

“Works for me,” Malissa said with a shrug. “So – oil and garlic, then shrimp, then pasta?”

“Pretty much,” Arek said. “How many burners did you manage to buy?”

“I got this thing,” Malissa said, tapping a clunky contraption she’d set up inside the wagon. “It’s not really efficient and runs off magical energy rather than its own power source, but there are two burners on it. It was pretty cheap since it was so large and unwieldy.”

“Two should work perfectly, and Ming has magical power to spare. She can fill it up whenever it starts running low,” Arek said. “Why don’t we go ahead and try the recipe out with one batch, just to get a feel for it?”