Ashan 55, Arc 722
The beginning of Ashan had still been quite cold, even on Faldrass where it was usually a little warmer than it was on the main island, but sometime after the 30th, the temperatures had finally increased, and spring had arrived for real. In Beacon as well as in other places that had farmland, people began to sow the crops for the arc. Barren trees finally began to sprout new life, fresh green grass began to replace the brown, dry grass that was left over from the arc before, and flowers began to appear, first only a handful, and then more and more, and on top of that, birds could be seen everywhere, singing a joyful song.
In the Smooglenuff Barony, people were getting ready for the work outside as well. The arc before, Devin had begun to establish a small vineyard for his future Smooglenuff Wine. With the help of a couple of trainees from Cally’s, he had planted grapevines. It would be a while before they could finally start making their first wine – grapes were usually harvested in fall – but there was quite a bit of work that already needed to be done before that, and thus he had invited his previous helpers to Faldrass once more. They wanted to learn how to make the wine and knowing how vineyards worked was a very important part of that.
When the trainees from Cally’s had been on Faldrass the last time, Devin had prepared a wine-themed lunch for them, in order to get them into the mood for the work that lay ahead and inspire them. There would be no lunch for them this time because they would arrive in the afternoon, and you didn’t eat lunch in the afternoon, but he had decided to serve them a sweet little treat that contained wine before they headed to the vineyard – wine sabayon, with white wine.
For that reason, he was standing in the kitchen, wearing a frilly red and white apron in order to protect his expensive clothes, the ingredients that he needed on the table in front of him. He knew that he could have asked Mrs. Adams, the head cook, or one of her assistants to help him – he could even have ordered them to do the work instead of him because he was their Baron – but he loved cooking and making stuff for people and bringing a smile to their faces.
Wine sabayon was a comparatively simple dessert that only required a handful of ingredients – egg yolks, egg whites, white wine, powdered sugar and lemon juice, but Devin decided to consult a cookbook regardless, because he wanted to get it just right. Anything but utter perfection just wouldn’t do when it came to such an important project in his opinion.
The recipe said that he should whisk the egg yolks, the egg whites and the sugar, so he put them all into a bowl in order to do just that which was not his favourite part of cooking, to be honest.
Whisking for an extended period of time made his wrist feel kind of weird which was why he briefly turned to one of the kitchen aides that was shaping dough into rolls for dinner and asked, a curious expression on his face, “Provided that you are a sufficiently skilled engineer, do you think that you could build an automatic whisking machine? Wind is used to power windmills, but what about other things?”
“Your Grace?” the kitchen aide, a fluffy white cad cadouri asked and blinked, a confused expression on her face.
“Do you that think that it’s possible to make an automatic wind-powered whisking machine to replace the manual whisks that we have now?” Devin clarified and looked at her expectantly, whisk in one hand and bowl in the other hand.
“I suppose”, she decided after she had given the matter some thought. “But there is no wind in the kitchen, so the machine wouldn’t work very well in my opinion, unless you set up an outdoor kitchen, and even then, you’d have to wait until there actually is wind.”
“Right”, Devin replied and nodded, momentarily surprised by the girl’s thorough and reasonable answer before he finally started whisking, with a lot of vigor, as if he wanted to prove that he was stronger than those eggs and just as powerful as a wind-powered whisking machine!
The beginning of Ashan had still been quite cold, even on Faldrass where it was usually a little warmer than it was on the main island, but sometime after the 30th, the temperatures had finally increased, and spring had arrived for real. In Beacon as well as in other places that had farmland, people began to sow the crops for the arc. Barren trees finally began to sprout new life, fresh green grass began to replace the brown, dry grass that was left over from the arc before, and flowers began to appear, first only a handful, and then more and more, and on top of that, birds could be seen everywhere, singing a joyful song.
In the Smooglenuff Barony, people were getting ready for the work outside as well. The arc before, Devin had begun to establish a small vineyard for his future Smooglenuff Wine. With the help of a couple of trainees from Cally’s, he had planted grapevines. It would be a while before they could finally start making their first wine – grapes were usually harvested in fall – but there was quite a bit of work that already needed to be done before that, and thus he had invited his previous helpers to Faldrass once more. They wanted to learn how to make the wine and knowing how vineyards worked was a very important part of that.
When the trainees from Cally’s had been on Faldrass the last time, Devin had prepared a wine-themed lunch for them, in order to get them into the mood for the work that lay ahead and inspire them. There would be no lunch for them this time because they would arrive in the afternoon, and you didn’t eat lunch in the afternoon, but he had decided to serve them a sweet little treat that contained wine before they headed to the vineyard – wine sabayon, with white wine.
For that reason, he was standing in the kitchen, wearing a frilly red and white apron in order to protect his expensive clothes, the ingredients that he needed on the table in front of him. He knew that he could have asked Mrs. Adams, the head cook, or one of her assistants to help him – he could even have ordered them to do the work instead of him because he was their Baron – but he loved cooking and making stuff for people and bringing a smile to their faces.
Wine sabayon was a comparatively simple dessert that only required a handful of ingredients – egg yolks, egg whites, white wine, powdered sugar and lemon juice, but Devin decided to consult a cookbook regardless, because he wanted to get it just right. Anything but utter perfection just wouldn’t do when it came to such an important project in his opinion.
The recipe said that he should whisk the egg yolks, the egg whites and the sugar, so he put them all into a bowl in order to do just that which was not his favourite part of cooking, to be honest.
Whisking for an extended period of time made his wrist feel kind of weird which was why he briefly turned to one of the kitchen aides that was shaping dough into rolls for dinner and asked, a curious expression on his face, “Provided that you are a sufficiently skilled engineer, do you think that you could build an automatic whisking machine? Wind is used to power windmills, but what about other things?”
“Your Grace?” the kitchen aide, a fluffy white cad cadouri asked and blinked, a confused expression on her face.
“Do you that think that it’s possible to make an automatic wind-powered whisking machine to replace the manual whisks that we have now?” Devin clarified and looked at her expectantly, whisk in one hand and bowl in the other hand.
“I suppose”, she decided after she had given the matter some thought. “But there is no wind in the kitchen, so the machine wouldn’t work very well in my opinion, unless you set up an outdoor kitchen, and even then, you’d have to wait until there actually is wind.”
“Right”, Devin replied and nodded, momentarily surprised by the girl’s thorough and reasonable answer before he finally started whisking, with a lot of vigor, as if he wanted to prove that he was stronger than those eggs and just as powerful as a wind-powered whisking machine!
