King of Spreads
2347 Words
"Good morrow everyone, it's great to see you all once again here and it seems we have a special guest here today with us. Let me present to you, Marcel's bride, Countess Maricel that hails from Barmston."
"They both had been secretly married without our knowledge and let Marcel and his partner say a few words of pardon from us for not inviting us to their wedding reception, shall we?"
I opened the table for the duo to speak as everyone banged on the table and cheered for Marcel and Maricel to stand up and say a few words.
"My fellow good gentlemen and gentle ladies, this is Maricel and she hails from France but had been on Barmston for at least 2 generations. Yes, we just got married after contemplating over it for many seasons and I didn't inform any of you because we were always on the move."
Marcel explained his bit and then followed by Maricel that introduces herself to the senior members of the board along with some Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers.
After she had made the introduction and also the lengthy explanation of her betrothal to Marcel, she advises everyone to drop the peerage.
Since her husband had dropped his peerage, there's no point for her to carry hers in this town.
Everyone clapped their hands and agreed to what was suggested and the meeting finally commences.
"Let's have a recap of what had transpired yesterday so we would know of the progress. Please, would the intended parties please let your voice be heard." I called out to the engineers and also Old Jack along with Frank and Ben since everyone was involved with the making of such a machine called a blender.
Also, Ben and Frank were assigned to make the wooden stamp for the mugs that would be filled with peanut butter and 5 fruit jams along with the name of our town.
Ben and Frank stood up first and handed their handiwork for appraisal and one look u could see that they had put in a lot of effort for these 6 wooden individual hard pressed stamps.
There were rectangular in shape and was 2 inches by 2½ inches and the carvings on the wood look perfectly fine, complete with wood-burning to harden the mould and prevent chippings.
Immediately, these 6 wooden individual hard pressed stamps were given the approval and they would be making a few spares. Besides the two men had done quite a remarkable job indeed.
"Yes, Your Majesty. We will make a few spares for the production line to stamp the mugs before firing."
Next was the samples for the mugs for the peanut butter, fruit jams and Toothpaste. The samples too were beautifully done and finished and were approved with immediate effect.
This leaves the new production line to press and mould these containers when the factory has been constructed.
Old Jack and the engineers had nothing to show on hand because the product was still being forged and constructed in the blacksmith and this excuses them. However, they reported their progress and we were happy to hear about it even if it is just under 24 hours.
One of the engineers showed us the toothbrush and it was made from horsetail hair and it was about 6 inches long.
The wooden stick was well finished and had a nice texture and lustre to it to add to its quality and use.
From afar, it indeed looked like a caterpillar with black bushy bristles at the end and the prototype was indeed perfect. It looked just like what was drawn in Audemars journal and its purpose had already been well received by us.
That too would wait for the new factory to be built before we fully utilise the manpower for it.
"Ben, so we have enough manpower to run to make the peanut butter and fruit jams? How about the toothbrush and toothpaste?"
"We have barely enough manpower, Your Majesty. But we could cut down the manpower required for the peanut butter and fruit jams since they could work in batches to produce the end product."
"One shift would be tasked to produce these jams and let it cool before the next two shifts began to fill those containers up. In that way, it's like one of the production lines we used to run before."
Ben suggested and I accept the proposal. Since the production is not operational, Ben had the general exact number of free workers in town based on our current census populace.
"Anyone have any other questions to bring up? If not we shall move on to the next subject." I declared to all but was stopped by Old Jack as he slowly rose to form his seat and produced 4 small rectangular boxes and someone brought it to me.
"Your Majesty, this is what His Majesty had informed me to do for the successful Adventurers. Its the Macleod Cross and also Good Service Medal that comes in bronze, silver and gold."
"I believe both you or His Majesty could appraise these so I would be making a few more batches with the help of Priest Michael."
The moment I flipped the box open, I saw a round-shaped golden medallion together with the ribbon clasp to wear in the tunic on normal days. On special occasions, the medal would be worn over the tunic instead or over a red sash.
"Wow... Golly...! These are fine pieces of medallions I had ever seen...! These are for the adventurers and I think these could be presented to outstanding members of the military force too, am I right, Papa Jack?"
I handed the pieces around after I had viewed them and those pieces were being appreciated as the eyes of the representatives for the Romani Gypsies were wide open.
They loved gold, trinkets and shiny things and these pieces before them were much coveted by them...!
The Irish Travellers knew that one of the kinships would be receiving these medallions soon and was feeling very proud inside but didn't show it externally.
They simply smiled and nodded their heads as they looked at how the medallions were made and how intricate the designs would be.
Furthermore, there's only one Macleod Cross and they knew the weight and look of it contained precious material especially gold...!
As the medallions finally returned back to me, I resumed the meeting.
"There would be one more spread to prepare and this would be called srikaya. I believed from the word it may have been derived and originated somewhere in the South East Sia region near the Philippines Seas."
"I get to know of this because I just completed researching where the word seemed to sound familiar, that's all." I was referring to a sculpture of a King of Birds which the people of Mindanao had coined in as Sarimanok.
So this bread spread is called as King of Spreads. I told them of the ingredients and the methods of preparation while Jennings, Crystal and Old Kayla volunteered to work on it together and bring it to me once the sample is ready.
"Your Majesty, as for this King of Spreads, I would experiment using cow's or goat's milk instead and see how it turned out to be, yes?" Crystal highlighted since she had an abundance of milk over at her farmhouse that she was tending to.
"That would be a great idea then, Crystal. I hope to see the results either by tonight or by midday tomorrow."
"The ingredients that are needed are 10 eggs, 1 pound of sugar, half cup of screwpine extract and lastly 1 pint of milk."
"Suppose we have coconut milk then we would use them but we can substitute it with goat's and cow's milk to see how it compares, shall we?"
The three ladies took note of the ingredients and we continued on the meetings with the following in mind — Pomade and facial cleanser.
After I had shared with them the ingredients, and the process on making them according to how Audemars had described inside the journal, the next question would also bring about a new product and a farm that would be soon introduced.
"Eastwood, I believe that you had your fair share of travelling and you may have seen some people who cultivate these farms, I wonder if you had seen a honey bee farm before?" I asked the Romani Gypsies leader and he stood up to reply to me.
"The gipsy's cuckoo bumblebee is a parasite that attacks other nests so it would not be a good idea to rear them but other honey bees would be the best solution to rear these. Your Majesty, do you intend to rear honey bees to have their beeswax and also honey?"
He asked and I nodded my head. "That's right, Eastwood, we wished to rear these and I know that you would be the best people to rear these since you are most familiar with the types and how to distinguish them among the other bees. Besides, you are immune to these bee stings and felt like an ant bite to you, right?"
I knew I had hit the nail hard on its head as I had driven the fact about those bees after all. Thanks to the encyclopedia reference B that Audemars had brought back and I could flip through and find out the most accurate information about these bees.
Even though most of the content of those references could not be found in the current times, but at least there's something I could rely on in times like this.
"How right you are, Your Majesty. You are most learned and we appreciate having you as our leader in this kind of matters. You seemed to know more about Romani Gypsies culture after all." Eastwood replied as he smiled broadly and returned to his seat.
The rest of those Romani Gypsies who were with him all looked contentedly at me and were already drawing up a plan on how to design the beekeeping hives by using the paper and quill on front of them.
Since they were busy doing the things on their own, we left them to their own devices. I added, "If you guys need any help in making these beekeeping hives, you may approach Frank for his woodworking expertise and he would be glad to assist."
"Furthermore, if you would be hunting for bees to store them into these breaking hives, you may ask Gwen for her assistance as well."
"She's a hunter as well and I'm sure she would have come across some honey bees lying within this town especially behind our orchards."
"If there are no bees there, she could guide you outside the perimeter. I believed all you need is the queen bees and some workers."
"Plus, you may need a lot of nectar so I could get Priestess Penelope to have some good flowering shrubs nearby those beekeeping hives so the worker bees would have a constant supply of nectar."
"The more nectar the more the honey, am I right?" I finally finished mentioning about the honeybees and the Romani Gypsies were elated since I knew as much information to bees like them, thanks to the encyclopedia reference B. Hahaha.
"Your Majesty, so the Pomade and the facial cleanser would be shipped using the same existing containers, am I right?" Molly asked and I bobbed my head as a sign of affirmative.
"There are some wooden hard-pressed stamps to be made so Frank here would be making them in his spare time."
"No hurry, since we need to experiment on the beeswax for the Pomade and the substitute for coconut oil and use the olive oil instead for the facial cleanser."
"We can start off with the lemon juice first and once we are satisfied with the results, we can play around with other fruits and vegetables. There are cucumber and apricot and we would be having more than 5 varieties."
"The more variety the more choices the customers could choose. Even the Pomade uses coconut oil which we would substitute with olive oil and we have 7 kinds of resins that we need to source out."
"I believed Marcel had the ingredients noted down as well?" Marcel looked up from his journal where he was busy writing down the ingredients of the resins and also the procurement for coconut and olive oil since the present olive oil the town had would not be enough to last some batches.
"Yes, Your Majesty, I will get down to it. I would be sourcing the coconut oil, olive oil, Myrrh, Frankincense, Pine, Fir, Olbinam, Agarwood or Balsam essences."
"Plus also to get in touch with the inhabitants of Burgh Island to trade several coconut trees, tenderlings, young, matures and old coconut fruits. The salt of Hartshorn would be procured in large quantities as well."
"We are all excited to get to know of all these new products for the health and beauty products and I would be very sure that we would be a booming city in time to come...!" Marcel was excited that he pumped his fist in the air which also excited me as well as I raised both my arms in the air jubilantly.
"That's right you are, Marcel, we won't be adding any more items since we need to have these to be processed first. So the order of things from yesterday and today are 1 peanut butter, 5 kinds of fruit jams, toothbrush and 1 type toothpaste, 7 kinds of Pomade, 10 kinds of facial cleanser, 1 King of Spreads and beekeeping hives."
"If all goes well, then we would have many factories and more residents coming in to work with us to build a booming city...!" I stood up and raised my arm in the air and everyone did the same too.
We were excited since everyone would contribute to the economic infrastructure of this town and bring it to a better height than before.
- Writer
