1000 Layered Cake And A New Project
2188 Words
After the post-conference, another meeting was quickly set up in the confines of the conference hall in the domain. This would be crucial to recap what had been done by the Priests and Priestesses of the Engineering Guild of Gracehaven.
Besides this had been some time since the team leaders from the production area were called and this includes the clay bricks, rocket stove, modular ovens, bamboo production, weaving production, Gracehaven's Finest Bakery and Gracehaven's First Tailor and Loom.
Only the Strongbows from Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon and the Gracehaven's General Store are excluded.
Everyone had their seats and a domain assistant helped to serve us sweetened cornsilk tea. Our domain has a clay jug to serve the tea as well as clay cups and saucers. Although it wasn't made from porcelain or fine ware, it serves its purpose well.
Everyone had smiles on their faces as we sat there and watched our domain assistant places the cake that was baked by Jennings carefully into separate serving saucers for everyone that she had scooped using a flat spatula.
"Farah... That's the cake that Jennings had promised you. She mentioned that it was a thousand layer cake and that's made up of 30 egg yolks, butter and sugar. Although she promised to you that she will bake a cake once the ovens had all been lined with the continuous radiating heat, she made this for us as well."
"I guess this would be termed as 'one for all and all for one'." I commence the meeting and Farah asked to be excused as she ran up to Jennings and hugged her as she thanked her for the cake and returned to her seat.
The cake that had been served by our domain assistant looked wonderful and it glistened slightly by the light of the lanterns that were hung above our domain like a chandelier. That lantern was the first one that was lit by Farah using her safety incandescent light that would not go out for eternity.
Heather was intrigued in the cake and she made a mental note that she would be meeting Jennings the next following day to get the recipe from her. If this could be sold and have a lengthy shelf life, then this would be made available for the citizens as well as distributed to the rest of the town for sale.
"Please help yourself to the refreshments, we would be here for quite a bit today. There's a lot of things we need to wrap up since Marcel is here so we should be able to straighten out a lot of matters concerning the developments as well as our revised economic structure."
Everyone took a saucer of cake each and had 3 slices of cake on it. There was more than half inside the baking tin and I gestured the domain assistant to have her share as well as to be seated near her 'station'.
"Trade Minister, please address the current situation right now." I motioned for Marcel to speak up and after he took a small nibble of the cake and washed it down with a gulp of tea, he addressed his findings.
"There are things that need to be ceased from production. Those that I mentioned should remain as per normal and those that I had not mentioned would be shut down and moved to other areas of interest."
Marcel then relate to the uptrend and downtrend of the production of goods and only mention those fast-moving consumer goods instead. Those items that were slow-moving was relatively scrapped and workers need to be reassigned.
Ben took note of it and Heather was busy taking minutes of the meeting. Those who were not affected heaved a huge sigh of relief while those who had to shut their production area had to be relocated.
"There's going to be a new project called the 'Standing Ice Box' which was implemented today, so could the team leader of the project please rise and give an account."
Marcel concluded his segment and the domain assistant came and pulled the upright woven basket that had been modified near the writing slate as the Edinburgh presented the new project.
"This is a revised model that had been requested by Lord Marcel that measures 6 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep. There is one main door that consists of at least a few layers inside."
"Within this door, there's a 2 layered compartment for frozen items, one for fish and the other for meat. The centre here has 3 layers to store perishables like ale, milk, cheese, fruits and vegetables." Edinburgh explained as she opened up the door to show how wide would the 'Standing Ice-box' would be.
"There should be a difference between freezing and chilling temperature that I had learnt before — that the frozen area should be at 0°F while the chiller would be at 40°F and this would be best to store food to prevent spoilage." Heather shared her point of view and was agreed with the rest especially Eagle.
This gave a hint for Imelda as Edinburgh concluded her speech and sat down. She was elated because Heather came to her rescue in explaining the temperature as she had no knowledge about it at all.
I lauded both Edinburgh and Heather and discovered that the dimensions were 96 square feet in total for the Standing Ice Box. It was ideal and I asked Marcel how many that he need initially as he counted off as 15 of those units.
"How long would your team be able to set up 15 of these Standing Ice Box because I could read Marcel's mind that this would be sent to the rest of the 15 towns and accumulate the orders daily."
"2 units per day, Your Majesty, with the current manpower of 4 workforces. If Chadwell and the rest that had to shut their areas and moved to our area, I guess this could generally speed things up." Edinburgh concluded and Chadwell agreed.
Heather raised her hands and asked Jennings about the Thousand Layered Cake but she counted only 15 layers. "Seems there are 985 missing layers there, Jennings. How are you going to account for that?"
When Heather mentioned the cake which was kind of off-topic at the moment, everyone laughed since Heather had a serious look when she inquired about the cake even though she was actually pulling a joke.
"Hahaha. It's just a metaphor, Your Majesty. It's not really a thousand layers but this is just to show you an example of baking each layer of this cake for 3 minutes and repeating it for 15 times. Hope you like them."
Jennings explained in detail about the process when Heather asked about the ingredients and how it was being made to look layered in that manner.
Everyone was intrigued by how tedious the process of making this cake as it had to be continuously spread a layer and then baked before adding another layer and was repeated 15 times.
How long would it take to actually bake with a thousand layer then...?!
=*=
Back to business then.
When Marcel mentioned about the shutting of the rocket stove and modular oven production, the team leaders concerned looked downcasted but perked up once they realised they would merge with the other areas.
They discovered that the new project involved the use of weaving and decided that they would be embarking on the following day. In this way, the workflow would not cease. Besides, the materials were abundant and it was made from bamboo strips.
Imelda went over to the Standing Ice Box and discovered that all she need was to actually make the frozen compartment as the whole unit would be chilled accordingly and would not freeze up.
"Could I have this sample first so that I could see the results of the implementations later on? This would also be used to turn the storage barns into 2 cold storages too."
"This was highlighted to me by Sister Crystal and I think we could do it once the kiln for the grains, hay and straw in the courtyard is ready. Farah, this is your department so I think you should know what to do."
Imelda remarked to her buddy since both were used to collaborate together especially for the commode drying area. Now, there would be the finishing of the kiln construction in the courtyard for kilning of the grains before embarking on the construction of the the two cold storages.
After receiving the instructions for the relocation of manpower for the next day, the rest of the team leaders were dismissed, leaving only the pioneers, Engineering Guild members and us in the conference hall.
"Imelda, do you think this would be possible? Just concentrating the freezing compartment would cool the whole area as well?" I inquired as I thought about the cold storage that requires two of those instead of one.
"Yes, Your Majesty. The ice that forms inside the compartment would be just right since its an enclosed space. It's like the copper tun in Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon. The insulated interior is frozen but it does not freeze the liquid contents."
"Likewise, the frozen compartment here would be encapsulated in a thin layer of ice that would be able to freeze products inside even if its summer."
"The coolness of the frozen compartment would flow along with the chiller thus prevent food spoilage as mentioned by Her Majesty through the temperature mentioned. Besides, Sister Crystal, this was what you need in the future right? Cold storage to store the perishables such as jars of milk, cheese, butter et cetera?"
"That's right, we can make do without the chiller for the storage barn first. How about we experiment on this Standing Ice Box first and then we see how it is, eh? Besides we need to have 15 to be ready and shipped out to each respective Merchant's Association of each individual towns that we serviced." Crystal mentioned as the idea of making the Standing Ice Box to be prioritised.
"What do you think, Marcel? In times of this Great Slump, what are the possibilities of people owning this contraption in their homes?" I inquired as I had a half a mind that people might need this in their homes. But it would not harm to even try, innit?
"Don't worry your Majesty. There would be placed inside the Merchants Association in each town. The Lords and Ladies would receive an invitation or through the general announcement service made by the local messenger in the town Square."
"These Standing Ice Box would be an added feature since the main aim is to prevent food spoilage. Besides they have maids that would be able to go market daily so they do not have to worry about spoilages at all."
"If we could use a psychological marketing approach, what methodology would we implement to entice these people to buy?" Marcel tickled our brains as he played with some big words that only a few people understand.
Like an infomercial, all one need was to create the AIDA — Advertising, Interest, Desire and Action in psychological marketing. We have the product, we Advertise through the mass media, we create the Interest, spark the desire to own one and activated the Action to go out and purchase one for themselves.
Maybe with the help of a shill would start the ball rolling, wouldn't it? A slight nudge to get the crowd to buy-frenzy would be a good idea.
I opened the idea up to Marcel and he was delighted that someone shared his ideology and perhaps two heads are better than one in this kind of situation.
As we discussed on the new product and decides on the base price for the Standing Ice Box that stood at 96 sq feet, we concluded that the base product price would be marked at 2g instead to give a buffer for Marcel to make a higher profit for himself.
In accordance to Marcel, there would be an estimated 2500 nobles for the whole 15 towns and it would be a blessing if they could get 5% of the nobles population to actually order this Standing Ice Box.
"Well, it takes a bit here and there of earnings before you could see a hill, then a mountain before you," Eagle spoke up and that was true since he had told us that and I had been squirrelling away coins whenever I could and totally forgets about it until the first trip that Eagle had made to Darlington and retrieved the chest drawer full of silvers.
Furthermore, if we entice the Lord and Ladies to have chilled ale, jars of milk, cheese, ice cream of assorted milk flavours, chilled salad dressings and also some slabs of frozen meat, won't they be enticed to get one for themselves at all?
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"Farah... Is that you, my child?" a voice sounded from outside the domain elevated platform as the person was ushered in by one of the Shadow members
- Writer
