First New Year's Eve
1198 Words
Saturday, 31st December 1440. Today was the eve of the New Year and this time the festival celebrating it would be rather different than Christmas.
Today, everyone was helping out to deck their homes, the dining tables and even our domain with fruits and food that comes in a round or a circle shape.
This practice was to depict the shape of coins as coins equal to wealth. Fruits were being brought out from the cold storages and we would be having glutinous rice balls that would have plenty of various fillings today such as green beans paste, red beans paste, strawberry, raspberry, wild cranberry, blueberry, apple, peach, banana and sweet pears.
These fillings would be made into paste or jams and be filled inside these glutinous rice flour balls before steaming slightly. Besides these glutinous rice balls, the bakers were designing gold coins biscuits filled with these jams except for the bean paste and served on the platter as well.
The idea was to have as many round-shaped biscuits and would be filled with these wonderful jams that represent coins and wealth throughout the whole year.
Everyone was merrily lending their time and effort to make the start of the new year to be a more Prosperous one ahead. Colourful streamers were hung around the courtyard. The houses were also decorated in a similar fashion. Everyone was dressed in their best despite a chilly wintry morning.
"Alright...we have decided to give away their remunerations as they worked along with the preparations for the new year. Thank you, Old Jack and Eagle for hauling the chest full of silvers to the front here."
"According to my records, we have slightly under 600 citizens and each one would be reimbursed with 5 silvers as last month. There won't be a change at all as we see the 5 silvers as the bare minimum for the remuneration package."
"Do we have 3,000 silvers inside the treasury, Eagle? It would have amounted to 60 gold coins, I reckon."
"We have more than enough silvers in this treasury chest. Furthermore, all the gold coins had been accounted for and would not be withdrawn unless during a state of emergency."
I nodded apprehensively because the treasury chest before us contained the earnings we got back from the citizens due to the purchases they had made from the establishments for some months already.
The coppers were set aside in another treasure chest where a silver coin would be exchanged for 100 coppers to aid in the monetary exchange during their purchases, especially at the Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon.
During lunchtime, the community had been informed of the issuance of their remunerations as everyone was ecstatic and were told that the issuance would be made according to the earliest residents right to the latest.
In this way, they would be able to gather their 'cliques' and to come and collect their remunerations according to the number of family members.
Before the end of the day, we had already dispersed the remunerations to nearly 600 of our residents in the community.
Strongbow came forth and seek attendance with us. It was rare for Strongbow to come forth and to present his voice and thoughts as it would definitely be another boon to the economy after this.
"Your Majesty, thank you for allowing us to come forth and to make several suggestions to improve the economy for Gracehaven. Our Crispy flatbread that comes in 4 flavours had been a hot seller since the start and everyone never got tired of eating that flatbread."
"Could we suggest adding other food to the menu like some grilled or fried food? Also, we would like to extend the range of ale since right now we are serving small table ale which could be considered as a child's drink."
"If possible we would like to look into regular ale, dark ale, bitter ale and also fruit wine. If wine could be made from grapes, other wines could be made from other fruits too."
I rubbed my chin and I wrote in a piece of paper about the ale that he had mentioned. In addition to the current ale, Strongbow would be churning out 3 more types of ale.
"How about the wine? It would take months to years to mature a wine right?" I asked since making these type of wines would be pretty laborious. Not only it was time-consuming, but it would also take up some space too. It had to be in a dark and cool place and from what it seems, an underground cellar would work best.
There was no facility for any underground cellars in Gracehaven as the network of tunnels underneath might be networked with groundwater, sewage tunnels and maybe some prehistoric bones too...!
And besides, Michelle would act unladylike once she tipped back too much wine into herself. So to be safe, wine would be a no-no.
My thoughts were disrupted when Strongbow spoke up, "Your Majesty, this wine I mean cider to be precise, would just need to be fermented at least 3 days to 7 days. So it would be ready for consumption from 3 days onwards."
These ciders could be made from pear, cherry, peach, pineapple, red or green apple. So with the number of fruit trees behind the domain, I could deduce that we would be having 6 kinds of fruit ciders with the exception of the pineapple that grew alongside the river banks."
I wrote down the number of cider and discovered that Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon alone would have 10 types of alcoholic beverages except for beer.
"So what kind of grilled and fried foods do you have in mind, Strongbow? The tavern is yours to manage on how you deem fit After all. Besides, adding grilled foods and fried foods would also entice the children too. So what do you have in mind? For my personal preference, I would like something which is fast to cook and good to eat."
"That would not be a problem, Your Majesty. We would have marinated grilled fish, grilled skewered pieces of venison, boar meat and game meat too. I would also like to add some fried fish soaked in batter mixed with bitter ale that could be eaten with fried potato wedges."
"The skewered meat could be marinated and prepared beforehand in a chiller and we hoped to have another Standing Icebox without the freezing compartment to replace the earlier one, including new chilled copper tuns to dispense the beverages."
"At the meantime, I will draw up a plan to note the future expansion of Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon since the new tuns would be up for display and a new griller and fryer would be installed as well."
"Oh... That could be done definitely. Alright, your request would be brought forward. At the meantime, you could go ahead and prepare the new food and also set the price first and present it to the committee members for approval."
Hearing the good news from us, Strongbow clasped his fist to his chest in soldiers salute and bowed slightly before he heads back to the Gracehaven's Greasy Spoon to inform his family of the results.
- Writer
