The kitchen was hot and humid, even with all the doors and windows thrown open. Tomorrow was the start of the Midwinter Festival, and the most important day of the year, as far as he was concerned.
It was time for a feast. The festivals of the spring and summer were fun, but for Midwinter, they got to pull out all of the stops.
He smiled happily to himself, and looked around his kitchen.
Over in the coolest corner, where all the doors and windows were thrown open, the pastry was being rolled out for pies. Over there, on the fire which they had put back into use for just this occasion, was roasting a whole piglet, being slowly turned by a series of different kitchen kids. There would be another, larger one, tomorrow, a wild boar caught especially for the festival, but this was the test-run.
There wasn’t much fresh fruit at this time of year, but they were making do. The winters were long here, lasting from October to February, but they had saved up. In the cold-room, they had a dazzling array of apples and oranges, redberries and blueberries, skinny fruits and fatberries, and a whole variety of other unimaginatively named fruits. On top of that were grapes frozen from the ice house, and an endless variety of sweet and savoury preserves.
Truedream threw the bread dough down, wrapping it around his fist in a practised motion and showing his apprentices how to properly knead and form it into rolls, before parcelling the rest of it out into sections and handing the job off to them.
The kitchen had been revamped and rebuilt only a couple of years before, the gas stoves being moved off to re-reveal the large ancient fireplace. The tops of those stoves now held bubbling stock, soups and sauces, vivid vegetables and sizzling sausages. Inside the ovens were baked vegetables, cakes, pies and several varieties of large bird.
Down in the cold-room was a large goose, waiting to be the star of the show in a couple of days. He would prepare it himself, coating it in a mix of salt, flour and water to keep in the juices while it slowly baked.
New pantries, and the cold rooms, had been added when the kitchen was rebuilt, and he had overseen it all. On top of that, there was extra access to the cellars to the ice house deep below ground. His favourite new addition though was a locked cupboard, containing every spice that the Upstairs could acquire, and boy was there a lot of them.
Some of those spices would go into soups or bread. Some would be rubbed into the goose. He used others to spice up porridge and others to sprinkle over finished meals. At the tail end of winter, everyone would thank him for those spices.
Bread rolls sorted, Truedream moved across the kitchen, checking on what was rapidly becoming his favourite thing to cook. Stew! A thick hot, meal, filled with seasonal vegetables and spices that burned the mouth, even when served cold. It was perfect for warming up even the coldest of guests, many of which he could hear arriving right now, ready for tomorrow's feast.
The soup maybe didn't work quite as well on the upstairs as a hot whisky, but it was much cheaper, and to less of a detriment to work.
Those spices had been shipped in by dragon only a few weeks before, and the kitchen staff were still learning how to moderate them. Those first few days had been a trip.
They were on the cutting edge of cooking here, and he loved every moment of it, even as he hoped that none of it was poisonous…
Truedream dusted the flour off his hands and apron, reaching down to check the stew. It was simmering in its pot, rich and flavourful, but could do with more salt. As he headed towards the pantry, he first stropped by the open door to take in the cool winters breeze.
It was barely five in the evening, and already dark. The sky was heavy with snow, and he placed one hand on the door frame, thoughts drifting back to the years he had spent homeless. He had been lucky, he knew now. Friends around him, shelter, even if it was a house in the slums, and a job to let him escape. Others weren't so rich.
Honestly, it seemed like there were more and more orphans about every year. When he was a kid they were mostly confined to the slums and other areas, now he saw them everywhere. In the corners of the markets, huddled in the gutters, and running through the streets in gangs.
Stolen story; please report.
He understood that he was viewing it from a place of privilege, but even so, there wasn’t much he could do. Most of his time now was spent outside the city, in the Big House, and even most of the shopping was done by others. He still ventured into the city once or twice a week to meet up with old friends, but he was rather isolated from it all. Sometimes it would be weeks between visits, rather than days, as work ramped up for the party seasons.
Still, tomorrow the week-long Midwinter Festival would start, and he had Plans, even if those plans all involved work.
He wasn’t paid particularly well, especially considering his position as head cook, but the free food and lodging more or less made up for it. He had spent most of what he’d saved up over the past few months on bribes and food, and now it was all coming home to roost.
In a quieter corner of the kitchen, crouched under a table so as to be out of the way, he had arranged six street kids. He had been scouting them out for a little while, and these were the ones he had decided were trustworthy.
As a test, he had given them a token amount of money and sent them into the city to trawl shops for ingredients. They hadn’t stolen it, and some of them had actually come back with what was asked for, so that was good enough for him.
He shook himself out of his reverie, realising he was blocking the door. Tomorrow would be all-go, back to prep.
-
The next morning, it was all go. The feast was to start at mid-day and would continue for a week without stopping. The kitchen staff had been preparing for weeks, and despite the work ahead of them, they were all glad to finally start.
The dinner would consist of one long buffet, served from long tables in the South Hall. There would be hot and cold food always available, varying depending on the time of day.
It all seemed a little wasteful to Truedream, hence the Plan.
Overnight, his small cohort of street kids had swollen from six to ten, and he had them huddled all along one wall of the kitchen, out of the way but ready to be called upon as needed. Throughout the day some of them would act as servers or dish-washers. Others as runners or for whatever jobs he could find. Then in the evenings...
The owners of the house didn’t know he was doing this, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. The staff had discussed it between themselves, and if things went wrong, then he would take the blame. It was his plan after all.
-
Technically Midwinter didn't start until midday, and the time before that was supposed to be a fast, but tell that to a hundred hungry workers and an equal amount of grumpy guests. Breakfast for the Upstairs would consist of spiced porridge, studded with preserved fruits. For those who didn't fancy that, there were various types of eggs, both cold and hot. There was fresh bread, and bacon still hot from the pan, and in bowls throughout the house was a variety of fruits and nuts, available to anyone who was passing by, and of the right social class, of course.
The servants got a simpler breakfast, plain but sweet porridge, ladled from massive vats. Lunch would be stew from cauldrons on the hearth, where the heat was low and the pot added to throughout the day.
There were roughly a hundred family and guests to feed Upstairs, and almost three times as many servants Below who also needed feeding. There were maids, butlers and gardeners. There were stable hands and runners, and servants to look after the other servants. Every guest had to bring their entourage with them, who else would help them dress in the mornings!
The logistics of it were mind-boggling, and there would be no let-up until the end of the week.
The problem with the whole thing was, even with the best conditions, you can’t leave food out all day. Small slices of cake quickly go stale, bread goes hard, bacon cools and becomes cold and greasy, not fit for an upper-class stomach. Nobody wants porridge for lunch, and you get complaints when you serve beef wellington for breakfast.
A lot of those foods can be re-used. Bacon goes well into stews, and the bread into puddings. You can soak the cake in alcohol for a boozy dessert and turn the sausages into sandwiches, but in the end, even after the servants had taken their fill, it was Midwinter, and there would still be food left over.
That was where the orphans came in. At the end of the day, when most people were headed off to bed, and only the night shift were left on duty, the street kids would be loaded down with sacks and bags and sent back to town.
The first night it was tiny cakes, stale bread, some cold sausages and sliced meat that had been sitting out all day and he no longer entirely trusted. He had made small pies, and taken vegetable peelings diced fine and baked them into cakes. There were chewy shortbread biscuits, where the dough had been overworked by the apprentices, and scraps of meat in thick gelatin, made from bones that had been boiling for almost a day.
He was particularly proud of the cakes. The ones made with carrot peelings were the best, but he had worked out all sorts using the off-cuts of other vegetables.
There would be other things on other nights, small gifts of warm clothing and toys. Pies and cakes and good hearty food, to help see them through the winter. He hadn't spent his own money on this for nothing.
As he watched the children hurry off into the dark, loaded down with their parcels of food, he thought about how he’d ended up being one of those kids, all those years ago.
His friends were all grown up now, and safe. The money they had made that night had carried them through the next few years, giving them the stability and safety they needed to grow.
He hoped he got the chance to go into town and see them at some point, but not tonight.
With a sigh, Truedream turned and headed back into the kitchen. No rest for the wicked.