It had now been more than a month since the cold season had begun. Thanks to the food Ash had contributed, Iris's mates hunting more than enough for their family, and buying all the extra food Fawn and everyone else had for sale, they were still doing well on supplies for the weekly banquets. Neither Iris's mates nor Holly's family and the single males who had been hired to help with cooking and cleanup for the banquets were comfortable with Iris participating in the process more than necessary due to her pregnancy.
While she was perfectly content with pushing boundaries with her own family, Iris hardly wanted to make everyone else uncomfortable. As such, she had agreed to minimize her involvement in the process. She'd make a new menu every week with recipes and then she would only demonstrate how the new dishes were made for everyone before spending the rest of the time relaxing. If one of the other males needed to be shown how to do something more than once, then either Basil or Fern would be the ones to help them.
Holly's males were pretty capable and caught onto even new recipes pretty quickly. However, it wasn't exactly ideal to only hire Holly's family when they needed to cook for so many people. The tea house usually served less than a hundred people per day and tended to require reservations for groups larger than four. So, it was a much different experience to prepare food for several hundred people all at the same time. The food had to start being prepared several days in advance and then all of the hearths were constantly kept busy cooking for the entire day.
Even then, the banquet had to be started mid-day with each person only being allowed to each for one meal. Females tended to be given priority and were encouraged to come earlier than everyone else, but all males, mated or not, had to wait in line in a first come first served fashion. Four different buffet-style serving areas were set up for this purpose. Two were for the females and they'd be refilled less often while being further away from the kitchens and closer to the seating for families. Meanwhile, the two for the males were closer to the kitchens and were filled more often.
The menus were similar for the most part, but the females did get some dishes that the males did not. Since males ate more than females and there were more of them, it was more practical to provide food that could provide more of them with as little ingredients being wasted as possible. Meanwhile, there was still a sense of females needing to be cherished and spoiled, even in their city, so none of the males would argue if they had a few extra appetizer and dessert options to enjoy.
As the cafeteria lunch trays had been designed after the asian bento box style of lunch trays, there was a compartment for soup where a bowl could be slotted in and several other small compartments for the main and side dishes. The trays were set up at the start of the savory buffet-style serving area alongside some silverware and then everyone would go down the line adding whichever dishes they were interested in to their trays. They could then go sit down to eat their meal or move on to the dessert area where there was also a section for them to get drinks.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
This week, there was chicken alfredo pasta, spaghetti with meatballs, chicken gnocchi soup, Italian wedding soup, and garlic bread for the savory groups. The females also got some roasted tomato and pesto bruschetta and a fruit and nut salad as extra appetizer options. For dessert, everyone got to enjoy panna cotta with macerated berries and a triple berry sauce drizzled on top. As desserts were often expensive ingredients-wise and it was the cold season, it had to be kept relatively simple. However, the females did get two additional desserts with vanilla trifle made with yellow cake, custard, whipped cream, and sugar cookie crumbs and bearberry and orange biscotti.
Of course, Iris didn't want to leave the males zero chance to enjoy the extra appetizers and desserts. So, once the females all had their fill, the leftovers were put up for grabs for the males as well. If there were still leftovers after everyone had a meal, the rest would be given to those who had signed up ahead of time for them. While it was possible that such a method could result in people who didn't need them as much getting them instead of those who truly needed them, it was still better than having it be a free-for-all. Besides, Iris still tried to give precedent to those with children in their households, were injured in the recent battle, etc. when she could.
Of course, Iris's favorite part about it all was having an excuse to spend time with her friends. Holly and Fawn would both come to the banquet early and spend the entire time just hanging out, playing games, and talking. Alicia had warmed up to the group, but she still didn't quite seem to enjoy socializing with them as much as those she had grown up around. So, she usually would join in later in the day before leaving to hang out with others.
Holly's cubs would, generally, come over early in the day to spend some time playing with Iris's cubs, but would later have to be ushered away as the area became more crowded. As she observed her friend's family's treatment of their young cubs, it became more and more clear just how different things were in Iris's family versus everyone else's.
Holly was by no means a selfish or cruel female, but there was still a good bit of indifference in the treatment she had towards her cubs. She'd occasionally call one of her cubs over as she wanted to show them off or she'd call for one of her mates to break up a particularly nasty fight, but they were, otherwise, left to their own devices. No one watched them to make sure they didn't run off and no one really worried about them getting injured.
Holly didn't even really feel the need to talk about her cubs very much. It was very much like they were an afterthought. Like obtaining a new accessory that you enjoyed wearing, but only ever talked about once or twice when you first got it and then, after that, only when asked about it. Instead, their group's conversation often revolved around how excited her friends were to be learning how to read and write or what sorts of improvements they wanted to make to their businesses come the rainy season. It honestly just made Iris feel a bit bittersweet every time the weekly banquet came around.