After supervising the placement of the cargo from the salt camp in the storage, I come to the castle kitchen again. I see the cooks still busy preparing the lunch and cleaning the birds nest. Mrs. Martina seems surprised to see me come into the kitchen again
"Young master Henry, is there something I can help?"
"Ah, I need to borrow one or two cooks here to accompany me to the storage room, Mrs. Martina. There's a new ingredient that just arrives and I don't want anyone here mistaken that ingredient as garbage and throw it out. Only for a moment, didn't need much time"
"It's not a problem, young master. Hey, young master Henry needs two people, who want to go?"
"Me! Please take me!"
"I want to!"
"Please take me, young master"
It surprising that many cooks volunteer to help me out. Is this because cleaning the birds nest is too boring or they curious about the new ingredient that I just mentioned before?
"Young master, there are many volunteers here, I don't know who to choose. Please, young master, choose which one that meet young master's need"
Mrs. Martina seems can't decide which one should accompany me to the storage room and ask me to choose by my own choice. Since I want to move some of my things to the watchtower, finally I choose two people who seem to have strong physical build.
"Fine, you there and you there…come with me"
Two people who just selected by me seems delighted because they can accompany me. With those two people, I return to the storage room and heading to the place where fresh ingredients kept.
After we enter the room, I show those two cooks the seaweed that brought from salt camp.
"That's the new ingredient, and in those barrels are fishes. What do you think?"
"Young master, that looks like weed…is that ingredient really edible?"
"Can we touch and examine it, young master?"
"Sure, by the way, that is seaweeds…of course it looks like a weed"
"Can we take a bite too, young master?"
"No problem, we have plenty and it's not poisonous"
"Thank you, young master"
The two cooks pick a piece of seaweed and put it in their mouth.
I secretly smirked, actually I'm expecting to see their expression when they eat that seaweed. It's been a while since I see Claude's expression when he chews the seaweed in the beach that day. And as I expected, after chewing the seaweed and feel the taste, those two cooks' face turn into a funny one. I try so hard not to laugh while pretending to be calm and asking their opinion about the seaweed.
"Well? What do you think?"
The cooks seem hard to answer with their condition when they finally able to speak, the words they say are:
"Young master, excuse me for a moment"
Then the cooks who said that running out the room, maybe he wants to spat the weed that he currently chews, but didn't dare to do that in front of me.
"Me too, young master"
The next moment, the other cooks also follow his step, get out from the room and spat the weed in his mouth outside the storage room. when they all already not in the room, I finally can grin wide, but that grin immediately hid when they return to the room.
"You two alright?"
"We alright young master….it just…the taste is so awful!.... I can't believe such weeds can be edible"
His friend that seems much smarter hurriedly fixed his friend words
"It's not we did not believe young master said that this ingredient can be eaten…but probably…this ingredient need to be processed first?"
"Haha…it's okay…I like an honest opinion. And what you said before is right…this ingredient can't be eaten in raw form. It needs some processing first before this ingredient can be eaten, that's why I bring you two here. This ingredient needs to be dried before processed and although it had been dried before, it's not completely dry. I want you two to dry this ingredient under the sun and after it completely dry, take around a quarter amount from the stock and grind it into powder. Can you do that?"
"Yes, young master. We can do that"
"Good, also if you found dead fishes in the barrels, you can remove it from barrels and cook it. But before you do that, I need your help to carry those things with me"
I'm pointing the barrel I used to extract alkali and my other thing in the boxes. The two cooks take the barrel and the boxes without asking furthermore and follow me to the watchtower.
After opening the door and climb up through the spiral stair upward around 40-50 meters, finally, we arrived at the top of the watchtower. Since it hasn't used for a certain time, it had dust everywhere and I must clean it up before I can work in here.
"Okay, you can put it in the floor. Can you bring me a small stove here? And also bring the ashes from the kitchen?
"Yes, young master"
The two cooks leave me here to take what I'm ordered from the kitchen. While waiting they return, I open all the window in the watchtower and see the scenery outside. From the top of the watchtower, I can see four directions of the castle from above. It's a lovely view, no wonder my father and mother often go here to see the scenery. I'm thinking to bring Clara and Claire here, helping cleaning the room and enjoy some romantic times together.