Apprentice Chef in the Temple
While everyone in the orphanage was going off to butcher pigs, Hugo and I were teaching Monika and Nicola—the two apprentice gray shrine maidens that would be helping me over the winter—to cook.
Nicola had her overflowing amount of orange hair, so bright it was close to red, braided behind her. She loved to cook and she was a real cutie, smiling all the time while she worked. Monika on the other hand was a quiet, serious girl who had her dark-green hair bundled behind her head. I was teaching them carefully since they would be helping me throughout the winter while Hugo was gone, and honestly they were both fast learners.
Nicola asked me something while she, Monika, Hugo, and the new chef Todd were eating lunch. “Ella, why did you decide to become a temple chef?” she asked.
Hugo averted his eyes, knowing my circumstances, and Todd leaned forward curiously. The sight of that made Monika lower her gaze a bit.
“Those in the lower city really don’t like the temple, right? It’s hard not to notice that on the way to the forest. But you came to the temple anyway. You’re even teaching us to cook without looking upset about it. I find that really strange,” she continued. I thought back to my meeting with Benno, the man who had made it all happen.
...Wow, he’s super rich. At my uncle’s request, I was visiting the Eatery Guild to ask for an extension on the due date of our taxes, and there I found myself looking at a man sitting in the best seat in the guild. His clothes were way more expensive than anything you would normally ever see in the Eatery Guild. I stared at him and, wondering why someone as rich as him was here, strained my ears to hear what he was talking to another guild member about.
“Did you find anyone willing to be Hugo’s assistant?”
“Mmm... I think it’ll be too hard of a job for Hugo to do alone, but I’m telling you, Benno, nobody wants in on this.”
Judging by their conversation, the rich guy was named Benno and he was at the guild to look for an assistant chef. I felt my heart thump. I clenched my fists as I felt my pumping blood heat up with excitement. ...Could this be the guidance of Cuococalura, God of Cooking?!
“I’m telling you, Ella, we can only wait so long... Hey, are you even listening?” The guild member I had been in the middle of talking to called out to me.
I looked back at him in surprise, having forgotten about him, then pointed at Benno and whispered hurriedly. “Hey, hey, is that rich guy looking for a chef?!”
“Huh...? Oh, Benno. He’s looking for a chef for the eatery he’s about to build, but not just any chef. He wants someone to train in the temple to learn to cook food for nobles.”
“...Wait, the temple?”
The temple was a place that nobody in the city wanted to deal with if they could help it. Who knew what would happen if nobles got their eye on you. There was an orphanage in the temple, and anyone sent there would be worked like slaves by nobles. It was said they could kill anyone they wanted without any punishment. I had even heard that the girls there were forced to sleep with nobles.
...But how was that any different from most waitresses, really? I was working as an apprentice chef in a nighttime bar my uncle owned. At the moment I was just helping to cook the food, but when I came of age I would be assigned to work as a waitress. My cousin Lea—his daughter—had been sent out as a waitress right after she came of age, so why would I be any different? The men in the store would leer at me, catcall me, and pay my uncle so that he would send me to their rooms.
No matter how much I hated that, it was the family business and I couldn’t escape from it. My choices were to do a killer job helping a noble’s chef, or save up enough money to start my own store before coming of age. My current goal was to be like Leise, who had performed so well as a noble’s chef that the guildmaster of the Merchant’s Guild hired her to be his head chef. If I trained in the temple, maybe I could learn to cook noble food just like she did.
“Hey, mister. Do chefs in the temple work as waitresses too?” I called out to Benno, and he blinked his dark-red eyes in surprise. But his surprised expression soon turned into a grimace as he looked me over with piercing eyes.
“...Nah, they don’t work as waitresses. Apprentice shrine maidens have well-trained attendants to serve them. Not to mention that you’d be exclusively cooking for a shrine maiden, and shrine maidens don’t want that kind of service. In fact, they don’t want commoner chefs talking to them at all.”
I couldn’t imagine anything better for me than becoming an apprentice chef for a rich noble girl who didn’t need me to work as a waitress. “I’m still an apprentice chef, but I think I can help out. I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself.” I slapped a hand against my arm with a smile.
Benno looked back at the guild member he was talking to and pointed my way. “How good is she?”
“Ella’s got all the basics down. You’d want someone a bit more skilled to serve a noble right away, but she’d do just fine learning while serving as Hugo’s assistant. Her goal is actually to be a noble’s chef, so she’ll have the motivation and guts you’re looking for.”
“Hmm...” Benno fell into thought while looking at me, and the guild member I had been talking to hurriedly called out to him.
“Wait, Benno! Taking a guy to the temple is one thing, but a girl? You’ll ruin her chances to get married in the future. Ella, you’ve gotta think about your future here. Don’t just jump at the first opportunity you see like an idiot!”
I pursed my lips at him. I wasn’t being an idiot, I knew what I was doing. It may have been the family business, but I didn’t want to be a waitress. I wanted to find another path in life.
“I’m going to be forced to be a waitress at my uncle’s place once I’m an adult anyway. The temple won’t be any different. Plus, he said she’s a blue shrine maiden. That means she’s a rich noble girl. I’ve been thinking my whole life that I want to become a noble’s chef to get out of my uncle’s store. I don’t mind going to the temple to make that dream a reality.” I spoke my mind while Benno watched on with dark-red eyes. He nodded in satisfaction at my determination.
“...Alright then. I’ll hire you.”
“My uncle fought back hard, but Mom gave me her full support. Mom had no choice but to work as a waitress when my dad died, so she was just happy that I had found another path in life...”
“Oh, so being a waitress is like offering flowers here. We can’t refuse if a blue priest we serve asks us to offer flowers, so I completely understand why you would want to find another way to survive,” replied Nicola.
“We’re cooking here partially so that Sister Myne gets to know us better, in hopes that one day she asks us to serve as her attendants,” added on Monika.
It seemed that the rumors were true and that the gray shrine maidens in the orphanage really were forced to work like waitresses were. I could really relate to how Nicola and Monika were striving to improve their situation to avoid being forced to offer flowers.
“That ‘Mom’ person sounds quite kind,” said Nicola, and Monika nodded with a smile. They seemed so sincere I had to hold back the urge to laugh and explain their mistake. Families were so normal to me and everyone I knew that I had no idea how I should explain them. All I could do was continue after brushing off their comment with a smile.
“I’m underage, so I can’t change stores without Mom’s permission. She went to the Eatery Guild with me to sign a contract with the Gilberta Company, and that’s where I met Hugo for the first time.”
Nicole and Monika both looked at Hugo, who gave a small smile. “I didn’t think I’d be working in the temple with an underage girl like Ella, so man, seeing her sure was a surprise.”
“I was just glad to see that you were a nice person, Hugo.” Hugo was my coworker and my teacher. He had chestnut hair and brown eyes that gave him a friendly look.
“And I’m always stuck being just a nice guy ’cause of the way I look!” moaned Hugo, blaming that for his lack of a girlfriend. Nicola and Monika blinked in surprise.
“Is it not good to be a good person? Is there something inconvenient about that?”
“Not for me,” I explained with a laugh while looking at Hugo. “And not for you two, so don’t worry about it.”
Hugo had broad shoulders and the muscular arms that most chefs had thanks to all the heavy stuff they had to carry, plus calluses on his hands from gripping knives so much. When we shook hands at our first meeting, I had seen that his hands had the same calluses that mine did.
I noticed that he was looking at my hands too. I grinned, and with his lips curved into a smile he said “Not bad. Looks like you pass, for now.”
...That was a pretty cool line. He looked cool when he said it, and he looked cool while he worked too. He always had a sharp and serious expression when he was cooking. There was something uniquely cool about a guy who had a job and did it well. He probably only didn’t have a girlfriend because there had been no girls at the restaurant where he worked.
“I signed with the Gilberta Company and decided to work in the temple to escape being a waitress, but there’s been nothing but surprises here. Right, Hugo?”
“Yup. I’m used to it now, but those first days were crazy. This place is just way different from the city,” said Hugo, and Todd gave a big nod.
“I’m still getting my mind blown every day. My hands get so shaky and sweaty when I think that a noble might see me that I can hardly work at all.”
“Todd, that’s kinda bad. You could stand to chill out a little.”
Life as an apprentice chef in the temple was entirely unlike what I was used to. I never expected that I would be taught about washing my hands, keeping myself clean, and hygiene in general before learning more about cooking. When we had been instructed to clean ourselves before entering the orphanage director chambers, Hugo and I had actually looked at each other with wide eyes before processing what we had been told.
“You will be expected to maintain a high degree of personal hygiene,” began Fran. “The Italian restaurant that Sister Myne is investing in will demand just as much cleanliness, so the faster you adjust to this the better. As you are now I cannot introduce you to Sister Myne, and you will not be able to perform your duties.”
“Hugo, Ella. This is Fran, the head attendant of the shrine maiden you’re gonna be serving,” explained Benno. “You’re gonna want to listen to everything he says. Fran, I’ll be waiting in the hall. Do me a favor and teach these two how things work in the temple.”
Benno then went into the chambers first and left us with Fran. It seemed that we would be continuing our relationship with Sister Myne even after we started working in the Italian restaurant. Nothing we could do but get ourselves clean.
Fran guided us to a well. After giving us a thorough look-over, he had us wash our hands and faces over and over. He was so thorough that I honestly wanted to complain about how much soap we were wasting. We had both bathed the night before since Benno warned us we needed to be clean before meeting the apprentice blue shrine maiden (given that she was a noble), but even so, Fran seemed displeased with how we looked. I could only imagine what a disaster it would have been if we hadn’t bathed at all.
“Please bathe the night before when you are expected at the temple in the morning.”
“Wha? Wait, does that mean we need to bathe every day?” I asked, and Hugo murmured “Seriously?” beside me. I couldn’t believe it either. During the summer we could manage since it was just carrying water, but during the winter we would have to heat the water over a fire before we could clean ourselves with it. Hugo and I flinched at the idea, but Fran just nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“Sister Myne is particularly loath to allow the unclean to handle her food and cooking instruments, and as you will be seen by noble blue robes, you must always clean yourselves before arriving to work. This is true for all those in the temple, including those priests and shrine maidens in the orphanage who do not serve as attendants.”
...In other words, this Fran guy is bathing daily. That’s normal in the temple? Oooof.
After making sure that we were clean, Fran nodded and took us to the hall where Benno was waiting so that he could introduce us to his master, Sister Myne. Once there, he climbed the stairs to the second floor where her personal room was.
I stealthily slid over to Benno while watching Fran go. “What’s the deal, Benno? He said it’s normal to clean yourself and your clothes every day in the temple. Do we really have to do all that before coming to work every day? That would be way too much,” I protested. Benno widened his eyes in surprise, but Hugo backed me up.
“Ella’s right. We don’t even know if our clothes will be dry by morning. The single pair of clothes you gave us for this just isn’t gonna be enough.”
Hugo was far from wealthy, having worked in a normal lower city restaurant, and I myself didn’t have many clothes I could safely wear to the temple. While feeling a bond with Hugo over our similar circumstances, I protested to Benno that cleaning clothes every day would be too much for us when we didn’t have any servants to help like he did.
“Y’know, Lutz was talking about that too. Alright. I’ll sell you a bunch of clothes to use here for cheap.”
“Whew. Thank you.”
“Oh. Shut it, Ella. Sister Myne’s here,” warned Hugo, so I hurriedly shut my mouth and looked up the stairs just in time to see a little girl wearing blue shrine maiden robes walking gracefully down the stairs. That was Sister Myne, it seemed.
Wow! A real rich noble girl! It was my first time seeing Sister Myne, and she was an adorable little girl. She had dark-blue hair that looked like the night sky, which flowed behind her perfectly straight unlike my curly knots. Her nose, eyes, and mouth were all cute and shapely, giving her a neat and pretty face.
“Sister Myne, this the Gilberta Company’s chef, Hugo. With him is Ella, his assistant. Hugo, you will be taught the recipes of nobles here. Pay attention and learn well.” Benno spoke in a polite tone, and his reserved behavior made it clear just how important Sister Myne was.
“Allow me to guide you to the kitchen,” Fran said, and finally we were taken to our new workplace.
...Wow! It was a wide kitchen filled with all manner of equipment, including a large furnace oven that you only ever saw in bakeries down in the lower city. I would need to learn how to use all this equipment to get hired at that new restaurant Benno was talking about. This really was the perfect opportunity for us.
Everything in the kitchen was cleaned to a shine, entirely unlike the kitchen in my uncle’s place. I could tell that Hugo was getting excited too. You would never see a kitchen like this in the lower city. Nobles really did live in a different world than commoners. Everything would be different for me now; I would be expected to do work fit for a kitchen of this quality.
“What you must learn first is the importance of cleanliness. Keep your utensils and dishes clean at all times. Maintain the state the kitchen is in now.” Fran, holding wooden boards, was our instructor—passing the words of Sister Myne to us. He himself was an orphan and a gray priest, but he knew how to read the text on the boards, and he spoke so politely and eloquently that I could hardly believe it. All it took was a single glance to see how well educated and trained he was, which wasn’t what I expected at all based on what I had heard in the city about the orphans.
But the surprises didn’t stop there. The instructions he gave for how to cook for nobles were just shock after shock. He told us to wash our hands multiple times in the process of cooking, there was a ton of prep work to do, and the exact recipe was strict about the order in which we did things.
“Continue using the broth to cook the ingredients. Do not boil the vegetables and then throw away the water.”
“No throwing away the water at all?” The idea of not throwing away the water after boiling vegetables in it was troubling. That would let all sorts of tiny bits of dirt and filth get into the water, and it was well known that using boiled water like that would make you miscarry or become unable to have kids at all.
I looked at Benno, and he gave a light nod. I remembered his instruction that we should obey Fran’s every word, so I stifled my disgust and kept cooking.
But when I actually tasted the soup in a bowl, it tasted unlike anything I had tried before. The flavor of the vegetables was stronger than ever, and the slight amount of salting strengthened the sweetness, leading to a gentle flavor that felt like it was spreading through my whole body.
My eyes sparkled and it felt as if a door had been opened in front of me, shining bright light down onto me. I could feel my world expanding, and despite Sister Myne being nearby I was so happy I couldn’t contain myself.
“I still remember how shocked I was the first time I had soup for nobles. It feels gross to make, but the flavor is just amazing. I couldn’t believe what I was eating.”
“Oh? But the soup we’ve made here isn’t how nobles make soup,” said Monika curiously while looking at Nicola, who nodded in support.
“All the food in the orphanage comes from nobles as divine gifts, but only the soup from here tastes this rich.”
Hugo, Todd, and I all looked at each other in surprise. We had thought that the recipes were strange due to being from a noble, but it seemed like it was just Sister Myne’s recipes that were weird.
“It’s just Sister Myne’s recipes? Just her soup? All her other recipes are special too...? I guess there must be a pretty big reason why the contract Benno had us sign said that we couldn’t make the food from the recipes we learned here without his or Sister Myne’s permission,” I mused.
“Euuugh, this is awful. I didn’t want to learn any big-time secrets like this,” replied Todd while shaking in fear, terrified that he was now not only connected to, but also knew the contents of tightly kept secrets.
Hugo, in contrast, gave a confident grin. “Heh. Recipes that no other nobles know, huh? Sounds pretty interesting.”
His confidence inspired me, and with a hand on my hip I puffed out my not-so-large chest with pride. “Hugo, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m the one who’s going to be learning more and more of Sister Myne’s recipes.”
Hugo looked at me with confusion, so I gave a smug grin before continuing. “’Cause I mean, I’m going to be staying here and cooking for her all winter. She’s definitely going to teach me new recipes. Let’s do our best, Nicola, Monika. You two so that you can become Sister Myne’s attendants, and me so that I can beat Hugo.”
“Right!” Nicola and Monika gave an excited reply and smiled at each other while I looked at Hugo.
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind teaching you the new recipes when spring comes, Hugo. If you ask nicely.”
Everyone laughed as Hugo gave a frustrated groan.
...I’ll make lots of food over the winter, learn all sorts of new recipes, and finally catch up to Hugo! As autumn ended and winter preparations began, I pumped myself up with a new goal in sight.
At the time, I still hadn’t realized exactly why it was that I had my eyes set on Hugo and catching up to him.
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