Chapter 40 Cooking contest
One fine morning at the Lawrence mansion, as usual, Jane went to the kitchen and received breakfast for her master Brian. Today was the day of the cooking competition Chesa talked about, so Brian got up earlier than usual. Having cleaned up and changed his clothes, Brian sat in the living room and sipped hot tea brought by his butler Allen. Jane entered and hurriedly brought the tray of breakfast to Brian, she anxiously looked at the clock to check the time, he saw this and said:
“You’re not late, it’s because I woke up earlier than usual.”
Jane smiled softly.
“Oh yes. Do you need any help from me?”
Brian slowly said:
“No, you should be mentally prepared to participate in the competition.”
Jane nodded to him, right at that moment, butler Allen politely knocked on the door of the room and entered and said:
“Lady Chesa invites the master and your servant to the great hall to receive information and start a cooking competition.”
Brian put the tea cup on the table, he motioned for Jane to help him get into the wheelchair and take him there. She obeyed. Minutes later, both of them were in the main hall of the Lawrence mansion. Matthew and his maid were also present, in addition to other servants under the stewardship of the butler Allen and Mrs. Bonie.
And Chesa’s servants including two close servants, Tess and Vola, were also there. But Mr. Wibul’s servants were only four people, they were Wibul’s longtime close servants. And in this contest, they will not participate. If they attended, it wouldn’t be fair compared to the rest, because they know what food Wibul likes and how it tastes. That would be detrimental to the other servants, so he arranged for them to be the material suppliers for the competition.
They would go somewhere in the mansion and wait for the servants to come to them, but in order to get food from them, the servants had to fulfill the challenges they gave them. This has been said a little by Chesa since the previous night.
And Brian only had Jane as his closest servant, so all eyes were on her. Actually Brian also has Regi and Omila as servants before, Omila is a middle-aged woman, she is very nice to Brian but she is just a temporary servant, she originally doesn’t like the tight job in this place.
So she asked her master’s permission to return to her hometown to take care of her farm, Brian saw it and immediately gave her permission. As for Regi, he was under Bonie’s management, he was an odd cook in the kitchen before, when Brian had an accident and lacked caregivers. Bonie has nominated Regi to take care of his master, and to Brian, he is a lazy servant who often skips work and likes to sleep.
Brian wanted to get rid of him when he couldn’t do any good work but really no one could stand Brian’s temper at that time, so he accepted Regi to take care of him. . And fortunately when Brian happened to meet Jane, his current servant, he felt happy and grateful to God for that.
Mrs. Chesa looked at the overview, she looked at the number of each side seemed to be uneven, she thought for a long time and said:
“After observing for a while I realized that we have five teams playing. It’s Matthew with two servants, Brian with one servant, Bonie with ten servants, butler Allen with twenty servants, and I with two servants.”
Chesa paused for a moment and continued:
“The contest rules I said before, I just added the following: the number of dishes that need to be completed is from four to eighty dishes depending on each team. So let’s split it up: Matthew consists of two servants, so each person will have to complete four dishes, so does Brian, your servant needs to make four dishes that you give her. And I like Matthew, my servant will make the same eight dishes.”
She moved towards Bonie and Allen said:
“As for the ten servants under Bonie’s management, her team will make a total of forty dishes, equivalent to one servant in charge of four dishes. And so did the butler Allen’s group, which needed eighty items. But because the amount of dishes Bonie and Allen’s group is so large, the 7pm deadline, the two of you can take some time alone to choose just the ten best dishes and they will be placed there for us to evaluate. and choose it last.”
Chesa looked around the room and said loudly:
“And now the young masters and butlers will write down the names of the dishes they have chosen on two slips of paper, one to their servant in charge and the other to me. Note that the names of the dishes given will not be changed, it will remain the same as the original. Now everyone do it. I will record it all.”
She looked at everyone in the room and asked:
“That’s all the content of the contest. Anyone want to ask anything?”
A servant in Allen’s butler’s group raised his hand and asked:
“Madam, when we want to go to the places where the material suppliers are hiding, do we get any hints as to where they are hiding?”
Chesa smiled and replied:
“No, there are no suggestions at all. Every player has to run around this mansion and look for it.”
Matthew heard that and commented:
“So it seems it took quite a bit of time, finding food and starting to cook. One person needs to cook four dishes? It’s not simple, but it’s quite interesting and thrilling.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Matthew took two small pieces of paper and wrote down the names of the food, he sent it to his servant and Mrs. Chesa, then he turned to his two servants and said:Belongs to NôvelDrama.Org - All rights reserved.
“Do it well, these are dishes you two cook for me every day, nothing complicated. The only problem was that the two of them needed to find a supplier of the ingredients, so it would take a lot of time. It’s okay, don’t worry, do your best. I have a busy job at the company, so I won’t be around to supervise. But I’ll try to get home early in the afternoon and check on you.”
Matthew’s two servants, Holy and Pota, bowed respectfully and replied:
“Yes, sir. We will do it best. You can rest assured to hand it over to us.”
Matthew happily winked at Holy and Pota, he left the place quickly to go to the company. As for Brian, he looked at Jane and thought for a long time:
“Four dishes? So I’m going to ask you to do something simple, but I also want to challenge you. Then…”
Brian took a pen to write four dishes on two small sheets of paper and gave them to Jane and Chesa. Jane took it and whispered in her mouth:
“Four dishes include: Fish and Potato, Roast Beef Sandwich, Bubble and Squeak, Tikka Masala.”
She raised her eyebrows in concern, Brian saw that and asked:
“What is the matter?”
Jane thought to herself:
“There are some dishes I don’t know how to cook. But given the contest rules, they will not be changed for any reason. And they don’t force me to cook exactly those dishes, so I cook it however I like.”
She thought so and quickly replied:
“Nothing, I’ll finish it well.”
Brian said nothing, he gestured for Jane to join the other servants, and he ordered his butler Allen to take him into the self-study room in the mansion. Before leaving, he looked towards Jane and whispered:
“Good luck, my girl.”
Jane took the paper and ran around the mansion to find a supplier of cooking ingredients. The contest reminded her of that game of Brian, who had worn her out and exhausted her all day. Now that she remembered, she still felt a little angry and resentful. But for this contest, it’s completely different, it’s organized by Mrs. Chesa, so Jane won’t be afraid because it’s fair. She looked at the name of the dish first and wondered:
“Fish and potatoes? So the main ingredients are fish and potatoes. This is easy. I don’t mind fish dishes.”
Jane excitedly ran to find a supplier of ingredients. After running around for a while, she finally found out where that person was hiding. It was an abandoned servant’s room at the back of the mansion a little further west. That person was a middle-aged man, he was sitting in front of a food container consisting of meat. fish, vegetables, tubers, fruits, … to wait for the servants to come. As soon as he saw Jane running, he said:
“There is nothing urgent, just stay calm and relax like I am right now. I will make an easy request for you to fulfill.”
Jane politely asked:
“What is your request?”
Mr. Jika calmly replied:
“It’s been a long time since I heard someone tell me a joke. So I want you to tell it to me.”
Jane thought confusedly:
“A joke? I don’t know a single one. Ah, the story Emi told me when I was on the island. I’ll try telling it.”
Since she had heard the story for so long, Jane still couldn’t remember the exact details of it. So there were details she came up with herself and added them in. She told all she thought and remembered to Mr. Jika. Fortunately, the story worked for him. It made him chuckle. He was satisfied and said:
“Okay, that’s a funny story. I accept it. And I will provide you with the ingredients. Tell me, what do you need?”
Jane excitedly replied:
“Give me plenty of fish and vegetables. And potatoes too.”
Jika nodded a few times, he gave Jane all the fish and vegetables, potatoes he had. In addition, the spices and utensils that need to be added he will note in a small piece of paper and give it to Jane, he says:
“Each servant only needs to find one or two ingredient suppliers. No need for more than two people. And the seasonings and materials needed, I wrote down the amount I could supply on a piece of paper, it was sent to you. You just have to go to the kitchen, get them and start cooking.”
He added:
“Perhaps Chesa forgot to tell this to everyone. It is this mansion with two kitchens, normally only one kitchen is used, but in this competition because there were too many participants, Mr. Wibul reopened the second kitchen. It is located in the back yard of Mr. Aiden – the father of two masters Matthew and Brian. Actually there is a limit to the players, only when the servant finds the supplier of the material will receive that information. And that is you have to quickly run into the kitchen to win a place for yourself to cook. Those who do not arrive in time and the seats are full will automatically be disqualified from this contest.”
Jika continued:
“According to the report from my intercom. The first kitchen is now full, now you only have the second kitchen. Hurry up and get there as quickly as possible. Otherwise you will lose your place and be disqualified from the competition.”
Jane heard that and felt more urgent, she parted with Jika and hurriedly ran to the second kitchen. But Jane was a little confused, she really didn’t know where Mr. Aiden’s place and the kitchen was exactly. Because of that, she took some time while running and asked where she needed to look.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of searching around, she found the kitchen. When Jane had just set foot in, she saw some of Bonie’s servants and Allen’s butler there, including Tess – Chesa’s servant. Tess sees Jane and happily greets:
“Welcome to this place.”
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