24 The Banquet Part Two

Satisfied with the state of the banquet room, Iris went back to her cattails. Her plan was to work on them until Caspian finished the pie pans. She would then use her cattail pollen flour, animal fat, water, and salt to make a large batch of pie dough. She would then divide the pie dough into twenty and roll each of them out for a top and bottom crust.

As Iris wanted to make both a savory pie and a sweet pie, it would take several hours to cook them all. For the pot pie, Iris cut up meat, potatoes, carrots, and wild onion grass after roasting them in the stone onion for a while. As there was too much food to cook in one stone oven at once, Iris had to run both stone ovens at once.

For the sweet pie, Iris decided to cook the bearberries in the pot on the stone stove with water, honey, and salt. Sadly, Iris did not have any baking spices like cinnamon or nutmeg. As Iris had to more carefully monitor the bearberry mixture and constantly stir it while she cooked it down, she could only do it in batches. Luckily, as the stone stove had a large capacity, it only took two batches.

For the pot pie, a gravy was necessary for the filling. Thus, after making the bearberry pie filling, she switched kitchen to use the clean stone stove pot. Caspian was already quite busy without her asking him to lug the heavy stone pots out to wash them right now.

For the gravy, Iris used yet more cattail pollen, animal fat, and some water she boiled a meat bone with. The meat that was preserved for the cold season still contained some bones so thanks to using meat for the pies, she was able to boil a nice stock for gravy.

By the time the fillings were done and the top crusts had their venting holes cut, it was only a short while before guests would be showing up. The stone ovens could only hold two pies each, but the pies would only need a short while to cook.

Thus, Iris would bake them in batches of four. She carefully monitored the stone oven and turned the pies occasionally, using animal hide as a hot pad as she did so. When Iris had finished the first three batches of pies, Caspian came in with the dishware.

"I've got all of these done. Do you need any water for soup?"

Caspian was curiously eyeing the pies sitting on the counter as he asked this. He had seen Iris as she did some of the preparations but he was still curious what they were. As he went to poke the outer crust of a pie, his hand was swatted away by Iris.

"Don't touch those, they're still hot. I could actually use some water for soup. I need the new extra large soup pot filled most of the way up with snow. Once it's melted, I'll need to add the meat, veggies, and spices. If you could help me cut everything up and then clean up a little, I'd appreciate it."

Iris was in leader mode as she got the final preparations done for the banquet. Caspian felt proud seeing his mate acting more like the boss of the household as other females do. He felt very happy to have tasks delegated to him and being able to care for his mate. He almost even forgot to feel envious of others eating food prepared by his mate.

Iris immediately began to prepare the food needed for soup. Time was starting to get tight and Iris was stressed about leaving hungry guests waiting for food. Of course, no one has ever shown up yet, but Iris knew beastmen and their females were known for eating quite a lot.

Seeing Iris busy fussing over her fourth batch of pies, Caspian immediately started to cut the meat when he returned. After turning each of the fourth batches of pies, Iris was met by a friendly face in her main room.

"Oh wow, hi Holly! I'm so glad you showed up! Where are your mates, though? Surely they didn't stay home and only send you over?"

Holly was thrilled at Iris's warm greeting and happily changed a hug with her. She quickly answered Iris's questions

"No, they are just outside. You know how male beasts are about their territory. You'll have to invite them in first."

Iris nodded, she wasn't aware that beast men were so territorial but it made sense. She quickly ducked her head past the beast skin hanging over their doorway and looked out. There were certainly four beastmen waiting to be invited outside. Iris quickly invited them in before asking

"It's nice of you to come Daniel. Are the other two not coming?"

Daniel simply looked to Holly who answered for him.

"Oh, no, I'm sure they'll likely show up later. Daniel is actually my mate now."

Holly blushed as she said this. Iris widened her eyes in surprise.

"Wow, that's great news! You two must have really hit it off last week, huh?"

Holly just shyly looked at the ground, unsure what to say in response. Wanting to break the awkward atmosphere, Iris quickly invited them into their new banquet room.

As Holly had previously seen how impressive Iris's home was, she was less taken aback this time. Still, she felt this new large room was quite impressive. Holly felt her stomach rumble in hunger as she took in the delicious aroma in the air.

"Mmm, something smells soooo good."

Iris could practically see Holly drooling as she said this. Her new friend was clearly a foodie and Iris was happy to share meals with her. After all, it's always nice to have people who appreciate the hard work that goes into your cooking.

"That'd likely be the pies I made for this evening's communal dinner. I know I said people could bring food to contribute, but I figured no one would want to wait to eat. So I got everything ready in advance and I'll just use the donations for next week's meal."

As Holly heard the reminder, she remembered that one of her mates was actually carrying a bag of food. Unsure where Iris wanted the food she awkwardly asked

"Where should we put the food we brought then? I know you gathered a lot of food, but I felt like we should contribute something so we brought some eggs for you."

One of Holly's mates stepped forward and presented Iris with a small box filled with eggs. Iris gratefully accepted them before taking a look at it's contents. There were about a dozen small eggs that were similar in size to quail eggs from the modern world.

"Thank you, I'll be sure to find something special to make with these."

Holly was very happy that Iris seemed pleased with the eggs and began to wag her big poofy tail happily. She'd been worried due to their small size not even equating to a meal for herself. However, eggs were rarer to find than other food sources and larger eggs were usually guarded by more dangerous bird species.

As Holly's mates were all unawakened beasts who had zero stars, they were far too weak to take on anything too dangerous. Holly could not take the risk of one of her mates getting injured and dying just for some eggs. Thus, these small eggs were the best she could get.

"Oh fuck, my pies! I've gotta go, please make yourself comfortable."

Iris rushed off to check on her pies. Thankfully they were only slightly darker around the edges rather than burnt. Iris only had a small box of honey and half of it had been used on these pies. This would upset Caspian later when he found out, but Iris felt it was worth it. She wanted to make the first banquet extra special and a sweet pie seemed like the perfect thing for it.

Learning from her last experience, Iris checked outside the house after delivering the freshly baked pies to the banquet room. She was quickly met with a few friendly faces and a few new faces.

Upon seeing such a a rare beauty, one of the single beastmen stepped forward to make a move. Since her mates weren't around, it was the perfect chance to try and make an impression.