Joyce's House

The next day, without having breakfast, the two of us headed for Joyce and Lily's house. Sazzy, stating that she had some unfinished business to do, 'left me in Oliver's care'. With a wink and those parting words, she disappeared in the living room.

...Not only am I older than Oliver, I was his older sister. What does she mean by those words?

Making a confused face, I then shrugged it off. Even if I ask her I doubt she would answer.

"I wonder what we are going to eat today?"

Grabbing my hand, Oliver and I left the house.

"I don't know. Joyce didn't say. But whatever it is, I bet it tastes great. The recipes on her blog are always delicious."

Listing off some of the food I had made with her recipe, Oliver's eyes started shining and I could almost see drool dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

"Then let's hurry to their place!"

Picking up our pace, we quickly arrived at their house. According to the picture Joyce had sent yesterday, their house had a very lively deck with lots of handicrafts lying around. There were also a couple chairs for the mother daughter pair to sit on and do their work. Their main income was from the sales of such handicrafts.

Thus it was easy to spot their house. Just look for the house which had a colorful deck, two chairs and lots of trinkets lying around. Then after we went up to their door, we rang their chime and waited.

Soon, we could hear small thumping sounds getting closer to the door before it creaked open. Greeting us was Lily's messy face filled with paint.

"Please come in."

She opened the door wide while softly inviting us in. Then she led us to the kitchen where Joyce was currently fiddling with a machine.

"Mom! They're here."

Walking real close to Joyce, Lily called out to her.

"Thank you sweety. Alex and I will prepare the food. You can take Oliver up to help you out."

Ruffling her hair, Joyce then smiled at me while Oliver left with Lily.

"What is Lily doing? Also, what is the menu for today?"

I approached Joyce, who then handed me a bowl of berries.

"Lily is decorating some of the handicrafts we made yesterday. We are in a bit of a hurry since my accident delayed things by one day. For the menu, I was thinking of something cold and sweet. Mor's weather forecast has predicted that the overall temperature is going to rise quite high today. Which is normal since the summer season is approaching. That and I think cold and sweet food after working is the best form of motivation for the kids."

Hearing about the weather forecast for the first time, I asked Joyce how she could access it or see it while walking over to the kitchen table with the bowl.

"Go to your personal terminal. If you swipe down from the very top edge, it should immediately pull down the weather forecast. Also could you help me crush the berries? I was thinking of making some jeweled jelly."

Setting the bowl down on the table, I took one of their spoons and started mashing the boiled berries.

"To make jeweled fruits, I was thinking of making a jelly mixture from mashed fruits together with an instant jelly mix. Then after that, we boil the jelly mixture. After boiling, we throw some raw fruits into the mixture and then put them to cool for around half an hour. While waiting for them to cool, I want to create another dish."

Finished with mashing the berries, I brought them over to Joyce who poured them into a bowl together with the jelly mix. She then used the spoon to homogenize the mixture before placing it in the machine.

"What is this?"

Pointing to the machine, I watched as she pressed several buttons before closing the door.

"This? It's the latest all-purpose cooking machine! Lily and I used quite a bit of our savings to buy it. Since we also plan to sell some food stuffs in our store as well."

Opening up her alternate personal terminal, Joyce showed me the store page of the machine.

"Cooling, boiling, freezing, heating, frying, and more! It has so many functions!?"

Looking at the details, I was incredibly impressed with the versatility of this one machine.

"Right!? I did a lot of research to see whether it was true, and all these claims are real! We bought the machine a couple days ago so I haven't been able to test all the functions, but the ones I did work splendidly. It makes work in the kitchen so much easier!"

I requested Joyce to send me the link for this, and mentally put it on the list of things to buy once we can go back to the house.

Going over to the table, Joyce took out another set of ingredients and passed some to me.

"The next dish I was planning to make would be a very refreshing soup. It's also nutritious so it's good for the children."

First, we took a pot of water and set it to boil. Then, we added quite a lot of clam powder. Once the clam powder water boiled, we then added a handful of dirt stars and other ingredients like rain powder and sun dust.

"The main star of this dish is going to be that Star fruit in your hands. It's an international ingredient, so we don't get it very often. But about a month ago, I discovered that when cooked right, it released a lot of nutrients in the form of fruit juice. This juice isn't very pleasant tasting though so it took a while to get the right combination to remove that nasty taste."

As she talked, Joyce took the Star fruit from me and dug out the insides into two bowls. She then broke the shell of the fruit into large chunks with her hands and threw them into the pot.

"The insides of the Star fruit make up a large majority of its nasty taste. Unfortunately, it is also where most of its nutrients come from so we need to process it a little."

Taking the bowl which held the insides of the Star fruit, Joyce added some clam powder and star dust.

"This dish is so complicated compared to the ones that usually appear on your blog."

Taking the second bowl, I copied her actions and used my hands to thoroughly mix them together.

"Well, it's probably because I haven't managed to simplify it. As it stands, this dish is still quite new. I only managed to unlock the potential of the Star fruit after a coincidental reading of another food blogger. She said she only discovered this by accident when she accidently took the wrong container. After reading that, I decided to make it into a soup. It took a while but I finally managed to succeed in making a good dish from it. Now all that's left is to polish the recipe."

Joyce described the many many steps she went through to develop the dish we were currently making, as well as all the other dishes on her site.

"Since my blog uses a lot of Mors ingredients, I have some contacts with other food bloggers in Mors. It's quite interesting to hear about all the different food preparation methods they use, as well as their culture. Right! Why don't you become a food blogger as well?"

Being a little more talkative after we grew on each other a little more, the two of us chatted while we rinsed the mixture before adding more clam powder and sun dust.

"Actually, I'm currently working as a Jolt streamer. I also do quite a bit of cooking there so I think I might post my recipes there instead of a blog."

The moment I mentioned Jolt, I saw Joyce make a face.

"That site...is quite...biased against Mors. I tried to stream there once, but I was immediately bombarded with a lot of nasty comments and had to terminate my stream early. Ever since then, I kind of avoid going there."

Hearing her negative experience, I recalled back to the first stream I had where there was a surprisingly large amount of hateful comments. It wasn't surprising that someone as timid as Joyce would be slightly averse from streaming.

"On my first stream, there were quite a lot of hate comments as well. However, I had a friend at that time help to moderate the stream and now most of the viewers left are good people."

Telling Joyce about the first time I started streaming, as well as my overall experience, I could see her start to waver in her aversion to the site.

"If those hate comments don't last, then maybe in the future I can use it. Honestly. I heard several of my food blogger friends mention how much they wanted to stream but couldn't because of the hate over there. It's really hard to stand it. If the site is more friendly, I can probably convince them to try again. After all, the earnings from Jolt are actually quite attractive."

Once the mixture finally turned clear, the two of us washed away the remaining clam powder and sun dust before adding it to the boiling pot.

"Now we wait for around 1 hour for it to soak. While we wait, could you send me your Jolt page?"

Closing the lid on the pot, the two of us then went to sit at the kitchen table. I pulled up my Jolt page and gave Joyce a run down of what I did, how the viewers were, etc.

As she listened to me, she nodded her head and sometimes noted down what I said.

"It sounds like a pretty good option."

After my talk, Joyce stuck a thinking pose as she looked over the notes she took.

"It's pretty decent if you can withstand the hate in the beginning. However, I also had a lot of help from my friend. She also helps me look after my Chirp, and interacts with my viewers while I'm cooking. The channel wasn't just built up by me alone. To be honest, if she wasn't there, I don't think I would have made it to this point."

Joyce listened to my words with a small smile.

"I see that you really treasure your friend. By the way, where is she? According to your latest stream, she was probably with you when you were sailing. But the only ones I saw were you and Oliver?"

I closed my personal terminal.

"She had some personal business to attend to. It seemed quite confidential, since she didn't tell me about it. But other than that, she's also helping me keep track of the progress of the police investigation. Since she is more tech savvy than I am. She is also quite shy around the camera, so she doesn't like appearing in the livestreams. In the sailing stream, she was sitting in the car right outside the livestream area, looking at the chat and helping me out."

I tried my best to explain away Sazzy's video absence while not technically lying.

"I see."

Nodding her head, I tensed up in anticipation for the next tricky question about Sazzy when the sound for the machine rang.

Saved by the bell!