Cafeteria Plans

Princess Viola easily ended up buying twice as many things to bring back with her this time around. While there weren't a ton of new items on sale compared to the festival she had last attended, the citizens of Blue Spring City had more time to prepare their goods. It was less common to pickle and dry things earlier on in the year. However, by the harvest festival, most people were now preparing for the cold season and this extended to the types of goods they had for sale.

While one might think that the people in the beastworld would always want to save everything for their own families, things were actually more complicated than that. Even in normal cities, where trade was also common, the stronger males, who had an easier time hunting, would often sell some of the meat they had caught. This would allow them to buy other precious goods like honey or plants for their females to enjoy during the cold season. Different beastmen were better suited to different tasks, but females always enjoyed having a variety of different things to eat.

This fact was all the more exaggerated in Blue Springs City where food was abundant. Those who had kept private farms for most of the year needed to ensure that none of their harvests went to waste. So they dried, pickled, fermented, and everything else needed to preserve their plants. Anyone who didn't have enough time to grow another round of plants were now also cutting down any trees they had and collecting any plants that would be useful as tinder. Things like the dried stalks from corn could be quite useful, after all.

Since those with farms were so busy preparing the plants from their farms for sale, it reduced the amount of males who could be sent out to hunt and then smoke and dry meat for the cold season. So, it wasn't too uncommon for males from families without farms to bring already prepared meat to market to barter for the crops they wanted. Others, of course, would just set up their own stalls to sell the extra animal furs and dried meat since their family had more than enough manpower and not nearly enough time to go to each stall to try and trade for other goods.

Of course, it would be too much for Viola and her mates to buy their entire cold season's worth of goods here. However, that didn't stop Viola from buying pickled vegetables, dried fruits, wine, and other interesting foods that she wouldn't be able to find in her own city. Even Viola's mates seemed quite happy that she was buying lots of good things. Some even encouraged her to buy more of some of the ones they were interested in themselves. Since Viola had only brought her strongest males with her, Iris could easily guess that these males were also the most favored and could get away with such things. Perhaps these males were even the ones who earned the most crystals in their family, which was what would be paying for such purchases in the first place.

Now, their group was resting at the park while her mates ran their purchases back to their temporary lodgings.

"You know, I'm sure you could put in a special order at Holly's restaurant before you go. Some of the baked goods could likely last a few weeks without issue so long as you keep them well wrapped and in a tightly closed container. Anything with fresh ingredients won't travel well, but there are a good bit of cookies and bread that would do just fine."

iris suggested. Viola's eyes lit up in excitement as she excitedly asked Holly

"Could you really do that for me? I'd hate to cause any issues with your shop, but it would be great if I could buy a lot of things to bring home with me. Mother even seemed sad that she couldn't come with me. Father can't easily leave the city and she'd been getting older, so most of her other mates don't like the idea of her traveling too much either."

Holly looked embarrassed to be singled out, but nodded before saying

"Yeah, we can do that. I can ask some of my mates to stay late to make things for you. We'll just need you to tell us what all you want. My mates and I have actually been talking about closing the restaurant until the rainy season after this festival is over.

My males want more time to prepare things for our own family before the cold season. Plus, I was thinking of doing something similar for others. Instead of making things to order, we can just make a bunch of the more shelf-stable items and sell them in bulk to others.

I was actually hoping to talk to Iris about that soon. I just don't think we will need to buy as much milk and eggs since we won't be making as many things that require them."

Iris nodded, looking thoughtful before she said

"That should be fine. I'll figure out something to do with it all.

Although, I doubt it will be too big of an issue this year. While those who live in the outer city will be cut off from everyone else, those in the inner city should be able to attend weekly banquets this year. I was planning to even have people running workshops and the kitchens during the cold season. So, I can develop some new games and recipes for everyone to enjoy when we all meet up. We will also be having school sessions and morning training sessions still since we have areas on the lower floors for that.

Since all of the inner city mountains are connected, there is no reason why anyone has to sit at home bored all season. I actually already talked to Fawn about purchasing some labor from her family to help us prepare extra food for the banquet. Maybe I could see about hiring your family to help us prepare some of the food for the banquets? If you join in, it could be a fun way for the two of us to spend time together while doing something good for the community."

While Holly was taken off guard, Fawn was quick to pipe up

"Actually, I was wondering about how that was going to work. Isn't the banquet hall on the bottom-most floor? Even if that isn't an issue, is there a limit to how many people can join in? Do they have to bring a portion of food to cover their family's meals?"

Iris shook her head as she replied

"That shouldn't be an issue. The two bottom floors of every mountain aren't cut off entirely from the rest. There is a single staircase on the inside of the mountain that leads to them. We just don't have four staircases between those floors like the rest have so it is easier to guard the area.

We might not be able to fit everyone in the banquet hall since our city's population has grown so much, but I don't think it will be a big issue. We can always have some of the single males dine in a separate area. I'm actually taking steps to ensure we can serve a larger number of people.

For example, the number of dishes needed to feed so many people could easily be an issue. It was already difficult for me and Caspian to handle the dishes when we were living in the Arctic Wolf Tribe. With so many more people living in our city, there is no way we can handle so many people's dishes with so many people.

So, I'm planning to have the stone masonry workshop and carpentry workshop develop dishes and cutlery based on those needs. For the dishes, I plan to have a two-piece meal tray. The tray will have raised sides with multiple separated areas for different foods to be placed into. Meanwhile, one part of the tray will have a circular area for a soup bowl to slot into. That will make things a lot easier since it will only be two dishes per person instead of a separate dish to hold each serving of each different type of food.

I'll also be having each lunch tray come with a set of chopsticks and a spoon. Chopsticks are like two sticks that you pinch together to eat. I know Holly uses bone knives, two-pronged wooden forks, and stone spoons at her restaurant. However, I think it would be easier to go this route and just have all of the meat pre-cut by the kitchen. They'd have to cut the meat into appropriate serving sizes anyways, so it shouldn't be that much more work.

I'm also going to have a special new serving area built by the two workshops. I'm going to set things up buffet-style, which is a self-service way of serving food. I'll have stone counters with areas to slot in large stone pans full of food with serving utensils where people can line up and then serve themselves. When more food needs to be put in, the old stone pan can be taken out and a new one put in its place. I'll likely have to have a separate table set up to hold the trays and small animal skin cloths for napkins before the buffet-style serving area. Then another separate area with someone to serve drinks. Since the jugs the drinks are poured from can spill far too easily, it would be bad for the table to get overcrowded and the drinks to be wasted.

Anyhow, with all of that and the picnic-style tables, we should be able to efficiently use the space. So, we only need to worry about the kitchen logistics. I've already got more hearths being installed than any of our restaurants have and I plan to hire both people to cook and a separate group to wash dishes. So, it should be fine.

As for payment for joining in on the banquet. I don't really plan to turn anyone away as it is better for people to get to eat rather than to starve to death from lack of sufficient food in the cold season. Everyone pays taxes anyway, so that should be enough to cover the costs involved in purchasing extra food to prepare for the cold season banquets. However, I'm hardly going to turn away any donations anyone may feel inclined to give. It just means we can afford to feed people more food for longer instead of trying to be cheap about things. Soup and tea are great and all, but I think we all know that there are plenty of other foods that we'd all prefer to eat."

The girls continued to talk for a good while. Alicia just continued to listen, not talking unless someone directed a question at her. It was very strange to listen to Iris talk about her big, lofty goals. Really, even something smaller in scale like Holly's restaurant or Fawn's grocery seemed pretty insane to try and organize and keep running on a daily basis.

Food was scarce in the rabbit tribe. They struggled to grow crops and the few crops that their tribe did manage to grow were always split among the families with females. Well, the families were also required to send a male out to help with the farming in order to get a share of the crops. However, no one complained about it since they all wanted the few females they did have in their tribe to eat well. It was the only way to ensure that healthy cubs could be born and that their tribe would be able to continue.

It was strange to have food be so abundant that it was even sold on the streets here, much less as an entire business model. Having the city leader organize a free meal once a week for everyone was almost too good to be true. Alicia was aware that her mates had to work hard to earn enough crystals to pay the monthly rent and that they'd always have to pay taxes, even if they managed to purchase their home. However, from what she had heard from others, that was supposed to be the normal course of things in cities. That she had heard Iris claim the taxes paid for not only guards to keep them all safe, but also helped to ensure no one had to starve to death in the cold season was like a dream come true.

Alicia shook her head, her thoughts were starting to get a bit repetitive. It was really hard to believe these things and her head felt like it was spinning, but she still wanted to pay attention to the rest of the conversations being had.