CH 92

I said it was my idea… it wasn’t really, but we still moved to another room to demonstrate the product I wanted to be the star of the new store. Even then, it was just a matter of moving from the conference room to the dining room. When we all crowded around the cooking equipment, where Katharina had already finished the preparations.

“First of all, I will make the aforementioned product, so please look at it, taste it, and give your opinion,” I said.

Using the ingredients that had already been prepped to some extent, I immediately began to lightly fry the flour mixed with milk and eggs in a frying pan. Immediately, a delicious smell begins to drift around. I know what it’s made of and what it tastes like, so I think it looks delicious, but I wonder how everyone who doesn’t know this feels about it. If I take a quick look at everyone…

“Somehow, it smells sweet…”

“Doesn’t it……?”

Hm……. do they think it smells just a little too sweet? Anyway, it’s thin, so it cooks quickly. I have to cook it well so that it does not burn…….

Whipped cream and cut fruits are put in the thinly cooked batter. It would be nice if there was chocolate sauce, but unfortunately, I haven’t discovered chocolate yet in this world. I want rubber and chocolate urgently. Oh, and maybe some coffee and tea, too…

Anyway, you know what I’m making. This is a Japanese-style crepe. However, crepes like sweet treats with cream and fruit wrapped around them were born in Japan in the late 70s and were originally not that kind of food.

A crepe was originally a salty side dish with various ingredients wrapped inside it. In Japan, it was introduced as a sweet confectionery of cream, chocolate, and fruit, and it gradually spread.

The first thing I prepared was a Japanese-style sweet crepe. And I also prepared a savory crepe batter that is different from the sweet crepe batter. I try sandwiching chopped cabbage and grilled meat here. I want the meat to be teriyaki-style, but I can’t do that. It’s just a skewer-style barbeque with a major dose of seasoning that was sold at the street stalls around here.

The batter is baked in a round frying pan, not in a special round broiler with no rims like you see in Japan. I may need to work on the tools and baking method in the future, but for now, it’s just a makeshift deal.

Since several kinds of crepes were completed, I asked everyone to taste them. Let’s listen to Katharina and Helmut’s opinions, as well.

“Everyone, please try tasting it,” I said. “If possible, please eat a little bit of all the varieties and give your opinions and impressions. Katharina and Helmut, you two as well, please.”

“Huh? Is it alright me to also have your home cooking, Miss Flora?” Helmut asked, surprised.

Come to think of it, did Helmut ever eat my food? Did he never? I don’t know. If I can’t remember, it’s probably “none” or “nearly never.” Katharina had been eating my home-cooked food to treat her malnutrition before, and perhaps Helmut had never eaten my food, or maybe he was concerned about the fact that he rarely ate my food.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’d like to hear both men’s and women’s opinions, so please give me your thoughts.”

“Right away!” Helmut cried.

Hey……. did you really need to answer with such enthusiasm? Well, it’s fine. I cook a lot of batters while everyone is eating the completed crepes. Then, put the cream in between while stacking them one by one. Repeat this process until the Mille crepes are ready.

Mille crepes require a lot of batter, so I wonder if the price will be high.…… no, wait. Do I know the price of the batter? Then the regular Japanese-style sweet crepes with lots of cream filling will be more expensive? Based on that theory, the cheapest crepe would be the savory crepe.

It’s been quite a while since sweet crêpes became popular in Japan, but recently there are also savory crepes with tuna or chicken in between, aimed at men instead of women. Well, it’s more like a return to the origins than something that was created later, so crepes were originally such a street stall food as they were in France.

I wonder if sweet crepes for women and savory crepes for men will be popular here as well. Making Mille crepes is hard work, so it would be great if we could serve Mille crepes with coffee or tea at a café… unfortunately, we have neither coffee beans nor cheaply sourced tea.

Black tea, green tea, and Chinese tea are all the same, and the only difference is how they are processed with oxidation. Of course, there must have been differences in how the tea leaves were taken from tea trees or Assam plants, but there is no difference that they are all basically the same in the end.

If I can grow imported tea, will I be able to make black tea? But it will take many years from planting to being able to pluck. And that supposes it’s possible to import a tea tree in the first place. And even if it could be imported, there is also the problem of whether it would grow in the climate of Ploiss.

Well, it’s probably from that area northwest of my house, so if it’s possible to grow it at a higher latitude than my house, it seems highly likely that I can do it, too… or do I import raw tea leaves and oxidize them to make black tea? If we teach them how to make them and have them processed by the producer, our profit will decrease. I want to secretly process it at home as much as possible and make it into black tea.

Also, dandelion tea is often used as a substitute for coffee, but that is no good. In Japanese, dandelion tea is also called “coffee”, so I thought since it looked like coffee, I can make a coffee substitute for a world without the coffee bean! But, as I hinted, the taste is completely different.

It’s certainly roasted and fragrant, so if you just look at the aroma, you might say it’s similar to coffee, but if anything, it tastes more like barley tea. A substitute is just a substitute, and it is not a substitute for coffee just because people who cannot drink coffee drink it instead.

Even if there is coffee, it will be entirely imported. Or can it be grown in a greenhouse or vinyl house? It seems to be difficult to manage, and if you do it poorly, it will all wither. Importing is safe considering the risk of increasing the number of greenhouses too much.

“This sweet thing will probably be popular with women,” Leonor said as I was stuck in my thoughts.

She’s in charge of product development, so of course, she reacts quickly to new ideas.

“I prefer to have meat sandwiched between these things, see?” Hugo said after tasting it all.

Everyone gradually talked to each other.

“I never thought that our products could be turned into such delicious food,” Edward said.

“Edward…” I said. “You don’t know much about your farm’s products. Eggs, sugar, milk, cream, and butter are all-purpose ingredients. If you have them, you can make anything from sweets to dishes,” I said.

They are indispensable in Japanese sweets and dishes. It can even be said that it is essential for a rich dining table.

“I think it’s probably better to put this meat and vegetables in between,” Katharina said.

“What’s your basis for that?” Leonor said.

Before I realized it, the two were exchanging thoughts. Even though Katharina is also a woman, does she prefer savory crepes?

“If I eat it myself, I prefer the sweet variety as a snack,” Katharina said. “But the meat and vegetables here can be spread out on a dinner table. I think many housewives would buy this for that day’s dinner.” 1

I see now……. not only eating it on the spot but taking it home and using it as a meal for the day. I wonder if it’s the same idea as Japanese take-out.

“I would like to sell these products both to customers who want to grab them, leave, and eat them while walking but also to customers who want to sit and eat leisurely with a drink,” I said. “If they can also see Caanza’s products, wouldn’t it be a good advertisement for us?”

I will also participate in the discussion and express my thoughts. I explain while drawing a floor plan on a piece of paper. There will be two counters for crepes, one facing outside for take-out while you walk by, and one inside for inside the store to sit down and relax.

If you divide the store into a crepe café on one side and display Caanza’s general sales products on the other side, customers who eat crepes inside the store will be able to see them. It would be nice if customers who were interested could go directly from the cafe to the company’s store by arranging prices and product samples on the other side.

“I see. But if there is no partition, what about these crepes? Won’t this food fly out and stain the products? Or, customers on the dining side eating and drinking will damage them from there……”

It’s a fair point. If you just prepare a low partition, crepes that accidentally fly out of people’s hands will hit the product displays, or if that’s too extreme for you, it’s likely that someone might drop their crepes as they cross over.

On the other hand, if you set up a high partition, you will not be able to see the products even though the insides of the store are connected, and it will be difficult to get customer interest that way. The strategy of luring customers to the cafe and showing them the company’s products becomes meaningless.

“Glass…” I said “Let’s use plate glass from the Caan territory. If you use transparent plate glass, you can see the products and prevent food stains from hitting the products company. Also, transparent plate glass can be used as an advertisement. However, plain sheet glass may break in an accident, so wired sheet glass or laminated glass with cellulose sandwiched between them would be better.”

“Plate glass… I see… that does seem like a good advertisement.”

Everyone comes up with ideas while thinking about the floor plan and partitions based on my opinion. So I decided to serve the Mille crepes that I had forgotten about.

“Taste this too, please. Don’t you think this is suitable for eating and drinking in the store?” I said.

The crepes are conically wrapped around the ingredients, so they’re perfect for eating while walking. But if it’s a Mille crepe, you’ll want to sit inside and eat it. If Mille crepes become famous, the number of customers who want to eat it in the store should increase. And when you enter the store, you can see the neighboring product displays through the glass. Therefore, if you are interested in the products, you can move between stores without issues. This isn’t a bad idea.

“It’s delicious. It has a unique texture.”

“I think we can tempt customers to come in and eat at the store.”

In the end, everyone seemed to think that crepes were going to trend toward a lot of takeout orders. Therefore, if there is a Mille crepe only for eating and drinking in the store, it will be easier to get them in the doors.

After that, we had a lot of discussions and came to a consensus. It’s almost decided to open a 2nd Caanza royal capital branch in the downtown area. After that, we’ll find a store building that meets the conditions and renovate the interior…

We also need a crepe line-up and training for the chefs. You also have to decide the price of the various ingredients you buy from the ranch. You can’t decide on the product price without figuring out the material cost.

Also, today I cooked it in a frying pan, but I wonder if it would be better to have that round, edgeless grilling machine. It might be better to have a tool to spread thin like a small dragonfly. I traced it with the back of the ladle and spread it and baked it, but the thickness was uneven and it was too thick n places. It’s just a taste test, so it’s fine, but it’s useless as a product.

Well, the rest is for Hugo and Edward to think about. I’ll give my opinion, but it’s not like I’ll prepare everything from steps 1 to 10. The rest of the job should be done by the people involved in the practical work.

“I have some ideas for tools that can be used to bake crepes, so I will try to prepare samples of them at a later date,” I said. “Also, I would like Hugo and the rest of Caanza plus Edward and the employees of the ranch to pay attention to this. …”

Everyone is quiet and listening to my serious voice. I absolutely have to say this.

“I have many enemies,” I said “Those who target me personally, those who envy Caanza Trading Firm, those who try to interfere with the ranch, there are malicious people that could come at us any time. If it’s the ranch, we might earn grudges from our competitors and rival industries, and if it’s Caanza, you might earn grudges from the nobles and the like.”

Once I cut off my words and looked around, everyone was seriously nodding. This may have happened before.

“At times like that, we have to make sure that the company and the ranch do not give in to threats to our employees. But, they might also be harassed for refusing to give in. Please make sure to protect the safety of both the businesses and their workers. Also, don’t tell them anything too deep into the inner workings of the businesses. It doesn’t mean that you can’t trust your subordinates, but the more you know, the more likely you’ll be targeted. Please, be very careful.”

Marquess Valtek has declared that she will destroy Caanza, so there’s no such thing as being too careful.

“Understood,” everyone said.

They nodded seriously, so I leave the rest to them. If a budget is needed, it will be accounted for as usual. Everyone here is a pro. I’m not the kind of person who has to go through everything step-by-step like I’m dealing with a child.

After finishing today’s business, we decided to get on the carriage and go home. Helmut and Katharina seemed strangely in a good mood on the way home in the carriage, but I guess it’s because they just ate sweets.