Grandmother Left Half the Onsen Inn to the Chef novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Banquet

On the twenty-third of December the inn held its biggest banquet of the year.

Forty guests, a company from Nagoya, three long tables in the great hall and a ten-course kaiseki.

At two in the afternoon Sakura stood at the stove in a borrowed white apron with a ladle in her hand and her hair tied up in a cloth.

"Stir," Yuzu said. "Don't stop. Do not stop, Okami-san."

"I'm not stopping."

"You're thinking about stopping. I can hear it."

Sakura stirred.

The pot held the sansho miso sauce, thick and fragrant, and Haruko's gram marks in the book were the only thing she trusted.

Beside her, Yuzu turned the first of forty trout on the charcoal with her bare burned hands, calling the timing aloud.

"Eight seconds. Turn. Sauce."

Sakura ladled.

The sauce went on the fish in one smooth, glossy coat, at exactly the moment the skin cracked.

Yuzu bent down, and took a taste with her finger.

She closed her eyes.

"That's it," she said. "That's the one."

She held out her finger.

Sakura tasted.

It was sweet and smoky and sharp, the hot salt of the miso and the green bite of the pepper and the clean fat of the fish, all of it fitting together.

"Oh," Sakura whispered.

"Yeah."

"It's good."

"It's so good I want to cry." Yuzu's grin split her face. "Okay. Thirty-nine more. Go."

They worked for six hours.

The old head cook ran the rice and the pickles and wept openly every time he tasted something.

Genji carried trays in his vest and tie and did not look at the stove once without wiping his eyes.

At eight o'clock the last course went out, and from the hall came a wave of applause that rolled all the way back through the swinging door.

The staff stood still in the steam.

Then somebody started to clap, and the whole kitchen broke out cheering.

Sakura found herself lifted off her feet by the head maid.

When she was set down again, Yuzu was gone.

She found her in the pantry.

It was a narrow room behind the kitchen, lined floor to ceiling with sacks of rice, jars of pickles and tins of dried bonito.

Yuzu stood against the shelves with her jacket open and her chest heaving, laughing silently.

She grabbed Sakura by the apron strings and hauled her in, and slid the door shut with her foot.

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