Elena Valdez was an award-winning chef and a successful food entrepreneur.
She had everything; a loving family, good friends and a food empire.
Her life was perfect.
Until an untimely death landed her not in the gates of heaven but into the body of...
I have written on behalf of the duke, who is in the frontlines this past week.
He wishes me to write you to assuage your worries. He is doing quite well.
I hope this letter conveys the duke's intentions of well being to you.
- Hughes, aide to his Grace, Duke Aisenburg.
Ely's POV:
Linda stared at the fluffy-looking rice I cooked in the pot.
"This is rice?" she looked at me while I began frying some garlic and a few more aromatics in another pan. "This looks different from the slop we feed to our livestock."
I then asked her to add some sliced chicken and the mushrooms as well while I stir the garlic and onions and a small cube of butter. The sizzle of the deep pan resembling a wok made me lick my lips as I added the soy sauce I obtained from an Exotic Land seller near the port.
I added the smoked chili flakes and some searched coarse pepper smoked with nut wood as my mind added the rice little by little until the pristine white grains turned light brown. I finished it off by adding my pepper and folded some mozzarella, cheese into it and added some parsley and some corn bits.
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"Milady. The rice turned brown?" She then sniffed the buttery smell and swallowed. "It smells amazing in contrast to its appearance."
I scooped a few of it into the bowl and gave it to Linda to try after garnishing it with some more parsley.
Thanks to my fire mana's assistance, The bowl of chicken garlic fried rice has a good amount of heat and the meat stayed plump and juicy.
"Try it and tell me if this is good enough."
My mind nodded and took a spoonful and ate it. She gasped and took another spoon while closing her eyes in pleasure as she gobbled up the food.
" Mmmm! This is a flavor I have never tasted before. It was very smoky that the flavor deepens with each bite, the pepper was incorporated well with the rice and it cheese oddly works to numb the spice from the chili flakes." My mind sighed as if I have given her a gift. "This is nothing like I have ever eaten, milady."
"This will be our little secret then. We can serve this to Lady Baristani. I wonder if she would recognize the rice in the rice bowl as I prepared a bowl for two just as the door to the kitchen opened and a maid showed her inside.
I immediately told her to sit down and served her the bowl of rice and her expression was also apprehension and reluctance because of the dark brown color of the grains.
" I used an Exotic Land ingredient for this bowl. I called it chicken pepper rice." I grabbed a bowl and took a bite out of it.
She saw that I was enjoying it and also started to eat and she looked at the grains that were plump and glistening with the soy sauce and chicken.
