At home, Draden looked over the condition of the restaurant and found it completed. The workers, who he had been making a meal for each day, had even taken the liberty of bringing in all the needed items. The kitchen was now roughly set up, and the dining area was in a similar condition, with all the tables and chairs in their general places.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it certainly made what he needed to do the next day a lot less.

  He found the workers in the building, rearranging the tables, arguing about their best position.

  Leah danced among them, helping in her own special way. Draden, meanwhile, directed the men on where he actually wanted the tables placed before moving into the kitchen. As thanks for what they had done, he was going to cook them one more meal.

  He just needed to figure out what he could summon and what he had available.

  Draden couldn’t make anything that took a long time, it needed to be fairly quick. It still needed to be tasty, and it needed to be filling. Peeking back into the main room, he quickly counted the number of workers.

  Seven, plus Leah and himself.

  He had prepared some loaves of bread for something else, but now he had another idea. Meatball sandwiches. They were tasty, filling, different from what you would normally find in the area, and he would be able to make them relatively quickly. Most importantly, they didn’t require any specialized equipment, and he had made them before back on Earth.

  Many of the recipes he was familiar with used things like Air Fryers or Pressure Cookers. Cooking equipment that he obviously didn’t have access to in this world. They weren’t needed. Those things were simply made to make a person’s life easier and the cooking process faster. It was that last item that was key.

  Faster.

  Any recipe that could be cooked in forty-five minutes in the pressure cooker would take eight hours simmering away in a normal pot. It could still be done; it just took many times longer.

  As a result, all the recipes he was continuing to write down had started to accumulate various notes. As the restaurant neared completion, he had been forced to begin thinking about the daily menus and what kitchen equipment he wanted had become a major item.

  Draden didn’t want to revolutionize the food industry. He simply wanted to regain his former strength so he could keep his daughter safe, and one day go after his wife.

  If he did happen to introduce new ways of cooking, preparing foods, and more, then great. However, he hadn’t been a professional chef on Earth, merely someone living alone who watched a lot of videos and read articles as needed.

  Grabbing nine loaves of bread, he sliced eight of them lengthwise and then placed them to the side.

  With that done, he began gathering up the different ingredients and placed them on the counter next to the bread. That was another reason he had chosen this recipe. He already had everything needed for it. Even without summoning additional ingredients, he would still be able to make it, though only a few of the ingredients would be from Earth.

  There was one more thing he needed to do before he could summon ingredients. He took out a couple of pieces of paper and quickly scrawled out the recipe on one and the ingredients on the other. During that last month and a half, he had realized that doing this increased the chances of getting the items that he actually wanted.

  The first time had been an accident that came about because he had left the recipe on the counter. But the result couldn’t be denied. It wasn’t perfect, it merely increased the odds by a heavy margin.

  Taking a half-gold piece from his pocket, it turned to dust and then the items on the counter began to flash one by one.

  A dozen tomatoes, a half-pound of sugar, several onions, a package of cheese wrapped in cheesecloth, and various other spices.

  Previously, he had roughly determined that a gold coin was worth between ten and fifteen dollars. Which, if he assumed that they were actually pure gold, was a terrible conversion rate. On Earth, a coin that size, which was roughly the size of a quarter, would be north of five-hundred dollars!

  Every time he saw one turn to dust; he wanted to cry.

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  The half-gold pieces were exactly that, gold coins that had been snipped in half. As such, their value was halved. Not that it seemed to matter to the system or whatever it was, as it continued to pretty much randomly assign values to whatever it delivered.

  Pushing the annoying matter from his mind, Draden surveyed the available ingredients. A basket of plump tomatoes from this world, along with the dozen glistening red tomatoes from Earth. There was a bundle of parsley, a shaker of Italian seasoning, the sugar, onions, garlic powder, dried breadcrumbs… Then the cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, and meat.

  Now that he was looking at it all, a large portion of the recipe could actually be made from Earthly ingredients. It wasn’t something he had originally intended to do, but the workers had been helpful and nice. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to use some of the more special ingredients and have these guys help spread the word about his special Chef’s Menu.

  Nodding to himself, he began making the meatballs and marinara sauce.

  There were a few different recipes he had tried over the years for this particular sandwich, but this one was generally his go-to version. It was a little easier than the others in that it required slightly fewer ingredients, while still tasting great.

  In a large bowl, he dumped the ground beef. There was nothing special about regular cows in this world as they were unable to cultivate. That meant their meat held next to no qi in it and was used by pretty much everyone who wasn’t a cultivator. Even in this world, cows couldn’t escape their fate of getting turned into steaks.

  Shaking his head, Draden threw in some mozzarella cheese -which was the cheese he had just gotten from Earth- followed by some parsley he quickly chopped. Next went some diced onions, and garlic powder, though fresh minced garlic would have been preferable. A couple of shakes of salt and pepper were followed by the last two ingredients, the dried breadcrumbs, and the egg.

  After that, you mixed everything together into a paste and began forming some balls. If it was too dry, you could add some milk, but he found that usually made the mixture too wet. On Earth he had used a small ice-cream scoop or melon baller to form the meatballs, here he just gathered the mixture up on his spoon and then rolled it together.

  As soon as they were all formed, he stuck them all on a pan and shoved them in the oven. The one in his house was originally wood fired, a necessity due to his failing ability to cultivate. Now that he was gradually regaining that ability, he had felt it was safe enough to purchase two ovens powered by qi. This particular model could be powered by his own qi or beast and spiritual cores.

  Subsequently, it had been one of the most expensive items in the entire build of the restaurant.

  With the meatballs in the oven, it was time to move onto the sauce.

  The sauce was next. On Earth, he would have used a tin of tomato sauce, here, he had to go old school and boil the tomatoes, skin them, and then mash them. After that, he added a squirt of vegetable oil. (The original recipe called for olive oil, but he hadn’t managed to get that one yet.)

  From there, he added the garlic, after taking time to mince them. Next was roughly a tablespoon of Oregano and Italian Herb seasoning. Looking through his cabinets, he quickly dug up an ingredient he had forgotten and pulled out the Red Pepper Flakes, adding a couple of shakes to the pot as well. After that was the Salt and Pepper and adding some Sugar to taste.

  He mixed everything together and let it simmer, getting rid of some of the extra liquid. The actual sauce recipe was meant as a pizza sauce and needed to be adjusted for however many subs you were intending to serve it on. It was good though, at least in his opinion. Who knew how people of this world would react to it?

  When there were only a few minutes left on the meatballs, Draden opened each of the loaves of bread that he had cut previously and stuck them in the oven to begin toasting. No one liked a soggy sandwich.

  By that point, the smells of the cooking food had begun to drift throughout the restaurant, and the workers, with Leah in the lead, had crept closer to the kitchen entrance. She was holding a finger up to her mouth and was drooling slightly as she watched her father cook. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she swallowed and wiped her mouth.

  “Is it almost ready, daddy? Leah is about to die from hunger. She just did a lot of work.” The small girl asked plaintively, rubbing her tiny tummy.

  The workers above her laughed and ruffled her hair. “You tell him, little one. She’s a real driver, this one. Harder than any manager we’ve ever had.”

  Draden laughed and began pulling everything from the oven. “Just two more steps. Not much longer now.”

  Each of the meatballs was cut in half to reduce their overall height. Then each loaf of bread gained five to six halves, followed by the sauce and a topping of cheese. Each one was then placed back in the oven in turn to melt the cheese.

  A minute later, he pulled each one out, folded the top half of the loaf over onto the cheese, meatball, and sauce mix, and then placed it on a wooden plate.

  When they were all ready, he handed them out, splitting his own with Leah. Draden lifted the sandwich, showing them how it was meant to be eaten, and took a large bite of it. He moaned with pleasure, his eyes rolling back in his head. It was so good, not quite on the level of a sandwich chain, but for someone who was living in another world without access to any sort of fast food, it was practically heavenly.

  If he had truly planned this recipe out beforehand, then he would have added some cucumbers and maybe some lettuce to it. The moisture and crisp flavor that they would have provided was always a nice contrast, in his opinion.

  Each bite of the sandwich gave him a soothing, healing energy. The meatballs, sauce, and cheese were more or less from Earth. Really, the only local item was the bread, which wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t the best he had ever had, either.

  The workers were all about to bite into their sandwiches when they got distracted by the sounds Leah was making. She was sitting on a stool with her feet kicking back and forth. A look of utter bliss was on her face as she took one small bite of the sandwich after another. The red-sauce gradually smeared all-around her lips as she tried to force ever larger amounts into her mouth.

  “Sho good,” She mumbled, the words barely discernable through her full mouth.

  Seeing how much the adorable girl was enjoying the food, the large men tore into their own sandwiches with abandon.

  “What am I feeling?” The manager asked suddenly, rubbing his stomach as an unfamiliar energy began to course through his body. “All the food you have cooked has had this odd energy to it. But this one, it feels as though my body is being healed. All my old aches and pains are disappearing one by one.”

  As though that was the tipping point, each of the other workers began to speak up, voicing their own opinions on the healing energy.

  Draden polished off the last of his meatball sandwich and grinned. “That’s the specialty of my restaurant. Consider everything that I make as though it came from magical ingredients or similar items.”

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

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