Time flew. She never expected anyone to notice her habit of rescuing scraps. The Culinary Office, strict about…
Time flew. She never expected anyone to notice her habit of rescuing scraps.
The Culinary Office, strict about waste since the Emperor could not bear to see food wasted, did notice. Bits of lamb clinging to a bone, old flour, anything that could be saved found its way into her hands. She treated each fragment with care, slicing and seasoning them as deliberately as if tending a memory.
They gave her a stall in a quiet corner in the Culinary Office. People began to pause, then to return. Footsteps from all parts of the palace came to her counter.
She was shy with words and could never ask her customers everything she wanted to know. Did they like it? Want something different? So the one thing she always managed to call after them was simple: "No matter how busy you are, eat well."
Saying that so often, she realized it contained everything she'd been searching for. The "good life" was not a fortune or a title. It was this: making honest food and making sure people ate it. That, she discovered, was enough.