I've been keeping up with the regular deliveries and working with Ma on the pickling and fermenting. It's a real busy time of year, getting all the harvest preserved. We definitely need someone trustworthy to help with Da. I'll have to start asking around for referrals. I'd want someone we could rely on to keep an eye on Da and not to wafting off in daisy-dreams. Might be hard to find someone like that but I will try.
Sometimes the work isn't all that challenging to my mind, though. While I'm taking the cart from place to place, I've been thinking more on the idea of selling foods specifically for folks as travel all over. I've worked out what I think are some foods that will stay good for months and not be too heavy to carry. The trick is getting all the water out. That's what's heavy. The other part of this is making sure I have supplies coming in for this new part of the business. I won't just be ordering more veg, but also I need more meat than the local pigs and cows will supply.
I was making the delivery to Butterbur when I heard a big folk hunter asking him if he needed meats or such. I introduced myself to him and told him that I'd be willing to buy boar and deer meat, fat, and intestines but that I'd need him to prepare them in special ways so they'd still be good when they got to me. He said he was willing so we agreed on a bit more than he'd earn if he was to sell to the guard barracks mess hall, and I promised him some bonus coin if the foods I made were popular. I'm going to have to put off some of the repairs on the house to make this work, but I think it'll be a good investment.
While I was talking with the hunter, Cutwil, there was a weapon and armor smith named Eddrick Maddon, with a shop in Bree, who heard what I was thinking of selling and put in an order for some food that'd last for a trip he's taking soon. He'd been unsure about working with me at first because he said he usually works in contracts, not on a hand-shake like I made the deal with Cutwil. I told him not to worry, that I have been doing Da's contracts, guild memberships, and such for years. I spent the time after I got done talking with him writing up a contract and sealing it with the family seal. I didn't have time to carry it to him personal because several baskets of horseradish got deliveried while I was at Butterbur's and we had to get it cleaned, peeled, shredded and in the crocks. I put the contract in the post and hope to hear from him by return post.
Once I hear from him I'll be busy putting up the preserved foods I plan for him to take. I'm thinking the sausages I want to make will take around a day to mix up and stuff in the casings. Then I need to smoke them for another day or two. Then they need to be salted and hung for a good few days. I can cut that down some by smoking and curing some sausages Ma already has made, but it'll be tight getting him sausages for the trip. I'll have to make up the rest he'll need with food bricks I've a mind to make, those won't take near so long. Maybe two days, at most. I think I'll make one sweet one, and the rest savoury. He'd mentioned something about liking some variety. I don't think I'll wait to hear back from him to get started on it, though. I'm sure I'll find someone who will buy them, even if he doesn't, and they'll last a good long time.
