I Opened a Café in Another World.

Volume 2, Chapter 28: Snacks don’t have to be sweet.

After she tried most of the entreé recipes, she began to work on desserts. It was no different from her usual process when it came to cake, but she made sure to try each one to confirm that the taste was the same.

Risa and the other café employees liked sweets, but even they got sick of it after days of sweet foods. By the end of the week, everyone was utterly disgusted by sweets.

“Ah… I’m so sick of this…”

Risa confessed as she stared at the cakes on the table. Nobody else said anything, but they all thought the same. Everyone had wry smiles on their faces.

“…Hmm, I believe some salty snacks are in order!”

Risa said with an epiphany. The other four people stared at her in surprise.

“… Salty snacks? That exists?”

Alan said, tilting his head in confusion. The other three people made complicated faces.

“That’s the only thing to break out of this disgustingly sweet vicious circle! Don’t worry about it. Look forward to tomorrow!”

Risa’s sudden excitement was not contagious, as the other four who only believed snacks to be sweet simply nodded, nonplussed.

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The next day, Risa had a bounce in her step even in the bright and early morning.

She was going to make potato chips. The key ingredient would be mume potatoes, a yellow-ish potato that was slightly larger than a russet potato with the texture of a sweet potato. It was a very common potato in this world.

She had a slicer machine that she never used after ordering it from the neighboring hardware store. She took it out and sliced the skinned potatoes with it. Then she rinsed the potatoes and lined them out to dry. She went to make other snacks while she waited.

The ingredients were wheat flour, a pinch of salt and sugar, Lintz oil, and water. She simply mixed everything together and kneaded it with her hand before separating it into quarters and adding different ingredients to each quarter.

One had herb paste and cheese powder, one had crushed peppercorns, one had finely chopped bacon, and the last one had nothing in it. She rolled each out thinly with a roller, cut them into long thin strips, lined them up on a baking tray, then placed them in the oven to bake on low heat.

Risa watched the dough lit up in orange from the small window on the oven and smiled to herself. She reached for the dried slices of potato. They felt a little damp, but most of the moisture was gone. She slid them into a frying pan full of heated lintz oil, and the potatoes sank with a sizzle before floating to the surface.

She continued to fry them in a frying basket and stirred occasionally. Once they turned golden, she raised the tray part of the basket and shook the oil off the potatoes. She reached for another batch until she fried all the potato slices.

Just then, the other employees who had all finished preparing for the store to open walked in.

“What’s this?”

Helena asked, picking up and staring at a chip that was just cooked.

“I fried some thinly sliced mume potatoes.”

“Whoa, and it turned into this?”

Alan said, intrigued by the shape.

“Ah, Alan. If you’re free, could you move the drained ones to a plate?”

“Yes!”

Alan took some tongs and began to move chips to another plate.

“Ah!”

Risa turned at Alan’s shout to see he had accidentally crushed some chips with his tongs. She laughed at his shocked face and said, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. That’s just how it is.”

Once all the chips were finished, she went to check the oven, which had been baking for around thirty minutes. She peeked into the window to see a wonderful golden brown. They were pretty much done. She opened the oven and a delicious fragrance spread through the kitchen. She took out the baking tray and snapped one with a crispy crunch.

Ignoring her manners, Risa munched on the piece she had snapped while moving the rest to another plate.

After that, she quickly made the rest of the staff lunch and moved to the second floor.

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After everyone finished eating, they began to try out the “salty snacks.”

“First, these are mume potato chips, made by frying sliced potatoes with oil. Feel free to make your own combinations of salt and pepper for it. These long and thin things are breadsticks. The flavors are plain, herb and cheese, pepper, and bacon. Enjoy!”

Risa said and reached for some. She took a bite of a potato chip with a crunch.

The other four followed her as they also reached for the chips. Everyone took a bite at the same time, and the room echoed with crunches.

“What an interesting texture! There isn’t much flavor like this, so it would probably taste good with salt and pepper.”

Alan said as he immediately seasoned his chip with some salt and pepper. Helena and Olivia immediately copied his movements. Meanwhile, Zeke reached for the breadsticks.

In Risa’s previous world, these were absolute necessities in supermarkets and convenience stores. They were long and thin like sticks and had salad variants and a butter flavor as well. Risa had created something slightly fatter and longer than that.

“This is good. It really is a dessert if you think about it.”

“Right? The plain ones are really good with chocolate or cream, too!”

“You’re right, that sounds like a good combination.”

“They are a little salty, so they seem to go well with wine.”

Olivia was the oldest and she enjoyed alcohol, so she immediately thought of it.

“It seems like a great snack for when you’re feeling a little peckish!”

Helena said as she waved her bacon breadstick that was short one bite around.

“It won’t go bad too fast, so we can sell this to go as well.”

“Right, we could do that, too. The chips might be a little difficult, though.”

Risa agreed to Zeke’s suggestion, but she squinted at the mume potato chip in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” Alan asked.

“These sticks were dehydrated when they were baked in the oven so they would be fine, but the chips were fried with oil. They’re still crunchy since I just fried them, but soon they’ll go stale and the texture will go bad. The packaging we have for delivery would also be greasy with oil.”

Alan nodded in understanding.

“It feels like a waste to not sell such delicious chips, though…”

Helena muttered disappointedly, and she stuffed herself with more chips.

Risa agreed, but there was no nylon or vinyl in this world, so it was incredibly difficult to sell food with moisture or oil in them for takeout.

Cakes were placed in paper boxes partitioned with thick, smooth material similar to paraffin paper. Although they could try that with the chips, too, there was no way of avoiding the staleness after time passed.

In her previous world, snacks like potato chips could be easily obtained only because of industrialization. So Risa thought as she stared at her homemade chips.

“So, what do you think of the salty snacks? Was it good?”

Risa asked the other four people who were peacefully chatting away.

“It was super good!”

“Salty snacks are quite good.”

“It was delicious!”

Alan, Olivia, and Helena said happily.

“Miss Risa is amazing as always.”

Zeke said as he smiled and gazed at Risa.

The other three were still eating, so they didn’t notice anything. However, Risa saw his expression as he faced her, clear as day, and her heart skipped a beat.

A blank expression and then this smile?! My heart…

Risa looked down so no one would see her red face and quietly wailed in agony inside.