Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Ruth-Ann cares. She cares a lot.
It irritates her that Simone has a baked goods business…and that it’s succeeding. Does no one else see that Simone’s crusts are soggy? Her cookies as flat as pancakes? It bothers Ruth-Ann so much that she makes sure to point out to Simone everything she’s doing wrong. Daily.
Simone despises Ruth-Ann and her know-it-all attitude.
It’s mutual.
Until the day Simone’s cart doesn’t show up to its usual spot and Ruth-Ann realizes that she might care a little too much
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER
ONE
SIMONE
Michelle had been a terrible girlfriend. She’d been scatterbrained and rude, and messy as could be. Selfish, too. She made sure that she came, and then if you didn’t, that was your problem. We were only together for a few months before I got tired of that shit and we broke up. That was long before aliens invaded my life and stole me to the other end of the universe, though.
I think about Michelle this morning as I check my sourdough “pet” in the window of my home, because Michelle was a lot of things but she was also a baker, and so I’d heard far more about baking than any woman had a right to. I’d watched all the baking shows with her, and while I’d never tried my hand at any of it, I remember a lot of things Michelle would say when people messed up.
Oh, that dummy just put carton egg whites in the mixer. Her meringue is never going to whip.
She didn’t let her bread rise for long enough. That’s going to be a problem.
She’s putting a drizzle on her cake to keep the crumb from tasting too dry. That’s smart.
Michelle’s voice is in my head as I work on the baked goods for my cart this morning. I’m not much of a baker, but I am a savvy businesswoman, and when I got here to Risda and saw that the only place serving food that you could take away with you was that nasty-ass cantina? I saw opportunity. I ditched the idea of farming and asked to start my own business.
Well…that’s kinda how it happened. It wasn’t that farming was bad. It was that a few months after I arrived, my friend Dora showed up with a carinoux kitten for me. Apparently they’re highly sought-after guard cats. I took one look at the kittenish face and fell in love. I named him Pluto, and he’s been the absolute joy of my time here.
He’s also going to be the size of a tiger when he’s grown and has eight legs and scaly skin. So in addition to being huge and always hungry, he terrifies the cattle. It makes being a cattle rancher difficult, and I’d much rather have Pluto than a farm full of cows. I made a deal with the Port Custodians and sold my farm back to them in exchange for an income stipend. I could sit around and do nothing all day, but…that gets old fast.
So…baking. I can bake in the morning, and when I sell out, I can close up and roll my cart home. If I sell out an hour after I set up, I can take the rest of the day off. If business is slow on that end of the street, I can move closer to the spaceship yards and the official “Port” where the workers are.
And someday I’m going to have a second cart, I decide. One full of sweets and one full of savories. One full of cupcakes and the other full of seed-filled breads and maybe even veggie hand-pies.
For now, though, I’m starting small.
I take the jar of sourdough starter and spoon out enough for the day, then feed it new flour and set it on the window so it can do whatever sourdough does. Michelle did the same when we lived together, and I’m basically just copying her. From there, I make a pancake mix with the grainy, seed-based flour we have here on Risda III and add “pollinator sweetener” to make my honey pancakes. Mine are about as big as silver dollars and I stab a sharp eating stick through a stack before setting them on the tray. It’s not a traditional way to eat pancakes, but they’re portable and sweet and everyone loves them. I also make muffins because those are easy, and little fruit jam sandwiches made out of a seed bread. I fry discs of the sweet potato-like root called tahaari and then make sandwiches with those for my alien customers who aren’t as fond of sugary snacks.
Risda III doesn’t have a bakery, so I’m the closest they’ve got.
Considering that I sell out quickly, I’d say it’s a success. I know one of the Port Custodians has a wife who’s an amazing baker, and I want to run her down in the street and pepper her with questions every time I see her, but that feels intrusive, so I just do my own thing.
If people don’t like my baking, they won’t buy it, right? With that pleased thought rolling in my head, I chop up a haunch of meat for Pluto and fill his bowl, then prep my cart for the morning rush.
It’s incredibly early and I fight back a yawn as I roll my little cart down Risda’s Main Street. My clear windows are full of muffins. Little sandwiches line up in neat rows, and my pancake stacks cover the top of the cart, swaying as I push the thing down to the best vending spot. I yawn again, because I’m not used to waking up so early, but that’s the curse of the baker, I suppose. If this place had a coffeehouse, it’d make a killing.