Completed [The Protea Inn] "Inn"er Workings

[Tazrae]

Timestamp:65th of Summer, 520 A.V.

There was something to be said about standing on a deck one built oneself and stretching one’s arms up to the sky getting the kinks of sleep out. Tazrae was proud of herself, if only a little bit, for coming from Riverfall and having things work out the way they did. She wanted to be good at her job and she wanted to be one of those people that others saw as a facet of the community – someone here to stay. As she stood barefoot, dressed only in an oversized sleep shirt, Creech raced past her and bumbled down the steps to go find a spot to relieve his bladder. Tazrae smiled at him, thinking about how excellent of an alarm clock he made for her. She let him sleep in her room and at first, he’d had a pile of blankets for a bed on the floor. Then, slowly, he’d made his way up onto the bench at the foot of her bed, then onto the bed itself. Now he slept stretched out beside her. Tazrae didn’t mind, not really. He was such good company. He helped her so much, when such big chunks of her days were spent alone.

Like now… he woke her well before dawn with a long-wet tongue up the side of her face, which gave her a chance to work on getting breakfast ready for those who were staying with her. So, she had to get up, let him out, and greet the morning before the sun even rose. All the baking needed to be done. Tazrae needed to make loaves of bread and some croissants for breakfast. Tazrae liked to give her guests choices, and with breakfast Croissants she could make whatever each individual guest wanted to fill them. Fried eggs, bacon, sausage, sides of yogurt with berries… almost anything.

Before she did anything else, Tazrae took Creech on a walk to the main dock, her two traps in hand, and tossed them out loaded with fish heads from the previous night’s dinner. It took her less than ten minutes, but she was keenly aware that she needed to get something in the water or she’d be in short supply for dinner that evening. Tazrae needed to either arrange for another pig or go kill one herself. Her stockpile of bacon, lard, and fresh pork was dangerously low. And she wanted to make more sausage, something she’d have to buy more herbs for. When she got back after tossing out her traps, Creech and Tazrae headed for the Kitchen. They had a lot of work to do before sunrise.

She’d start the bread first – which had to rise – and then she’d work on the croissants. Then, she’d plan the meals for the rest of the day. Lunch would be sandwiches with the fresh bread and dinner would be whatever she could forage for in between times. Between breakfast and lunch, she’d do laundry and perhaps take a few guests to meet rangers or folks that would help them get around Syka safely.

Then she’d get back in time to either prepare lunch – if she hadn’t packed them a lunch to eat out on their tours – and gather up the laundry, tidy rooms, and get a few hours to forage for dinner things. She’d think about that later though… for now, as she finished stretching, she had bread to bake.

As for now though, Tazrae hurried to get dressed, leaving Creech outside, and tied on her apron. Then she’d walked over to her newly-built chicken house and let the chickens out for the morning to peck any bugs they found. She sprinkled for them a handful of grains, and gathered any eggs they’d laid overnight. Then, she’d walked into the house, visited the bathroom and washed her hands, face and even the eggs. Creech came back in, for he loved to supervise her kitchen activities in hopes of a snack.

Tazrae walked into the kitchen, pulled her recipe book off the shelf, and flipped to her basic bread recipe. Most of this she could make by memory, but she liked to see her father’s handwriting laid out in the recipe book before she made a batch of bread. This recipe made two big loaves which would feed all her guests’ various ways through dinner. If she had a full Inn, which she didn’t at the moment, she’d double the recipe. Reading over the ingredients, Tazrae began her morning routine.

[Tazrae]

She gave Creech a quick breakfast before she got ready to work. There was leftover meat from supper and steamed vegetables. The dog wolfed the food down, always hungry as a puppy. Which gave her time to turn her attention to the bread. She reviewed the recipe and got started.

• 2 cups warm water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup lard
• 5-6 cups flour

Tazrae got down a large mixing bowl, and let it rest on the counter. Then she stirred up the hearth, lit it, and began to heat a small pot of water. She fed the fire, knowing she’d need to transfer coals down to her baking hearth to get the bread going. Once she had the fire the way she liked it, she turned back to the bread. She added the two cups of now warmed water to the bowl, dissolved the tablespoon of sugar into the warm water, and stirred in a generous sprinkle of yeast. She let it sit for five chimes as she got out the rest of the ingredients.

She mixed in the sugar, salt, and lard into the yeast when the five chimes were up and then began adding in the flour. Tazrae added in one cup of flour at a time until she was able to get a tacky dough that peeled away from the sides of the bowl easily. She had to be careful because too much flour added meant the bread would be dry and she didn’t want that.

She then pulled out her rolling pin and wooden cutting board that doubled as a place to knead bread. The Innkeeper sprinkled flour on it and turned out the slightly sticky dough onto the board. She began to knead the bread, pulling its dense fibers up, stretching it, and wadding it into the middle. It was time for a little song that would have her kneading for seven minutes.

She minded her breath and sang with intent, wanting the song to be pretty. Her bard guide had been goading her to work harder on her breath and strengthen it. So, she’d been doing the two things he said helped the most…. Running to build endurance and singing with attention on her core. Tazrae brought the song to mind, held the words and while her fingers carefully and methodically kneaded the dough, her breath and song rose to fill the morning air in her kitchen.

“Baking a bun
can be such fun,
mixing pleasure
to create a treasure.

Ingredients forge an attraction
which starts a chemical reaction,
with the juices flowing
the mixture starts growing.

A salty and sticky mess
is all part of the process,
through toil and sweat
a bun we will beget.

In the oven it will rise
growing bigger in size.
As the minuets pass
we peak through the metal lid

When from the oven it is thrust
still covered in a matted crust
A tea towel we do deploy
to wrap up our bun-dle of joy.

By our hand it is made
and our traits are displayed
for the rest of its time on earth
we give thanks for this buns birth.”

She was careful with her breathwork, holding her core in and dragging out the notes of the song like Xander had taught her. The song was a cute one, appropriate for an Innkeeper for certain, and sang softly enough not to wake her guests if any of them lingered in bed after sunrise.

Speaking of Syna, the golden orb was rising over the sea now and that made Tazrae smile a greeting. “Hello, Beautiful.” She called softly, then turned back to her bread. Another large bowl was fetched down from where they were stacked in the cupboard, and she reached for olive oil which she sprinkled around the inside of the bowl. Using her fingers, she spread the oil out and picked up her kneaded bread dough and plopped it inside the bowl. She generously swirled it around and turned it over so all the dough was coated lightly with oil. Then she laid a dampened kitchen towel over it and set it out in the sun to rise.

She got out her loaf pans, swirled lard around the inside of them, dusted them with flour, and set them aside so they’d be ready when the dough was done rising.

[Tazrae]

It was time for the croissants. She flipped the page on her recipe book and ran a flour-dirty finger down the page, caressing the handwriting therein. She smiled… “I love you, Father.” And turned her mind to the Croissants her morning residents would want for breakfast.

• 4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons yeast
• 2 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/4 cups butter
• 1 cup milk
• egg wash

To Tazrae, croissants were fussy things. But she loved them anyhow because the flakey layers of buttery goodness were intuitive to her. She loved how each and every batch spoke differently and called for different amounts of folding and fussing. The Croissant was a funny thing, but it was something she’d mastered as a girl standing at her father’s knee.

First, she added the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt into a large bowl and whisked them together until she could see they were good and combined. Then, she measured out her butter and added it to the mixture. She added in the milk, stirred the dough until it held stiff forms, and then wrapped it in a damp towel and put it back on the ice block in her icebox.

She checked her bread dough, punched it down, and then turned it out to knead further. She divided it into two, formed it into loaves, and placed the loaves in the loaf pans, covering them back up with a cloth. Once that was done, she pulled the croissant dough off the ice and began to work on it. Then she lightly flowered her breadboard and rolled the dough for the Croissants out on the board. She folded it into thirds, spread it with butter, and turned it ninety degrees, folded it again, buttered it again, and kept doing this… rolling it out each time…. adding buttery layers of goodness. When she grew weary and she could feel the dough warming, she put it back into the icebox to rechill.

At that point, she started frying bacon and sausage on a skillet over the hearth. She had a pan she kept in the baking part of her warming oven, above the fire, where she could put the already crisped meat and browned sausages. They would be ready for the guests when they started to wake. She filled a kettle with water, hung it to heat, so there would be fresh tea as well.

Then, once the meat was done, she went back to the croissant dough, pulled it out of the icebox, and cut it into long skinny triangles that started about five inches wide at the thick side. She notched the end of each triangle with a ½ inch cut then rolled from the wide end to the pointed end, tucking the point under the croissant. Once she had them all shaped, she buttered a baking sheet, laid them out and let them rise. In the Syka heat, it didn’t take long before Tazrae was sliding them into the oven. She baked them 17 chimes before pulling them out.

[Tazrae]

At that point, the bread went into the oven, and the guests – drawn by the smell of fresh croissants, wandered in. Randal was there too, making Tazrae smile, as the crowd grew in the main gathering area. She fixed up trays with sliced fruit, fresh croissants, and filled pitchers of beverages made from fruit juice. A kettle of tea was put out as well. Then she piled on the meats and took quick egg orders for her griddle. She fried pairs of eggs for most people poached a set for Randal and scrambled four for Xander. The eggs came out and everyone got busy assembling croissant breakfast sandwiches with layers of meat, eggs, and cheese. They were already snacking on fruit and made short work of her fixings.

When the crowd dispersed for the morning, Tazrae cleaned up the great room, took the dishes to the sink and began washing up the mess, and discarded any leavings in her compost pile that ended up being added to her protea flower beds. When the bread came out of the oven, she left it to cool on the counter and set about working on the rooms. She had five rooms to clean carefully, make each bed, and then laundry if anyone had left her any to do. It took less time than she thought. Two of her guests made their own bed, and very few of them left her things to launder. She had one set of sheets to clean, but that was a light load when added to the other laundry from the day to day running of the Inn.

No one, apparently, was going to be home for lunch so she took the opportunity to escape to do the laundry as quickly as she could. Tazrae set it out in a basket and carried it balanced on her hip to the Communal Pool where she could use the outflow stream and its warm water to work on the soiled linens. She had tossed her washboard and a keg of soap into the basket. When she got there, she found the place abandoned – something she was a bit grateful for – and she knelt down next to the steaming stream.

She piled the linens outside of the basket and grabbed the first one. She thoroughly soaked it, swept the cake of soap across it three times, and then began to work the deposited soap into a lather that covered the whole sheet. She twisted the piece, dunked, continued to scrub, and dunked again, swirling it in the water until it was rinsed clean.

The washboard was then employed on the second soaping, and she ran the thin linen piece up and down the corrugated metal until she rinsed and deposited the sheet in the basket. The rest of the laundry went faster… most of it being towels she used for cleaning and larger bathing towels the guests used for shaving and cleaning themselves. When she was done, she piled the wet but clean mess up in the basket, rested it on her hip, and headed back to the Inn.

Tazrae ran out the laundry line then, stretching it across the front yard where it wouldn’t interfere with anyone relaxing on the deck watching the ocean. Then she hung and clothes pinned each piece to the lines, letting the warm tropical breeze dry the laundry. In the late afternoon, she’d take the pieces down – once they were dry – and fold them neatly to be restored to the linen closet as clean items.

She’d also done a few shirts and one set of pants for a resident, so she separated them out and made sure they would dry as quickly as possible so she could lay them out in their designated room. Most people didn’t have many pieces of clothing, so each time she washed some, she was keenly aware that it might be their only spares in use.

Once the laundry was handled – which actually took very little time – she contemplated what she was going to do for dinner and had a few thoughts. She needed to restock her fruit, pick some vegetables, and possibly see if her traps had anything interesting in them.

Word count: 2692

[Tazrae]

Grading

Tazrae –

Foraging +1, Cooking +5, Animal Husbandry +2, Singing +1, Cleaning +3

Animal Husbandry: Morning Routine With Dogs & Chickens, Cooking: Basic Bread, Cooking: Basic Croissants, Cooking: Grilling Basic Breakfast Meats, Cooking: Making Eggs Various Ways, Cleaning: Doing Dishes & Cleanup After A Breakfast Crowd, Cleaning: Doing Laundry At The Communal Pool