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Part 6-20: Muffins
When I was about twelve, there was a bake sale at my school. My mother whipped together some pretty basic muffins, following a box recipe. I remember that there were a dozen, and I had the notion that it wasn’t enough. I could sell 24.
Mother wasn’t keen on slaving over a second batch, so she told me if I wanted more I would have to make ‘em myself. Stubborn as I was, I did. It wasn’t that hard, just follow the instructions. But, to make my mark, I doubled the vanilla and put some extra sugar in. ‘Cause you know, sugar is pretty much like currency when you’re a preteen, so more must equal better.
I divided the muffins into two tupperwares: mine and mother’s. Being the conceited little punk that I was, I priced mine 25 cents higher that day, claiming the one I made to be some kind of expensive, Parisian delicacy.
And you know what, it worked.
I had three extra bucks that I had basically magicked out of some sugar, vanilla, and lies. It was a crazy, exciting, momentous revelation for 12-year old me. You better believe the bake sale didn’t see that margin. I think I bought pop rocks with it.
Ever since that moment, I’d been chasing the same feeling. Unshockingly, the dream was to own a bakery for the longest time. But I tried my hand at many ventures. Knitting things and selling them (took too long), drawing and painting and trying to sell those (easier said than done), I attempted to sell relationship advice at age 16 (never buy that from a 16 year old) and even had this weird little hobby of buying and reselling collectable gaming cards (I got too attached to collecting them).
Through high school and university, I still held down classic, part time jobs. Cashier here, server there. Steady, predictable, lame paycheques. I made more money in those gigs but never could give them the same heart.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t quite capture the moment the way I had with those muffins. More than a decade later, I could still feel their shadow in my soul — I remember thinking that it was perhaps something bred of childhood fancy. I was too old and world-weary to experience that kind of golden satisfaction again.
Until bisque, until the cream secret.
See, the secret for me wasn’t just the entrepreneurial rush of turning things worth X into things people would buy for X + Y, no. There had to be something special, something that I could personally inject into the process. I needed to leave a mark. That’s what did it with the muffins.
That’s why the money didn’t matter so much as having the soup shop. Close enough to a bakery. A special twist on the soup’s cream is my extra vanilla and sugar.
I’d never been so simultaneously happy and horrified with the responsibility, and it was not time to let it all go.
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