The Kitchen at the Kinky Company Tower was far beyond words. There were apparatus of all sorts laying on shelves and more pots and pans than could fit in a single view, pans made of so many different materials.
"I don't want to waste time, so Honey, I want you to watch what I'm doing and then follow the recipe exactly. A hundred cookies isn't hard." Titan laughed about the time but inside, he was sweating. Making the dough could take more than 20 minutes and depending on how hot the oven was, the first batch could easily be burned.
The spirit grass hulls were pulverized quickly under Titan's attacks. He used a mortar to grind it finely and then ran it through a sift. When he had eight cups of flour, he pulled out some beast butter and sugars. Refined and dried sugar was not too hard to get but it was rare to see on the market, whenever Titan saw it arrive in Lonestar City, he always bought as much as he could.
Time was ticking by quickly, the Oven was already hot after a few minutes and Titan had creamed the sugars with the butter, then added a touch of salt. He felt a little bad about the lack of baking soda but it wouldn't affect the cookies too much. Even if they turned out flat, no one would care.
With the sugars and butter creamed together, Titan pulled out a jar of oil and poured eight grams into the batch. There were two batches of cookie dough being made at the same time, a hundred cookies required more than just a little.
Titan added the flour and beat it until the dough clumped up. Mixing the dough thoroughly took two minutes but the dough was ready within ten. The Oven was hot and after rolling small thumb sized balls of dough, he put them onto a cooking sheet and threw the first tray inside.
It had been a while since Titan had taken the time to cook, he was more or less busy with projects and the girls were getting very good at it themselves. A little over fifteen minutes later, the cookies had started to form small domes. Looking inside from the edge of the oven door, Titan pulled the cookies out and touched one of them gently. The skin on the cookie wasn't mushy, it was a little springy.
"Three more minutes.." Titan spoke to himself and paced while he waited for them to finish. Three minutes later, he pulled them from the oven and tested the same cookie again. The skin didn't move but they were still slightly domed. He grabbed the next tray and threw it in.
"This is only a third of what I need. Luckily they are sort of small, the numbers are high." Titan looked at Honey and said, "You need to make sure that they are at least an inch or so apart on the sheets. Take some of the beast butter and spread a thin layer across the sheet, then make the balls."
"I understand." Honey grabbed the bowl with dough and started laying out the next tray.
"Make sure you don't burn any of the cookies. When they come out, allow them to cool for two minutes or so then grab this spoon and flatten them." Titan grabbed a wooden spoon with slots in it.
"I don't get it. The spoon has holes, what's the point?" Honey was confused, she had a bunch of small questions that didn't seem to matter much. She shrugged and went back to making balls in her hands.
Titan found many paper slips and stuck each cookie in its own small envelope. "Don't over pack the tray, when you smash the cookies a little bit with the spoon, do it lightly. You only want them to be a little thinner and dense in the middle." When he finished talking, he set the first cookie into another box and grabbed another slip.
They laid in rows and when he was done putting the last cookie from the tray into the box, the next tray was ready to come from the oven.
"Now I grab the next tray and we continue until it's done." Titan smacked Honey on the bottom.
She smiled and said, "I like cooking. I miss the girls though."
"Its only been a few days, don't be over dramatic." Titan stuck out his tongue in response. He was happy to be out and traveling. He had not been on his own much at all since arriving on Shiyan.
Honey cleaned up the tray and set another round of the dough balls onto it before shoving it in the oven. "I could get use to this and it smells so good in here!" Honey spun around and her dress barely hid her slender body. The closer she was to the oven, the sweeter the smell that spread.
"Well, I can teach you how to cook but how far you go is up to you. I'm sure anyone around you would love to taste your cooking." Teasing Honey a bit, Titan kissed her on the cheek.
She pulled away.
'Oh?' Titan seemed at a loss, usually, he had a magnetic affect on the women in his path. Many of them would throw themselves at him but Honey had always been more resistant.
Honey tried a tactic she had seen Mona use at the Casino to get what she wanted, she started to flirt back. It wasn't until she saw Titan ignoring her that she had to stop to reevaluate. Titan was determined to work hard, even Vella was right there with him, working alongside him faithfully.
Titan packed away the box of cookies, there just over a hundred, and then he turned back toward Honey. "You should follow the instructions I've left, I will be back after a while." He whispered a few more things to Honey.
Walking away, Titan followed the stairs down from the kitchen to the lobby of Kinky Tower. The young girl at the counter was polite when she took the cookies from Titan but she had a confused look in her eyes. Cookies were a food and there were dozens of restaurants around them, why bother selling cookies at the trade company.
He had delivered the first batch to the counter. Titan had made sure to make enough for the hundred to be sold and another for display, all but one of the cookies were left under a shield barrier, the last was left out to waft its aroma into the ship.
Within a few minutes, the entire lobby was filled with the sweet scent of freshly baked cookies and an extreme a mount of attention was given to the batch of cookies. Drool began to accumulate at the corners of some of the guests' mouths. When the price came out, people rushed to the counter to try it but were immediately stumped.
"What sort of price is this?" There was shock in some of the guest' eyes. They were at a loss. The price of the cookies was something they had never seen before.
Titan smiled while watching the Counter Girl did her part, she said, "These are medicinal cookies from Lonestar City, the price is non-negotiable."
"But.." Looking at the price tag, everyone wondered if it was really worth it.
"A whole day's work is too much.." A skinny guy in the back spoke up, he had come to buy herbs.
"Mhmm." Sounds of agreement repeated around the room but the Counter Girls all shook their heads.
"As stated before, Kinky Company does not negotiate. If the price is not to your liking, you can try to find these elsewhere but Lonestar City and Kinky Tower have an exclusive agreement. You won't find them elsewhere." The lead Girl tried helping the next person in line, he had asked for the Alabaster Tiger Pendant that was hanging along the shelves.
All the information about the pendant was available in the sales books, their records were rather precise in that matter. When she pointed to the book, he sighed and scrambled across the crowded room to read.
"I'll take one of the cookies." A poor looking girl came up, she had heard the outrage from outside and came in to see if it was true. She had been sick for weeks, not even her brothers could find work. A medicinal cookie, even if she didn't eat it, it could feed her family, someone would buy it.
"Little girl, you're too dirty to be in here. Get out of my way." One of the guests pushed her aside and down to the ground.
The Girl was an Aglavarian, her feathered features gave her a canary like look. She couldn't have been older than twelve, Titan walked from behind the counter and knelt down to pick her up.
The Guest only saw the hat and someone kneeling down to look at the child, he started mocking Titan out of reflex and moved his foot to kick at the pair.
Titan's hat looked amazing on his head, the blackened snake scale cowboy hat was perfectly fitted and custom made. When the guest's foot came into contact with it, there was another surprise waiting for him, the hat didn't budge.
Like a knife, the hat had cut into the man's foot. A nasty gnash and stream of corrosive blood foamed at the wound.
Several of the other guests began to step away when Titan stood up with the girl in his arms. "Hey, I'm taking her to the back room. Don't let anyone bother her and if she wakes up, don't let her leave." Titan was about to step into the room when Kink came down the stairs.
Lisetya poked Kink in the ribs and pointed out the girl in Titan's arms.
Titan nodded at the pair and closed the door behind him, he was behind closed doors for less than two minutes. Coming out, he was shaking his head.
"Is something wrong? What's going on with that girl?" Kink asked.
"Nothing. Nothing. How are sales going?" Titan asked politely while skipping the subject elsewhere.
"Choan said that your price is too obscure, it might take longer than you think to get them sold. If they take longer than they last to sell, you can forget about selling them here." Kink's mind was made up, there was either profit in it, or there wasn't.
"You laugh now but a single cookie can heal a great deal of illnesses. A day's work? That's cheap. How long do people take when they go out hunting for herbs, which is usually a single ingredient for a pill? Weeks? Months?" Titan also had his interpretations, "What we need is samples."
"Samples?" Kink laughed. "How you market is your own choice, just don't regret it or lose your supply line."
"Naturally." Titan turned to the Sales floor lobby, the man who had been poisoned was being dragged from the building by his feet. 'Any minute now..'
"Master Kink, These cookies smell amazing, I can't wait to eat one." Choan and Jay were both standing next to the display with ravenous looks on their faces.
"Not while you're working. It's medicine, not Tea." Kink knew very well the value of Cannabis, he wasn't willing to be a middleman but he knew very well what happens to those that partake. There was still a lot of work to be done and the day had only just started. If they ate the cookies now, both of them were likely to be asleep by lunchtime.
Jay moaned and moped up the stairs while Choan shrugged it off and restocked a few shelves. New items were always arriving and the garden's in the tower above provided a plethora of resources for them to sell. "After work?"
Titan laughed. "I told you, it only takes one."
Vella came down the stairs a few minutes later, she had brought the next batch of cookies down and the top of the box was open. The scent of cookies became overpowering and there was a guest that couldn't take it anymore, he bought the cookie. Signing the agreement, he was led away.
"Why do you want labor?" Kink asked.
"Who wouldn't? Besides, what I need isn't labor. I just don't want to create a narcotic attention to the cookies, they are a medicine after all. This way, they have to agree to work for it. You can use the labor, or send them out to clean the streets. I don't care. I didn't come here to sell cookies." Titan crossed his arms.
"Then what?" Kink was still curious, Titan's thoughts seemed to be much deeper than he originally led on.
"I have bigger ambitions but yes, this is just a taste. When they run out, I'm sure that Kinky Company will want more. If you're interested in what I really want, long term, you know where to find me." Titan gave the second batch to Counter Girls and kept four cookies in his hand. He stuffed one into his mouth, went outside and started yelling.
Through the doorway, Kink could hear Titan yell, "FREE SAMPLES FOR THE SICK!"