Marron really hated how emergency crisis management didn't pause to accommodate her daily life. She haphazardly grabbed a piece of buttered toast and just half-ran to the Culinary Guild. Her anxiety was at its peak, and she only managed to get 5 hours of sleep.

Mokko took one look at her and pushed a large cup of coffee into her hands. "You'll be fine." She started chugging and nodded.

"Hopefully. I feel like a wreck."

Her bear guardian patted her on the back with his large paw. "It'll be fine. You'll see."

+

She wanted a few minutes to compose herself, but when she arrived at the Guild practice kitchen, Chef Henrik was already there. A cup of steaming coffee was poised against his lips, and his expresion suggested he'd been waiting awhile.

Hopefully not to judge her too harshly.

"Good morning, Louvel. Our class isn't due for another two hours."

"Yes, Chef." It was a large practice kitchen that could comfortably seat around 30 students, but they were the only ones there.

Marron took her place at station 1, upper-left row, and tried to look alert.

"We have significant ground to cover. You missed two weeks of Advanced Poultry Techniques, which includes trussing for even cooking. However," he gestured at the teaching station, where a brown bag of ingredients sat next to equipment.

His gray eyes were a sharp contrast to his warm voice. "Given current circumstances, I'm adjusting today's lesson."

Marron blinked.

Henrik never adjusted lessons.

"Chef?"

"The decree situation has made me reconsider our curriculum priorities." Henrik pulled out a different set of ingredients than what Marron had expected—dense grains, root vegetables, dried legumes. "Poultry techniques are important. But right now, I think you need to understand something more fundamental."

He arranged the ingredients on the counter: a bag of mixed grains that looked almost gray-brown in color, dried beans in three varieties, what appeared to be powdered vegetables, a jar of dark liquid, and several smaller containers of seeds and dried herbs.

"Today," Henrik said, his voice carrying the weight of long experience, "I'm teaching you about struggle meals. Food that serves people who have limited pantry ingredients but still deserve maximum flavor and nutrition."

Marron felt something shift in her chest. "That's not on the standard curriculum."

"No. It's not." Henrik's expression was complicated—part stern, part something softer. "But the standard curriculum was written by people who've never had to choose between eating and paying rent. Who've never had to make a week's worth of meals from ingredients that cost less than a single upper district dessert."

He looked at her directly. "You're fighting for street vendors right now. People who feed others on tight margins, who make every ingredient count, who can't afford waste. You should understand the foundation of what they do."

"Struggle meals," Marron repeated, looking at the humble ingredients spread before her.

"Food that sustained kingdoms during famines. That kept families alive during the cataclysm. That still feeds more people in this city than all the fancy restaurants combined." Henrik pulled out a large mixing bowl. "We're making Hearthstone Loaf. Dense, nutritious bread that maximizes every ingredient's potential. It's not pretty. It won't win you points in a presentation competition. But it will teach you something more important than technique."

"What's that, Chef?"

"Respect," Henrik said simply. "For ingredients, for resources, and for the people who've mastered the art of making much from little." He gestured at the ingredients. "Begin by measuring the flours. We're using a blend—mostly wheatcorn flour, with additions for nutrition and binding."

Wheatcorn flour, Marron learned, was a hybrid grain that grew in poor soil conditions—sandy, rocky, places where wheat or corn alone would fail. The result was a flour that was slightly gray-brown, dense, and incredibly nutritious but also difficult to work with.

"It doesn't have the gluten structure of pure wheat," Henrik explained as Marron measured. "Which means it makes heavy bread. But that density is a feature, not a flaw. One slice of Hearthstone Loaf is as filling as three slices of regular bread. When you're feeding a family on limited resources, that matters."

To the wheatcorn flour, they added:

Sunseeds - tiny black and gold seeds that looked like a cross between flax and sunflower. "Fat and protein," Henrik said. "Critical for nutrition. Cheap because they grow like weeds in any climate."

Rootash - powdered root vegetables that had been dried and ground. "Adds minerals, slight sweetness, extends the flour," Henrik explained. "You can make this from any root vegetable scraps—potato peels, carrot tops, turnip ends. Nothing wasted."

Spent grain from breweries - the grain left over after brewing beer, still full of fiber and nutrients. "Free or near-free if you know a brewer," Henrik said. "Adds texture and nutrition. Peasant bakers have used this for centuries."

The wet ingredients were equally pragmatic:

Brine from preserved foods instead of plain water. "Why waste the salt and flavor?" Henrik asked rhetorically. "If you're preserving vegetables, the brine has value. Use it."

Bone broth powder mixed into the liquid. "If available," Henrik added. "Not everyone has access. But if you do, it adds collagen, richness, protein. Makes the bread more satisfying."

A small amount of fat—whatever was available. Today they used rendered animal fat, but Henrik noted that seed oil, butter scraps, or even bacon grease would work. "Fat carries flavor. Fat creates satiety. Don't skip it."

"Now mix," Henrik instructed. "You're not looking for smooth. This dough is meant to be rough, dense, heavy. It should feel wrong to hands trained on fancy breads."

Marron mixed, and Henrik was right—the dough felt nothing like the refined breads she'd learned to make. It was thick, almost clay-like, studded with seeds and grain bits. Her instinct was to add more liquid, to make it more workable.

"Don't," Henrik said, reading her face. "That density is intentional. Trust the recipe. Trust the centuries of bakers who perfected this."

They shaped the dough into a round loaf—no fancy scoring, no decorative touches. Just a simple, heavy dome that went into a hot oven.

"Forty-five minutes," Henrik said. "While it bakes, we discuss."

They moved to the teaching table, and Henrik pulled out a folder Marron hadn't noticed before. Inside were recipes—dozens of them, handwritten on various types of paper, some old enough that the ink had faded.

"Struggle meals," Henrik said, spreading them across the table. "Collected from students, colleagues, family members. Each one represents someone's survival strategy. Someone's grandmother's secret for stretching a chicken to feed eight people. Someone's mother's method for making stew last three days."

As Marron scanned the recipes, she almost wanted to cry. It was extremely similar to food back on Earth--or even worse. She suddenly felt extremely lucky--her mother never made her feel like they lacked much in life.

The diner wasn't a fancy restaurant, true, but she always left for school with a full belly.

Stone Soup (Actual) - "You start with water and a stone," the note said. "Then you beg, borrow, or trade for one ingredient at a time. The stone is psychological—it makes people believe the soup is already something, so they're more willing to contribute."

Three-Day Rice - "Cook rice in bone broth with scraps. First day it's soup-rice. Second day you fry the leftovers into cakes. Third day you crumble the cakes into another soup. Same rice, three different meals."

Perpetual Stew - "Keep a pot going always. Add scraps, bones, vegetable ends, anything edible. Never empty it completely. Always take from the top, add to the bottom. Some families keep the same stew going for months."

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