[piosenniel]

Help yourself to some tea, dear,’ said Cook as Ginger came into the kitchen. ‘I hope your Fair Folk friend, Gwenneth, will be joining us. I want you two to make up the sugar cookies today – early , if you please, so they’ll cool by afternoon. You’re to use the flower-shaped cookie cutters and frost them up prettily.’ Cook ambled over to the oven and took out a several pans of blueberry muffins, letting them cool for a few moments then turning them out on racks where others were already lined up. ‘Have a muffin or two, also with your tea. T’will be a longish day, I should think.’

Cook sat down for a few moments, to have another cup of tea, herself. Buttercup and Ruby had by this time come down the stairs and had joined the two Hobbits at the little table. ‘We’ll start the soup right away, Miz Bunce,’ Buttercup said, taking a big bite of well buttered muffin. Won’t have to worry about lunch then, save for slicing up the bread to go along with it.’ She nodded at Ruby who was still in her robe and yawning widely. ‘The rooms for Mistress Zimzi’s folks are all ready for when they show up today. We just have a few personal touches to put on them . . . flowers and such.’

Several of the extra servers who’d come to help at the Inn for this week bustled in and out of the kitchen, serving breakfast to the already hungry patrons. Scrambled eggs, muffins, thick slices of ham, and toast, too were all parading out to the common room, the empty trays returning quickly for refill.

Getting up from the table once her tea was finished, Cook went to the pantry and began hauling out flour and eggs and leavening, sweet cream butter, vanilla, fine-spun sugar, and from the cold larder, a pitcher of frothy cream. She hummed a merry tune to herself as she trundled her prizes to one of the empty counters; then, fetching a stool, she climbed up to look into one of the cupboards, the top shelf. There were her round cake pans of varying sizes, the ones she used for the graceful tower cakes she made for special occasions. While the others finished their breakfasts, she buttered and dusted each one carefully with flour, then set them aside to await the batter. ‘Going to frost it all in light foamy icing,’ she said, as she got out her big bowls for the batter, along with her whisk and her wooden spoon. ‘A soft white, I think. And you remember those sugared violets you made, Ginger, your first day here?’ Ginger nodded her head, recalling there had been at least a hundred of them she’d done, now all stored safely away on racks in a cool part of the pantry. ‘Well,’ continued Cook, ‘I’m gong to put them on the frosting, all over the cake.’ She grinned and clapped her hands together. ‘It’ll look so pretty, the bees’ll be wanting to carry it off for their queen.’