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Story: A Cup of Tea to Start the Day
This was inspired by a prompt from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amber_fire during the 2023 February Final Friday Fics, the picture at the end of the post, and fills a square for my December 2023 Amnesty Bingo Card. At 403 words this is the start of the new series The Witch's Kitchen.
amber_fire during the 2023 February Final Friday Fics, the picture at the end of the post, and fills a square for my December 2023 Amnesty Bingo Card. At 403 words this is the start of the new series The Witch's Kitchen.A Cup of Tea to Start the Day
The leaves and sediment in the bottom of the cup settled into small images as Lucia swallowed the final sip of her tea and cast a critical eye over the sparkling clean kitchen of The Witch’s Kitchen. The restaurant was small, perhaps seating as few as thirty guests at a time at the seven heavy oak tables out in the dining room. Lucia and her close friend Jeanette were going into business together, opening the tiny eatery with cuisine centered around their own unique magical skills.
Jeanette had put herself through two years of community college as a barista at a big chain coffee shop and at small mom and pops, working 7 days a week to afford her associates without student loans. She oversaw The Witch’s Kitchen’s coffee, tea, and pastries. Whereas Lucia had worked in her father’s Italian restaurant since she was a pre-teen and would handle the daily special and a very few standing menu items the Kitchen would offer. Their grand opening was now just seven days away. Set for Friday, February 1st, 2025, Lucia and Jeanette had agreed that it would be good business to open before Valentine’s Day.
Lucia read the symbols in her teacup. Like all her magic, her tasseomancy didn’t always follow the larger world’s understanding of the art, but rather was part of the Fam-Trad she’d been taught by her mother and her Nonnetto. What she saw in the symbols was another general message of success, happiness, and the chance for grey skies far off on the horizon.
She rose and rinsed the cup at the enormous commercial triple sink. Then slowly, reverently, walked to the short western wall of the galley kitchen where Stanley had been built into the brick wall and stood alone. An old 1920’s wood burning stove, Stanley had been with Lucia’s family since her Nonnetto immigrated to the US after World War II. To the stove’s right were ready piles of wood, and on the left, her grandfather’s cauldron.
Strega Nonnetto’s magic cauldron, and hopefully, the guiding star of The Witch’s Kitchen’s success. Lucia lifted the cauldron onto the stove, ready to get started.
~~~Notes~~~
Stanley:
Lucia swirled the dregs of tea in her china cup and pondered the decisions she’d made over the last year. They seemed right, and fortuitous, but you could never be certain there weren’t hidden pitfalls about to swallow you whole and shame your family.
The leaves and sediment in the bottom of the cup settled into small images as Lucia swallowed the final sip of her tea and cast a critical eye over the sparkling clean kitchen of The Witch’s Kitchen. The restaurant was small, perhaps seating as few as thirty guests at a time at the seven heavy oak tables out in the dining room. Lucia and her close friend Jeanette were going into business together, opening the tiny eatery with cuisine centered around their own unique magical skills.
Jeanette had put herself through two years of community college as a barista at a big chain coffee shop and at small mom and pops, working 7 days a week to afford her associates without student loans. She oversaw The Witch’s Kitchen’s coffee, tea, and pastries. Whereas Lucia had worked in her father’s Italian restaurant since she was a pre-teen and would handle the daily special and a very few standing menu items the Kitchen would offer. Their grand opening was now just seven days away. Set for Friday, February 1st, 2025, Lucia and Jeanette had agreed that it would be good business to open before Valentine’s Day.
Lucia read the symbols in her teacup. Like all her magic, her tasseomancy didn’t always follow the larger world’s understanding of the art, but rather was part of the Fam-Trad she’d been taught by her mother and her Nonnetto. What she saw in the symbols was another general message of success, happiness, and the chance for grey skies far off on the horizon.
She rose and rinsed the cup at the enormous commercial triple sink. Then slowly, reverently, walked to the short western wall of the galley kitchen where Stanley had been built into the brick wall and stood alone. An old 1920’s wood burning stove, Stanley had been with Lucia’s family since her Nonnetto immigrated to the US after World War II. To the stove’s right were ready piles of wood, and on the left, her grandfather’s cauldron.
Strega Nonnetto’s magic cauldron, and hopefully, the guiding star of The Witch’s Kitchen’s success. Lucia lifted the cauldron onto the stove, ready to get started.
~~~Notes~~~
Stanley:
Helen Wilding's "Vintage stove in Pete’s castle kitchen, Caher Castle, Galway, Ireland"