“Sister Maria Martinez whom I believe I've mentioned before has been giving me cooking classes. Today I learned how to bake mean banana bread. The secret apparently is half a cup of dark rum.”

“For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.”

“I need to get to that tea party and wake up the guests."Jeb looks at me. "And how are you supposed to do that? Give a magical kiss to the half-baked hatmaker?”

“I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list.”

“What many bakers don't realise is that good wheat can make bad bread. The magic of bread baking is in the manipulation and the fermentation. What has been lost....is this method.”

“It's weird, how much he's noticed me. Like the attention he's paid to my hunting. And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either. The flour. The wrestling. I have kept track of the boy with the bread.”