Beginning

triple chocolate sablés with fleur de sel

In elementary school, I had a memorable teacher.  Among many things to which this teacher introduced us that made class enjoyable was a project called "mini-society".  For a period of several weeks, all the students spent an hour of each day participating in a society that we built.  Students became business owners, civil servants, politicians, and filled other roles as well.  And for that hour, everyone played their roles and learned a bit about the real world.  We made and spent money, we used services provided by our "city", we built our economy.  I remember I decided to be a business owner, and since I could already make a few different types of cookies and muffins, I settled on the idea of a bakery.  This was back in the time when kids were allowed to make home-baked treats and bring them to school.  So the night before the first day of "mini-society", I made cookies.  The next day they sold out.  My fellow students were eager to use some of their "mini-society-dollars" to buy my cookies.  Reaping the material rewards was nice, but what I remember most is simply how fun it was to see everyone enjoying what I had made.  To this day, I still think it is fun to see others enjoy what I make in the kitchen.  I would bake for just myself, but it's always nice to bake for others as well.