The Blacksmith's Cake
The kingdom’s blacksmith, Igor, starts his day the same, every day. He gets out of bed, starts his furnace, arranges his tools, and picks up from where he left off yesterday. Today he will finish a set of horseshoes for one of the farriers. Once his furnace is hot enough, he will put some iron ingots into a crucible and stick it into the furnace until the iron melts. He will then pour the molten iron into a mould and wait for it to cool. When it cools, he works it with a hammer and anvil and finally quenches it in a bucket of cold water. The shoes are done, the farrier comes and picks them up, is pleased with the quick turnaround time, and another customer leaves satisfied. But that only took him until lunch time to do and he doesn’t have any other orders or customers coming in. With his free time in the afternoon, he decides to clean his shop and prepare for whatever order comes in next. The day ends without a new order and he goes to bed early.
The next day, Igor wakes up and repeats his morning process; starting the furnace, gathering some coal for the day, maybe he pre-fires some iron ingots in anticipation of some incoming work. But nobody shows up and he decides to walk around his town and check in on some regular customers. The farrier has all the horseshoes he needs, the cobbler has nails for shoes, the carpenter’s saws are fine, and the butcher’s knives are sharp. He returns to his shop and tends to the furnace, keeping it hot just in case something is needed at a moment’s notice. This cycle goes on for a few weeks - firing up the furnace each day, cleaning the shop, maybe doing some light work whenever a towns person needs a fix or something.
One morning, while getting his shop ready for the day, the King and his entourage walk in. The King says that he has a party coming up and that the kingdom’s bakers are all busy baking bread for the party. Since the bakers (and their ovens) are all occupied, the King asks the blacksmith if he could bake the cake for the party. The blacksmith retorts that he is not a baker and that his shop is not set up for baking cakes. The King says back to him, but you have a furnace, it could double as an oven, you just need to run it much colder. The blacksmith says OK, I can run my furnace colder so that the cake doesn’t burn, but I don’t have a bowl to mix the ingredients in. The king says, that’s ok, you can use your bucket to mix the ingredients in. The blacksmith says OK, I’ll use my water bucket to mix the ingredients, but I don’t have any spoons to mix and measure the ingredients. The King looks around the room and notices a wall full of tools of various shapes and sizes and says to the blacksmith, why don’t you just try some of these other tools. The blacksmith says OK, I think I can make it work, I will bake you a cake.
As it turns out, the blacksmith makes excellent cakes! He delivers the cake on time, the party guests greatly enjoy it and they all leave extolling the wonderful tastes of the cake. The blacksmith hears the gossip about the tasty cake and is pleased with himself, but ultimately, he tells himself that he is still a blacksmith. And so the next morning, he wakes up and fires up his furnace to full temperature and arranges his tools to get ready to work with metal. Shortly after opening his shop for the day, a commotion forms outside. There is a line of people down the street, and they all want cake. He checks the line to see if there is anyone who wants his blacksmith services, but there is no one. He checks on the cobbler, the farrier, and the butcher to see if they need some work done, but they are all good. And so he decides that today he will bake cakes.
This becomes a regular occurrence, and the blacksmith begins to realise that his morning process of setting up to be a blacksmith is making it difficult to bake cakes. Over the next few days, he changes his morning process so that he is better set up for baking cakes. He keeps the furnace at a low temperature, he re-fashions some of his tools into whisks, spoons and measuring cups, he changes his mould for a breastplate into a mould for a bowl, he changes his mould for swords into one for knives, on and on until his shop almost resembles that of a bakers. All of these changes seem to be paying off. The kingdom’s people are always happy to have cake, and the king is delighted that his party has inspired these events.
One morning, while Igor is getting his shop ready for another round of cakes, the King enters. He is without his entourage, and appears frantic and scared. He tells the blacksmith that the Kingdom’s scouts have seen a large army approaching and that they are probably here to take over. After years of peaceful existence, the King’s army has gear that is rusted, ill-fitting, and broken. He begs the blacksmith to quickly prepare and fix up some weapons so that his soldiers can defend the kingdom from the invaders. Igor takes a look around his shop - he swapped from coal to wood for his furnace since it does not burn as hot, he refashioned his tools into spoons and mixing cups, he sold his anvil to make room for another table, and his moulds for weapons have been turned into moulds for baking utensils. Not only that, but he has come to appreciate the delights of a baker - the medium is lighter and easier to work with, you don’t sweat as much, the customers are always happy and grateful, and you get to eat along the way. The king pleads with the blacksmith again to make some weapons. Igor responds, “Why don’t you go ask the bakers”?