She was making the fried dough.
The process was visible and, Elara had always found, genuinely satisfying to watch — the dough produced from a large covered bowl, shaped quickly with practiced hands, the oil in the wide flat pan behaving exactly as oil in a very experienced cook's pan behaves, the whole thing moving with the specific rhythm of someone who had done this so many times that it had become a form of fluency.
The smell was extraordinary.
Samuel stopped his chair and looked at the stall and said nothing, but his expression said quite a lot.
"Two," Elara said, to the woman.
The woman looked at her, then at Samuel, then produced two portions with the efficiency of someone who did not consider customer contemplation to be a necessary part of the transaction. She wrapped them in paper. Elara paid. The woman was already making the next one before they had moved away.
