It started off, as most things involving Daniel did, as a joke.
The recovery of Earth, and the rest of the galaxy, was in full swing. The rubble was cleared, the slapdash emergency shelters to keep safe civilians needing to hide from the elements and eezo storms replaced with semipermanent housing, and businesses started popping up.
Daniel wanted nothing more to do with war, and thankfully Renee was in agreement. Once he was back on his feet he worked construction, part time and then every moment he had to spare once the doctors cleared him, but as rewarding as it was he couldn't quite manage the heavy duty work needed for the more permanent structures. So he had a few quiet talks with his girlfriend, his fiancee, and his wife.
They bought a truck, a barbecue, and a steel canopy. Within a week someone donated three tables and chairs to sit at. Supplies just appeared - napkins, plates, water jugs. They tried just giving it away but soon accepted donations and, finally, putting actual prices on the chalkboard menu.
Then they upgraded to an honest to god diner with a real kitchen. Renee ran the front, because for some reason she loved being a waitress, and Daniel worked in the kitchen. They had to hire a few people and chose to work with employment services for underprivileged refugees, veterans … orphans. A kid of twelve, an art prodigy, painted a gigantic mural along one wall that told the story of humanity's survival. Business leveled off at an acceptable, but not quite comfortable, level.
And then Daniel had an idea while watching the first reboot season of a lip-sync show.
So in a hairnet, apron, and whisk in hand he worked up an omelette while Renee recorded. A couple days later he made a cheeseburger. But the cake… that's what got everyone's attention.
He worked with an animal shelter and borrowed a little dog with an ‘ADOPT ME’ bandana. He wore one too, just for laughs and because Renee told him he was an adorable dumbass. He slung ingredients and measuring cups around the kitchen, Renee pieced it together and put it on the ‘net, and the rest was history. Any time there was a new recipe, when a charity needed funds, or Daniel just got too bored there was a new video. He even did a six-hour long livestream one day when some mouth breathing dingbat tried to say the videos were fake and he probably made his wife do all the real work, dancing along to old twenty first century pop songs while flipping pancakes in the air like a seasoned pro *just to prove the haters wrong*.
He still volunteered construction time, once he had enough cooks he could trust to run the place right. He still made sure to spend a lot of quality time with his sister, his wife, his son. Sons. And daughters too, eventually. Even his damn brother, faking at being civil and then cordial and then friendly and then finally getting along after a few decades of fistfights.
But damn, Daniel just loved to cook.
