Wentworth and her friend decided to bake cakes as a summer job and sell them. When Wentworth's mother started spreading the word, the cakes grew incredibly popular 鈥 so popular that friends in other cities were putting in orders. But how to send the cakes long distance? "I ended up buying cardboard moving boxes, dropping a cake in, duct-taping it shut, and marching it over to the post office," Wentworth writes. "The socialites from Sacramento or Chicago were too polite to complain about a smashed box full of crumbs."

By Lillian Bozer