Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series (7 page)

Brittany poked her head into the
office. “I turned the oven on 375 like you said. It’s warming
up.”

Serena stood up from the desk and
she and Brittany went to the bread-making station. She showed
Brittany how to cut diagonal slits in the top of each loaf and they
placed the sheets in the bread oven.

“
Won’t be long,” Serena
said.

The wait staff arrived, two young
women and a young man. They set up the tables with fresh tablecloths
and set out the silverware and napkins. It would be nice to have
candles in wineglasses like in the pizzeria she and Jeff had visited.
She would put that on her list.

Serena busied herself with
checking the tables and the food in the kitchen. She realized they
would need to put out bowls of garlic butter to spread on the
homemade bread for the early customers who would get it. She and
Brittany hadn’t made enough for a whole dinner crowd. She took the
butter out of the refrigerator to soften.

Then the timer bell dinged and it
was time to take the bread out. Serena caught Brittany’s eye and
said, “It’s time.”

They removed the sheets from the
oven to cool.

“
We’re going to cut these
into slices and give each table about a third of a loaf tonight. If
we run out, we’ll use the bread we’ve been buying from the
vendor.”

After about fifteen minutes,
Serena grabbed one of the loaves and pulled off about three inches
from the end. She cut that in half and handed one half to Brittany.

“
Time to taste your work,”
she said. “Want some garlic butter on it?”

“
Yes,” Brittany said. Her
eyes were excited. She spread some garlic butter on the ragged end of
bread and took a bite. She closed her eyes as she chewed slowly.
Serena slathered butter on her piece and crunched into its yeasty
goodness.

Brittany opened her eyes and
looked at Serena. Her face was full of awe.

“
That’s the best bread I’ve
ever tasted,” she said. She was proud of herself.

“
I agree,” Serena said. “Our
customers are going to be very happy to get this tonight, as long as
it lasts.”

“
I want to make this every
day,” Brittany said.

“
Really? It’s not an easy
job. Are you sure about that?”

“
I’m sure,” she said before
she took another bite. “Who wouldn’t love this. And I made it!”

“
We have two other kinds of
bread we used to make. We used to be famous for, actually. Do you
think you want to learn how to make those?”

“
What are they?” Brittany
asked.

“
Well, we used to make focaccia
and our own pizza dough. Each recipe is just slightly different from
what we made today. You would have to come in every morning and start
the bread. It would be a full day. Are you up for that?”

“
I think so,” Brittany said.
“Can I try it out?”

“
Of course you can,” Serena
said. “It’s not for everybody. But you’ve done an excellent job
here today. You seem to have a knack for it. I’m proud of you.”

Brittany smiled. “Thanks,”
she said.

“
Here’s my problem,
Brittany,” Serena said. “Jimmy and Olive are leaving at the end
of next week and we don’t have any cooks.”

“
I can help,” Brittany said.

“
I know you can. You have
helped. But if you decide you want to bake the bread, we’ve got to
get some cooks in here.”

Brittany stood there, lost in
thought.

“
I’ve got about eight hundred
friends on Facebook. I could post something on there saying we need
experienced cooks or something.”

“
Eight hundred friends!”
Serena said. “That’s a lot.”

“
It’s about average, I
guess,” Brittany said. “But I’ve seen other people post stuff
about jobs and then people come on and say how they got a job because
of it. Want me to do that?”

“
I think I do want you to do
that,” Serena said. “Let’s go to the office and figure out what
you’re going to post.”

Before they made it to the
office, one of the waitresses—Serena could not remember her
name—came up and said, “Customers are coming in and asking what
that good smell is, asking if it’s bread.”

Rossetti’s was getting back to
its beginnings. “Tell them that we’re making bread again and the
first ten tables get it tonight,” Serena said.

In the office, she and Brittany
worked out the words that Brittany would post on Facebook for the
cook jobs. Then they went back to the bread and cut it into slices
and wrapped them in napkins before placing them in baskets. They put
the softened butter gently flavored with garlic in little bowls.

More than one customer commented
on the good fragrance in Rossetti’s that night. They wanted the
bread, and Serena could see that she and Brittany would have to get
busy making it every single day.

Over the next week, Serena bought
jugs of red Italian wine in bottles with basket weaving around them
from a liquor store in Destin. She poured the wine into decanters,
then set the bottles on the tables and put candles in them. Maybe she
should consider red-checkered tablecloths. She would have to discuss
that with Nonna.

She taught Brittany how to make
pizza dough and focaccia bread.

“
When the tomatoes come in next
summer, we’ll make sun-dried tomatoes to put on the focaccia. For
now, we’re going to make olive and rosemary focaccia.”

Brittany had posted the cook jobs
on Facebook, and several people applied. For a couple of days, Serena
interviewed applicants in the office. She saw Jimmy looking through
the glass window on the door more than once. One woman, Lottie, was
an empty-nester and Serena liked her a lot.

“
My last child has left home,”
she told Serena. “I’ve been cooking Italian meals for my family
all my life, from the time I was a child. I know I don’t have any
restaurant experience, but I think I can cook for you.”

Serena was willing to give her a
chance.

“
It gets really crazy in here.
Do you think you can handle that? I mean, you will be cooking each
individual plate.”

“
Would you be willing to give
me a try?” she asked. “And if you don’t think I can handle it,
then we’ll part ways, no hard feelings.”

Serena was impressed with Lottie
for saying that. She knew that home Italian cooks were the best, but
could Lottie handle the restaurant atmosphere? That was the real
question.

“
I’m willing to give you a
try,” Serena told Lottie. “I need two cooks for lunch and two for
supper. Can you work lunches and be here at ten o’clock every day?”

Lottie agreed. One down, three
more cooks to go.

After Lottie left, Jimmy walked
into the office and sat down in the chair opposite the desk.

“
Olive and I have been
talking,” he said.

Serena looked at him. “Yeah?”
she said.

“
We’ve been noticing how
things are starting to change around here. We like it.”

“
What are you saying, Jimmy?”
Serena asked.

“
I’m saying that if you’re
going to keep changing things, making this place better, that Olive
and I might like to stay with you for a while longer.”

Serena was pleased to hear this.
Jimmy and Olive did know their way around the kitchen. They did know
how to make Italian food.

“
I can offer you and Olive a
small raise for now, if you decide to stay and work with me as we get
Rossetti’s back to what it used to be. I’d like for you and Olive
to be a part of that.”

Jimmy stood and put his hand out
to Serena. They shook hands.

“
I like where this is going. So
does Olive. We want to be a part of Rossetti’s transformation,”
he said.

“
I’d like for you and Olive
to work dinners from now on. I’m hiring cooks for the lunch crowd.
But I’ll need your help to get them trained. Can you do that?”

“
Yes, I can do that. I want to
help you with this.”

“
Thanks, Jimmy. Tell Olive
thanks. It means a lot to me and Nonna that you’re willing to stick
with us.”

Jimmy stood to leave. As he was
walking to the office door, Serena said, “Jimmy, do you and Olive
have any dishes that you’d like to try on the menu?” She
remembered how it had been for her at Bridgewater’s, when Daniel
wouldn’t even consider her ideas. She didn’t want to do that to
Jimmy and Olive.

Jimmy turned to her. “I think
we might have some things we’d like to try. We’ve talked about it
before, but it never seemed. . .” his voice trailed off. “It
never seemed like a possibility. I’ll talk to Olive and let you
know, okay?”

“
That sounds good, Jimmy. And
thank you.”

Nonna continued to work lunches
and helped Britanny make bread. Britanny was learning from the
master; Nonna had taught Adrianna and Serena how to make bread, as
her mother, Camilla, had taught her. The only thing Nonna said about
the subtle changes Serena was making was, “It smells like the old
days in here.” But Serena could tell by a little smile playing
around her mouth that Nonna was pleased to see the diner shaping up.
Pleased that Serena was staying in Luna Bay and devoting herself to
Rossetti’s.

Serena hired another cook, Juno,
who had worked at Pizza Hut. She’d take it. At least he had some
experience. At least he knew how to put a pizza together.

Serena accomplished a lot over
the next month. She hired a crew to thoroughly clean the restaurant
and another crew to paint it. She surveyed the second floor of the
old house and considered adding tables and a bar up there. That would
have to wait a while. She studied the huge back yard and garden and
decided that in the spring she would add a pergola and outdoor tables
and chairs. She would need to get a gardening crew to clean the area
up and plant the rows of vegetables Rossetti’s needed for its
recipes.

Jimmy and Olive asked to try a
new entrée as a special to see how it went over before adding it to
the menu. Their creation of Italian sausage with peppers and olives
over penne pasta turned out to be a hit and it was added to the menu.

It was close to Thanksgiving by
that time and Serena was planning a Thanksgiving lunch special with
an Italian twist. The turkeys were rubbed with herbs and roasted to a
deep golden color. The sides of green beans and mashed potatoes had
an Italian leaning, but the dressing and gravy were one hundred
percent American.

One day after Thanksgiving,
Brittany came into the office where Serena was paying bills. Serena
looked up at the girl, who looked a little nervous.

“
What is it?” Serena asked,
worried Brittany was going to quit.

“
I just wanted to say
something,” Brittany said.

“
Okay.”

“
Well, when my dad told me I
might get a job here, I looked it up on the Internet. It’s not that
I didn’t know what Rossetti’s was—I’ve been coming here all
my life. I just wanted to see what was out there, you know?”

Serena nodded.

“
And I couldn’t find
anything. No website or anything but a phone listing. I was wondering
if we might want to have a website.”

With all of the other changes
Serena had been making to Rossetti’s she hadn’t even considered a
website.

“
Of course we do,” Serena
said.

“
My boyfriend, Trey, does
websites. I can show you some of them. They look pretty good.”

“
I thought your boyfriend
worked on a shrimp boat,” Serena said.

“
He does. That’s to make a
living. But he loves doing websites at night. He’s a real geek.”

“
Let’s look at some of his
websites,” Serena said, pulling the Internet up on her laptop.

Brittany told Serena the URL
addresses of three websites Trey had done. One was for a heating and
cooling place, another was for a local artist, and the other was for
a local gift store. Each was different and conveyed the feeling of
the business appropriately. Each was easy to navigate and overall
attractive graphically.

“
These are nice,” Serena
said. “How much would he charge to do one for us and how much to
maintain it?”

“
I’ll ask him, but I don’t
think it’s that much. He said he wanted to do it.”

“
Good,” Serena said. “Thanks
for thinking about that. It’s an important part of our
transformation.”

“
I was also thinking we need a
Facebook page, you know, to just promote Rossetti’s and say what
the specials are that day. Stuff like that.”

“
I agree,” Serena said. “Do
you think you could do that for us? I’d pay you, of course.”

“
Yes!” Brittany said. She was
excited. “I could so do that for you. I’ll make a page and let
you look at it first, okay?”

“
Okay. I can’t wait to see
it,” Serena said.

As Brittany walked through the
office door, Serena said, “I want the chef to be called Chef
Elena.”