The Matchstick Grill (The Feminine Mesquite Book 4)

by Sable Sylvan

  “Herb drove Mace in his car, and Alice took me in the other car,” said Savina. “I hope Mace got half the scolding I got from Alice. At least he is stuck hosing down the front of the parking lot and I get to stay inside…but don’t let Alice hear that I said that.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” said Cayenne. “I know I fan the flames and stir the pot, but maybe try to get along with Mace this summer, sister. After all, it’s only a few months.”

  “Hypocrite!” said Savina with a laugh.

  “What? No way,” said Cayenne. “The thing with Basil and me, that’s different.”

  “Yeah, sure it is,” said Savina. “Basil isn’t a total jackass. He’s a gentleman.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Cayenne. “But this is America, where royalty and nobility ain’t shit.” Somebody jingled some keys and walked up to her.

  “Hey, you ready?” asked Basil. “Hey, Savina. You win the fight with Mace?”

  “Hey, Basil,” said Savina. “I’m sure Kai would love to fill you in, wouldn’t you, Kai?”

  Cayenne shot her sister a look. What kinda game was Savina playing?

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” said Cayenne. “Bye, Savina. Try not to get in any more MMA fights with Mace.”

  “Mixed martial arts?” asked Savina.

  “Messy marital acts,” teased Cayenne.

  “Eww,” said Savina, and Cayenne laughed and turned to leave with Basil.

  “Sorry about my brother,” said Basil. “I know he can be a lot to…handle.”

  “I’m glad somebody isn’t taking Savina’s shiz,” said Cayenne. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her. She’s my frikkin’ little sister, but boy is she a firecracker.”

  “Not the only one with spice and fire in your family,” said Basil.

  “Let’s just get to work,” said Cayenne, blushing. Hopefully, she could just pass it off as a sunburn if Basil noticed. What the heck was he doing, flirting with her on the job?

  “Do you want to do the honors?” asked Basil, passing the keys to Cayenne.

  “Thanks,” said Cayenne. She unlocked the lock and opened the door, reached in, and turned on the lights.

  The space was empty. That, she’d expected. She just hadn’t expected it to look so frikkin’ gorgeous. The color palette for the walls was white, but all that was on the walls was a coat of primer. The walls would be painted later. The floors were dark hardwood, original, and smooth and shiny. There was a large room that was used as a waiting room by the previous owner, as Cayenne remembered from the packet that she had read about the property. There was a large dining area, split into a few sections.

  “Let’s check out the back,” said Cayenne. She walked with Basil to the back of the restaurant and checked out the kitchen.

  “All the appliances are state of the art,” said Basil. “Only the best.”

  “So, this is going to have to be a fancy restaurant,” said Cayenne. “Especially to make up for the price of the equipment.”

  “So, molecular gastronomy is the obvious choice,” said Basil.

  “Are you kidding? That nonsense with what, steak turned into foam? Bacon turned into caviar? Pork chops turned into jellies?” asked Cayenne.

  “Yeah, it’s a natural choice,” said Basil, leaning back on a counter. “After all, it’s chic, we have the equipment to make it, and there aren’t any molecular gastronomy restaurants in the county.”

  “Yeah, smart one, maybe because nobody in Bright Star County wants to have that kinda food,” said Cayenne. “Why don’t they have a juice bar in town? Because nobody here wants ten dollar smoothies. This is Fallowedirt, Texas, with an emphasis on the Texas. The people here want barbecue. They want meat. They want hot sauce.”

  “There are a million barbecue places in the county,” said Basil.

  “Because barbecue sells,” said Cayenne, putting a hand on her hips.

  “Barbecue won’t stand out,” said Basil. His bear roared and told him to put Cayenne’s hand on something else, to put his hands on her hips, hike her on the counter, and claim her, but Basil told the bear to let the man handle the business. After all, he couldn’t think with his bear all the time…although he had to admit there was something sexy about Cayenne sassing him like there was no tomorrow.

  “This is Fallowedirt,” said Cayenne. “Standing out isn’t good here. Do what works. Do what sells.”

  “Do you remember the cook-off this summer?” asked Basil.

  “Yes. Your brother was gonna sue my sister, and Alice challenged Herb to a cook-off at the county fair. We made poppers. You made some meat dish. I also remember that we Quincy girls took first,” said Cayenne.

  “That’s not how I remember it,” said Basil. “We tied. That’s how Herb got your sister to go on that date with him, which made her see he was serious about her. More importantly, the judges and the popular vote showed that our ideas were equally popular. I tried your jalapeño poppers. They were frikkin’ delicious. And you tried our kjøttkaker, our Norwegian meatballs. You loved it. Admit it.”

  “They were good, but do you think Nordic cuisine is suited to a climate like Bright Star County?” asked Cayenne.

  “No, but my point is, I think you aren’t giving the people of this county enough credit,” said Basil. “They’ll try new things. I guarantee that another barbecue joint is the last thing this town needs.”

  “And I guarantee that it is,” said Cayenne.

  “So how are we going to settle this?” asked Basil.

  “I guess we’re going to have to have another cook-off,” said Cayenne.

  “Challenge accepted,” said Basil. “But remember, Kai…those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Cayenne. “Tomorrow night, at the manor, you and I will see whose food wins, and decide the fate of this restaurant once and for all.”

  Chapter Three

  Cayenne and Basil told Alice and Herb about their idea. Obviously, they couldn’t start work on the restaurant if they didn’t have a clear idea about what cuisine to serve, and their cook-off idea was approved. Tuesday’s dinner would be served by none other than the second youngest siblings, so everyone was going to work up a healthy appetite in order to be able to properly sample each dish.

  While Basil worked in the kitchen at the Mesquite Manor, Cayenne wanted a familiar environment. That’s why she took the car to get the groceries she needed and then took it to the old Quincy house in Fallowedirt. Savina and Mace had lost car privileges, so Basil used their car for his shopping at the fancier food store the next town over.

  The old Quincy house had been left to Alice by their parents when they had retired to Florida, along with a minivan that had been in the family since the sisters were wee tots. The house hadn’t been used much since they had all moved to the Mesquite Manor but it was still cleaned once a month by a service and the utilities were kept on. There was no telling when the house might come in use, and there was no use selling it, with the bleak real estate market in Fallowedirt.

  Cayenne turned the lights on and set out her ingredients and got cooking. The three special ingredients she’d brought from the house were the three hot sauces that were brewed by The Feminine Mesquite. She smiled to herself as she cooked and bobbed her head to the cassette she’d put in their old boom box. Once she was done making this food, there was no frikkin’ way that Basil could say anything bad about her idea to have a standard Texas barbecue joint again.

  * * *

  Six hours later, Cayenne had cleaned up and headed back to the manor with her trays of food carefully brought over from the house. She had used aluminum trays covered with aluminum foil to keep things hot and set the trays up on a table in the backyard. The backyard of the Mesquite Manor had a traditional Nordic grilling house, a wooden hut with a grill in the center that cooked food and kept people warm. The grilling hut wasn’t used often in the summer because it would be too hot, so there was also a large barbecue pit, a fire pit, picnic tables that were
large and linked together like a Viking long table, and of course, there was room for all her aluminum trays. The staff had put out some heavy closed plastic containers of disposable napkins, utensils, and things of that ilk because nobody was going to want to clean up what was left over from a Quincy-Scoville barbecue.

  Cayenne finished setting up her food. Finally, with the help of the head of the household staff, Lauren, she mixed together a big keg of peach tea. It was made with her own special mix of peach black tea, apricot pieces, marigold flowers, apple pieces, and some cinnamon, some mango, and a few rose hips just to mix things up.

  “Hey, need a hand?” asked Basil, walking out carrying two trays of small dishes of…something. Was it a foam? Was it a jelly? What the heck had this guy made?

  “I’m fine,” said Cayenne.

  “Basil, get your rumpe over here!” shouted Lauren, whose arms were tired from pouring the hot water into the keg, and Basil walked quickly, getting his rumpe (rump) over there as quickly as possible. He put the trays of food down and took over pouring the gallons of hot water into the keg.

  “Lauren, would you mind helping me with the rest of my dishes?” asked Basil.

  “Of course not, the sooner we get that nonsense out of the kitchen, the better,” said Lauren with a huff.

  “I know, right?” said Cayenne. “It’s not even food.”

  “And this isn’t even tea,” said Basil. “It looks like a fruit salad.”

  “Hey now, insulting my peach tea is going too far, Basil,” said Cayenne. “Get to pouring.”

  Basil picked up the electric kettle of hot water. There was power outside, and a power strip had a set of six hot water kettles set up. Lauren and Cayenne had filled them with water, heated them, and poured them into the plastic keg as Cayenne had stirred the tea and added copious amounts of sugar to the tea.

  “Hot tea, in this weather?” asked Basil, pouring the water.

  “I didn’t ask for sass,” said Cayenne. “And you really aren’t from the South, are you? Sweet tea is a Southern tradition, just like cola and peanuts.”

  “Cola and peanuts? Wait. Never mind. Forget I asked,” said Basil. “I’ve had iced tea before, Long Island Iced Tea, iced tea with a wedge of lemon, but with sugar?”

  “Ain’t nothing more refreshing in the summer than a glass of iced tea,” said Cayenne. “Peach iced tea is my favorite flavor. After all, I do go to college in Georgia. That’s why I have all the stuff in there. There’s peach flavoring in the tea, but the other bits of fruit make the peach taste more pronounced. It sounds weird, but I’ve perfected my recipe and when you try this, it’ll taste like you’re biting into a real peach.”

  “So why not just cold-brew the tea?” asked Basil.

  “You have to add the sugar when it’s hot,” said Cayenne. “It’s simple chemistry. When the tea is hot, it steams, right?”

  “Right,” said Basil.

  “Steam is a change in form of matter,” said Cayenne. “The molecules move further apart or whatever. Changes in forms of matter are often, maybe usually, temperature related. So, the hotter the tea, the further apart the molecules are…making more room for the sugar. Simply put, hot water can absorb more sugar than cold water. When you cool it down, the tea is ‘super saturated’ with the sugar.”

  “Whoa, you really know your stuff,” said Basil. “You a chemistry minor?”

  “In fact, I am,” said Cayenne with a smile. “But even if I weren’t, I’d probably still learn that. I just really frikkin’ love sweet tea.”

  Basil and Cayenne finished adding sugar and water to the tea, with Cayenne steadily mixing the tea as Basil added the water. It was almost hard to believe that Basil was her rival…but as the rest of the staff brought out his dishes, she remembered. He was a stuck-up rich boy who thought he knew everything about everything when he didn’t even frikkin’ know about how to brew a proper glass of sweet tea!

  As the sun started to set, the rest of the clan rolled in and headed upstairs to change into fresh clothes before coming out to sample the food. Cayenne and Basil watched over the food and made small talk until everyone was gathered.

  “All right, the rules are simple,” said Herb.

  “Whoever made the best food gets to choose the restaurant’s cuisine,” said Alice. “Cayenne made us some good old-fashioned Quincy barbecue, and Basil made…sorry, what was it, dear?”

  “Molecular cuisine,” said Basil.

  “I might be part chemist, but I know that’s full bullshizz,” Cayenne whispered to Addison.

  “Basil’s food is up first,” said Alice.

  Basil served everyone one of each of his dishes. It was a good thing Cayenne had made barbecue because these portions were not Texas sized.

  “On the menu is a spherification of the ‘Secret Sauce,’ along with a foam made of the ‘No Bullshizz Sauce’ on steak tri-tips, and transparent pasta made using agar-agar, a type of seaweed. The pasta contains the ‘Awesome Sauce,’” said Basil. “Try it with mineral water as a palate cleanser.”

  Cayenne looked at the food. It looked frikkin’ weird, but she had to be a good sport and try it. She tried the spherification first. It was like drinking the Taiwanese bubble tea she’d had in Dallas and Atlanta, but the spheres were filled with jalapeño hot sauce rather than strawberry jelly. They certainly were not filling. Next was the foam and steak. The steak she approved of, but what was the point of making the hot sauce into a foam? The transparent pasta wasn’t filling, made of thin papery seaweed gelatin, but at least the hot sauce had been paired with ground beef.

  Nobody took that long to eat Basil’s food. The other Quincy Sisters seemed to like it more than the Scoville Brothers.

  Next up was Cayenne.

  “Serve yourself,” said Cayenne. “This is a mess. Up first, there’s some pulled pork made with the adobo chipotle ‘No Bullshizz’ sauce. There are the classic Quincy jalapeño poppers made with the ‘Secret Sauce’, not a surprising dish for anyone but a classic. Finally, I made a lasagna with the ‘Awesome Sauce’ used in the tomato sauce. It’s not barbecue, but it’s a standard at cook-outs around these parts because it’s practically a casserole. There’s peach sweet tea as well. Eat up!”

  Cayenne served herself ample portions of her filling food and her peach tea which she mixed with lemonade.

  “All right, everyone, cast your votes,” said Alice and Herb. They passed around a bucket and some notecards and pens, and in a few minutes, they had their result.

  “Who won?” asked Savina.

  “I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” said Herb.

  “Wait, what?” asked Cayenne.

  “Yeah, what?” said Basil.

  “Neither of you won,” said Alice.

  “So, we tied?” asked Basil.

  “No…as in, nobody voted for you two,” said Herb. “None of the cards have check marks at all.”

  “Wait, what?” asked Cayenne, putting her hands on her hips. “I know we’re supposed to do this anonymously, but…what gives?”

  “Cayenne, you were right,” said Abigail. “Your food is more filling, more ‘Texas’…”

  “But it’s not good enough to compete with other restaurants,” said Clove. “We can’t compete with other steakhouses or with other cheaper barbecue joints.”

  “We can just stop selling the sauce to other restaurants,” said Cayenne. “After all, isn’t the restaurant supposed to show off the sauces?”

  “Seventy percent of our revenue is coming from restaurants,” said Herb. “Trust me. You can’t make those numbers selling sauce at the shop. Enterprise sales are the bulk of the business’s income. We can’t just stop selling the sauce to other restaurants for our pet project, our gamble.”

  “That does make sense,” said Cayenne. “Shiz.”

  “And Basil,” said Herb. “Your food isn’t at all ‘Texas’…”

  “But it’s too out of the ordinary to do well here,” said Alice. “You gotta read the room, honey…and in
this case, the town.”

  “Cayenne, I love your food, but it’s nothing that I would care much about if I wasn’t your sister,” said Savina. “Sorry, but that’s the honest truth.”

  “I have to agree with Savina,” said Mace. “I liked it, but I like a lot of food. There’s nothing about this that I love.”

  “Okay, and you, Addison?” asked Cayenne.

  “I love you too much to lie to you,” said Addison. “I like your food, but it’s just missing…something.”

  “And Basil, I don’t know what you learned in Brazil, but here’s a lesson: don’t make this again,” said Sage. “Sorry, kid, but that’s a no from me.”

  “So, nobody liked our food,” said Cayenne. “Shiz.”

  “Do another cook-off next week,” said Savina.

  “I don’t want another cook-off,” said Cayenne. “I want a restaurant, Alice.”

  “And I don’t want a restaurant that’s going to be anything but spectacular,” said Alice. “I’m sorry, Cayenne, but I can’t approve this cuisine. Maybe you and Basil should be spending more time working together and less time apart.”

  “Ugh, fine,” said Cayenne. “But I don’t understand how we can make this and that work together.” She motioned to her food and then Basil’s.

  “So, come up with something new,” said Alice. “Speaking of which, Abigail, Addison…wedding dress shopping, this Sunday, Dallas?”

  “Uh, yes!” said Abigail with a squeal.

  Alice, Abigail, Addison, and even Savina talked about wedding stuff, but Cayenne was just stuck thinking about how the heck she would be able to beat Basil next week…but maybe Alice was right. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe the key to beating Basil was working with Basil. There was only one way to find out.

  Chapter Four

  The restaurant was at a standstill. Without approval from Alice and Herb, there was nothing they could do with the restaurant. They had bought some cheap furniture from a local big box store so they’d have tables and chairs and some couches. After all, they had to brainstorm, and they couldn’t very well just stand around in an empty restaurant and come up with ideas.