Serena showed her how to make the dressing. Brittany was a quick study and wanted to learn. Brittany loved the feel of making food, and that was the mark of a good cook. That was good, because Brittany was all they had right now.
They made the dressing, then the salads. Jimmy and Olive came in about that time and proceeded to start making the dinner menu items—boiling pasta, to be warmed back up when there was an order, layering lasagna in pans, peeling shrimp, and slicing lemons. Serena left Jimmy and Olive so she could tend to the bread.
She motioned for Brittany to follow her back to the bread-making area. When she lifted the towel off the bowl of dough, Brittany gasped.
“I can’t believe it’s gotten so big,” she said, giggling.
Serena laughed. She liked Brittany.
“Now I want you to take your fist like this,” she said holding up her fisted hand, “and punch it as hard as you can into this dough.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Brittany made her small hand into a fist and jammed it into the dough. It deflated like a flat tire.
“Was it supposed to do that?” the girl asked, concerned.
“Sure was. That’s called punching down the dough. Now we’re going to cut it into pieces and make several loaves. Then we’re going to let them sit on the sheets until they rise again.”
“There sure is a lot of rising with this stuff,” Brittany said.
Together, Serena and Brittany divided the dough and shaped it into loaves, which they put on several baking sheets. Serena put a towel over each sheet.
“We’ll come back in an hour and check on it. Can you turn the oven on in about forty-five minutes so it can be warming up?”
Brittany nodded.
“I’m going to let you work with Jimmy and Olive until then, okay?”
Brittany nodded again and followed Serena to where Jimmy was standing.
“Teach her everything you know,” Serena said to Jimmy with a laugh.
Jimmy laughed too. “Come on, girl,” he said to Brittany. “You can help me with these meatballs.”
Serena went back to the tiny office and looked around. Things seemed to be in disarray and she wondered how her grandmother had been handling all of the paperwork. She sat at the desk and began to go through the papers. There were receipts from vendors all over the desk and Serena began to gather them and organize them. There was no computer. Serena decided that would be the first thing to happen. She would move her own computer into the office and set up systems for receipts and payments.
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 thr
ough 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.”
Brittany turned around. “Okay. That’s nice.”
Trey’s price to do the website was more than reasonable, with an added price to create a logo based on the neon sign that had stood in front of Rossetti’s for decades. Serena wrote some text for the About section of the website and gave Trey some old black and white photos from Rossetti’s glory days.
Brittany created a Facebook page, linking to the website and featuring the old photographs. She started posting the lunch special every day and sent it to all of her eight hundred friends.
By February, business had picked up so much at Rossetti’s that Serena had to add another cook and three more waitresses. The Luna Bay News ran a story about the “new” Rossetti’s, which was picked up by the newspapers along the coast.
Old Joe played piano Monday through Thursday. He was a Rossetti’s institution and young people started taking photo
s of him with their phones and posting them on Facebook. Serena started hiring small groups to play Friday and Saturday nights, and Brittany promoted that on Facebook.
When Serena got home every night, exhausted, Nonna greeted her with a brandy or glass of wine. They sat at the kitchen table for a while, talking about the day behind them.
“Oh, Nonna,” Serena said one night. “I totally forgot to show you how to do text.”
Nonna smiled. “It’s okay, honey. I figured it out for myself.”
“Oh,” Serena said. “Are you doing a lot of texting?” Serena wondered who her grandmother could be texting. She couldn’t imagine that the senior crowd was doing much of that.
“A little. I text with Jeff and a couple of other people.”
“Jeff?” Serena was more than a little surprised.
“Yes, Jeff. He’s Italian, you know. He even speaks Italian. He sends me texts asking how I’m doing. And I text him back.”
Jeff had texted Serena a few times since the last time she’d seen him. He asked how she was and she texted back that she was fine.
“He’d like to come for a visit,” Nonna said. “And I told him yes. I want to see him.”
“I want to see him too,” Serena said, decisively. “I’d really like to see him.”
“Good,” Nonna said. “Because he’s coming this weekend.”
Serena wasn’t expecting that. It was one thing to say she wanted to see him, another to have him actually coming that weekend.
“He’s staying here,” Nonna said before Serena could ask.
“Okay. Good,” Serena said. She guessed it was good. She really didn’t know the status of anything with Jeff. But Nonna seemed to like him, and that was something. Definitely something.
Chapter Six
On Friday night, Serena was sitting at the bar sipping on a glass of chardonnay when Jeff walked in. She didn’t see him come in, and suddenly he was sitting on the barstool beside her. He ordered a martini.
“Hey, stranger,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. “Nonna told me you were coming this weekend. I was getting ready to go home.”
“I was thinking after we leave here, that we could go to the beach. It’s a full moon tonight.”
Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series Page 5
