Daddy Undercover (Crescent Cove 9)

My mother’s dark eyes flashed. “How would you know about it? At least Erica has her time in the city to explain how she knows about such weird food.”

“Mami, it’s far from a weird food.”

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“Do you think everyone has heard about fabadas?”

“Well, they should have,” she said with a sniff.

I shook my head and slid out of the booth. “I sneaked in some of our seasonings too, mami. I have some chicken you’ll love. Would you like a salad?”

Her face brightened. “That would be wonderful, nena.”

“I’ll be back.”

My mother made lots of traditional Spanish food that the average person wouldn’t necessarily know about. At least poutine was an internet sensation. That was how I’d heard of it anyway. I’d developed an addiction to TikTok and their cooking snippets. I’d gone down many a rabbit hole in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.

Besides, there were only so many cheeseburgers and fries I could serve before I needed to at least try something different. There were just enough younger people in town to allow me to play with the menu once in awhile. At least for a week or so before Mitch got all grouchy.

As I walked into the kitchen, the acrid scent of onions made my eyes water.

“Gina, what is this?”

Speaking of grouchy...

“Mitch, I told you what those are.”

“Who would want turds of cheese?”

“Curds, Mitch.”

He lifted one to his nose. “Weird.”

“Try it.”

He curled his lip.

“Just try it. It’s delicious.”

He closed his eyes and popped one in his mouth, and then harrumphed.

“Good, right?”

“It better sell,” was all he said before turning back to his grill.

I stifled a laugh and quickly set a basket of fries into the fryer before I gathered the fixings for my mother’s salad. The assembly line of food that was prepped for the oncoming lunch rush was stacked, waiting for plating.

The sharp tang of peppers to go with the onions on the grill told me it was Tuesday. Without fail, we had lunch specials that would cause the world to stop turning if they weren’t cooked. Tuesday was sausage and peppers, and tomorrow was chili which meant I’d have to remember to wear black.

It was the messiest day of the week.

I dumped the fries into a skillet and tossed the curds in a little bit of chili powder since I knew my sister liked things spicy. I opened the oven door and pushed over a pan of sausages before shoving in the pan to melt the cheese a bit.

Mitch gave me a side-eyed look, but he didn’t slow the clack of his wide spatulas on the football-sized grill he manned as if it was a part of him. His beard was getting woolly since he’d stopped trimming it around the end of September. In deference to the wiry brown shag it was becoming, he wore a hairnet over his beard and on the top of his head—which was decidedly less woolly these days.

I pulled out the poutine and doused it with some extra gravy before loading it onto a plate. As an afterthought, I snagged a smaller bowl for me. My sister would chop off my fingers if I tried to steal from her plate. Erica was very much the Joey Tribbiani of our family.

I stacked my dishes along my arm and backed my way into the dining area. I nodded and smiled automatically at the regulars stationed at their specific stools at the counter.