The first slice of pepperoni pizza had caused Leah to do a happy dance on her stool. The cheese pizza, on the other hand, caused her to jump off the stool and dance around the kitchen while holding it to the ceiling.

  “I take it you like pizza?” He asked, while eating his own slice of pepperoni pizza.

  She nodded emphatically, her face radiating pure delight. “It’s super good!” She said with a twirl, before biting into her little square piece of pizza.

  He felt a surge of warmth spread through his chest, a feeling of immense satisfaction. It was moments like these that made all the hard work worthwhile. Seeing her joy, her unadulterated happiness, was a reward in itself.

  Unconsciously, a smile of his own came across his face as he watched her, and before he even realized it, he had pulled her into his arms and was hugging her.

  “What’s wrong daddy?” Leah asked softly, patting his back with the hand not holding food.

  “Nothing,” He replied. “I’m just happy to have you here, is all. I love you, sweetie. I hope you know that.”

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  Please take a moment to rate the story. As the author, I am only putting this story on RoyalRoad at this time. If you are reading it anywhere else, please let me know as it was stolen.

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  She giggled and buried her greasy face into his chest. “Hmm, Leah loves daddy too,” She hesitated before pulling back and showing him her mostly eaten piece of cheese pizza. “Leah also loves pizza!”

  Draden laughed and kissed her brow. “Yeah, I thought you might. Let me get you some more, and then we need to clean up and start prepping everything for tomorrow.”

  The little girl tilted her head, uncomprehending, for a couple of seconds. “The restaurant?”

  He nodded. “Yup, tomorrow is its grand opening.”

  “Oh, will there be pizza?”

  “Probably not. I’m thinking we’ll keep that a family recipe for now. All the extras that we don’t eat tonight will still be here tomorrow though.”

  “Okay.” A look of intense concentration came over her face as she nibbled at her pizza. “That means the less Leah eats now, the more she can eat tomorrow?”

  “Yup, unless I eat it all for you.”

  An absolutely scandalized look came over the poor girl’s face as her lower lip started to tremble. “Daddy’s a bully.”

  Chuckling, he picked her up, and after wiping the grease from her cheek, kissed it. “Don’t worry, I won’t eat all of the pizza. I made plenty of it for this exact reason.”

  A while later, they had finished eating and brought the remainders over to the fridge in the restaurant.

  After cleaning the kitchen, his daughter and himself, Draden, settled into bed, his mind whirring with ideas for the restaurant. His almost last thought before falling asleep was that he had forgotten to hire any servers or waitresses. It wasn’t something he could do at the same time as cooking.

  He would need to find someone the next day after dropping Leah off at school. Content with the barely formed plan, he started to fall asleep, only to be disturbed as Leah slipped into bed with him. Her small hands clung tightly to his nightshirt as she buried her face against his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked softly, while stroking her hair.

  “I miss mommy,” Leah sobbed, speaking in the first person for once. Her habit of speaking in the third person was something that had come about when Lorna had been taken from them.

  Draden felt a lump form in his throat as tears came unbidden to his eyes. “I know sweetie, so do I, and someday we’ll get her back.” He promised, while hugging his daughter tight.

  In the morning, he prepared a sumptuous breakfast for them both and then they headed off to the city. He needed to find someone, or even better, multiple someone’s who could help him serve the food to the customers at the restaurant.

  There was just one major problem with the plan. He had no idea where to go about finding someone who needed a job. He didn’t exactly want to poach people from other restaurants, as that would just cause problems down the road, and the different guilds he knew of didn’t cater to this sort of work either.

  “Hey, teacher Mirna,” Draden greeted the woman when he saw her standing outside the gate, waiting for the kids. “You wouldn’t by any chance know where I can find someone to help at the restaurant, would you?”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The woman blinked in surprise and tilted her head. “Hello Leah, go and join the other kids inside. What sort of help are you looking for?”

  The little girl hugged her father’s leg and then ran off.

  “I realized last night that I had neglected to hire any waitresses, and I don’t exactly know where to go about finding some either. I saw you and was hoping you might have an idea of where I could look or someone in need of work?”

  She opened and slowly closed her mouth. “Actually, I just might have someone in mind. One of the kids’ mothers has been looking for work after the restaurant she worked for burned down. She already dropped off her daughter, but when she comes to pick her up later, I can speak with her and ask her to stay and talk to you.”

  Draden grinned, happy that the problem had been solved so easily. “I would appreciate it if you did that. Thank you.”

  Back at the restaurant a while later, he pulled out a few recipes and began gathering ingredients. He had long decided on the different recipes he would be preparing for the grand opening of the restaurant. Recipes that would also be part of the regular rotation during the week.

  There were going to be three dishes prepared for that night.

  The first was a Minestrone soup; without the noodles, he couldn’t find them locally, and personally, he had never really enjoyed the mouthfeel they invoked when combined with the soup. However, the soup itself was hot, hearty, delicious, and could be changed in nearly endless ways. If you wanted meat, that could be done easily, more vegetables, again easy. All the changes just made the soup better in his opinion.

  The second dish was something that could be eaten on the go. It was a massive Chipotle-style burrito. Unfortunately, it would only come with one style of meat, and no guacamole, but that was life. It would still be delicious. The fact that he had come across a facsimile of sour cream had been beyond shocking to him, though maybe it shouldn’t have been. People loved cheese, milk, and butter; it made sense that they would find uses for everything.

  That was one soup, and one sort of sandwich. All that was left was the dessert.

  This was one he had honestly struggled with, as there were just too many options. Living on his own had caused him to buy a lot of desserts, and when he had started building his home, that had shifted to making a lot of them himself. They were one of the few things he could confidently bake.

  Muffins were always an option, however, in the end, he had decided to go for something a little more timeless. At least, in his opinion, donuts.

  Many of the ingredients could be found in the market, but some of the more specialized spices had to be brought over from Earth. That wasn’t even including the knowledge that went into making each of the items. As far as he could tell, there was no equivalent to tortillas on this planet, or at least not that the original Draden had ever come across during his travels. That meant even if someone figured out the relatively simple recipe, they would also need to then work out the specific flattening method or spend an inordinate amount of time rolling each one out.

  It wasn’t a big deal, but each item like that would give his restaurant a measure of security against copycats for a while longer. Not that he was truly worried about that, his food would contain something theirs never would after all.

  The point of his knife slid down the first recipe as he separated the ingredients for it from the rest. At the last minute, he decided to add some chicken to the pile as well. He would split the minestrone into two pots later on. Half would be the normal version, while the other pot would get some seasoned, shredded chicken.

  He liked both, but since this was supposed to be a restaurant, he had to think about what his customers would prefer.

  First up was just chopping everything. For now, he would keep all the ingredients for the different recipes separate. In the future, however, as he became more familiar and comfortable with everything that would likely change.

  First up, a slab of smoked bacon was cut into slices and then chopped it up. Scraping the meat into a waiting bowl, he moved on to the onions and celery, which went into another bowl. The garlic was next, after smashing them into the cutting board, he quickly, if inexpertly minced them.

  The soup itself was actually really easy to make and was just a series of dumping things into the pot at the right time. Even the chicken didn’t add any complexity to the dish as that got cooked on the pan separately since he wanted to shred it before adding it to the pot. It would add some time to the overall due to the sheer amount of chicken, but that was it.

  A stack of chicken breasts was waiting for him to take the fat off, butterfly them, which meant cutting them in half, and then whacking them with a mallet to tenderize the meat. He would add some salt and seasonings and then grill them up, manually shred them with some large forks, and then add them to the second pot of soup later. But for now, they could wait. The meat for the second dish needed to be prepared.

  The burritos were going to be steak, mainly for variety purposes. They could have just as easily been chicken as the recipes he had seen in the past were remarkably similar for both meats.

  In his opinion, they weren’t quite as good as what you would get from the actual restaurant. However, that may have been down to his ability more than the actual recipes. Either way, they were good and definitely superior to anything he had found over here.

  Most of the actual chilis had to come from Earth, as he hadn’t found those in the spice market. He was working on a few alternatives, but nothing had popped out at him yet as truly promising.

  That was a concern for later. Right now, he needed to make this marinade, without the benefit of a blender or food processor. This was going to suck. He was going to have to whisk it all together using just his arm.

  Grabbing a large bowl, Draden started by preparing the adobo sauce. Tomato paste, mixed with cider vinegar, chipotle powder, ground cumin, and a dash each of oregano, garlic powder, and salt.

  Next up was preparing the ancho chili powder. This one was actually easier, as all he needed to do was grind them up on the mortar and pestle. It was simple, and he could do a large amount in one go prepping for the future.

  With those two items done, it was a simple matter of putting the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and mixing them together. The blender made this a simple process due to how fast the blades could spin. The whisk in his hand was a poor substitute, but he made do.

  After a minute of combining everything, it was time to put the steak in so it could marinate for the next few hours. However, first, he needed to cut the pieces of steak in half and then use the meat tenderizer. After each cut of meat was nice and thin, he would put it in the bowl and mix it all together.

  The marinade wasn’t actually that hard to do, it just took time. But that was the case with all cooking, really.

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

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