Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery) Read Free

corn, and I’ll do the best I can.”
    “Where should I get it from?”
    “The Safeway for all I care. Wendy at Shadow’s Catering always has a lot of fresh produce on hand, and she owes me a favor. Maybe you can work out a deal with her.” I’m willing to cave to Marcus to an extent, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to run around buying fresh corn on the cob at the last minute while I’m trying to run a restaurant. I’m sure he’ll push the job off on his sister, Jacqueline, anyway.
    “Okay. I’ll get Jacqueline on it. Thanks, Halia. You’re the best.”
    “Yeah, yeah . . .”
    “If I can’t get fresh corn, will frozen do?”
    “You did not just ask me that? The only frozen thing I serve in this restaurant, Marcus, is ice.”
    He smiles. “My bad . . . my bad. That’s why everything is so good.”
    And he’s right. The best food starts with the best ingredients. Everything we serve at Sweet Tea is made from scratch. All of our meats and vegetables are fresh, many from local farms. We even cut and broil our own house-made sourdough croutons because no package variety comes close to my recipe. We make all our salad dressing in-house because the bottled brands don’t have the creamy thickness I want, and we chop lettuce daily for all our salads—taste the lettuce that comes precut in a plastic bag, and you’ll know why. And, of course, all of the tea at Sweet Tea is fresh brewed on the premises. Every day we offer unsweetened, sweetened, and a special flavored tea. Today’s special tea is honey clove. And, okay, so we do use canned corn in my complimentary cornbread, but that’s how Grandmommy made it, too, so I figure we get a pass on that one.
    As Marcus leaves, I think of all the reorganizing I’ll have to do to get a special on the menu that I hadn’t planned for.
    “I’m going to need your help husking corn,” I say to Wavonne, who’s watching Marcus’s ass (and it is a fine one) while he walks out the door.
    “I just got a manicure, Halia. I can’t be huskin’ no corn.”
    “Would you prefer bathroom cleaning duty?”
    Wavonne groans. “Let me know when Marcus gets back with it.”
    “Oh, don’t worry. I will.”

CHAPTER 2
     
    “G od forgive me, but I just don’t care for that man. Anyone that pours on that much sugar has got to be up to no good,” Momma says. She’s just stepped out of the kitchen and has her eyes on Marcus as he exits the restaurant.
    “You won’t get any arguments from me on that point,” I say.
    “Brotha is triflin’, but I’d give him a lil’ taste,” Wavonne chimes in.
    “I don’t recall him asking,” Momma says. “And you keep your ‘lil’ taste,’ whatever that means, in your pants, Wavonne. The last thing we need is a mini-Marcus to contend with around here.”
    Momma is wrapping up her morning baking. Aside from preparing Grandmommy’s cornbread, baking is one thing I never had much interest in. I love to cook—I enjoy creating meals of meats and vegetables and savory sides, but baking cakes and pies and sweet treats for dessert has never really been my thing. Grandmommy was not a baker, either, which left Momma to fill the void back in the day. She’s been baking since she was a girl. Every Sunday, Grandmommy would prepare Sunday dinner, and, usually the night prior, Momma would whip up dessert. She became known throughout our extended family for her sweet creations. My favorite has always been her red velvet cake—four layers of moist cocoa-infused cake with a fluffy cream cheese icing. It’s a little piece of heaven on a fork.
    Desserts are important for any restaurant and can really help boost profits, but for a soul food restaurant like Sweet Tea, the desserts need to be killer . Rich sweet treats are part of the soul food experience. Every day at Sweet Tea, I try to re-create the Sunday dinners I experienced when I was a kid, and I can’t imagine those dinners without all the cakes, cobblers, and pies that were the grand