Page 49 of Cooped Up for Christmas

“So, what do we do?” Olivia asked.

I crossed my arms. “We make breakfast.” Personally, I was thinking about just throwing a couple boxes of Pop Tarts in the microwave or whatever. And yeah. We were way too close to the end of this Visit for too much creativity. These people had sucked it all out of me.

“What do we know about five-star breakfasts?” Coop asked, encouraging everyone to chime in, God love him.

“And rich people?” Jed chimed in.

“They like caviar,” Olivia offered.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, they do.” Maybe not for breakfast but, great suggestion.

“And champagne!” Not surprisingly, this was Jed’s idea.

“Okay. Caviar and champagne. Good start.” Even I was impressed with them.

Wren raised her hand. “I make a pretty mean béarnaise. I could make Eggs Benedict—”

“Eggs Benedict takes Hollandaise,” I reminded her.

Her pierced eyebrow rose. “Hollandaise is boring and derivative.”

“Okay. Eggs Benedict with Béarnaise—”

“With caviar on top!” Olivia, again.

“Good. Good,” I said. “Keep the ideas coming.”

“How about, like, a bread pudding?”

“Or monkey bread.” Wren surprised me by actually looking enthused. “My sister makes an amazing monkey bread.”

Jed wrinkled his nose. “Is it made of monkeys? Man, these rich folks are weird.”

Wren gaped at him. “Of course, it’s not made of monkeys.”

“What’s in it?” I asked. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. But, whatever it was, we weren’t calling it Monkey Bread.

“You can use those frozen rolls Noel has in the freezer, put them in a baking pan, then dump a jar of butterscotch topping and toasted pecans on it. Let it come to room temperature, double in size, and bake. Easy.”

“Sounds good too.” Or I was hungry. “How can we elevate it? Make it fancier?” I added when I noticed Jed’s puzzled expression.

“Some kind of sauce?” Olivia suggested.

“Excellent.” I smiled at her. “How about Crème Anglaise? Does anyone know how to make Crème Anglaise?”

Crickets.

“Okay. I can tackle that one.”

Cooper’s mouth dropped. “You know how to make Crème Anglaise? You been holding out on me?”

I gusted a breath. “Of course I know how to make Crème Anglaise. I took some cooking classes in my hospitality training.” Mostly so I would know what I was serving. But I really loved the patisserie classes. Oh, and on that note, I turned to Olivia, “Let’s add some cinnamon and nutmeg to the monkey bread and we’ll call them Christmas Clouds with Crème Anglaise. So we have a savory dish and a sweet… It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a quiche on hand and maybe a fresh fruit salad. And of course, coffee and mimosas. OJ for the minors. How does that sound?”

I was surprised at their response. A huge cheer. I almost told them to be quiet because they might wake the guests, but I caught Coop’s expression, and his salute as he mouthed the words, “Good job.”

Something warm rose in my breast. “Okay, everyone. Great work. Let’s keep it up and push through to the finish. Thank you. Thank you all for your great work.” Yea! I could make a motivational speech! At least, they all seemed motivated as they set out on their various assigned tasks as we prepped for breakfast.

Jed, of course, was assigned to watch over Noel and clean things up if he, ah, urped again, but Jed preferred that over making a quiche anyway.