Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online

different sauces we’re trying out,” Grandma said. “We bought them in the store and then we doctored them up.”
    “I don’t think that’s allowed,” I said. “This is supposed to be your own sauce recipe.”
    Lula dumped some hot sauce and chili pepper into the bowl of red sauce. “Once it gets out of its bottle, it’s my sauce. And besides, I just added my secret ingredients.”
    “What if they want to see your recipe?”
    “Nuh-ah. No one gets to see Lula’s recipe,” Lula said, wagging her finger at me. “Everybody’ll be stealing it. I give out my recipe, and next thing it’s in the store with someone else’s name on it. No sir, I’m no dummy. I’m gonna take the winning recipe to my deathbed.”
    “Should I start putting the sauce on these suckers?” Grandma asked Lula.
    “Yeah. Make sure everybody gets all the different sauces. Since I’m the chef, I got the most refined taste buds, but we want to see what other people think, too.”
    Grandma slathered sauce on the ribs, and Lula eyeballed them.
    “I might want to add some finishing touches,” Lula said, pulling jars off my mother’s spice rack, shaking out pumpkin pie spices. “These here ribs are gonna be my holiday ribs.”
    “I would never have thought of that,” Grandma said.
    “That’s why I’m the chef and you’re the helper,” Lula said. “I got a creative flare.”
    “What are we eating besides ribs?” I asked.
    Lula looked over at me. “Say what?”
    “You can’t just serve ribs to my father. He’ll want vegetables and gravy and potatoes and dessert.”
    “Hunh,” Lula said. “This is a special tasting night and all he’s gettin’ is ribs.”
    My mother made the sign of the cross.
    “Gee,” I said. “Look at the time. I’m going to have to run. I have work to do. Rex is waiting for me. I think I’m getting a cold.”
    My mother reached out and grabbed me by my T-shirt. “I was in labor twenty-six hours with you,” she said. “You owe me. The least you could do is see this through to the end.”
    “Okay,” Lula said. “Now we put these ribs back into the oven until they look like they been charcoaled.”
    Twenty minutes later, my father took his seat at the head of the table and stared down at his plate of ribs. “What the Sam Hill is this?” he said.
    “Gourmet barbecue ribs,” Grandma told him. “We made them special. They’re gonna have us rolling in money.”
    “Why are they black? And where’s the rest of the food?”
    “They’re black because they’re supposed to look grilled. And this is all the food. This is a tasting menu.”
    My father mumbled something that sounded a lot like taste, my ass . He pushed his ribs around with his fork and squinted down at them. “I don’t see any meat. All I see is bone.”
    “The meat’s all in tasty morsels,” Lula said. “These are more pickin’-up ribs instead of knife-and-fork ribs. And they’re all different. We gotta figure out which we like best.”
    My mother nibbled on one of her ribs. “This tastes a little like Thanksgiving,” she said.
    My father had a rib in his hand. “I’ve got one of them, too,” he said. “It tastes like Thanksgiving after the oven caught on fire and burned up all the meat.”
    What I had on my plate was charred beyond recognition. I loved Grandma and Lula a lot, but not enough to eat the ribs. “You might have cooked these a smidgeon too long,” I said.
    “You could be right,” Lula said. “I expected them to be juicier. I think the problem is I bought grillin’ ribs, and we had to make them into oven ribs.” She turned to Grandma. “What’s your opinion of the ribs? Did you try them all? Is there some you like better than others?”
    “Hard to tell,” Grandma said, “being that my tongue is on fire.”
    “Yeah,” Lula said. “I made one of them real spicy ’cause that’s the way I like my ribs and my men. Nice and hot.”
    My father was gnawing on a rib, trying to get something off