"Cheers!"
In the more than twenty years since Nick's soul had crossed over, this was the first time the dining room of this house had been filled with so many guests.
There was Monroe the Wolf Wesen, Labe the Bear Wesen lawyer, his partners and friends Hancock and Andrew Wu, and, of course, the siblings Hansen and Gracie.
With Dahlia and himself included, they had actually gathered enough people for a traditional eight-person table. That was only a figure of speech, though, since the dining room had just a modest rectangular table, which happened to seat eight if they squeezed in.
Today marked the food truck's first official day of business. Sales had hardly been booming, but even with the large number of coupons Nick had handed out beforehand-mostly at the precinct-they had still broken even. That was already a pretty good start.
After two weeks of hellish boot camp, as Dahlia called it, Hansen's stir-frying skills had gone from nonexistent to showing considerable improvement.
His cooking was still inconsistent, and Nick felt his control of the heat wasn't quite there yet, but for a street-side food truck, it was more than enough to satisfy American taste buds.
Hansen and Gracie tallied up the accounts with Dahlia. The total revenue of over eleven hundred dollars left the two teenagers unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Happiness had come far too suddenly.
Pop! Amid everyone's cheers, Hancock opened a bottle of champagne while Dahlia and Nick carried dishes out of the kitchen.
First came two cold dishes: pressed pork aspic and shredded stem lettuce salad. Of course, in this country, the pressed pork was simply a meat jelly made with pork skin, a dish from Dahlia's hometown.
Next came braised lion's head meatballs, stir-fried shrimp, simmered shredded tofu, braised pork hock,