Sandrine's words—that they couldn't afford to use large quantities of tomato sauce—made sense when he thought about it.
After all, there was no point in preparing a surplus of ingredients only to let them spoil.
Even if they had some to spare, it was only a limited amount.
With that in mind, Rei couldn't exactly raise any objections to Sandrine's stance.
"Huh? W-wait, Sandrine? If possible, um... just a little bit, wouldn't that be okay?"
Rei had already accepted Sandrine's reasoning, but oddly enough, it was Rodrigo who spoke up in a panic, desperately trying to get permission to use the tomato sauce.
For Rodrigo, cooking was both his profession and his hobby.
He had been eager when Rei first approached him with the idea of trying out a new dish, yet now Sandrine was calling a halt.
Rodrigo was normally timid, but seeing him desperately plead with his daughter to work something out made even Rei wonder, Why him and not me...?
"Father? Then let me ask you this... are you okay with not being able to serve the other dishes that use tomato sauce, just so you can put this dish called pizza on the menu?"
"That's..."
When put that way, Rodrigo had no choice but to hedge.
He was interested in the new dish, but that didn't mean he could use tomato sauce freely.
"I see. Then can't you get some from another shop or person who has a surplus?"
"Hmm. I think there are people who keep a fair amount as preserved food... or rather, as a preservable condiment. But whether they'd actually be willing to part with it is another matter."
Sandrine sighed.
"The magic herbs used in tomato sauce aren't exactly expensive... but they're not cheap, either. So even if you asked someone to hand some over, I doubt they'd give it to you for free."
"...I see. Then what do we do? Shelve pizza until next year?"
As long as they couldn't get tomato sauce, Rei couldn't make a proper pizza.
He could probably make a pseudo-pizza without it, but that would be something he'd only make for himself to eat—not something he could serve at a diner.
"No, even if we can't put it on the menu right away, I think it's a good idea to research it now for next year. Rei-san, we do have a little surplus of tomato sauce, so could I ask you to help with that?"
"Good grief... Father, honestly."
Though Sandrine looked displeased at Rodrigo's words, the corners of her mouth curved into a faint smile.
For Sandrine, seeing this side of her father wasn't actually an unpleasant sight.
"Got it? Only a little bit, okay. If you use too much and we end up with no tomato sauce when we need it for cooking, I'll never forgive you."
"Okay, I understand. Then let's head to the kitchen right away."
Rodrigo made the call and invited Rei into the kitchen.
Rei had no particular objections to making pizza, so he followed Rodrigo in.
As if chasing after the two of them, Sandrine also headed to the kitchen.
She was probably worried about how much tomato sauce would be used.
Inside the kitchen, the cooking utensils from making nikuman were still laid out.
Though it had nothing to do with nikuman, the bread-baking oven was also thoroughly heated, likely in preparation for dinner.
"Rei-san, for pizza, you spread the bread dough out into a circle, right?"
"Yeah. Apparently, as a kind of showmanship, there's a method where you spin the dough in the air to shape it into a circle... but well, that's something to try once you've gotten used to it."
"Haa... is there really a need to do something like that?"
"I wonder. Still, if it draws attention, there are probably people who'd get interested in pizza and want to try it, so I don't think it's completely meaningless."
Rei knew what kind of dish pizza was and generally understood how to make it, but if asked how to stretch the dough, he could only tilt his head.
Logically, you'd probably use something like a rolling pin, but on TV, he had seen people stretch it by spinning it in the air many times.
"Hmm, you stretch the pizza dough, right? Specifically, how thick should it be?"
"For the hard type, it's quite thin, and for the soft type, it's fairly thick... I think."
"Then the thin one would bake faster."
"...Probably. But for starters, it's better to go with the thick one that's closer to regular bread dough, right?"
Rei asked, and Rodrigo nodded.
"Considering the tomato sauce situation, I think it's best to start with the more reliable option."
Rei could only nod at that as well.
Since they had little tomato sauce to begin with, they wanted to avoid the possibility of failure as much as possible.
(Tomato sauce... do pizza nikuman have tomato sauce in them? It's "pizza" nikuman, so they probably do, right? Tomato sauce... ketchup? Well, I'll have to leave that part to the professionals.)
Thinking this while glancing at the nikuman steamer, Rei searched for ingredients.
"For now, let's make a basic pizza... get me the ingredients we have available, the leftover ones. Ah, for meat, ham or sausage would be preferable if possible."
"We have both. Which would you like?"
Both ham and sausage were preserved foods.
Naturally, they had a certain amount stocked as ingredients to last until spring, and for items like these, they could always buy more if they ran out.
"Ah, right. Then let's go with sausage."
"Understood. Vegetables are... honestly, we don't have many."
Rodrigo bowed his head apologetically.
However, it was winter and vegetables were scarce to begin with. Since they were prototyping pizza using only leftovers from what was prepared for their regular menu, Rei had no intention of blaming Rodrigo.
"No, just whatever you can spare is fine. ...Ah, but it'd be nice if you had some mushrooms."
Rodrigo looked relieved at Rei's words and began gathering the usable vegetables.
From green, blue, and purple leafy vegetables and white root vegetables that Rei had never seen before, to what inexplicably looked like a fresh bell pepper despite it being winter—an assortment was gathered.
"Like I said earlier, pizza is a simple dish where you spread the dough out thin and round, put toppings on it, sprinkle cheese over it, and bake it in the oven. ...Though I suppose it's one of those 'easier said than done' things."
Adjusting the thickness of the dough, selecting and balancing the toppings, and above all, controlling the oven temperature—none of these were things that could be mastered immediately.
But fortunately, as the name suggested, the Golden Bread Pavilion was a diner that prided itself on its homemade bread.
Rodrigo baked that bread himself, so in that sense, they had an advantage over other diners that bought their bread from a bakery.
Of course, Rei was simply thinking that if they had an oven, they could bake pizza. But normally, the temperature for baking bread was around 250°C, whereas pizza required over 400°C.
That temperature difference was nearly double.
"I see. Then let's try making one first as a test. Rei-san, what kind of toppings go on a basic pizza?"
"You spread tomato sauce over the dough, then put the toppings on. The main topping is sausage, and you add mushrooms and vegetables on top. Finally, you sprinkle cheese over it and it's done."
Rei would have preferred to use mushrooms, but unfortunately, there were none among the available ingredients.
Well, whether mushrooms even existed in Elgin was something Rei didn't know either.
(Ah, but didn't I eat mushrooms in some dish before?)
While Rei was trying to remember where he had eaten a dish with mushrooms, Rodrigo quickly proceeded with the cooking.
He spread the bread dough out into a circle—though he didn't spin it in the air—and since this was just for a taste test, he spread it to about the size of his hand or slightly larger. Then he spread tomato sauce over it and began placing the toppings.
Sausage, bell pepper, mushrooms, a vivid blue onion-like vegetable, and so on.
Since this was only a taste test, he didn't use very many ingredients.
Finally, after sprinkling finely chopped cheese on top, he placed it into the oven.
"How was that? Did anything catch your eye?"
"Even if you ask me, all I know is the general outline. I've never actually made pizza before, so I can't really say... but well, your hands were fast, as you'd expect from someone running a diner."
"Ahaha. Thank you. Now I just hope it bakes well."
Rodrigo was normally timid, but when it came to his work—no, his hobby of cooking—he apparently became more enthusiastic than usual.
He didn't show a trace of his usual timidity as he kept his eyes fixed on the oven.
Watching her father like that, Sandrine wore an expression that said he's hopeless, yet she still couldn't hide her smile.
(I guess she's what you'd call a fathercon.)
While Rei was thinking that, one minute passed, then two... and judging that the cheese on top had melted, Rodrigo thrust a large spatula-like tool into the oven to take the pizza out.
But the moment he tried to remove it, Rodrigo's expression turned dubious.
"This is..."
"What's wrong, Father?"
"...No, this won't be edible as is. The cheese has melted, but the bread dough isn't fully baked yet."
Just as he said, the pizza dough still looked half-raw... or perhaps even more than that.
"Does that mean the baking time was too short?"
If the dough was half-raw, that naturally meant the baking time had been too short.
Rei asked with that question in mind, but Rodrigo nodded with a complicated expression.
"That's... right. Thinking about the bread dough itself, I think the baking time was too short. But if we baked it any longer, the toppings and cheese would burn..."
Sandrine patted Rodrigo's shoulder encouragingly as he wore a difficult expression.
"It's the first time making this dish, so it can't be helped if you fail once. You can do it, Father."
"You think so?"
"Of course. More importantly, isn't it more like you to think about how to make a delicious pizza?"
Whether he had regained some spirit from Sandrine's words or not, Rodrigo kept his gaze on the undercooked pizza and asked Rei.
"Rei-san, what do you think we should do?"
"Well, like I said earlier, I know about cooking and the general method, but I'm not an expert. ...Still, let me think. If we consider it simply, the fact that the dough was undercooked means it was too thick, doesn't it?"
"Now that you mention it, you did say there are pizzas with thin dough, didn't you?"
As Rodrigo asked while recalling the explanation from before cooking, Rei nodded.
"Yeah. ...Though in that case, I don't know how you'd make the thick-crusted pizza."
"That would probably come down to the oven temperature. Baking it for an indecisive amount of time would burn it, so I suspect you'd need to bake it all at once at a much higher temperature."
Timid personality aside, Rodrigo ran the Golden Bread Pavilion, a diner on the main street. That experience allowed him to answer Rei's question with ease.
This was also likely because Rodrigo baked bread regularly and possessed skill that wouldn't lose to—perhaps even surpassed—any ordinary baker, allowing him to reach a conclusion quickly.
"At a high temperature? ...Ah, I feel like I remember reading something like that."
Hearing Rodrigo's idea, Rei recalled what he had seen on TV.
The person making pizza at the time had also said something about how heat was decisive for pizza.
"Jeez! Rei-san, if you knew that, you could have told us from the start!"
"Hey, even if you say that, I'd forgotten about it until just now."
Rei made that excuse in response to Sandrine puffing out her cheeks.
"Hahaha. It's not like Rei-san remembers everything either, so don't be so mad, Sandrine. Besides, I think this is actually pretty good for us. Up until now, we've only used the oven for baking bread, but from now on, we can use it for pizza too."
"...Bread is basically made all at once before the shop opens, so you mean we'll be making pizza in the oven while the shop is running? I understand what you're thinking, Father, but that'll probably cost more in firewood than before."
"That might be true, but we can just buy firewood from elsewhere, right? If pizza and nikuman bring in more revenue, that much won't be a problem at all."
"Well, I guess that's true, but..."
Sandrine had various things she wanted to say to her father, but there were points she could accept, so she didn't voice any further complaints.
In the end, partly due to the tomato sauce situation, they couldn't do much prototyping that day. They would disperse after just hearing the overview of pizza.
First, it seemed Rodrigo would make researching the relationship between pizza dough and heat his top priority.