Spring, 2016

Who Knew That the Hardest Part of Being an Adult is Figuring Out What to Cook for Dinner Every Single Night for the Rest of Your Life

"I want to fix dinner," Lexi announced on Saturday morning.

Ducky and I exchanged looks. Lexi had been helping cook and bake since she was barely able to walk and knew her way around the kitchen. I gave a tiny nod; sure. "What would you like to make?" Ducky asked.

She had written out a list! "I'm calling it fruits and nuts. Green Jello fruit salad. Almond butter rolls. Crispy chicken strips. Smashed and baked potatoes. Sliced tomatoes. And green beans with almonds."

"Almondine?" Ducky suggested.

She nodded enthusiastically. Okay, all fairly easy but more than instant mac and cheese. "Do you want one of us to help in the kitchen?"

She hesitated. "You tested me on my knife skills and the oven. And I made a cake while you only watched. I want to get my extra credit cooking badge."

Ah. Brownie badges. The "cooking" badge was just making snacks; the various troop leaders in the area had come up with "extra credit certificates" for girls who were really into a given topic. "Okay. Fair enough. But if you need help, ASK. I don't want to haul you off to the ER minus a hand, okay?" She nodded. "Off the top of my head, we have all the ingredients. When you boil the potatoes, you will need one of us to drain that pot. It's too heavy and you could get scalded," I cautioned.

She nodded again. "Okay. Dinner at…seven?"

"Seven," Ducky confirmed. He grinned mischievously. "What do you plan for dessert?"

Lexi's eyes widened. "Um…"

I leaned over. "There's a frozen razzleberry pie and ice cream in the garage freezer," I muttered.

"Razzleberry pie a la mode!" she said brightly.

Ducky winked at me. "Excellent."

Once lunch was served, we stayed out of the kitchen. (Exception: grandma's afternoon tea, which was time for Lexi to take a break anyway.) We heard thumps and bumps and some surprised exclamations, but no blood curdling screams.

Evelyn et al arrived at 5:00 (Charlie was home for spring break) and Suzy not long after. (Lexi had, with permission, called Suzy to invite her to dinner. The more reviews, the better.) As negotiated, I came in to drain the boiled potatoes and haul the mixer from the cupboard (no danger of being scalded, but it weighs a ton), then I was banished back to the living room.

Promptly at 7:00, Lexi announced, "Dinner is served." We politely filed into the dining room, where we found the table set for a coronation. Dinner plate, bread and butter plate, soup bowl (we weren't even having soup), full silverware setup, up to and including freaking shrimp forks. (That explained why she hunted down the old Emily Post's Book of Etiquette.) There were pieces of flatware on the table that I've never seen before.

We had neatly folded tents with our names and the dinner menu inside. Since she was serving, Lexi got the head of the table near the kitchen, while Ducky took the other end and I sat to his right.

First course, lime Jello salad with cottage cheese, bananas and pineapple, neatly scooped onto chilled pear halves (with a maraschino cherry on top) and attractively arranged on dark green lettuce leaves. 5 for presentation, 5 for taste.

Bread service: cloverleaf rolls served with honey almond butter. She had used my cake decorating equipment to pipe rosettes of butter onto waxed paper and then froze them. Way more effort than I would have put in. Another 5/5.

Dinner service was ambitious. Since the plates were very full, she said yes to my offer of service assistance rather than delay things and end up serving cold food. Under her instructions, sliced tomatoes (sprinkled with chopped cashews) were fanned out between 8 and 12, the green beans were neatly placed around 1. The potatoes had been beaten to a fare-the-well with cream and parmesan cheese and piped into muffin cups (more cake decorating supplies in use), basted with melted butter and baked until golden. They sat at 4, and three lovely chicken crisps were dead center at 6PM.

As I took my seat, I realized they were lovely…and colorful. I took a quick slice and tried it sans orange sauce. "What did you use for the crispy coating? It's…interesting."

"Egg and milk wash, then seasoned flour with almond chips, then cereal and melted butter," Lexi said promptly.

"What kind of cereal?" I asked. I tried a bite with the orange sauce. There were a couple of other curious looks from others as they tentatively tasted.

"Fruity Pebbles."

A couple of coughs covered a giggle and a snicker.

"I added them to the mashed cornflakes. It was fruit for the 'fruits and nuts.' And the plain cornflakes looked so…boring." She looked worried.

Well, that explained the colors. After a couple of bites, it actually tasted pretty good. I'll probably stick to the usual panko or cornflakes, but it was an interesting change.

(And you know that any meal ending with two kinds of pie and ice cream is going to get a five star rating.)

The kitchen was a pleasant surprise. Lexi had been carefully rinsing dishes and sticking them in the dishwasher, and the first load finished at the same time dinner did. I told her she had done enough and shooed her into the living room to enjoy her accolades.

As I exchanged clean and dirty dishes in the washer, I wondered how long i could count on this cooking enthusiasm and take a break from dinner prep. With any luck, I might parlay this up to when she leaves for college!

Toula Portokalos: Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone…until the day we die.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of my favorite movies and this is one of my favorite quotes from any movie. I'm not Greek and I'm not married, but, boy this resonates!