My daughter rocks

Really, she does. She eats anything, would rather listen to opera in the car than a popular music station, skis better than most adults I know, and wears whatever I pick out in the morning. But now she's really outdone herself. And I say this without any hesitation due to modesty. She does all this in spite of the basket case of a mother that I am.

She has decided that I've planned and executed enough dinners; she's now ready to step in herself. Thank goodness.

She started planning tonight's dinner yesterday morning. When she got home from school, all the pieces fell into place.

First, she planned and designed the menus. She asked me to do the writing, since I do cursive so well, but the ideas were all hers.

Once she sat us at the table, Husband and I ordered the appetizer of tomatoes stuffed with cheese, which was good, since she said they were out of cavier. Good thing, since she spent about 45 minutes on this appetizer. This was entirely her own creation: She sliced tomatoes in half, scooped out the seeds, filled them with Manouri cheese, and sprinkled them with lemon juice and black flaked salt. Seriously good!









For entrees, we selected the special, noodles with baby shrimps in a slight sauce. We always like a slight sauce. I'm really not one for prepared foods, but Sophie tried a sample of this at Trader Joe's and declared it the best thing she ever tasted. She especially wanted to serve it for her first fancy dinner. She learned how to cook shrimp (until it is just orange) and how to saute vegetables, so it wasn't a total loss from a culinary standpoint.





And she made a very nice green salad, with red lettuce, spinach, baby bok choy, bosc pear, parmesan, and balsamic vineagrette. She learned to wash muddy spinach and spin it dry and core and chop pear.







For dessert she served vanilla ice cream (in our special "good listener bowls"), although in somewhat unequal portions.

But honestly, I don't think I could be more proud. I don't know what I do to deserve this kid.