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Fiona hasn't yet shown much interest in cooking, other than making an occasional batch of chocolate chip cookies. It's a family joke that she even has the ability to burn a salad (she made a salad once and set the mixing bowl it was in down on a burner on the stove, not realizing it was on.) Delia is much more interested in messing around in the kitchen. She decided she wanted to make dinner last night. She chose a couple recipes that her Girl Scout troop had made together for a supper for the troop's parents: sweet and sour chicken (except we substituted pork tenderloin since it'd been hanging around in our refrigerator and needed to be used up) and potstickers from scratch.
We never made it to karate last night. Rob and Delia worked on the dinner for about two hours. They made the classic mistake, starting the recipe without reading it through all the way first and realized too late that there was a stage where something had to sit a half hour.
Then, too, they had to improvise: the sweet and sour sauce is based on pineapple, but Fiona is allergic to pineapple; it gives her hives. So they decided to make a separate sauce for her based on pears. Trying to make sure that the sauces wouldn't get mixed up (which was really thoughtful of her) Delia decided just to put one drop of food coloring in Fiona's sauce. She chose blue, thinking there would be just a slight tint and -- wow. Just one drop turned the sauce neon blue. It was really funny. Fiona couldn't bring herself to put the sauce on her pork, and I couldn't quite blame her.
Rob got burned with hot oil. The dinner was finally on the table at about 8:45 p.m. The sweet and sour sauce had been sitting at that point for about an hour, and they'd used a titch too much cornstarch to thicken it, so it was more like sweet and sour gell. "I'm sorry it's so late," Delia said gloomily. But we ate it up, and it tasted pretty good. I brought some of the leftovers for my lunch today.
"Well, it's all part of the learning experience," I told her. "I remember the story I read in a job-hunting book once: a woman who hadn't worked outside the house in years went job hunting, and she was asked during an interview why, with her lack of experience, she thought she could work for the company.
"I can get the meat, the potatoes, and the vegetables on the table at the same time. That's management."
We never made it to karate last night. Rob and Delia worked on the dinner for about two hours. They made the classic mistake, starting the recipe without reading it through all the way first and realized too late that there was a stage where something had to sit a half hour.
Then, too, they had to improvise: the sweet and sour sauce is based on pineapple, but Fiona is allergic to pineapple; it gives her hives. So they decided to make a separate sauce for her based on pears. Trying to make sure that the sauces wouldn't get mixed up (which was really thoughtful of her) Delia decided just to put one drop of food coloring in Fiona's sauce. She chose blue, thinking there would be just a slight tint and -- wow. Just one drop turned the sauce neon blue. It was really funny. Fiona couldn't bring herself to put the sauce on her pork, and I couldn't quite blame her.
Rob got burned with hot oil. The dinner was finally on the table at about 8:45 p.m. The sweet and sour sauce had been sitting at that point for about an hour, and they'd used a titch too much cornstarch to thicken it, so it was more like sweet and sour gell. "I'm sorry it's so late," Delia said gloomily. But we ate it up, and it tasted pretty good. I brought some of the leftovers for my lunch today.
"Well, it's all part of the learning experience," I told her. "I remember the story I read in a job-hunting book once: a woman who hadn't worked outside the house in years went job hunting, and she was asked during an interview why, with her lack of experience, she thought she could work for the company.
"I can get the meat, the potatoes, and the vegetables on the table at the same time. That's management."