Choosing to Be Adventurous

Whenever one of my kids has a birthday, he is allowed to choose the dinner menu and birthday dessert. This is something my mom did when I was a kid. I remember usually choosing meatloaf for supper and banana cake (but of course!) for dessert on my birthday.

At intervals all year long, when one of the boys is especially enjoying a meal or a cake, he inevitably will say This is what I want to have on my birthday!  I hear it over and over again. But when the birthday finally rolls around, he can't seem to remember what it was that he wanted so badly to have on his day.

This time Samuel had the same problem and took several days to finalize a menu. He was not wanting to repeat his usual favorites- pizza and carrot cake. He wanted something different. And he wanted an appetizer.

He's eleven and wants an appetizer.

I've created a monster.

He knew immediately that the appetizer had to be cheesy bread sticks dipped in sauce like they serve at the gourmet pizza shop.

So we made bread sticks. Our friend Karen suggested a Tasty Kitchen recipe called Easy Peasy Bread Sticks, which were indeed easy, peasy and very much like the restaurant's version. Samuel was very pleased and there was not a crust left after dinner. We'll probably make them again sometime.




Continuing with the desire to have something "different" Samuel finally chose, after agonizing analysis of possibilities, lemon meringue pie for his birthday dessert. I don't think he has ever had lemon meringue pie so it was truly an adventurous choice.

I put Samuel at the mixer manning the beating of the egg whites while I cooked the lemon filling. (Peter squeezed about ten lemons for me.) The egg whites got over beaten (something I have never seen before, frankly) so they weren't as light and fluffy as usual, but still perfectly edible and good. Such is cooking with kids.

We all enjoyed the lemon pie but Samuel decided he doesn't like meringue so I don't expect it to be requested again in the future.

That's okay though because there is a whole world of dessert options out there to explore.

I'm thankful for kids with adventurous palates.