Good Morning

What a feast last night. My husband made the richest, most robust French onion soup with lots of red wine and bubbling swiss cheese over cut bread that floated effortlessly on top of the caramelized broth. And he surprised me with it. I heard him in the kitchen chopping and stirring, and I saw that his orange dutch oven was in play, and soon the aromas just filled the house but I thought beef stew or something, and I was on the phone with  my mom so I wasn't paying that much attention except to call out "Mmmm, that smells wonderful." Then my mom asked to speak to the new church warden, my husband has just been elected to that position, which thrills my mom no end, so I took the phone to the kitchen and there he was carefully arranging swiss cheese slices over the steaming bowls of soup with ovals of bread on top and I jumped and squealed to my mom like a 10-year-old, "He's making French onion soup!" I knew it was because he knows I love it. I knew it was because he wanted to give me a thrill. And to borrow Maggie May's beautifully apt words, that's why it's him and no one else.

After dinner my daughter got into the act. Martha Stewart anything is the theme today at her cooking club at school and so all yesterday afternoon she was scrolling through Martha's online recipes looking for the one that would be her inspiration that evening. "Martha is my girl," she was saying. "You know this has to be good!" (Do we discern a little competitive spirit?) She finally settled on key lime squares, which after preparation had to sit in the fridge for four hours so we didn't taste it till midnight, when I was already asleep and she woke me up gently to ask if I wanted to try a small square. Oh yes. Perfect key lime flavor, not overly sweet with just the right kick of tartness, and I will say this: Nobody—nobody—makes a graham cracker crust like my daughter!

And now, I have just finished cleaning up the onion-soup-key-lime hurricane that hit our kitchen last night. My lovely cooks did move things in the general direction of the sink, but there just wasn't enough space on the adjacent counter to carry through on the pretense that they'd cleaned up after themselves. I tell my girl that if she really wants a food business part of the deal is scrupulous clean up, to which I get the usual, "I know, mom, I know." But for now, I am happy to be the clean-up woman as I happen to enjoy wresting order from chaos and besides, nobody in this house has ever required me to cook.