In which Sapphire makes dinner

The kids' school doesn't have a library. Instead, there is a Mediabus (library bus) that visits the school from time to time. When it comes, the kids are allowed to pick out a couple of books apiece, and their teacher selects a box of books from which they "check out" books for the next month or so. Last Friday, the mediabus came to the school, and Sapphire checked out two kids' cookbooks. She came home begging to be allowed to pick recipes and make us a proper 4 course meal for Saturday. Since Saturday was Ezio's birthday, that didn't work, but we agreed that she could make dinner on Sunday, so long as she picked out her dishes early enough so that I could get the ingredients when I went to the store on Saturday morning.

Menu (as planned)

Entrée

Flammeküche d'Alsace

Plat

Porc au Caramel

Carottes Vichy

Fromage

Dessert

Gâteau Basque

Sunday Sapphire and I sat down with her cookbook and began the (rather complex) process of figuring out when everything needed to be started in order to eat her planned meal. The Gâteau Basque was easy, since I didn't need to be served out of the oven. So we decided to start it in the morning. The flammeküche (kind of like a pizza) would need to be started at 5:00 in order to go in the oven at 5:30 so that we could eat it at 6:00. If we cut up the carrots before we started the flammeküche, then we could start cooking them at 5:35, and they would be ready for the main course at 6:20 or thereabouts. The pork needed to marinate for a couple of hours, and then go into the oven at 5:20. A problem: the pork cooked at 180ºC, the flammeküche at 220ºC (350 vs. 425 in Fahrenheit). In order to not eat one or the other cold, we would have to have a full hour between courses. We scrapped the flammeküche. Perhaps Sapphire would be willing to serve a simple tossed salad for the entrée? She would. Also, after having fondue for dinner Saturday night and lunch Sunday, I wasn't sure than anyone would be very excited about a cheese course. She concurred. And perhaps we should have rice with the pork, since we weren't having any other grains anymore? The new menu:

Menu (as served)

Entrée

Salade Verte

Plat

Porc au Caramel

Carottes Vichy

Riz

Dessert

Gâteau Basque

On to the cooking. Sapphire mixed the batter for the cake before lunch, then put it into the refrigerator to chill, per the instructions. After lunch, Sapphire mixed together the honey and soy sauce for the pork marinade, then turned the chops several times in the mixture so they would be well coated. (And then she washed her hands really really well. Several times.) After a trip to the ice rink to watch figure skating*, Blaise took the little kids to the playground and Sapphire assembled the gâteau basque, discovering that her dough had, unfortunately, not actually stiffened up enough to be rollable, so we kind of smooshed half of it into the bottom of the pan, spread the cherry jam over the top, and then glopped on the second layer of dough. I slid it into the oven and we joined Blaise and the little kids on the playground for 20 minutes while it baked.

Once the cake was out of the oven and cooling on a rack, Sapphire arranged the pork chops in a pan (and washed her hands multiple times) and I slid the pan into the oven. Then I peeled the carrots while Sapphire sliced them and put them into a pot. She added the rest of the ingredients, covered the pot, and turned the stove on. Then she cut the veggies for the salad, tore the lettuce, made the dressing, and tossed. I asked her if she wanted to make the rice. "Only if there isn't any stirring. My arm hurts." There was, so I started the rice.

Sapphire set the table and called all of us for our entrée. Then she cleared the plates and brought out clean ones. She served the food (though I transferred it into serving containers so she wouldn't get burned). She also cut and served the cake at the end. All in all, it was a very nice meal, and I hardly had to do any of the work (other than the shopping and clean up, of course). Afterwards, Sapphire requested that she be allowed to make dinner any Sunday she wants, assuming that she lets me know on Friday so that I can plan for it.

*There was an amateur ice skating competition all day Saturday and Sunday at the Fontenay sous Bois ice rink, about a 5 minute walk from our house. Since it was free, we decided to go for an hour. We saw 7 skaters (and one Zamboni), 3 boys, probably middle school aged, who were really very good (as in, I've seen worse performances on television), and 4 women, probably in their 20s and 30s, who were less good.