My Most Fearsome Cooking Challenge Yet

On Tuesday, January 10th, I faced my sternest kitchen challenge to date. No, it had nothing to do with trying new spices. Nor did it involve stuffing one ingredient inside another ingredient. Nor did it involve trying to pronounce anything in French.

It involved cooking for the toughest audience possible.

Before I reveal the secret identity of the choosy critic, first I will present a new cocktail that I have learned to make, after browsing my Mixology app on the iPhone and surveying the liquor components we purchased at Shopper's Corner. Marina wanted something with gin, and I found a cocktail called the Water Lily. How could you possibly go wrong with a name like the Water Lily?

The recipe calls for 3/4 oz Gin, 3/4 oz of Creme de Violette, 3/4 oz Cointreau, and 3/4 oz lemon juice, all to be shaken with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass. The glass was chilled by placing a large ice cube in it while preparing the drink, and for the lemon juice, I squeezed half of a fresh lemon. Our backyard features lemon and lime trees, as well as a fig tree. Weep with jealousy, or just flatter me enough to cadge an invitation, your choice.

The end product was slightly modified from the recipe. I substituted Grand Marnier for the Cointreau. Also, I accidentally left the ice cube in the glass after pouring the drink. I learned how to make an orange twist, which surprisingly does not involve teaching fruit to dance to the musical stylings of Chubby Checker. In fact, you take a zester and peel a long, thin bit of the peel, which you then twist over the drink to release the flavor and juice. You then plop the peel in the drink.



It came out quite well, sweet and gentle with just a little kick.

Speaking of the need for cocktails, the super-secret challenging audience I referenced at the beginning was a three year old boy. Marina's mom, sister, and nephews came over for dinner on Tuesday night. As our pasta supply was a little diminished, it became an exercise in eclectic pasta-making, featuring half a box of penne, half a box of wagon-wheel pasta--not the official name, but I can't recall the official name at the moment--chicken-apple sausage and turkey meatballs, with a roasted garlic sauce. I had all four burners going at once, which was a step into a much busier kitchen for me.



Not remembering the nephew's previous reactions to tomato sauce, I served up, only to hear him immediately start to wail when looking into a bowl with pasta and sauce. I felt guilty; do I really want to be the sort of chef who makes small children cry?

But once we all started to eat, and the food did turn out well, as pasta and sausage tends to do, he seemed to reconsider, and his mom figured out that what he was objecting to was not the sauce or the pasta per se, but the lumps of tomato. Once those were extracted, he happily devoured all before him.

The lesson here is never fall for a child's tears when it comes to pasta.

How do you trick a small child into eating things that look weird? And after that battle, what gin-related cocktails do you prefer?