Dinner goes like this: I go to the grocery store and buy two adult portions of beef/pork/chicken/fish, two vegetables of different colors, e.g., a green and a yellow, or a brown and an orange, plus salad and an appropriate wine (although “appropriate” is a tough call ever since Calvin Trillin questioned whether anyone can really tell the difference between a white and a red while blindfolded.) Then Jack comes home and makes something fabulous out of my not-always-carefully-selected raw ingredients. (You try shopping with a one-year-old who keeps throwing everything out of the cart.) If the dish is successful it gets a name for future reference. It’s our own little version of Iron Chef.
The other night I provided him with two chicken breasts and two small squashes (one green, one yellow). He marinated and grilled the chicken; then he sliced, breaded, cheesed, and baked the squash in a round pan, cut it into quarters, and arranged it on two plates, each with a chicken breast in the center and two flaps of baked, breaded-brown sliced squash spreading out on either side, with two sprigs of rosemary sticking out of the top.
This dish is now called Chicken Mothra. Ask for it by name.
