The Owners Arrival

Dinner:
Seared Tuna Steaks Crusted with Herbs de Provence and Served with Black Olive Tapanade
Himalayan Red Rice Pilaf with Toasted Almonds, Orange Zest and Fresh Herbs
Medley of Baby Vegetables

Buttered Pasta and Frozen Vegetables (uncooked – served frozen!)

Cheese Cake with Warm Blueberries
Chocolate Chip Cookies

The owners of Prodigy arrived today, a very nice couple from Georgia with their two young daughters. The girls are cute as buttons; the nine year old is lanky and tall with blond hair, blue eyes and very smart looking glasses. Her six year old sister is shy but funny, still wrapped in a layer of baby fat, with a thick blond main of hair. She’s witty and mature for her age and you can tell she’ll be a real firecracker when she grows up…

I was given a list of the eating habits and food preferences of the family before they arrived; what kind of coffee they drink and how they take it, what they like for breakfast, what they don’t like, etc. The girls love frozen vegetables – frozen – literally. They gobble them up right out of the bag! I asked the girls what other foods they liked and the nine year old announced to me that she was a vegetarian except for a few particular meats. As she was saying this, my initial thought was that that is pretty astute for a nine year old to decide that she wants to be a vegetarian. As a kid, I don’t recall every having a choice in what I wanted to eat at supper time, I do however recall some very late nights spent sitting at the dinner table because I didn’t clean my plate… I asked what meats she did like to eat and being a chef and familiar with all the different categories of vegetarians there are (avo, lactate, avo-lactate, semi-with-fish, etc.) I figured that she would say something along the lines of fish or chicken. But no, this little lady has created a new category of vegetarianism all her own. She’s an Oscar-Meyer-Bologna-and-Hot-Dog-Vegetarian and occasionally she’ll eat fish sticks and chicken nuggets… Her mom and I had a good laugh over whether bologna and hot dogs actually constituted ‘meat’.

Sunday the grandparents arrive and we’ll be heading out for Anguilla and St. Barth.