He always likes to prepare at least one meal while he's with us, so on this occasion our youngest son did a dish that had cauliflower, brussels sprouts, minced chicken, onions and garlic in it, and which also had coconut milk in its preparation. It looked good and tasted good, but as usual didn't quite fit the bill for Irving who did his best to eat as much of it as he could stomach, not to disappoint Jordan. I always find the meals that Jordan prepares to be good tasting and they top the nutritious charts as well. His father refers to his son's recipes as "camp food", resembling the kinds of meals he himself always prepared when we were out wilderness camping. Which Jordan and I always ate with gusto, and Irving invariably pecked at, even though he was the chef.

This time around, all three of us had stomach-upset symptoms that were hard to ignore in the aftermath of that dinner, so I searched on line and discovered that coconut milk does strange things to many people, as it was obviously doing to us; we were bloated, gassy and made frequent trips to the bathroom. A somewhat chastened Jordan offered a few days later to make tiramisu for one of our desserts, and we thought that might be a good idea.

All the ingredients were assembled; ladies' fingers, eggs, sugar, and mascarponi, and Jordan set about putting it all together; cooking the egg yolks and sugar together in a double boiler, whipping the egg whites, mixing the mascarponi with coffee and with rum, and finally layering it all in a casserole to 'mature' in the refrigerator. I'd never made the dish before, and we found it quite excellent, albeit pretty rich in its nutrition-density. And Jordan was pleased he had a culinary success for us. It's a dish he's made before when having friends over for dinner and has always been well received.

Yesterday I gave our little Jack-and-Jill haircuts. They were obediently patient, only fidgety about the process now and again, allowing me to snip away hair from their muzzles, feet, and finally when the most sensitive parts were done, their entire delicately slight bodies. They needed to wear boots out in the ravine yesterday along with their winter coats against the icy cold and the wind, but the loss of their shaggy hair didn't seem to bother them comfort-wise.

I put together a casserole dish yesterday evening, thinly slicing potatoes to layer on the bottom of a buttered dish, sprinkled them with finely chopped green onions, and microwaved florets of cauliflower. Then I made a white sauce, using lots of pepper and dried thyme, adding Parmesan cheese to the thickening milk sauce. I grated old cheddar over the chopped green onions, sprinkled the cauliflower on top, then poured the slightly cooled sauce over everything, finally topping it all with panko sprinkled with more grated cheddar. It was baked in a little broiler-oven until bubbly and crisp on top.

Ladled onto our plates it didn't look beautiful, but it did please Irving's taste and that's mostly due to the presence of the potatoes which had been partially caramelized by the butter I'd sprinkled over the slices before the chopped onions. I'd try it again, perhaps adding canned salmon under the cauliflower to see how that medley turns out.