My Aunt Royleen always requests a rather eclectic birthday meal. One thing we can always count on is a soup. I am pretty sure the last couple years it has been French Onion Soup, as it was this year.
At the table, for her birthday we had 2 babies, 1 toddler, 2 tweens and 10 people have met the age requirement to be adults. On the menu, as mentioned above there was French onion soup with homemade croutons (of course!) and swiss cheese, lamb patties wrapped in bacon and served with a yogurt dill sauce, white bread, butternut squash puree, white rice and corn (so the kids would eat a veggie).
The evening started with the babies playing on the floor, the visiting baby crawled over to be social and my little girl screamed in his face, making him cry also. Then after a few moments of calm,she decided to creep over to him. She then got fairly close, looked right at him and started bawling, thus causing the poor boy to cry. What a little bully she was being!
Where is Aunt Royleen? Is she going to be late for her birthday?
Well, she was supposed to be on time, but something changed at work and she said she would be a little late. I don’t know exactly how late that means…
Everyone can start on soup anyway, she can catch up when she gets here.
Come on girls, let’s get your plates ready. (Mom is in the kitchen with the tween-agers getting their plates ready to go for them. It is important to note that these girlies get their own table and special blue plates to be fancy. So I don’t often hear what their conversation is about).
Can you say pray—–
Bless-this-house-oh- Lord, we pray— Keep-us-safe-by night–and day. Amen
A little bit of a rap beat tonight for prayers? (Giggles)
This pale stuff here on the table is our failed attempt at butter… if you want to try it on your bread. It’s ok, we just don’t have the butter touch. (The attempt at butter looked a bit more like pale yellow whipped cream, but it did have a light butter flavor to it!)
Hey! When did you get here?? Happy birthday!
Just now. Thanks
Dad, can you get her some more soup? DAD! DADDY! HEY! Please get your granddaughter so more soup please! (She was sitting on my lap and the baby had me wedged in on the other side, so I couldn’t get up without shifting everyone.)
Oh,she wants more?
Yes. Thank you!
This little girl loves the soup! I wonder who taught her that?
Why wouldn’t she like soup?
Her Mom is not a soup eater–
So you don’t like any soup, at all? What about stews? Gravy?
I love stew, gravy is good. It’s not that I don’t like the taste of soup, I don’t like that it is so watery. I don’t even drink that much water in the day, let alone want to eat liquid. But it tastes good.
I had an idea for your work.
Oh yeah?
You said the seniors like picking their meals from the farmers market, what about doing some gardening with them?
You know we used to do something like that downstate and I didn’t think it would work out because I didn’t think they would be the crowd that wanted to get dirty gardening and they loved it. I’ve tried similar things up here thinking, they would be more the gardening type and there really wasn’t as much interest.
Well, that’s different. I wonder why?
(The main course makes its way to the table)
What is this?
Lamb patties wrapped in bacon with a yogurt dill sauce. The sauce was made with the homemade yogurt.
Is this the lamb your husband wanted help taking?
Yes. Everyone, this is Rob…. in case you wanted to know who you were eating.
Thanks, Rob!
Thank you, Rob.
You know… he taste’s like a Rob (sarcasm) By the way where is your husband? He hasn’t been here lately (exaggerated suspicious look), but the meat pies were delicious (and insert Sweeny Todd jokes here).
Hey, you know better than to make her mad.
Where is your husband anyway?
Running sugar beets.
Here, I’ll hold the dishes so you can scoop.
Thanks.
Baby love the lamb!
I’m the new lead caregiver for my client now.
Does that give you better hours?
I think it will be about the same.
I thought it was going to be all desserts for dinner tonight?
There is no dessert..
There has to be dessert, I will just keep waiting.
Maybe Aunt Royleen didn’t request a dessert.
There is dessert, I am sure of it.
No, it’s not a dessert.
Oh! By the way, the school party is Monday morning…
That’s nice, we won’t be here.
Shoot that’s right!
What’s going on?
Oh, their big sisters Halloween party is Monday morning and it’s really inconvenient to take the littles with me.
NO!
Oh…
No! Cats, maybe, kids no. (laughing)
I can’t believe you did your glucose test without getting sick.
She didn’t get sick? That’s not even fair.
Hey, I have come home to her eating Hersey kisses and maraschino cherries juice and all, sugar should not be a problem.
But that stuff is so gross!
It just tasted like Hi-C or something like that.
Nasty.. well good for you.
I really thought there would be multiple desserts, oh I see it, I can’t believe I didn’t notice those before.
(cleaning up of dinner dishes)
I wish I could be all covered in food like that (to the baby who was thoroughly caked in squash, rice, and lamb) do you think anyone would mind?
Cinnamon Rolls!
See, they aren’t a dessert, they are a breakfast. The frosting is partly made with homemade cream cheese too. I didn’t have enough to do all homemade cream cheese though.
Can you take a picture?
Ok, everyone! Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy Birthday Aunt Royleen! Happy Birthday to you!
I wasn’t sure how they were going to turn out. I had just gotten the dough ready when the phone rang and I hear “The cows are gone, get here now!”
WHAT!?!
Yeah. A friend stopped and told me she almost hit our calf, and that the cow and calf were out in the road!
Thankfully, big sister was there to watch the littles, who were half naked because I was in the process of getting them ready for bed. So I ran out the door. Thank GOD that cow is so food driven she heard the bucket and came running back to me. She had also called her dad who was running corn in our field, so they came over. I had them back in the barn shortly after Mom and Dad got there.
That’s scary.
It sure is.
I remember when I was growing up a car crashed into a fence and this farmer had like 200 cows, and they all got out. I remember the next day there was no school and everyone was out looking for the cows. People we walking around, they were on quads, I had grabbed my horse and was out looking….
Looking for cows in corn fields is bad…
Dad would know, he’s had some bad experiences.
Ironically, with the girls’ cow, the one who saw ours out.
Well, I am pretty tall and my horse was pretty tall, so I could kind of see over the corn.
Chasing cows through corn is just bad.
Are you feeling ok? (My sister looking at my glass)
Why? Can you pass the milk?
Because you just finished your glass of water…
(It is an interesting point to note here, that I notoriously never finish a glass of anything, especially milk, there is almost always at least an inch left in the bottom. To change drinks I will wash the glass out or just get a new one. It’s weird, but who doesn’t have a quirk?)
Wow, I guess I was thirsty, don’t’ worry I am sure I won’t finish the milk. (for those wondering I did not)
A few people start to trickle out here gradually.
PSST MOM!! What?
MOM! Come out here to the kitchen.
Ok, let me finish my sentence…
(Whispers… I made a birthday card for Aunt Royleen, you need to sign it and she can’t know. I signed the card)
Bounding out to Aunt Royleen…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I MADE THIS FOR YOU!
Awe, thank you! That’s very nice (maybe just a little teary eyed)
The Tuesday Table 