13th Day of Empty Nesting...Dinner

Dinner time is time to let out a big sigh.  It's time to reflect and reconnoiter and regroup.  And when you have kidlets at home, it's time to try to make them allll happy, and good luck with that.  The more you have, the iffier the pleasability factor gets.  As long as you have more than one person to feed, I guaran-dang-tee somebody is going to complain about something.

I can probably count on one finger the number of recipes that were universally liked around here, and even that turned out to be an overly optimistic illusion delusion which I did not discover until the last kidlet was in college.  That one recipe, like most of my recipes, was sized to feed an Army, so I had quit making it after everyone left home, and I looked forward to resurrecting it on one of Kidlet #4's infrequent visits home. 

Sure enough, his first day home, when I got the ever-dreaded question..."What's for dinner?" I was excited to reply, "Noodles Mexicano," only to hear, "That stuff makes me sick."   AAAaagggghhhhh....  So x another one off the list.   Way to burst my bubble. 

Now the Empty-Nested Dinner, that's different.  First off, if we don't feel like dinner ... well, we don't.  Maybe a bowl of popcorn or an apple, especially if we ate lunch at the all-you-can-eat buffet (not that I can eat all I can eat anymore).  Some days, instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we could have brunch and lunner.  I can try new recipes without opposition.  I'm not saying the Man likes everything, but after 38 years I have him trained, and he knows he doesn't have to like it; he just has to eat it.

The ultimate freedom/luxury has to be ... we might decide to have banana splits for dinner one night.  We don't like banana splits, but the point is ...we could do it if we wanted to.