This is why I keep it simple

Yesterday (Wednesday) the Squee child came home and handed me two papers from school. They were from her latest project assignment at middle school. She had to pick a country and make up a menu from that country. That wasn't a big deal, she already had that part done. The catch was that she had to make one of the items on the menu for class on Friday to share with a class of 20 students. I was intrigued and the project seemed fair enough albeit a little strange for an English class to bring in food items, but I was game. Now, as a pharmacist with a five year degree in mixing and proportions the kitchen does not scare me. I have also logged many hours growing up in the kitchen with my mother and older sister (2 of the best cooks out there in my opinion). I like trying new recipes and I can separate eggs and fold with the best of them when the need arises. I have to admit that my latest exploits in the kitchen have been breads from an Irish cookbook and many of my dinner creations have been adaptations of italian cuisine (chicken parmetorre comes to mind) I got to the bottom of the page and my heart sank to a whole new depth of dispare. At the bottom of the assignment page, which luckily required a parents signature to set in stone, was a space to put what dish the child was going to prepare. In bold pen the words Chocolate Souffle were staring at me from the line provided. The second paper she had handed me was a recipe for chocolate souffle that insisted that it was easy to put together. Well, duh, souffle is easy to put together, it's keeping it afloat once it's baked that's the hard part. All sorts of things ran through my mind at once including how do I tell Squee, who is brimming with exitement about the project she just handed me, that we can't make chocolate souffle. So, I managed not to crush her world entirely. She was not aware of the problem of souffle becoming pancakes if it is jostled even slightly. I told her it wasn't her fault because the recipe had no mention of this one basic fact anywhere on the recipe. In fact it toted throughout the page how easy and fun it was to make. Boy, I feel sorry for all the other people that printed this off of this persons web page and didn't know about the volatility of souffle. I am tempted to check out this persons comment section on the site to see if there were any questions about why their souffle looks more like a crepe. Talking about this situation with my mother I decided that the souffle was invented first and the crepe was invented shortly after the first souffle batch fell (yes, I realize that crepes are cooked on the stovetop and souffles are baked...but it's funnier my way). So, after much stress and mind blocks, mainly because I don't do much french cooking...too much heavy cream ... we came up with chocolate mousse. Creme Broullee was out due to the lack of a blow torch in my kitchen, although I probably could have improvised with the grill starter thingy. I'm not sure it would have enough gusto to carmelize the sugar fast enough though. That and the taste would be wasted on a bunch of 6th graders. Squee is dissapointed, but I'm thinking I'm off work next weekend so maybe we'll make soufflee then. So, in conclusion my day started with getting Squee off to school, getting the trash up to the curb and a trip to the local store for mousse mix and milk. I was back by 8:30am and have not quite known what to do with myself since I got off the phone with my mother this morning. I guess I should just rest up for the next crisis Wondermom needs to tackle.