Advanced Child Abuse

As it has been the school holidays number 1 daughter has been home for the last two weeks. During this time I am emotionally blackmailed into cooking her favourite dishes. Some do come with the proviso of an hour of cardio which surprisingly gets done with good grace.

She is naturally very curious each evening as to what is for dinner, and being the highly skilled mother that I am, I admit nothing until the very last minute. I was being heavily nagged one evening, the question being:

"Are we having spinach pasta for dinner ?"
"No", I replied "we're having Rigatoni with bechamel sauce finished with a Florentine garnish"
"What's that ?", was her response.
"Look for yourself" I said handing her my ancient copy of Le Repertoire de la Cuisine.

4 minutes passed while she navigated the index section and sub indexes.

"It says here that bechamel is a rocks moistened with milk" she read aloud.
"No, the word is roux, as in kanga" was my response.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "I know what that is, it's a white sauce. I can't find Florentine though"
"Look in the garnish section", I directed her.

3 and a half minutes later the book gets slammed down on the bench.

"I know what Florentine is, it's the name of the eggs when you buy brunch, it's spinach!! And Rigatoni is that pasta in the bag with the numbers on it, so we ARE having spinach pasta for dinner!" she said with a definite humphy tone.

"Yes, but darling think of all that you have just learnt without having to switch the bloody computer on!" I replied with only the merest hint of heavy sarcasm.