I made an excellent dinner last night, if I do say so. It was duck leg stew with red wine and mushrooms, served over [Anson Mills](http://www.ansonmills.com/) grits. Not exactly summer, but neither was the weather. I put down Iris’s plate with grits and some chunks of duck, and by the time I got back to the table with her parents’ plates, the duck was gone.

“Duck leg stew is my FAVORITE dinner,” said Iris.

This morning there was one duck leg left over, so I put it in a pan, skin-side down, over low heat before Iris woke up. Duck skin has a magical ability to recrisp as many times as you need it to. If scientists invented such a surface in a lab, it would be hailed as a modern miracle. I sliced the leftover grits into rough slabs and cooked them up in butter.

When Iris woke up, I told her we were having gritcakes and crispy duck leg. “Wow,” she said, “that’s an all-crispy breakfast.”

This morning Iris and I were playing a round of Cherry Pie, in which she tosses a gallimaufry of toy ingredients into a cake pan and puts it into the toy oven. “For 90 minutes,” as she puts it. We got bored of pie, so I suggested we make pretend chocolate mousse.

“I never had chocolate mousse before,” said Iris sadly. I’m not sure this is true, but we checked, and we had all the necessary ingredients in the house, so we whipped up a batch.

People should make more chocolate mousse. Everybody likes it, and it’s not at all hard to make, although it makes a huge mess. Iris got a big dollop of mousse on the rug. Later, she pointed to the spot and said, “Dada, why did you put that chocolate on the rug? I sure didn’t do it.”

Probably people would make more mousse if you didn’t have to chill it for hours. But it’s worth it. We made ours with a Trader Joe’s 70% Pound Plus bar, and it came out deep and rich and not too sweet. The bubbles in the mousse pop on the tongue in the same invigorating way as Pop Rocks or the bubbles in Reddi-Wip.

After we finished our afternoon mousse, we repaired to Iris’s room for a Kitty and Pirate story. This one was about how the young kitties ate too much mousse and had to go to the doctor. Mama Pig (a pig is a type of kitty) brought her son to the doctor (Iris) and explained the situation. Then Iris swept Mama Pig onto the ground with extreme prejudice.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“He didn’t need her anymore because he grew up,” said Iris. “He ate so much mousse, now he’s big.”

I went to Whole Foods this morning for some important items: a carmelita, Parmigiano, and some ramps. When I got back, I made the mistake of telling Iris about the carmelita.

> **Iris:** Did you get two?

> **Me:** No, just one.

> **Iris:** Where is it?

> **Me:** In my tummy.

> **Iris:** Did you get me a treat?

> **Me:** I got some ramps. That’s a treat.

> **Iris:** I needed a special treat and ramps are a scary treat.

> **Me:** (laughing)

> **Iris:** No, really, they are.

So we went to QFC for some popsicles. When Laurie got home…

> **Iris:** Mama, we got popsicles!

> **Laurie:** What flavor?

> **Iris:** Sugar.

Over at [Married With Dinner](http://www.marriedwithdinner.com/), they have a feature called Drink of the Week. I enjoy reading it, because experimenting with mixed drinks is exactly the sort of thing I’m never going to get around to now that I have a kid.

Unless I can send that kid to bartending school. To that end, Iris and I invented a new bath game called Bartender. One of her rubber ducks is the bartender, and two others are customers at the bar.

Yesterday, Iris created a cocktail of half rum, half tea. I call it the Sober Pirate.

Today, I challenged Iris to come up with ingredients for a new cocktail, the Squawking Parrot. “Walnut salad and pork,” she replied.

“Cocktails usually consist of things people drink,” I said. This was restrictive and archaic, she indicated. Then the bartender went crazy after drinking too many Squawking Parrots and started pitching customers into the water.

Tomorrow we’re going to work on a drink called the Crow’s Nest.

**Iris:** Can I have some more sausage?

**Me:** Sure. It’ll take one minute to warm it up.

*(20 seconds later)*

**Iris:** Dada?

**Me:** Yes?

**Iris:** Could you please do me a favor and give me the sausage now?