Cooking With Camille

Last week was Nathan's birthday. He was in Los Angeles. We were in Texas and my mom was barely out of the hospital. I called Nathan early to wish him happy birthday and promised we would do something special when we got to Little Rock.

Early this week, Camille and I began to make plans for a special birthday dinner for her daddy. She said she wanted the cake to have orange and blue on it. Interesting, to say the least. I could figure out the orange since Nathan's favorite team is Tennessee.

This morning Camille and I went to the grocery store to buy what we needed for this special birthday dinner. I had taken inventory at Nathan's house of not only groceries but necessary utensils as well. As I reached for a cake pan, Camille said lets make cupmakes. Since I had to buy a pan anyway, it didn't make any difference to me what me made. We put a muffin tin in the basket and went on to other things. By the time we got to the checkout, we had a full basket of goodies, including just a few special treats for Camille. What are Grammies for? Right?

After arriving home, we immediately began to work on the cupcakes. Camille helped every step of the way From putting the cupcake liners in to mixing the ingredients to filling the pan to licking the bowl and the beaters. After the cupcakes had cooked and cooled, we made icing, half of it was blue and half of it was orange. We frosted the cupcakes and then Camille worked for a long time getting the sprinkles on each cupcake. She then got 26 candles in 23 cupcakes.

We then started on supper. Camille helped with the potatoes and helped batter the meat. Grammy would not let her place the meat in the hot grease. We had a wonderful supper of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits and green beans and finished it off with orange and blue cupcakes and bluebell icecream.

Since there was not a red plate here, Camille and I decided for Nathan to have a different colored plate from the rest of us, indicating it was his special day.

Camille spent this entire day thinking of ways to make this day special for her daddy. Nathan came in and oohed and aahed over the cupcakes and all the ways Camille had worked to make this day special. Camille was pleased. And no matter what else happened today, being with Camille and then Nathan tonight, made this day special.

Three more days of this fun. Lucky us. Tomorrow Marc and Nathan are playing golf and we girls have some girl stuff planned.

Terri