Celebrating Kat..."You're Not A Kid Anymore"

Is there any anyone besides me that remembers "Bobby's Girl"? Somehow I can't get the title words out of my head when I think of my daughter. She's my child but she's a young woman. It's a time of mixed feelings for a parent. I long for the little girl sometimes, but I am so excited to watch the adult she is becoming. 

To celebrate Kat's thirty-first birthday, we took her and her dear friend, Katy Boyle out to dinner at the hot new restaurant in Minneapolis, Haute Dish (get it? kind of like....Hot Dish, very famous in Minnesota Cuisine ;-). Generally found at church pot lucks and school cafeterias. 

First of all, we had drinks and chatted and had a great time. There were hugs all around. 

Kat even let The Queen Mum wear her crown (a gift from Katy Boyle). 

These were 'hot dishes" with a difference...elevated to fine dining. This was Katy Boyle's dish, Macaroni and Cheese. The pasta was homemade and contained king crab, tallegio cheese and truffles!

Do any among you remember Tater Tot Casserole? This is Kat "deconstructed" casserole. Out waiter, AJ, a young man from our neighborhood, AJ, explained to us that this means you take the ingredients of the original casserole separately and cook them with different preparations. The beef (usually hamburger) was a nice piece of braised short ribs. The potatoes were Potato Croquettes. The mushrooms were no longer the little ones in Campbell's Mushroom soup, but fresh sauteed mushrooms and the sauce was a porcini bechamel (in other words, a white sauce with fancy mushrooms). The beans were baby green beans. Fabulous!

And me, I live for dessert. This one was just plain yummy. I told everyone to order their own and don't eat mine because I wanted it all and then nice AJ brought extra forks. :-(  What could I say? He happened to be one of the nicest young men in our neighborhood! This was just plain yummy. It had a chocolate creme caramel on the bottom, homemade cocoa ice cream with little cocoa nib on top and homemade caramel sauce surrounding it all. What can I say? This is a dessert well worth breaking the South Beach Diet!

It was such a nice evening and I am so glad to see that the people who own the place (South Dakotan's, people from the Reaney's "birth state") have given the "hot dish a better name. So pay attention to that, Garrison Keillor!

Kat has grown into such a wonderful young woman. She is such a great person to hang with, a kind friend and someone who is there for us and her friends. . I am so proud to call her my daughter. Next May, she will complete her Clinical Masters Degree in Social Work, which was a three-year process, with two year-long internships. She wants to go back to San Miguel, Mexico next summer to network and improve her Spanish. She hopes that she can eventually get a job at a local orphanage, training people in the local community to do art and multi-sensory work, two treatments which have been found useful for children who are removed from their homes. So, her present was money for the San Miguel fund...and tickets for Kat and her friend, Katy, to see "Wicked."

I am finally getting used to the idea that she is a young woman now.  I love her dearly and admire what she it doing with her life. In my heart of hearts, I must admit that my daughter, Kat, is still a great big GOOFBALL! I wouldn't want it any other way.