How to plan for a child in the house

Nope, I'm not pregnant.

Now that we've all gotten over that frightening thought, let me explain - the husband's 11 year old nephew arrived on Saturday night to stay with us for a week. He's a really great kid and this is his second time flying across the country by himself to stay with us, so he's really excited to be here. The nice thing for us is that his tastes have changed substantially in the last two years - when he first came to visit, he had to be coaxed to try new things and there was an icident where I carried a bottle of ketchup in my purse when we went to a Japanese restaurant, just in case.

This time round, the first thing he asked for is whether we could go for sushi, which we're quite happy to accommodate, though I'm a little frightened as to how much sushi he could eat because this could become a very expensive outing fast. He also liked the salty Thomas Keller Oreos that I make, which surprised me since I thought it's not sweet enough and too salty for kids. I don't know what changed his food preferences so radically, but having Mumbai Mondays and Tuscan Tuesdays at his mom's seems to have created a more adventurous palate so that we don't have to worry so much as to what to feed him. He is also fairly proficient for his age in the kitchen - he often minces garlic for his mom when she's cooking, so I put him to work and we made Rocky Road ice cream together. We have the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts around the corner from us and they have week-long culinary classes for kids 12 and up, consisting of serious stuff: a day of knife skills, the next day it's sauces and stocks, etc. We'll probably sign him up for that the next time he visits so that all of us can benefit!

It's still a matter of being organized and planning for the week, something that we used to be good at but somehow we've fallen into the spontaneous "What do you want to eat tonight?" kind of decision-making. So I'm using this beautiful Sunday afternoon to braise a couple of racks of ribs that will be finished off on the BBQ and make 2 lbs worth of pork lemongrass meatballs that I can freeze for later in the week. And of course, at least one trip to a sushi restaurant is on the itinerary...