THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL: Photo Documentary of The Inaugural Meal

Here's Dak mere moments after telling her we were skipping class in order to cook dinner for Dad. You can see how upset she is:

Here's a long shot of her pouting, and part of the initial kitchen set up. Note recipe on the computer. (And reading for grad school nearby. Because, you know, I might be able to get those 162 pages read while standing in the kitchen.)

Setting the table. My theory: if it looks good, nobody will care what it tastes like. (Added bonus here is the shot of Jim's and my filing system for our doctoral work in the background on the dining room buffet. Enjoy.)

Then I laid out the ingredients. This seemed like an important step to me at the time, though now it seems totally ridiculous. At this point I'd managed to thoroughly read the recipe about 3-4 times, and limited myself to only one call to KC to ask about greasing the pan. Try not to be overwhelmed with the numerous ingredients about to go into this meal.

Here's the chicken resting on a bed of uncooked rice, moments before adding the cream of chicken soup.

And here's the chicken and rice just moments before going in the oven, the chicken now covered in cream of chicken soup and topped with a packet of onion soup. Are you blown away by the difficulty of this recipe, yet?

Preparation of the I Forgot the Name Fruit Sauce, which is just a mixture of sour cream and brown sugar. Mix to taste. (Now I'm even sounding like I know what I'm doing.)

Strawberry Dessert Cup with I Forgot the Name Fruit Sauce. See theory above.

Steaming the broccoli. This was much harder than anticipated. I told myself once, "I think it needs longer," but then took it off then anyway since Kari told me to. This proved to be expert advice, because by no small miracle, the broccoli was perfectly done.