One of my daughter's friends spent the night with us last night. She is a delightful girl and a loyal friend, but her eating habits are as extreme on one end of the scale as mine are on the other. She saw something called the "Slaughterhouse Video." (If you know what it is I would love to hear a synopsis, but I have no desire to see it) The video convinced her to be a vegetarian. However she doesn't like many fruits or vegetables, so she is not a vegetarian in my understanding of the word. She eats typical teenage fare like cheese, pizza, chips, sodas and cookies. She doesn't eat hamburgers or pepperoni on her pizza. That is her definition of a vegetarian, and it seems to make perfect sense to the other teenage girls.

As my daughter and I discussed dinner plans, I found myself identifying with our approaching guest. In the past year I have been in some awkward situations at other people's homes. It's much nicer when friends are accepting about what I choose to eat, rather than making me feel like I've hurt their feelings by not eating everything they prepared. It was important to me that my daughter's friend felt welcome in our home.

We decided to have spaghetti and salad. I had romaine lettuce, spinach, and carrots in large bowls so everyone could make their own salad. I had ground turkey, ground beef, spaghetti noodles, and spaghetti sauce in separate bowls. Everyone also assembled their own plate of spaghetti. I fixed rolls that were ok for the As, but not for me. My daughter's friend and I laughed when we saw each other's plates. I had salad topped with lots of ground beef and a little spaghetti sauce. She had noodles topped with sauce only.

If you are in a mixed O and A family, and you are wondering how I made my spaghetti sauce, I may as well confess. My husband and daughter are not willing to give up tomatoes (yet). They've given up beef and started drinking soy milk. They have made lots of other changes. But they are not ready to let go of the tomatoes. I made homemade Type O spaghetti sauce - no sweeteners like the commercial brands have and lots of spices.

For breakfast this morning I made the pineapple muffins from RECIbase. My daughter's friend had never eaten a muffin. She tried it, and liked it.