I call home as I leave the office each weeknight, and that is Dexter’s cue to begin laying out the ramekins. When I kiss him goodbye in the morning, I hand him the recipes I’ll be cooking for dinner. Although he is only 6, by the time I get home he has minced the requisite number of shallots, blanched and peeled the tomatoes, seeded and julienned the peppers, soaked and blotted the salted capers and plucked all the tiny brown rocks out of the tiny brown lentils. Then he carefully transfers each ingredient to its own small white dish.

Thus the world learns there's actually something worse than finding your son in a bra and panties cooking up crystal meth.