Okay, I couldn't resist but read some more.
Today I played with lowing my carbohydrates consumed, it stabalized my blood sugar pretty much straight away.. It is a weird feeling when the numbers run nicely around a good level.. 5.5 / 6.0 roughly because of my sugars being so high for months / years.
Yesterday I ate a steak for lunch, again toying with low carb.. I did have some carbs with the meal which if I do it again I won't add to the meat.
Besides that I can't cook very well so I can't really offer full on help, especially as I am new to this myself.
Quite simply, you know what are carbs, don't feed her to much of it in one go because of how it messes things up..
She needs to test, test test her sugars, I have tested maybe 20 times today.. that is excessive perhaps but I had enough strips and I was being creative with my food.
I would recommend maybe reading a thread that I created here when I joined, it has a lot of valuable type-1 related information:
*waves* Newly diagnosed 
In regards to protocol, it varies with each person obviously, if you try to tell her what she can and can't eat and she disagrees then you are going to have a situation on your hands that sucks for both parties involved..
Even if you believe you are right, so will she, it's just how things are. I also noticed that I would ignore some things people told me, until I heared it coming from fellow diabetics here.
I have heard people talk about being in denial with diabetes, I don't know how you can deal with these situations because of my own lack of experience.
Also I would say surprising her with a meal could probably be awkward if it doesn't fit in with what she had planned. If she is thinking low-carb and you give her pasta, she might not disagree directly and it is YOUR job to detect it and remove all of your preconceptions regading the right way to eat.
That exhausts anything I can really add. Best of luck
