Over the past few - I dunno, but it feels like lifetimes - Beri and I have been working on a particular aspect of his socialization. The idea is that, when he asks me what's for supper, and I tell him, he doesn't melt down. Screaming 'No no no no' is inappropriate - a simple 'Oh' will suffice. For Pete's sake, it's not as if I'm suggesting he eat sheep's brain with an entrail coulis, followed by honey-glazed earthworms and pig's trotter brandade. Though I have been SORELY tempted . . .
We had been coming along reallly well - ooh look, three 'l's - until two days ago. 'What's for supper', he said, 'Chicken Bits' I said. 'No no no no' he shrieked.
Chicken Bits, I hear you say? That's the one where you chop chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks, dredge them in seasoned cornflour, brown them in a little oil, turn the heat down, put the lid on the pan and they are done in ten minutes? Good with rice, and some sort of sauce made with a stock cube, honey, soy sauce and orange juice? What on earth is offensive about that?
And then I realised. Older Brother Syndrome. (In Sid, it manifests itself as a tendency to sprinkle her conversation with the word 'fart'.) When Kit was little, and we were teaching him how to bathe himself, the expression we settled on for a *ahem* certain area of his anatomy, was 'twiddly bits'. After a while, he dropped the 'twiddly'. (He is currently using 'me tenders'.) Beri, however, still refers to 'my bits'.
So when I told him what was for supper . . .
Prof Pickford
7 years ago
3 comments:
Boys have 'dingley-danglies'.
Girls have 'bits' (because then they rhyme later in life).
Everybody knows that!
As for what is and is not edible, I believe that's a personal preference issue, and I shall hastily retire the field.
Over the past few - I dunno, but it feels like lifetimes - Greg and I have been working on a particular aspect of his socialization. The idea is that, when I ask him what's for supper, and he tells me, I don't melt down. Screaming 'No no no no' is inappropriate - a simple 'Oh' will suffice.
hee hee hee hee hee!
Greg cooked spanish omelette tonight.
'YES, ADAM, IT DOES HAVE ONIONS IN IT.
BECAUSE IF IT DIDN'T HAVE ONIONS IN IT, IT WOULDN'T BE SPANISH OMELETTE.
IT WOULD BE KENTISH OMELETTE, OR HEBRIDEAN OMELETTE PERHAPS.
NOT SPANISH OMELETTE.
Capiche?'
Dearest S, you are not alone in the food struggle. They will all be eating at the 2025 equivalent of the Mongolian Barbeque, poor loves, whatever we do or don't do.
Oh, and can I send my lot round for sausages and mash this Thursday after swimming?
E x
Eventually you will win this battle- you got the hang of it.
I remember being VERY IMPRESSED by your onions-in-the-rice-strategy.
For everybody else, because this was REALLY IMPRESSING (and for the unlikely case that I will be a mother some day, I just hope, I'll be that genious as well):
Apparently the kids don't like onions in their rice. Sylvia does.
For me there were three possibilities:
a) leave the onions out and dislike the rice.
b) cut the onions very small, so that the kids hopefully won't notice. Risking bad atmosphere at the table, because they MIGHT notice.
c) cut the onions very big, so that the kids can pick them out, but there is still some flavour in the rice.
Sylvia's plan:
cut the onions in the way they have to be and ADDITIONALLY put some big onion chunks in the rice.
=> the kids will have something to pick out and everybody else will have perfectly flavoured rice...
That was a brilliant strategy.
How did it work out?
Wondered about that since I left.
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