Wednesday 9 July 2008

More evolution!

Our youngest has often been a "problem child" when it comes to food. When I met Furry he was 6, and frankly, had no interest in anything other than chicken nuggets and frozen pizza. If Furry and I were never going to be compatible in our relationship, our children's attitude to food was going to be the primary cause of any disaster.

We have always, from the very beginning, always talked about OUR kids. We went into therapy very early on, knowing we basically had one chance at "blending" our families. It's not the sort of thing that if you bugger it up, you can turn around and say "oops.. sorry about that, we'll try again next week"

So it's always been OUR kids, never YOURS or MINE.. except in the food department. My kids grew up with Kalamata olives as a treat for being good, with a food obsessive as a mother, with rarely a meal cooked from anything but fresh ingredients (which was more about me being a single mum at full time Uni, rather than any SOLE notions, BTW!). My kids were restaurant-savvy by 5.

Furry's kids had table manners that left MUCH to be desired, thought chicken came in little squares from a Black and Gold box, and refused to believe that Cos was lettuce "cos it doesn't look like it". Without a word of a lie, the first time I served a whole roast chicken, the food was first sniffed and then rejected, as it "didn't look like chicken".

Jump forward 6 years, and we'll bypass the tears and the tantrums and the threats (mostly thrown by me), to last weekend. When OUR youngest declared that he wanted Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls for lunch.

AND WANTED TO COOK THEM.

Firstly, we got out the rice paper, and prepared it to soak.


Then we steamed and sliced the chicken. Daddy did all the vegetable prep on the mandolin. As chuffed as I was that Master 12.5 wanted to cook, the thought of sending him home to his mother sans a couple of fingers, was more than I could bear.


Little 12.5 y/o fingers get ready to rock and rice paper roll!!



Furry father fingers give a hand

And voila! the finished product. Served with either sweet chilli dipping sauce or a light soy, rice vinegar and lime juice dipping sauce.

While Maccas and hot chips still feature heavily for Master 12.5 as his preferred fave food, I can now proudly say he has been to Yum Cha with me, has cooked pizza from scratch with me, asked for a chicken Makhani curry from me, has rejected Kraft Singles in favour of marinated Fetta, likes to order roti Channai at Nudel Bar and now has mastered his own "sig dish"

He still gets grossed out when I eat chicken's feet, but does like to tell his mates that he's REALLY seen his Evil Step-Mum eat them ("It's like, totally gross, dude. She hold's 'em in her chopsticks and waves them at me, shouting "It's the CRAW!!")

The tunnel has been VERY long, and VERY dark, but there definitely light ahead.

Oh, and as a side note, when his 16y/o sister said she didn't want any, I have to admit I felt quite vindicated when Master 12.5 looked crestfallen and said quietly "... but I made them myself......"

9 comments:

stickyfingers said...

Nice work Mum. You ROCK!

Brandi Reynolds said...

I love your story telling skills. I can just see it...

neil said...

Isn't it so great when you put in all that work for so long and then one day you gat the payoff; good and wise effort.

purple goddess said...

It IS great, Neil.. Indeed. If you'd seen this kid 6.5 years ago (He couldn't use a knife and fork, FFS!!), you'd know what a hard road Furry and I have toed.

Now.. If only I can get him to chew with his mouth closed, I'll have REALLY accomplished something!

Anonymous said...

He truely has come a very long way. When we are forced to go Supermarket shopping it goes along these lines .....

Els - "HEY DAD, WHERE'S ARGETINA?" as he's reading the food label of a product.

Furry - "El's don't yell, it's down the bottom of Sth America"

Els - "Stuff that, that's miles away!" & puts the product back & looks for something closer to home, then with less salt, then less fat, then which one is cheaper, then .....

then it's repeated again & again with every item on the list

Don't even start me on Anchovies, there isn't any produced in Australia & his answer is "they taste like crap & there's none made here, so you don't need 'em anyway".

And he has a finacial opinion on why we should buy locally

And then there was the Californian Orange & shit chicken fillet disaster where he couldn't dob in on to PG quick enough!

As for mouth closed, not gonna happen 'til his nose gets done.

So he might sound like the "lovely, gentle, soft, caring, environmentally aware little urban hippie", BUT ...... don't let him catch you on the footy field with the ball, he tackles fair, but hard.

Furry

Vida said...

Don't know if I love the post or the comments more... all I know is that you two are doing a great job of bring more foodies into the world!!! You really should breed!!! V x

purple goddess said...

Good LAWD, Vida!!

Breed??

I think not, baby puppie!

5 kids is MORE than enough.

We did think about having a child together... for about 30 seconds, until eldest child hit us up for $50, 2nd eldest needed a ride from GW to Craigieburn at 2am, 3rd and 4th eldest were arguing over who ate the last of the chocolate cookies and the youngest fell of the roof and concussed himself.

Having a 6th??

That kid would either grow up to be robust enough to be President of the Universe, or in therapy by age 2!!!

Anonymous said...

A great way to get them around them around to your way of thinking PG. I loves these rolls by the way

Vida said...

Gost PG, when you put it like that I want to give MINE back too!!!! Yes I just got hit for more money and I only gave it out yesterday as well... darn those kids, I could be rich if not for them!!! Now I am just rich with love... awwww... V x