On the table this week
Food, play-food and plastic food
Isn’t this illustration fantastic? It is by Zoe Ellison - she did a series of drawings, cooking 52 new recipes in 52 weeks and drawing each of them. This one is the salmon & broccoli with chilli & ginger from The Roasting Tin - look at the little Roasting Tin books on the shelf behind! I love it. A perfect way to kick off a (rare!) food post.
Confession: I would quite like to mug off cooking for a week and park myself in the garden, digging out new borders and pretending it’s warm enough to eat outside. (It is not, even with a very thick blanket - I did try.) If you are similarly delusional, the dish you want to take out - ideally after batch cooking it the night before - is this, which I made for guests last week:
This is such a favourite from my Guardian Feast column - at one point I was making it every week - just store-cupboard ingredients, and ready in thirty minutes. You just melt generously sliced onions for 20 minutes on a low heat, whack it up for a couple of minutes at the end to get some colour on, then heat through a few generous spoons of good rose harissa (Belazu is my favourite), jarred chickpeas, crème fraiche or cream and lemon juice, cover it in cheese and breadcrumbs and flash it under the grill for two minutes. It’s basically no effort and so ridiculously tasty - and you can use whatever cheese you have in the fridge (cheddar, goats cheese and feta work perfectly well). I scaled it up for four adults this week using one large Navarrico jar and one medium Bold Bean jar of chickpeas, two tubs of crème fraiche and everything left in the harissa jar. If you’re eating it outside, it goes very well with a cup of breakfast tea.
Toast variations
Sometimes, Alba can be very sweet. ‘Mummy,’ she said this week, ‘you’re a good cooker!’
I was touched. Particularly since she refuses at least half her food. Eggs in a basket with little heart shapes cut out? Nope. Toast with peanut butter? Nope. Butter by itself? Yes.
‘A good cook, darling, but thank you. I like cooking for you. Would you like pasta for dinner, or cheese on toast?’ (According to the Instagram accounts from which I take 95% of my parenting advice, toddlers like binary options. It makes them feel in control. The advice doesn’t seem to factor in children who refuse all options or invent six more.)
‘Cheese on toast! I love cheese on toast.’
I make it the way she likes it, turning on the grill and very lightly toasting a medium-cut piece of sourdough while I mix grated mature cheddar, an egg-yolk and a heaped teaspoon of crème fraiche. (If it were for me, I’d add Dijon mustard and freshly ground black pepper, maybe a dash of Henderson’s relish, but I haven’t the energy to duck if she throws it at me in horror.) The cheddar mix goes on the toast, spread to the edges because our grill is fierce, and I slide it in on our smallest baking tray, a pleasingly weighty one (possibly from Habitat?) The cheese bubbles and starts to catch, and by the time the end credits come up on Bluey, it’s ready, with a side of sliced apple and raspberries to balance out the beige.
‘Would you like to turn off the television yourself?’ (This is my mum’s trick. 6/10 times it’s a success. The rest of the time the whole street can hear her screeches.)
It works. Alba gets to the table, and looks down at her plate. There’s a pause, and then her face screws up.
‘I DON’T WANT CHEESE ON TOAST! I WANT - I WANT - PASTA!'
‘But, Alba…!’
‘CHEESE ON TOAST IS NOT MY FAVOURITE!’
Some days, I can exercise lobotomised levels of patience, do the whole gentle parenting thing and calm her down, but after several nights of this and the screaming that ensues because she is really hungry but won’t eat anything, I have lost the will. I wipe Mia’s face, and put her on the floor to play safely. I leave the dining table, put together a bowl of hot rice with a pat of cold butter and a splash of good soy sauce - if there was ever a time to try the titular dish from Butter, it’s now - and slide down the side of the oven behind the island. I sit on the floor, forking the rice into my face, wondering how I will get through the next two hours before Tim gets home.
And then - there are chirps from the other side of the island unit. The girls are playing together, the WW3 level tantrum which started three minutes ago completely forgotten. Eventually, there are footsteps. Alba walks around the side of the unit, with Mia crawling just behind, giving the impression of a well-behaved puppy walking at heel.
Alba’s face has nothing but kind, innocent curiosity.
‘Mummy. Why are you sitting on the floor?’
Because, I think, but do not say, you have EXHAUSTED me, and I need five minutes before I can parent again. I take a deep breath.
‘I’m a bit tired, sweetheart.’
‘Are you feeling sad, Mummy?’
‘Er, yes, a bit. I’ll be ok in a minute.’ I haven’t energy for the ‘explain it’s ok to be sad’ spiel.
Alba marches towards her play area with intent.
‘Don’t worry Mummy,’ she says. ‘I’ll find something to help you calm down.’
She rummages in a box, and walks back, solemnly holding a cloth napkin. She balances it on my knee.
‘Here you go Mummy. This will help you feel better.’
Astonishingly, it does.
Supermarket ravioli
A few weeks ago, I agreed to test and review ten boxes of supermarket tortellini for the Guardian. Alba had helped me unpack them to much excitement, and we sat down to eat after I’d tested the first set. (All dressed with unsalted butter, a few pieces from each packet in mentally-numbered piles on large plates.)
The bowls I put in front of us were pick & mix from the leftovers. Mia reached her hand - (I really want to say ‘plump hand’ but perhaps it’s too many adjectives? She has the squashiest little rolls of fat on her wrists though) - anyway she reached her perfect little hand into the bowl, and fished a piece out. ‘Lovely darling’, I said. ‘Now it goes in your mouth!’.
There was a distinct glint in her eye. She moved the tortellini not towards her own mouth, but to mine. ‘Oh, you’re feeding me! How sweet!’ I indulged her, and opened my mouth. She shoved the tortellini in, and made a crow of delight, reaching with astonishing speed into the bowl for another piece. This too was pushed to my mouth. I was still chewing the first piece. ‘Oh - mmm - ok Mia’, I said, opening my mouth again, trying to chew faster. Alba, sitting next to us, started to giggle.
I decided to ham it up for the crowd, ‘Alba!’ I tried to mumble ‘help!’ Mia proceeded to shove another five tortellini into my mouth, ‘Mia!’ I said, with difficulty. ‘Stop!’. By now, Alba was falling off her chair with laughter. Mia, looking extremely pleased with herself, reached back into the bowl.
I looked at the clock, wondering if reinforcements (my husband) would arrive at anytime soon. He did not.
Eat the rainbow
One of Alba’s newest games is to inverse our roles - she’s the mum, and I’m the toddler. Mia is still the baby, albeit hers. The game goes like this:
‘Mummy, you be the kid, and I’ll be the mum. Ok?’
‘Ok!’
I get into role. ‘MUMMY!’ I squawk, ‘I’m HUNGRY!’
‘Ok’, she says, ‘I’ll get you a snack.’ She busies herself at her toy kitchen, returning with four coloured wooden blocks.
‘Here you go!’
I squint at them. ‘I don’t like green food.’ 'A model parent, she stays calm. ‘Ok’, she says. I break character, and stage hiss: ‘You’re supposed to say it’s good to eat the rainbow!’ That’s what mums say! “Oh, ok!’ she whispers, and then rephrases.
‘You have to try the green thing, because-it’s-in-the-rainbow and it’ll make you happy - remember?’ (She pronounces ‘remember’ as ‘remembra’, and ‘ok’ as ‘o-tay’, but neither Tim nor I can bear to correct her pronunciation. Maybe we’ll leave it till she’s four. Or 18.)
I take a cautious mock-nibble. ‘Oh!’ I say, dramatically. ‘It’s nice! Tastes like - broccoli!’. I finish the other blocks. ‘They’re all lovely, Mum, I say. ‘Thank you for looking after me!’
She beams. ‘You’re welcome!’
Alba, listening to me read this aloud, tells me I should finish by saying that it’s now my turn to be the mummy, and hers to be the child. More importantly, she’s offering to share a portion of her chips (‘they’re yellow!’) so I will wish you a lovely rest of weekend and enjoy them with her - thank you for reading!
Your column is rapidly becoming one of the highlights of my week!x
Ahhhhh I remember this. I ended up switching my kids’ meals so they had something substantial at lunch and a sandwich for tea because otherwise the floor was just awash with uneaten pasta, broccoli and misery. I don’t think many kids under the age of about six actually want to eat after 4pm.
Your kitchen is jaw droppingly beautiful