Masterchef chez Grit

We have been cooking. Dig shakes his head and whispers 'Why Grit, Why?'

I say it is hope. Despair I can manage, just. If I concentrate on the hope, then one day in the future I will arrive home from my pensioner's trip to the library, and because of today's cooking, happening now, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger will have cooked me dinner. And it will taste delicious. This is what I tell Dig, and he looks glum and sighs, and says that he will secure an escape route dinner for us after the children have gone to bed, even though it will be ten o'clock at night and I am probably put off food for life.

Handing the family supper menu over to three 8-year olds is not just Masterchef-inspired, although that is part of it. This cooking thing has been going on a long time chez Grit. And one day, I will be proud of it. If I keep going for long enough. When the children were aged just two years they had a hand in making their birthday cakes, three round ones, with Smarties on top. They helped beat, pour, mix, scrape and splatter. Then Shark put the bowl direct onto her head and spun it round, all the better to lick the sides. At that time we laughed and took photos. Last year I said if she did that again I will ground her for a week.

But since that time, my miniature chefs have gone from strength to strength. They have made bread, cakes, biscuits, more cakes, jammy tarts, cakes again, flans, meringues, cakes, sweeties, did I say cakes? trifles, ices, cakes, biscuits and cakes. But now, ten inches more round the waistline, I say 'No more cakes!' I have thrown down the gauntlet. I say from now on I cook cakes! And you lot cook three-course meals which do not include cake.

In December we did this. Tiger excelled herself and went to the top of the Masterchef ladder with a Gary Rhodes menu which included leeks in pastry and pears steeped in honey. Shark got down the Roald Dahl cook book and made witch green soup, worms in soil, and wallpaper pudding. Squirrel excluded herself with a menu plan of butterfly cake, followed by fairy fudge and peppermint cream. Grit's rescue dinner was pasta in tomato sauce.

Well today supper is in their hands. Again. And worse, thanks to Emily, they have turned their backs on the cookery book shelves and decided to go it alone. Here is today's menu:

Fruit soup
Rice pies
Mud fruit biscuits

To get this done on the same day, Grit organises and plans. First, accompany each miniature chef to the shops to buy ingredients. Second, feed everyone a nutritious lunch because goodness knows what we'll get later. Finally, Grit crosses her fingers, bites her lip and makes some silent resolutions. I am not to shout at any time. I am to be kitchen assistant and put things in the oven and do as I am told. I am not to direct, comment or criticise, even though I see Squirrel hammering her biscuit dough with her fists like she's training it to go sixteen rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson.

First, Shark, with her fruit soup. Dig says it looks very nice and he's not fond of fruit in soup. But this is a simple dish. It consists of stewed apple, pureed melon and grapes. You dollop the melon in a bowl, drop in the stewed apple and bomb the bowl with grapes. Simplicity itself. This may come in handy when I am an OAP because for this I need no teeth:



Second, Tiger with her Rice pies. Dig has to go shopping with Tiger for her filo pastry because I have disgraced myself in Tesco with Shark, buying her melon. There are self-service checkouts and they never go right for me. I wave for help, press the screen which reads 'I need assistance' and wave again, helplessly. Then I call, and call. Louder. Until shouting seems the only option left.

Anyway, here is Tiger's:


Yes, that's right. It's rice. Specifically, it's boiled rice. And no flavouring. Nope, not a bit. Nothing else, either, except a filo basket. Dig suggests that maybe the taste would be improved next time, if there was something else on the plate apart from rice and a basket of filo pastry. Everyone agrees, even Tiger.

Relieved, we're next served Squirrel's Mud fruit biscuits. Momentarily, Dig looks excited. I think you wouldn't have that look of anticipation on your face if you'd seen how they've been made. These little beauties took four hours to make. Four hours! Three hours were spent hammering the biscuit dough until it pleaded for mercy. But Squirrel has vision: the clever thing about these is that two biscuits are cemented together with an unlikely mortar: stewed raisin and more apple.


Squirrel, Shark and Tiger are delighted with their efforts, and try hard to offer positive critical praise to each other and not squeal 'Ugh! Pewk!' Dig peers quizzically at the Mud biscuit for a while, as if he's bitten into an iron bar, and I declare the entire meal delicious. I hand round some bread and butter and say with a determined smile that everyone goes on to the next round, next month, when we once again give over the entire family supper to the new chefs on the block.

And Dig nods his head sorrowfully, and murmurs that a late night supper for two is hiding in the office fridge, next door.