Thursday 1 May 2008

Mummy chef

You may think there are not many advantages of triplets, what with two identicals and two who swap clothes. But there are. Because when Shark, Tiger and Squirrel announce who they are at the dinner table and follow that with the fact that they don't like peas and never did, I get to shrug my shoulders and say 'So what? Someone who looks like you liked them yesterday'.

With this laissez-faire attitude I have managed to slip spinach, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, greens and green lentils onto the table, all of which someone says they don't like and which I feel duty bound to ignore.

But sadly, on this one, my time might have come. Because to combat this carefully cultivated ignorance of likes and dislikes maintained for nigh on eight years, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have taken to a score card with which they issue me marks out of 100, each night for dinner. They even double this score up, to suggest to me that they really know what they're talking about.

First is presentation, then comes taste. For example. Today I am broke, thanks to the simple truth that I have blown all the food money down at the garden centre. We can't eat soil, although Squirrel has tried, and there's not much in the cupboards, fridge, baskets, or in the space next to the plastic bags, where I sometimes dump the tins and leave them there all week because no one ever helps unpack the shopping and I don't have time.

So I cook what's around. It is too late to soak beans. It is the same everyday. But there is some dried pasta, which gets cooked immediately. Then a tin of baked beans, cheese, lots of cabbage, one bruised onion, a tin of tomatoes, and two carrots that are dehydrated and gnarled enough to look like the two raised fingers of Satan's left hand.

Voila! I announce as supper lands on the table with a flourish.

Squirrel is delighted at the sight of a pasta and cabbage mash concoction. Only, I suspect, because she says she is starving and it has a bubbling brown cheesy top, which she likes very much, being creamy and gooey; now she gets to lick the plate so long as we don't tell anyone. Therefore she gives this visual delight, fresh from the oven, a whopping 85 marks for presentation. The impact is only slightly then marred with 65 marks for taste.

Tiger agrees on taste, but offers 100 out of 100 for presentation. I think she is a wonderful daughter, don't you? She clearly knows where dinners come from.

Shark, on the other hand, has no sense of strategy, or possibly personal welfare, and suggests the taste of my pasta cabbage mash with a cheesy top might merit 5. And only that, if she is pushed. I say to Shark, 'There is grass outside'.

On the upside, she is cooking dinner tomorrow night.

8 comments:

Brad said...

'There is grass outside'.

Snort!

'On the upside, she is cooking dinner tomorrow night.'

Oh Lordy!

Moohaa said...

So, are you going to keep score on her dinner??

Guess what we got in the mail today?????

Six sick sheep
Six sick sheep

Ok, I give up. Thanks!!!! We'll begin the work on new letters soon as well.

the mother of this lot said...

Personally, I'd have been quite pleased with a score of 5 from Shark. She's a tough marker.

Will it be fruit soup tonight do you think?

Pig in the Kitchen said...

do you know what? The triplets are beginning to frighten me. They are a bright and feisty bunch aren't they, love the score card idea. In your house, i hasten to add, not in my own. I definitely don't need my children to underline my sense of failure!

and my heart thrills at the mention of shopping dumped down and left somewhere! I've just managed to unpack mine...I've got it done in under 22 hours. That's a personal best.
Pigx

Michelle said...

Hmm. I go away and come back to find I've been demoted :-(. Probably due to lack of commenting. Will go back and leave some. xx

OvaGirl said...

Indeed there is grass! But really Grit if your score goes from 100 to 5 in one night, what are you to make of that? How does one learn?

I made dinner for the naughty nephews the other night. The oldest one hid his face when he saw there was cous cous involved (tired and emotional post soccer practise)and then ran from the room because he HATES COUS COUS.

The two younger ones sat quietly as they watched their big brother getting roused on by their mother for being so rude. Then Naughty Nephew the 2nd leaned over and said politely: actually we hate cous cous too, but we're going to force ourselves to eat it, aren't we NN3?

Smallest naughty nephew grimaced but nodded kindly at me.

Thanks boys, I said.

Food and kids. Sigh.

Moohaa said...

Grit, speak to me! Did you live through dinner??

hehehehe

Grit said...

hi brad, fortunately shark wants to be a chef (when she's not being an oceanographer or marine biologist) so she's in training... cooking underwater would be useful.

hi kelly jene! number two letter coming, we are like tortoises...

hi motl, i am advising against another fruit soup!

yes pig, i agree. they are a bit scary, especially when they gang up on me.

you are never demoted michelle, you are a blogging inspiration.

hello ovagirl, those are wise and cruel nephews... nothing like feeling valued, eh?

yes kelly jene! we did!