Once upon a time, very long ago, when William and Thomas' much older brother and sister were children, I used to play cooking games with them. Which is to say I would make faces out of pancakes and use a slice of kiwifruit for the nose, strawberries for the eyes and a segment of banana - sliced from its middle, lengthways - for its mouth. Right way up for happy, wrong way up for sad. I always made it happy.
Hair was maple syrup poured above the strawberry eyes and sitting in the syrup was its hat: a scoop of icecream, sometimes with coloured sprinkles and a wafer if it was spring racing carnival time.
Another trick was dinner with a coloured theme. They'd choose a colour and we'd build a meal out of the colour. Before you laugh, remember last time you ordered shiraz with steak.
One night the chosen colour was white. (OK purists, white is not a colour. Let's call it a tone. Is it a tone? I don't know. Maybe white is just an optical illusion.)
Never mind. Here's what we cooked:
A mountain of mashed potato sat in one corner of the plate. Next to it was one perfectly soft-boiled egg, and three florets of cauliflower wearing a fine coat of white sauce. A salad of peeled radish and apple with mayonnaise (delicious combination, by the way) completed the dish and there were slices of white bread, crusts cut away, on the side. Drink? Milk. Dessert: sweet white custard made from corn flour. Much better than that yellow-coloured stuff out of a packet.
Another time we did yellow and that was easiest of all: juicy, fresh corn on the cob doused in melting yellow butter.
There's a point to all this nonsense. This post is for Neil, and also for one of Tracy's nephews. I'm not sure if the latter is a single-colour food eater but were he to visit our place, he might get it anyway! We're doing green tonight. I've got more pesto than I know what to do with.
Hair was maple syrup poured above the strawberry eyes and sitting in the syrup was its hat: a scoop of icecream, sometimes with coloured sprinkles and a wafer if it was spring racing carnival time.
Another trick was dinner with a coloured theme. They'd choose a colour and we'd build a meal out of the colour. Before you laugh, remember last time you ordered shiraz with steak.
One night the chosen colour was white. (OK purists, white is not a colour. Let's call it a tone. Is it a tone? I don't know. Maybe white is just an optical illusion.)
Never mind. Here's what we cooked:
A mountain of mashed potato sat in one corner of the plate. Next to it was one perfectly soft-boiled egg, and three florets of cauliflower wearing a fine coat of white sauce. A salad of peeled radish and apple with mayonnaise (delicious combination, by the way) completed the dish and there were slices of white bread, crusts cut away, on the side. Drink? Milk. Dessert: sweet white custard made from corn flour. Much better than that yellow-coloured stuff out of a packet.
Another time we did yellow and that was easiest of all: juicy, fresh corn on the cob doused in melting yellow butter.
There's a point to all this nonsense. This post is for Neil, and also for one of Tracy's nephews. I'm not sure if the latter is a single-colour food eater but were he to visit our place, he might get it anyway! We're doing green tonight. I've got more pesto than I know what to do with.
I was going to ask if you might write something, then when reading this post, thought this would be perfect. What a surprise at the end, thanks mate, you've made my day.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like so much fun! I was trying to envision a black meal but I think the menu would be limited. I have no problem with beluga lentils or olives but I draw the line at squid ink, caviar and licorice.
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