Food is right up there in the minds of most foster children.
Funny, I must mention this to Blue Sky; to my knowledge we've not yet had a training session on cooking for looked-after kids.
When a young body's growing it gets hungry and in many chaotic homes mealtimes are…let's say unpredictable.
In our house we're the opposite; weekday breakfast is 7.30am, tea's at 5.30pm. Weekends are more relaxed but I keep on top of everyone's food needs. I'm always asking "Sandwich?".
A full tummy, or the prospect of one, is incredibly comforting for kids in care.
One of ours at the moment is going through a challenging phase; questioning this, poo-pooing that. It's ok, not abusive, in fact it's done with a twinkle in the eye; there's a lot of affection in it.
When I dish up he looks down at his plate and says;
"What's this? We had it night before last!"
He will be referring to his plate of fishfingers and fries with baked beans and a side of lettuce, cucumber and tomato.
And referring back to four nights prior when it had been oven baked fish in breadcrumbs, boiled spuds and green beans.
So here's what happened tonight…I love it.
A week before he'd found a recipe book in the kitchen, a book I'd been given as a Christmas present (aren't they all?) last year. A Nigel Slater full offancy dan small portion vegetarian dishes, often using types of pasta I've never heard of.
Our kid flipped it open and started going;
"Wow! Look at this!" and "This looks fantastic!"
I festered for about a week.
Then I wen to Waitrose and bought Romano peppers, puy lentils, Gorganzola, basil, parsley, a red chilli..blah blah.
Oh, by the way as you read this, I know you're ahead of me and you know exactly where this is going..
Two hours I slaved.
Well, not slaved. More like shaved;shaved garlic and ginger. I diced and skinned, I whizzed and blended, I roasted and marintated.
About 5.00pm (30 minutes to teatime) I texted him; "Tea at 5.30pm. A Nigel Slater recipe. I've made a red pepper and green lentil melange with feta cheese, marinated red onion and a home made pesto of fresh basil, parsley, walnuts and olive oil"
Then I added (as you would have done);
"Or you can have a Cornish pasty."
Cornered, he came back:
"I'll take it"
He came downstairs and looked at the plate. It did not look as irresistible as the platefuls do in recipe books.
He had the pick though; melange or pasty.
I knew what he was thinking. It was nice he didn't want to hurt my feelings.
I said:
'It's not your sort of thing after a hard day is it?"
We had a fantastic 10 minute exchange. He was hungry and wanted his usual tea-food, but for maybe the first time, was cautious about hurting me:
"The thing is kinda alright. But why'dya put peas in it?"
I aplogised.
Short stort long; he let me order him a Dominos pizza. There were no hard feelings.
In fact it was a great thing, he saw I'd tried and was okay that food-wise he'd over-reached.
In fostering you're growing all the time.
Fostering is more nutritious than mere food.
I feel this! Tonight my younger girl, tucking into a plate of popcorn chicken, peas and chips, said "remember when i first came to live with you and you used to eat all healthy and cook all the meals properly".
ReplyDelete"Yep, I used to love cooking food real food, but you didn't like it so here we are" I replied lightly, waving a chip at her.
"Hmm.. well I used to eat it, but I really just wanted normal food" she replied with equal good humour devouring what must be her 87th bite sized ball of chicken.
Normal - beige, covered in breadcrumbs and straight from the freezer, the food she grew up on (when there was food). Still, she will occasionally indulge me by helping pick out something to try from a cookbook. As long as there isn't celery or mushroom in it. Got to draw the line somewhere.
Heh, mushrooms are the new tomato alright.
ReplyDeleteYou can't put too much in store about food and fostering.
I must remind Blue Sky (again) that a few training sessions on diet and how to spoof kids into eating well would be great.
I remember eating my spinach and carrots so I could get strong and see in the dark...
This post made me smile, as usual.
ReplyDeleteWe're so lucky that our four eat really well - the natural preference of the eldest is still oven beige eat most of what we put in front of him (except the dreaded salmon, he draws the line there). I remember back to when he was four and would only eat dinosaur nuggets (not sure if you have them in the UK - chicken nugs in the shape of dinos) and chips... Playing "aeroplane" with his food, eating it first to show him it was ok (as a vegetarian it was the first meat I'd eaten in decades!), finding dinosaur shaped pasta (gold)... bit by bit we got there! Now I see him smashing through his veg (everything raw, but that's ok!), eating all sorts of protein, and I'm so proud of him!