Masterchef

We now have the narrow boating holiday pics rolling round ina 200+ picture slide-show on one of those digital picture frames. A couple there reminded me of how little M (3) loves his cookery, and it's a great way to entertain the little chap when he's bored.

Mrs Silverwood has, anyway, discovered that Asda do self-decorate kits for things like gingerbread men, and kiddies "Thomas the Tank Engine" cake mixtures. The gingerbread men are already baked, and come with edible glue, toothpaste tubes of icing and smarties / hundreds-and-thousands (sprinkles?) and the children just assemble the lot using smarties for buttons and eyes and drawing on mouths with the icing.

The cake mixes they just need a bit of supervision measuring and stirring the mix, then spooning it into cake cups. The cooked and cooled down cakes are then decorated with icing and topped with little Thomas characters printed onto rice-paper.

M's fascination with cookery though, goes way beyond that and he's a regular and useful helper for Mrs S around the kitchen. he even amazes Mrs S by knowing the ingredients you need for some of the regular dishes. If Mrs S says they are doing bolognese, he's off and running, diving into the kitchen cupboards for the mince, tinned tomatoes, spices and herbs etc without needing telling.

On the boat it was Mum who did the cooking, and he was always there "I'll do it that one!" He'd say.... "I can do it!". Mum had him making up salad dressings, preparing salads, weighing and measuring, counting out the spoonfuls of various bits. We even have a photo of him proudly showing off 2 bowls of green salad - how many 3 year old boys are even interested in green salad?

Ah well, today it's too hot really to do anything, and after our 6-miler yesterday nobody's hassling Dad for a good walk, and he's not complaining.

Deefer