Sir John Soane's Museum

If I'd been told what it was I might have not gone with my children, for fear of any breakages in this gloriously eccentric and unique house museum in the middle of Mayfair, London. The reality is that my hubby wanted to see the surroundings where Sir John Soane created his beautiful Georgian buildings, Moggerhanger Park (photo above) being one that he has often been to recently, and off we went to a grabber of a nine month old, plus a wrecker-of-all-things under three.

We're normally quite good with including our little ones on our trips to the galleries and museums of London, but this one was different. A pokey townhouse based at Lincoln Inn's Fields, it was richly adorned with classical friezes, scupltures, paintings and ornaments of all kinds in a fairly restricted space, such that at every turning I had too keep little bubba's hands in check. But gosh I am glad we went, and with the children too, for if I had known what we were (literally) getting into, my anxious mother's instinct would be to keep the little ones away. What marvellous space divided between yellow and otherwise coloured glass, with sun shining through to create shadows on the miniature British Museum-like exhibits - there was even an Egyptian sarcophagus in the basement, visible from the ground floor through the indoor balcony. Soane's 'skylights' in classical design, both in non-coloured and coloured glass, created space and aura to light up the otherwise dark interiors of a Georgian townhouse. My under three had little idea of what he was seeing, but surely some of that must seep through to the depths of this mind to enrich him - in a mysterious way somehow? A sarcophagus at closer range than at the British Museum and countless fragments of classical objects of beauty from ancient Rome and Greece.

See http://www.soane.org/ if you wish to visit this little jewel of a museum. Entrance free.

Musings on children's food choice

I should be congratulating myself after my second last food shift at my older son's parent co-op nursery, but after a conversation with another parent I was left rather bemused and unsure of what I should think. My butternut squash and cougette risotto seemed to have been fairly well received, with the usual few children not touching a bit of the food at all. However I was told that some children didn't eat, although the rather small amount of leftovers coming back to the kitchen informed me otherwise. I was also told that it was because some children didn't like to have different ingredients mixed together, as you of course would in a risotto. When I asked, this parent also said that she would normally serve up food with the food presented separately to maximise the chance of children eating the bits that they liked. I have no personal grudge against this parent for what she said, but it left a funny taste in my mouth.

Should I expect children to generally have food served separately on their plates so that they can easily pick out what they wanted to eat? I'm not so sure. Granted, if I was serving up a roast dinner with distinctly components, such as roast vegetables, meat and gravy, spuds, all having been cooked separately as per tradition, that has to be acceptable. But if I want my children to grow up appreciating food in all its glorious variety and all sorts of cuisines, not only knowing pasta and tomato sauce (though a great staple it can be! - or steamed rice and stir fry as us Chinese often end up eating day-in, day-out), they shouldn't we try to let them eat what we eat? Part of that must involve parents and children sitting together at the same dining table as often as possible and sharing the same fare. If I'm cooking risotto, then they ought to have risotto, as 'mixed up' the ingredients may be. If they are offered homemade minestrone, then they'll have to decide what to do with the beans they they don't have a care for. The hope is of course, that one day they will gradually reach the point of appreciating the whole dish and be tolerant of the bits that are less desirable to their taste buds, or even grow to like them.

It was exactly the same situation this evening when I served up my tomato and fish stew with pearl barley. I was struggling between cooking something that I knew my older son would scoff down, as opposed to pearl barley, which he had never been too keen on. According to the theory of the nursery parent I mentioned above, I could be causing my son to starve if he refused to eat the pearl barley and hence much of the rest of the dinner. It did take a little coaxing, but the fish juices and tomato combined seemed to have penetrated into the pearl barley enough for it to carry a nice, strong flavour. The pearl barley did go into my son's mouth spoonful after spoonful, and while he didn't finish it all and did first pick out the fish, carrots and potato which he favoured, he tried the pearl barley. That's all that matters to me.

A little bit of encouragement

I accompanied my hubby to an annual awards ceremony of a charity that helps struggling teenagers reintegrate into mainstream education tonight. Not only was it good to hear about the lives raised from hopelessness through the good works of this charity, I was rather cheered up by a comment made to me when I was asked what I did - I went through the usual introduction about my husband's work, and my role as a stay-at-home mum (NOT housewife Pe-leeease) to support the home-side of things. The lady I was conversing with positively beamed and said, basically, 'it's a very important role what you do. If there are more women like you there wouldn't be any need for charities like this dealing with children struggling in their lives and missing out on education.'

Yes I SO believe that I have a stake in what my hubby does, albeit indirectly, just because I am there for the children and the home. For one thing, who'd be there to make hot meals for his workday lunch otherwise? It positively fuels his creative juices!!

Great international array of food for babies and young children

With our family background and mix of cultures I'm rather proud (in a good way I hope) to say that I try to introduce a good range of international food in the family. Chinese food surprisingly doesn't feature too much in my daily repertoire, but yes we do do Asian food - Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Indian (British curry really...), European - we like Spanish, 'Italian' as far as I am able to replicate at home, and some Ecuadorean dishes. There's a firm family favourite of ours, a lebanese eatery, that's made us go back time and time again. It's all got easier since our older boy grew out of his baby allergies (egg, fish, dairy), thank God, and he does have strange tastes, such as lemon juice, and he did put an awful lot of black pepper with the pepper mill this evening when we were sampling the spaghetti carbonara I've just mentioned in the last blog post.

At E's nursery every parent does a shift on a regular basis and I love the idea. At times we have a 'food' shift, which involves preparing a snack and a lunch (main course and dessert) for 15 young children and 3-4 adults at a time. With different parents comes different cooking styles and we (in the vast majority) try to cook healthy food from scratch. Vegetarian food is served and we do have to make allowances for food preferences and allergies of the children in attendence, and this process has really challenged me to make up great vegetarian recipes that both children and adults would like, including using ingredients like quorn (not as bad as I thought it'd be), polenta and quinoa, the South American Andean grain.

Our local children's centre is offering healthy cooking classes to emphasise the importance of lowering salt and sugar content and using spices and natural ingredients instead to flavour your family cooking. I'll be looking forward to join those next month. Let me do all the cooking, and I'll be a happy woman as long as the dishwasher is in perfect working order!

My favourite QUICK spaghetti carbonara recipe

This recipe keeps working so well that I feel I ought to share it with everyone. It's a lovely comfort food in our family and has a lot of dairy and (raw) egg in it, which our 2 and 9 month old boy adores. It's not so good for babies who are just beginning to be weaned, so I put together the cooked spaghetti and bacon with a swish of olive oil instead for our younger one before serving the rest to others in the family. Yummy though it is!

Spagetti Carbonara

280g bacon sliced thinly

80 ml cream

a pinch of paprika

1 egg and 1 egg yolk

60g grated parmesan cheese

250g spaghetti

olive oil for frying

extra parmesan for sprinkling

1. Cook bacon in frying pan until cooked.

2. Place egg, egg yolk, cream, paprika and cheese in bowl and beat until combined.

3. Cook spaghetti until desired consistency and drain.

4. Immediately pour egg mixture and bacon over hot drained spaghetti over low heat to combine. Switch heat off before the mixture curdles (due to presence of egg).

5. Serve with extra parmesan and sprig of parsley immediately.

Enjoy!