Category Archives: Humour

Even Your Kid Will Eat Healthily If He/She Is Hungry

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Children, Food, Health, Humour

≈ 4 Comments

Several weeks ago, I was asked to give a talk to the kids in my eldest son’s class about healthy eating.  I suggested that along with speaking, I would bring snacks in for the entire class, saving their parents the trouble.

In I went with fresh watermelon wedges, raw carrot sticks, blanched broccoli, callaloo muffins and cocoa beetroot muffins – all homemade.  FYI: the muffins had literally a smidgen of sugar in them.

The class had recently been learning about proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins, so the idea was for my talk to tie in with that.  In fact, all these food groups were included in the snacks I had brought – right down to the protein in the eggs used in my muffins.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how many of the Grade 2 children would actually eat what I had carried along, but they all seemed enthusiastic and excited.  In fact, what happened amazed me.  Fifteen out of sixteen of them ate everything.  These are children whose parents have often told me: “I can’t get him/her to eat vegetables.  He/She just doesn’t like vegetables.”  Well, sitting there altogether, with the same menu as their peers, each child did indeed eat their vegetables.  And the proof of liking what they had eaten came with the fact that most of them asked for second helpings.

So why is it that these children ate what I gave them, but won’t eat the same at home?  Okay, it could be because I’m a much better cook than everyone else’s parents!  However, it doesn’t take a master chef to prepare these five different foods which I brought, so I don’t think it has anything to do with my capabilities.  Which is probably why more than half the class had lunch boxes full of junk – chips, cookies, juice – all of which came in store-bought packets.  The parents had little faith in me perhaps?  Or, more importantly, perhaps they had little faith in what their kids would actually eat.

If the latter is true, then these parents underestimated their children and they did a disservice to them, in my opinion.  That said, it is easy to judge when you don’t have the same problem, which I don’t.  Not that my kids don’t like junk food.  Trust me, they do, but I have always insisted that they eat the healthy things first and they accept that – most of the time.  When they give me trouble about it, I spend time explaining to them the benefits of healthy eating and the negative side effects caused by the unhealthy options.  It is not always easy though, because there is peer pressure.

Which brings me back to why the Grade 2 boys and girls were happily willing to gobble up all the goodness I had taken into their classroom.  Peer pressure.  Sit them all down together, give them all the exact same healthy meal (with no alternatives), and they will eat if they are hungry.

 

 

 

Excuse Me For Expecting More Than Mediocre Service

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Food, Humour

≈ 5 Comments

I walk into a cafe of sorts the other day, go to the counter to place my usual cappuccino order – strong coffee, lots of froth, no sugar, no cinnamon.  Yes, surprisingly, I have to request that I do not want sugar in my coffee because “Most customers take sugar in their cappuccinos,” I have often been told.  There’s only one barista in said cafe who knows how to make a decent cappuccino, so I ensure that she is on the job.  My friend orders her coffee and a muffin.

The coffees arrive promptly.  The muffin, which has been sitting in the display since we arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, arrives at our table thirty minutes later.  I ask if I may please have a couple slices of gluten-free toast, a regular order of mine in the same cafe.

Meanwhile, we witness one barista preparing a take-away bag of baked goods, previously paid for by the customer.  She then attempts to get the attention of said customer by waving the bag at her, while leaning up against the open section of the counter, where staff can walk through and access the ‘floor’.  Flabbergasted, I watched the bewildered-looking customer approach and take the bag from the barista’s hand.

I call the same barista over to our table and ask, again, for some gluten-free toast, because I have been waiting for half an hour for toast. She goes to check if there is gluten-free bread, returns several conversations later, and informs me there is none.  I ask if there is any in the freezer section of their adjoining market, from which they get their supplies.  I get an “I don’t know.”

“Would you mind checking for me?” I ask.

“Well, hmmm, okay.  I suppose I can.  But if there is any, it is going to take a long time before you get any, because I’ll have to have it signed off by the manager to move it from the freezer into the deli.  So I don’t really know,” she continues.

“Oh no!” I exclaim.  “I really don’t want to cause you any trouble at all.  Is it the case that you are not allowed to get supplies from the market-side?” I ask, with sarcasm, because I damn well know they are allowed.

“No,” she replies, deflated.  “It’s just, well, it is going to take some time to organise.”

FYI, there is a total sum of two occupied tables in the venue, and it is now eleven o’clock in the morning.

Again, I tell her that I do not want to be of any bother, especially if it is going to be so difficult.  Alas, she relents and off she goes – walking the twenty yards to the freezer in the adjacent room.  After twenty minutes, I see her return.  She is waving at me to get my attention, as if the place is crammed with six hundred people, yet there are only about six of us in total.  She shakes her head and I read her lips as she says “No gluten-free bread.”

We have been at the cafe for an hour and twenty minutes now, and between us we have had two coffees and one muffin.  We are very hungry, so we order omelettes.  Forty minutes later, our omelettes arrive.  They are hot, thank goodness.  However, one has to wonder what on earth the six or seven staff members were doing behind the counter during that time, because it cannot take a human being, let alone one trained in the restaurant business, more than five or ten minutes to make two omelettes.  Excuse me, but I do expect more than mediocre service!

40 & Grey, but I’m not a Granny

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in Humour, Life

≈ 10 Comments

IMG_0106A year ago a sixty-something year old woman whom I have known nearly all my life declared to me that I was looking very old.  I was caught off guard and so I did not respond verbally.  My jaw, however, dropped an inch.  This very young-looking sixty-something year old lady, who is quite beautiful, is not blind.  She saw my jaw drop.  She immediatly followed up with: “but at least you’re thin, so you can get away with looking old.”  Again, I was lost for words.

What I should have said, however, is: “perhaps if you give me the name and number of your fabulous plastic surgeon, I shall be able to correct the problem.”  Alas, I am slow with comebacks most of the time.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a child at my sons’ school asked me if I was their grandma.  I had not yet turned forty.  I laughed when the child said this to me and told him that I was their Mummy.  I get that it would be quite possible for me to be a grandmother at my age, but seriously?!

For the record, I do not believe that there is anything wrong with being a grandmother, nor do I think there is anything wrong with being a grandmother at my age, but my children are under seven, so it did come as a surprise to be seen in that role.

I feel that I must disclose the fact that my hair is grey and that after dying it for almost twenty years, I was pushed to shave it all off, because the medication that I was taking at the time was causing it to fall out anyway.  My lovely locks were gone and I embraced the baldness.  Equally, I decided to embrace whatever would grow back in its place – a courser and far more grey version of what I had had before.  I turned 40 this week and I am still grey, but I’m not a granny.