Out of the Mouths of Babes (or our future foodies)

A true story (from another forum that I frequent):

daughter is 3 & 1/2

trying to explain where meat comes from.
"does the chicken mind?"

and the best so far:
"we might get some chickens Lucy"
"if we get chickens, can i collect the eggs?"
"of course you can"
pause
"can we get piggies too so that i can collect the sausages?"

That's so cute! If only it were that easy to get sausage.
The first comment reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

Restaurant Critic: How do you prepare your chickens?
Chef: We just tell 'em straight out that they're going to die.

Ah yes.....children.

One night, while out with my son and his little family, my step-grandson (6) proudly delcares he knows how to make chicken. When asked, he proudly stated.....

"You get a chicken and then you cook it."

Here's another one from that same thread: "Quite a few years ago, I was baby sitting friends of mine who have 3 daughters. After repeatedly asking them what they would like for dinner, the midde one - about 9 at the time responds "no one ever asks me what I want for dinner, I just show up". "

One of my own: My little neice always called Kraft singles "flat cheese". I think she lived on that for a couple of years. Also, for some reason, she decided that she didn't like turkey, so we always had REAL BIG CHICKENS for Thanksgiving. She was always first in line for sceonds. "I'll have some more chicken please!" You had to be very careful talking about the bird.

Not exactly a phrase, but this Mother's Day I knew we had plans to go all out for dinner with Bejing Duck at Sun Wah...so I was surprised to hear a-knockin' at my door in the morning (even on a good day, I'm not a breakfast eater - at least not at breakfast-time) Sparky and the 'spouse, giggling, appeared with this tray:



For those of you who don't recognize it, that's a Slim-Fast bar cut into petits fours, a sliced fresh peach, a rose, and coffee. All Sparky's idea (my usual breakfast is Slim-Fast mix in my coffee.)

Beats the heck out of burnt toast, right?

Beverator wrote:One of my own: My little neice always called Kraft singles "flat cheese". I think she lived on that for a couple of years. Also, for some reason, she decided that she didn't like turkey, so we always had REAL BIG CHICKENS for Thanksgiving. She was always first in line for sceonds. "I'll have some more chicken please!" You had to be very careful talking about the bird.

Ha! As far as my 6-year-old nephew knows, calamari is chicken.

after the typical "mama" & "dada", my 1-1/2 year old daughters first words were:

beer
cheese
soup
crab
nachos


she also always wants to be lifted up to see what I am cooking on the stove.

Ok, one more from that other thread, related to post above, because this also made me laugh out loud:

My daughter developed her speach well before her ability to walk. So for a while there, we were carrying around this bald, diapered, little tyke that would startle strangers by blurting out full, articulate sentences without warning. One day when she was about a year old, a couple of young guys in cowboy hats and western shirts held a door open for us, she looked them up and down, threw her little fist in the air, and yelled "Yeehaw!" they were still laughing about that when we got in the store and she yelled "We're outta beer!" loud enough for the guys at the counter in the back to hear her. One of the guys said "That is one fine little lady you've got there."

Around Easter I bought my 3 yr old great (grand?) nephew some Peeps . . . purple chicks and pink ducks. He ate a duck and pronounced it very tasty. He then asked for one of the purple "squirrels" and said nothing. When I asked him what he thought of it, he replied "It's good. Tastes like chicken"

A week or so later, at breakfast his granny asked if he was hungry. He answered "I'm so hungry I could ride a horse."

He also thinks Cadbury's Cream Eggs are too "spicy"

The kid cracks me up.

Beverator wrote:One day when she was about a year old...she yelled "We're outta beer!" loud enough for the guys at the counter in the back to hear her.

That was me about 56 years ago. My mother likes to tell the story of two-year old me standing up in the grocery cart as we made our way through the aisles, shouting, "Oh boy, what a beer." (It seems I was susceptible to advertising from birth, which makes my going into it for my career seem like destiny.)

Beverator wrote:
One of my own: My little neice always called Kraft singles "flat cheese".

Last night my two-year-old asked for cheese after dinner. Typically, we keep a block of cheddar in the fridge. It's not a high quality cheddar by any stretch, but still it's better than anything with a sub-label of "pasteurized cheese product".

I went to the fridge to discover we are out of the block cheddar. In a pinch, I pulled out a cellophane wrapped slice of cheese product and brought it to the table.

My son threw at fit that would have made Gordon Ramsey proud. First, he shoved the offensive slice towards me. Then, when I offered it again, he took it and threw it at me. Once I let him out of his booster, he hurled himself to the ground and had one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen him produce.

What's unbelievable is that in the heat of the moment, I kept apologizing to a two-year-old for daring to run out of block cheddar.

Clearly he's a temperamental foodie in the making.

Kim

My daughters always refer to the single-wrapped cheese slices as "Grandma cheese" because my mother usually has it in her house. She periodically sends some back to my house because I won't buy it. I think she feels it's better than real cheese because it stays fresh much longer. She's right -- that stuff can sit in my cheese drawer for a year and not turn green.

Suzy

Hi,

My 5-year-old niece Maya is visiting for the holidays, we are getting a full load of amusing statements from her:

While making double-ginger crackle cookies, Maya notices me sampling the raw dough. "Does the cookie dough have raw eggs?" "Yes." Her hand covering her mouth in dismay, "You're going to get sick!" "Watch me!" as I take another healthy sample. She ran from the room to report this transgression to her Mother.

The best non-food related comment: When her late teen cousins were mouthing off to their Mother about how sophisticated they were. Maya points at them from across the room, "You're not finished growing up yet!" Everyone burst into laughter because she was absolutely right.

Regards,

Kim3 wrote:My son threw at fit that would have made Gordon Ramsey proud. First, he shoved the offensive slice towards me. Then, when I offered it again, he took it and threw it at me. Once I let him out of his booster, he hurled himself to the ground and had one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen him produce.

Is that an admirable quality?

Stunts like that got my cousin banned from my parents house for years.

jlawrence01 wrote:Is that an admirable quality?

Well, surely in this holiday season, we can agree to forgive two-year olds the rare non-admirable quality.

our daughter now a little over 2 helps with the weekly grocery list, on her pad of paper she acts like she is writing down the items we need as wll as throwing out her favorites:

chicken, rice, juice, milk, shrimp, pasta, etc..

She now is in the habit of running to the oven, and peering in at what may be roasting/baking, as well as continuing to want to be held by me as I prepare any dish, on Sunday she was in my arm as I stirred my 20 minute roux for my shrimp creole.

jimswside wrote: on Sunday she was in my arm as I stirred my 20 minute roux for my shrimp creole.

Get her a step stool. Your arm can thank me later.

stevez wrote:

jimswside wrote: on Sunday she was in my arm as I stirred my 20 minute roux for my shrimp creole.

Get her a step stool. Your arm can thank me later.

good call,

she does push one of her chairs from her table playset to get a birds eye view of other prep activites(as well as to climb on the counter to snag her own snacks nowdays), but needs that extra height I provide to see inside the stock pot.

jimswside wrote:good call,

she does push one of her chairs from her table playset to get a birds eye view of other prep activites(as well as to climb on the counter to snag her own snacks nowdays), but needs that extra height I provide to see inside the stock pot.

This is exactly how my interest in food began. We used to have a stool (dubbed the yellow chair) that I would use to watch cooking operations in my parents' kitchen at about the same age. I can still remember watching the oven window as if it were a TV as the chou paste cream puffs were rising.

stevez wrote:

jimswside wrote:good call,

she does push one of her chairs from her table playset to get a birds eye view of other prep activites(as well as to climb on the counter to snag her own snacks nowdays), but needs that extra height I provide to see inside the stock pot.

This is exactly how my interest in food began. We used to have a stool (dubbed the yellow chair) that I would use to watch cooking operations in my parents' kitchen at about the same age. I can still remember watching the oven window as if it were a TV as the chou paste cream puffs were rising.

I think its great quality time, so I enjoy it.

I can't wait to see what she tries @ Lao Sze Chuan tonight she is more adventurous at her young age than I was.

jimswside wrote:I can't wait to see what she tries @ Lao Sze Chuan tonight she is more adventurous at her young age than I was.

Maybe she'll really get into the spirit of the event and convert to Judaism.

Hi,

My seven-year-old niece lives 800 miles away, thus she's only visited my home a handful of times. However, she considers visiting her family in Chicago the best possible vacation destination. Whenever her parents inquire where to go on vacation, it's us or her other grandparents. Of course, when her parents suggested Disneyworld, she forgot all about us.

Whenever they do visit, I am cooking day and night. I am replicating meals my sister likes and doesn't cook. I am making food for my niece I think she might enjoy. The dishwasher and I work day and night when they are around.

When I visited my little nieceling recently she said, "I love eating at your house. Every meal is a feast and it's not even a holiday!"

Statements like that really keep me motivated.

Regards,

Great thread idea: you can indulge your parental urge to share the cute stories without actually forcing them on anyone and losing friends.

* After last year's seder at our friends' home, our then 8 yr. old said: "I like Sharon and John. They make good feasts for people to come to. Do we have to pay to come here?"

* Preparing for sleep, we were talking about dreams and how one might prime oneself for good ones before drifting off. Ben offered me this: : "Hey, dad, I've got a good dream for you for tonight. You could dream that you're swimming in an ocean of your favorite beer, with all your favorite foods floating by, and you're laughing and laughing as the jokes fall down from heaven."

* He's very good about trying things, but very spartan about what he actually likes. Eats very little meat, but enjoys an absolutely unadorned turkey sandwich (i.e. turkey, bread + nothing else), and only from Jimmy John's or Potbelly. I tried quizzing him on just why those sandwiches were acceptable, but sliced turkey and a bakery roll assembled at home were not. The answer: "Well, you just don't have the technique. You have to have the right turkey, and the right bread, and then you have to have the technique." Hard to argue with that.

* Finally, when he was about 6 we were talking about where eggs come from. Then he asked about cheese, and I explained in a general way how it was done and offered that we could even make certain types of cheese at home.
Then he asked where apples come from, and could we make those at home (we were eating apples at the moment). I said no we couldn't make apples ourselves. He asked what you need to get apples. I said, "you need a tree." He burst out laughing as if this were utterly absurd and not to be taken seriously by one not born yesterday.
After rocking and heaving with laughter, tears rolling down his face, I was able to ask what exactly was so funny about that. He explained that he'd thought I said, "you eat a tree," and that this implied that apples come from people eating apple trees and then pooping out apples as a result.

mrbarolo wrote:He explained that he'd thought I said, "you eat a tree," and that this implied that apples come from people eating apple trees and then pooping out apples as a result.

Wait...that's not it?

J, the 4 year-old in my life, recently announced that he didn't want to visit his grandparents over spring break. He prefered to come stay with us. Once convinced to visit the grandparents, he decided: "I'm coming to live with you for a year. So buy a lot of carrots."

Still not clear on the carrot connection....

Back to the step grandson; he's gonna keep me in quotes for a while. My son is currently deployed overseas and has been gone since early December. The last time we saw the little family was Christmas time but we didn't eat at our house, for a change. So, it's been some time since I made dinner for the crew. We don't get to see the DIL and grandson very often since my son's deployment because of schedules and such but we try to talk every couple of weeks. When chatting with them recently, the granson (now 9) asked "When are we allowed back at your house? I like your green beans."

I didn't realize I had banned the boy. Keep in mind, he calls me "Mean Granny" (but that's a totally different show).

Of course my 3.5 y.o. daughter when asked what she wants for dinner will answer with many of the childhood staples: hotdogs, chicken nuggets, pizza, hamburgers etc.

She makes my day when she answers: Chinese, or Chinatown. What really brings a tear to the old mans eyes is when she asks for some of my bbq.

I know I am creating a monster, pretty much every night when we pick her up from preschool she asks where we are going out to eat, or if we are going grocery shopping.