But chicken pie should traditionally have peas in the gravy, I feel, and I thought F should try them. She did, she liked them and ate them like a grown-up. Unlike a grown-up, V rolled her eyes at hers before hiding them under a corner of pastry and offering them back to me as a portion of left-overs I could eat for her. That was mild compared to her reaction to the buried quarters of boiled egg I'd concealed in the pie. That went something like this.
Anyway, eating out (in all fairness) was really nothing to do with my continued experiments in cookery, I'm just being petulant for the sake of it. We'd taken F to her first dentist's appointment and were having lunch in a cafe on the way back. F's favourite food is whatever you're having. The less she's allowed to have any, the greater her desire for it. I believe this could be accurately described on a graph of some kind, but I'm not the chap to assay such mathmatical shenanigans.
Sitting on a high-back sofa between me and mummy, F cheerfully ate bits of bread, some surprisingly spicy coriander humous (not much of that, it looked nicer than it tasted) and quite a lot of chicken pasta. And then a pouch of fruit puree, which she can drain like a vampire in under a minute. As well as water from an actual glass, a feat she considers a great game to undertake. After that, she bounced up and down along the sofa back, flirting with other customers and pointing at the lights, cooing and squeaking happily.
She likes eating out. She likes going out generally, she has an inquisitive mind. I nipped out of the flat to throw the bin bags down the rubbish chute the other morning, and turned to see F crawling down the hall towards me at a rate of knots, chortling maniacally to herself. I took her back in, she sat crossly on the ground, thought for a moment, then waved goodbye to me (as she does to people who are leaving) and started hammering at the front door in a bid to get it to open.
Foolishly, we thought this might mean it would be okay to take her with us on a date night when our babysitter had to cancel at the last minute, ill.
Ah, foolish parents, how ill-advised.
Lunch in a brightly lit cafe full of other children is a far cry from dinner in an intimate mood-lit fish restaurant full of sophisticated diners. Much later in the day, for one thing, so F was that much more tired and grumpy.
She ate all our bread, then refused V's fish burger and couldn't try my spicy prawns. She liked the mermaid stained glass light above us, but she didn't really like much else about the place. I mean, you couldn't even go and try the food on the next table or throw the salt shakers on the floor or drink mummy's beer. Or anything, really, I mean, what was the point?
The waitresses were great, bringing straws, highchairs and extra napkins without us really having to ask. We'd eaten fifty quid's worth of excellent fish in a rather sprinted forty minutes, with F crawling up and down us like a column of army ants in a nappy all the while. We capped it off with a massive tantrum as we tried to ladle her back into her winter overalls.
I'd hoped that a romantic dinner could be replaced with a fun family meal out with all three of us. Optimistic. We should probably really have stayed in and saved up for another night instead. Nothing ventured, nothing wasted, so to speak. I'm still glad we tried, though, it helps us know for next time.
And the prawns were excellent, what little I recall of them.
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