Someone Little Enjoys His Food

My Matthew who sometimes looks like a little man in the baby clothes is definitely growing. Not just physically but mentally too. His little brain is processing everything he sees, and everything he sees he wants to do - one of them - eat like we eat.

You Are Getting Your Own Dinner Plate. It was time to give Matthew big dinner plate, and let me tell you why. Every breakfast, lunch or dinner Matthew would reach out for our fork or spoon, and dish full of food. He wanted to eat what we eat. It was fun for while, but us eating spaghetti with the spoon did it. 'Matthew you are getting your own plate' - we said. He absolutely loves it now as he can choose from three different foods I put on his dish. To our surprise Matthew started to pick his own food with his fork right into his mouth. The nice thing is that he knows when he does something new, and he is so proud of himself - the big smile on his face tells it all.

Spaghetti Time. Matthew is now almost 15 months, and he got total of four teeth - two on the bottom and two on the top. We thought that eating spaghetti would be tough, but we were wrong. Matthew would grab this long pasta and grind into pieces with his four teeth, and then with more shredding on the back and then its all gone. The best of all is to watch him how sometimes he would try to put long pasta onto the fork and then into his mouth. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work, and this is when his face looks like tomato smugged in the ground beef.

Let Me Clean Your Face. No not Matthew's face. In fact my face needed to be clean one day. With few sneezes around food, and with Matthew sometimes eating from my dish and then grabbing my face for a small hug and kiss, it is hard for me to keep my face clean. In addition, Matthew likes to pick small crumbs around him with his little fingers and eat them. So one day Matthew finds a small bread crumb attached to my face, picks it and eats it. This time I laughed.

Chocolate. Did I mention the chocolate yet?... Yes Matthew loves apple cinnamon chocolate loaf !!!

As life goes on, we continue our messy breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners. One day when I am old and washing my floor around the table, the greasy stains will remind me how wonderful and precious eating times we had together.

Apple Cinnamon Chocolate Loaf from Heaven

'Okay, are you ready for my baking again?' - I asked.

'Looked at me, do I look like I need another cake?' - he said.

'Yes you do look like you need another cake to eat, and I need one too.' - I said.

'Then lets bake it.' - he said.

With touch of love and good ingredients I finally I got a recipe for a chocolate cake that all three of us like. It goes like that.

Take one stick of the unsalted butter - yes unsalted because love is not salty. Or is? Okay sometimes we get angry on each other, but hey its better to release that pressure than store it. So take that one stick of unsalted butter, that is 175 grams of butter fat and mix until fluffy with 2/3 of a cup of golden cane sugar. Yes this sounds very prestige, but by all means you can use granulated white sugar too. Better not discriminate against sugars - sweet stuff is needed. So by the time I finish this paragraph, the butter and sugar mixture should be fluffy by now. And if not just get closer to the oven - the heat does wonders, but do and do not melt the mixture.

Two ingredients down. Now let the woman get the apple. Yes we need apple. Ironic that apple in the bible was a bate. But love can conquer everything, so apple will not stand in our way. Peel one large size apple, dice it into 1 cm cubes and coat with cinnamon. Let it wait its turn.

Now visit your pantry and find that aging flour like I do. God only knows how old my flour is. Okay not only God, but me too. This time do not take my advice, just get some fresh whole wheat flour, or if you live in Canada, Robinhood got special nutri blend flour of white flour and bran. You will need 1 and 3/4 cup of this fine powder. Yes, Robinhood, but bet he doesn't have the 2 tea spoons of the baking powder. Use any brand, and just mix it with the flour.

Now, we need hen. No not for the cake, but for the eggs. Ask hen for four eggs, and if not available, just go to the store and get some. Once cracked, beat them lightly. And remember to take out that white disgusting amoeba floating stuff around. I don't know what is going on with those eggs but they have more of that stuff in them lately. Next thing we will be able to hatch those eggs. But don't take my word for it - think the fertilization process is necessary for the chic to be produced.

And now the best part, 1 and 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The rest is easy, throw beaten eggs into the sugar butter mixture. Mix it. Throw flour and baking powder mixture. Mix it. Throw cinnamon coated apple cubes, Mix it. And lastly dump the chocolate, and mix that baby.

Take a loaf pan, coat with butter, and put strip of parchment paper on the bottom. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan, and bake this loaf of love for 1 hour at 325 F.

Three days later.

'Should I make another loaf?' - I asked.

'Looked at me, do I look like I need another cake?' - he said.

'No you do not need another cake honey.' - I said.

'But make sure you take a note of this recipe, okay?' - he said.

'Yes I will write it down.' - I said.

A day later....

'Not to the whole world, ouch.' - he said.

'Honey we need to share.' - I said.

How to Divide One Slice of Bread

There are times when I actually make a point to watch a TV commercials. There are few that are just adorable, meaning that they are usually with children. Its their face expressions and what the say that make my put my the whole world on hold. There is one with two brothers arguing while their little sister drinks his brother's juice or cool aid, and when in trouble, all you hear 'I love you'. So there is this new commercial on TV for peanut butter. It is my another favorite one, because I did not know what the expect. By the way, I changed things around a bit, however, the story line remains the same.

The story goes. Three characters, the mother and the two boys, Joey and Bobby, and two main and the most important items of the commercial, the jar of peanut butter and one slice of bread - yes only one slice of bread. The two brothers are jokingly fighting over this one slice of bread and obviously to be spread with peanut butter. The mother suggests that the slice of bread is split. Easy, but not. One of the boys Joey wants the bigger piece because he is older. So what happens next. Well the mother gives knife to Joey and tells him to split the bread. There is suddenly sadness on the Bobby's face, because he knows that someone wants bigger piece of pie, its Joey. Well, Joey splits bread into two, but he intentionally makes one piece bigger. As I watched, I was thinking oh mother do something for the younger one, and she does. Joey got to divide the bread, but Bobby gets to choose. Nice little trick, fortunately both boys were happy on the end.

So that day I learned something new, may be old story, but new to me. I think this story teaches are something, and depending which venue you choose, it can have many many meanings.

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