Kids and weird food.....

I'm an adventurous person, not brave, just adventurous. I like exploring, making friends, making a fool of myself trying to speak any local lingo and I love eating stuff I've not tried before. This is not the case with the rest of the family but generally I can bully them into trying a little of something and occasionally I hit a home run. The girl must take after me as she is very keen to eat escargot and cuisses de grenouilles.

The thrill of a foreign supermarket is way up there on the list of great things to do on holiday. This thrill is deffo NOT shared by the rest of the family and so it was that I was passed the car keys and encouraged to go supermarket shopping alone this week during our quick and cheap getaway in France. What glee, no one to nag me and no time constraint. It's a wonder I ever came back. But come back I did, with various 'weird' bits and pieces.

The cooked prawns were an easy sell, 'Heads Off', we call them on account of having to pull their heads off.... Nice! In fact, pretty much all my purchases were approved, except one.

I'd watched the French shoppers, many picked up a box or two of the crab sticks. This is not a product I've ever thought of buying but on the spur of the moment I thought they might be good in a fish salad. Apparently not.

Waste not, want not, here's their transformation. Crab cakes made with questionable crab, gorgeous crushed potatoes, creme fraiche, tons of seasoning, stunning salted French butter, shallots, chilli and sweet pepper. Crusted in French crunchy bread crumbs and served with a citron butter and a fresh salad. Nom, nom. Tres Bien. Bon appetit.

Radioactive Food... Yum!

The boy and the girl have been sickly and at home. Fortunately the illness was more soaring temperatures, lethargy and a cough rather than the gastro-thing that is doing the rounds. As of this evening, I think we are all mended. Phew!

The main baby-sitter during this period has been the telly. Normally we Archer-parents are mean with the goggle box; rationing the kids to Saturday and Sunday night TV, but during sickly times the TV is a welcome distraction.

Boy had been watching an old sci-fi film yesterday about a black hole in space and robots, c. 1960, I was in the kitchen finding stuff to tempt his appetite when he wandered in in his PJ's.

'What's gammon? he enquired.

Pleased that he might be interested in a ham dinner with potatoes, cheese sauce and broccoli, I began the Wiki-version of gammon and other lush pork cuts. Hugh Fearnley-Whittenstall, Nigel Slater and Adam Henson would all have been so proud.

At the end of my monologue he looked dazed, confused and in need of more ibuprofen.

'Why would it be radioactive then? he asked.

Ohhhhhhh..[lightbulb]........ Gamma!

Moral: We must be sure of the question, before we give the answer. My friend once frightened the bee***us out of her young triplets when they asked a vague question about babies. Turns out they were really only interested in a vague notion of the subject and didn't need the technical terms. A week later and the same mum overheard an indignant conversation between two mums at the school gates, whose children had also picked up the bio-speak a year or two early.... whoops.