Our youngest daughter and her family are staying with us for
a while.
It almost makes up for the long days and weeks when they
were living in another part of the world.
Almost.
Last night, during dinner, Tiny Girl (hereinafter known as
TG) was having her first taste of life as a grown up. She had spurned her high
chair and was sitting like a big girl on a booster seat.
The best of times.
She also discovered, during this exciting experience, how
much better everything tastes when it is eaten from someone else’s plate.
Happily, TG let her own food cool while she gobbled whatever
her mother was eating.
And it reminded me of something . . .
My Mom made wonderful breakfasts.
Most of the time, they included eggs. In some incarnation.
One of my Dad’s favourites was eggs fried.
Mom would place two perfect little white-jacketed yellow orbs
on his plate and he would happily proceed to take fork and knife and slice
through them, cutting them neatly into uniform bits.
Then he would scrape them carefully back together, sprinkle
the resulting mixture with salt and pepper and voila!
Breakfast.
I had watched this same process since I could remember.
His food always looked soooo good.
“Dad? Can I have a bite?”
He looked at me. “May
I have a bite?” Dad was always correcting my grammar.
“May I have a
bite?”
Mmmm. It was soooo
good.
“Can I have another?”
“May I . . .?”
“May I have
another?”
Mmmm. Even better.
Then Mom would set my plate in front of me.
Carefully, I would copy Dad’s technique to the best of my
ability.
Slice. Slice. Slice. Slice.
Gather.
Sprinkle.
Eat.
Yum.
Hmmm.
Wait. I’m sure it tasted better off his plate.
“Dad? Can I have another bite?”
He looked at me. “May
I have another bite?”
“May I have
another bite?”
He gave it to me.
Mmmm. I was right.
It did taste better.
I had made a momentous discovery.
Everything was better off Dad’s plate.
Later, I discovered that this was also true with Mom’s
plate.
Or my Husby’s.
I did draw the line there.
Total strangers do regard you oddly when you ask.
Okay, I never really did it.
But I wanted to.
“I’ll have what you're having!”
Literally.
