139. She's leaving home (1)

I have ticked all the boxes, done all the right things. I fed her puréed organic peaches from the age of 10 months so she could appreciate the taste of fruit in season for life. I once bought a pound of organic tomatoes from the local market and almost ran all the way home pushing the buggy to preserve their freshness. I conscientiously peeled them one by one, removing the pips to make a special tomato soup. I proudly sat her in the highchair. I was pleased to see that she was beaming at me, looking forward to the delicious food. When the spoon reached her mouth she spat it all out, spraying it everywhere including all over my white top. Thinking tomato soup was an acquired taste I gave it several more attempts (the white top was ruined anyway) yet each one was received with the same disgust. After the fourth one I officially declared her dislike for tomato soup and called her father. I still flinch every time she removes a tomato slice from a burger. Every time I think she wants to make a point. 

'Remember? I don't like tomatoes.' 

I even home-schooled her for a while and had to sit for hours on end next to the trampoline to listen to her reciting her lessons: her tables, the rivers and mountains of France, the capital cities of Europe, the US states, ... 

Boing boing boing ... je chante ... boing ... tu chantes ... boing ... boing ... il chante ... boing boing boing ...

My neck would hurt trying to keep my eyes on her and I had to shout to get heard whenever I wanted to correct her. 

'Can we do it the normal way?'

'No! I learn so much better like this.’

‘Really?'

During the Christmas holidays the urgency of the situation meant that she was summoned into the kitchen to learn how to flambé. I cannot even remember what I put in the pan (carrots? apples?) but I do remember that I overdid the alcohol and the flame went so high that my husband screamed all the way from the lounge.

'What's going on in there? Have you two lost your mind?'

'It's cool! Mum's teaching me how to flambé.' Then she added: 'An essential life-skill apparently.'

My husband was not reassured. He yelled:

'You don't even know where the fire extinguisher is!'

I turned to my daughter and quietly said:

'No, I don't. Do you?' To which she replied.

'Mum, I don't think we've got one.'

Then I went through the kitchen cupboards with her and asked her to name all the items - painfully remembering a day when when she was 4 years old and I picked her up from school. I found her teacher standing in the corridor waiting to speak to me. There and then, right in front of all the parents, she told me in a highly reproachful tone.

'Our topic today was naming items in the kitchen. Your daughter did not know what a 'cocotte minute' was.'

It still pains me today to remember how I failed to increase my daughter's vocabulary by naming items in the home. The following day I dropped my little girl off at school and went straight to the supermarket to buy a 'cocotte minute'. I am now the proud owner of 6.

You learn from your errors and I am not going to make the same mistake again.

'And this is a bombé évasé. It's just a name for this special type of pan. It's a nice shape, isn't it?'

She just laughs and sounds happy. The bombé évasé and the flambé are proving to be a good topic for her Instagram story.

'My friends like your lessons! Especially the flambé. Can you teach me about the difference between Armagnac and Cognac now?'