The Casserole

The time? 5.30pm
The place? Castle Koinuchan
The occasion? Daddy has just arrived home from work.

...And Little Miss K is hungry.

For the past week or so Little Miss' Nonna and Yaya - her maternal grandmother and great grandmother respectively - have been staying with us. My wife's family are, without exception, good cooks. As you can imagine, getting home and finding something delicious waiting for dinner has made even the most mediocre of work days bearable.

Nonna and Yaya had spent the afternoon cooking, so the kitchen counter was laden with plastic boxes full of home made tomato sauce and minestrone. And tonight's meal is one of my favourites - beef and veggie casserole. Little Miss loved this dish when she first started eating solids. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to introduce her to new and exciting food concepts such as 'carrots', 'green beans' and 'broccoli', dinner now means 'pasta'. If not 'pasta', then dinner must mean 'meat with mashed potato and veg' or perhaps 'rice with carefully disguised meat and veg in it' on a good day. Frustratingly casseroles are simply not on her culinary radar despite plenty of persistence from us.

Whether dinner can be ever be made ready in time for Little Miss is a moot point. She can go from 'I'm not hungry - why are you messing around in the kitchen instead of playing with me?' to 'I want a bread stick!' to 'You better get my dinner on the table now, or there will be trouble!' in the space of just two minutes. We know that she has reached the last stage when she starts trying to climb into her high chair wailing 'CHAAAIIIIIR!' in an insistent and frankly distressing manner.

As soon as I manage to get her bib on and her hands washed, her Mamma comes over with her meal. 'PASTA!' Little Miss exclaims excitedly with an enormous relieved grin. She looks at her dinner. 'NO PASTA!' she wails. 'YOGURT! NOW!'

We really have to do something about her manners.

'No, my love,' I patiently explain. 'This is a yummy stew that Nonna has made for you.' Her little face goes red, then develops an expression of utter contempt. 'OK, Pasta,' she calmly but firmly states. 'Try it, you'll like it,' I counter. 'Here, have a spoon.' Little Miss picks up her spoon and starts to prod her casserole with an air of fatalism. Her parents join her with their meals. In the meantime Nonna starts filling the kettle. Little Miss will get her casserole by fair means or foul.

Five minutes and half a dozen molecules of casserole later, Little Miss puts down her spoon and yells 'All done! OK, yogurt! Cheese! PLUM!'. 'No, try some more,' I reply. Little Miss looks avariciously at my plate. 'MMMMMM! CARROTS!' she announces, conveniently forgetting that there are carrots in front of her already. Then she notices my cabbage. 'WANT LETTUCE!' she adds. I put a little of each from my plate onto hers in the vain hope that she might prefer Daddy Carrots to Little Miss K Carrots. More half hearted veggie prodding ensues.

Not a moment too soon, Nonna announces that Little Miss K's pasta is ready. She whips her granddaughter's plate away, blasts the remaining food in a liquidiser, then adds the puree to the freshly cooked pasta, sprinkles parmesan cheese on top and returns Little Miss' plate to her. Little Miss greets this new development with great enthusiasm. 'PASTA! Mmmmm OK, Pasta!'.

She eats everything. All of her casserole, plus the 60g of pasta her Nonna had cooked for her. She then burps once with great gusto.

We really, really need to do something about her table manners.