Molto Elijaho

September 12, 2006

The other day at school, Elijah's teacher showed the kids how to make pasta. It had some sort of chicken cream sauce. At dinner that night, the boy told us about the recipe.

"She made it with that thing that's like onion, but smaller," he said.

"You mean garlic?" Regina said.

"Uh-huh," Elijah said. "Garlic. And there was something called rosemary! It smelled really good!"

Now, I don't remember what I learned in preschool. Hell, I don't even remember what I watched on TV last night. But I'm pretty certain that I didn't learn about rosemary until after college. Still, it seems like a good lesson for my boy, who's showing uncommon taste in food.

Last night, Regina made pizza, using store-bought crust. One of the pizzas, at Elijah's request, had black olives, capers, and mozzarella. Regina deployed ground beef and fresh tomatoes onto the other one. Both, I decided, could stand improvement by way of the anchovy. It's probably my favorite condiment; to my mind, the truly best foods--bone marrow, pork cheeks, runny, aged cheese, and the anchovy--bear a taste and smell that's faintly redolent of ass. I really wanted to share my anchovy passion with my son.

I got the jar out of the fridge.

"What's that?" Elijah asked.

"It's anchovy," I said. "A really salty fish," making sure to emphasize the word "salty," a key buzzword sure to excite Elijah's salivary glands.

"Can I have one?"

"Sure."

I fished one out of the jar and flopped it on his plate.

"It's slimy!" he said.

"Eat it."

He did. His face scrunched up at first absorption, yet he didn't spit it out. I waited, anxiously, for the judgment to emerge.

"It's good," he said. "It's a little black and a little red. With spines."

And then he ate three more.

"Unbelievable," Regina said. "He won't eat grilled cheese or a scrambled egg, but he'll eat anchovies, capers, and black olives."

"And chicken skin," Elijah added.

"And chicken skin."

"And shrimp!"

"With the heads on," I said.

"Of course," Elijah said. "It's the yummiest part of the shrimp."

That little Guatemalan kid on Noggin had better watch his precious lispin' back.

Posted by at 9:21 AM | Permalink

Comments

You leave the little Guatemalan kid alone. He has the BEST ACCENT EVAH!

Posted by: troy | September 12, 2006 12:06 PM

Anchovies? Shrimp heads? Capers?? He's gonna be a bacchanalian when he grows up.

Posted by: Tim | September 13, 2006 9:11 AM

Man! The closest thing to gourmet cooking my preschool teacher ever showed us was that you could pour corn meal or dry beans from one container into another. Or maybe it was vodka. In any case, kids generally like the same nasty stuff their dads do, and they always think anything that has to do with a butt is awesome. I trust Elijah is well familiar with the pull-my-finger trick.

Posted by: Steve Steward | September 13, 2006 10:02 AM

that last sentence can (possibly) only be appreciated by a parent of a toddler. Where DID they get that kid, anyway?

Posted by: Tom Dooley | September 13, 2006 10:27 AM

I think England.

I'm going to be doing more posts about toddler TV. People who aren't forced to watch it gape in disbelief as I describe some of the shows...

Posted by: Neal Pollack | September 13, 2006 12:12 PM

WOW! Intersting. I remember also my kid who went home after their pizza pie making. The kid sure knows whats going on around him.

Posted by: tinay17 | September 13, 2006 7:36 PM

Sounds like he's going to grow up to be Anthony Bourdain... not bad. Not bad at all.

Posted by: Carolyn | September 13, 2006 10:23 PM

ah yes- please post more about the insanity that is noggin and it's ilk! And all the kinky drama over "The Goodnight Show's" hot hostess getting fired on Sprout! The new guy freaks me out...

Posted by: emdub | September 18, 2006 10:54 AM

A recap, part 1 With Digital ID World in the books as a success, I always like to take a look back at "what I learned." As an organizer of the conference, Digital ID World is always a whirlwind experience for me, but I find that as I look back

Posted by: Johanson | September 19, 2006 9:12 PM

I agree with what you said earlier.

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