Reflections on the puddle of life
A puzzle
by , 04-25-2011 at 11:35 AM (1396 Views)
We've finally bitten the bullet and bought a tent and next weekend we've decided to turn down our invitation to Kate & Will's wedding and go camping in the Lakes instead.
We've spent the past few days getting prepared. Firstly, we did a trial run putting up the tent. Okay, I'll admit at this stage that it did take us around 2 1/2 hours to put the tent up (the advertised time to construct the tent is 20 minutes, which is probably about right if you know what you're doing and haven't consumed any alcohol) and it was going dark by the time we were securing the guy ropes, but it was a good experience and we now have a fairly good idea what we're doing. We also slept in the tent and learned quite quickly that the idea of having our own little adult space on the other side of the tent is not going to happen, as our 7 year old daughter could not sleep until we (I) were within poking distance. I'm hoping that once she's got into the swing of it, she'll decide she wants her own personal space but if not that's okay, we can manage it.
We've got sleeping bags and waterproofs, camping stove and pans and plates, foldaway chairs and table, wind up head torches, lamps, candles, air beds and woolly socks. We've got board games, a pack of cards, books, and an array of camping songs. We've even got a radio so that my husband doesn't need to be separated from Radio 4. But we have one problem, and it's a big one. The puzzle of how to create a camping menu that suits even awkward son number 1. You'd think this would be an easily resolvable problem, but it's not. Because awkward son number 1 is about the most awkward eater in the world.
He won't eat 'wet' food. Except when he will sometimes eat wet food, like baked beans. He likes baked beans. However, he won't eat chips, or any other food for that matter, that have touched his baked beans and therefore become 'wet' or in his words 'soggy'. Beans on toast is out. He doesn't eat anything else in sauce. That means no curry, chile con carne, bolognaise, soup, pasta and sauce...basically anything with a 'wet' element is off the menu.
He doesn't like any vegetables except carrots. He doesn't like it when his carrots are too 'wet'. He doesn't like salad or really anything much in the way of fruit. Fruit-wise he likes apples (as they're not very wet), strawberries when they come out of the fridge but not when they've warmed up and have flavour, raspberries with the same qualification as strawberries, kiwi fruit (a bit)...and that's basically it. Carrot stir fry, coming up.
He's really fussy about the texture of food. So, for example, he tried some pineapple recently and whilst he enjoyed the taste, the texture was no good. So he doesn't like pineapple. Basically think about the texture of chicken nuggets and that's about the range of texture he can handle.
Sigh.
So, there's the puzzle. How to feed four people camping over 3 days with the limited range of my son's 'acceptable' foods without us all dying from nutritional deficiency by the end of the weekend.
Help!
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