Foody

My phone rang. Some people get booty calls; I get foody calls. 

It was my daughter’s teaching assistant, quizzing me about what menu items would be suitable for my girl to have with her classmates at an end of term pub lunch. (We had custard creams and squash at the school disco if we were lucky. This lot get a meal out - it’s not fair, I tell you, not fair).

It’s the kind of phone call I wish people didn’t have to make, and yet I love that they do.
In an ideal world, my girl would be able to take part in food-centred activities without the need for forward planning. But it’s a Prader-Willi World we live in, and foody calls are needed, and appreciated.

“The pub is doing a barbecue for us: we can get some low-fat meat if you like, and something she can have for dessert - you tell us,” the T.A. said.

I rattled off my girl’s barbie faves (Weight Watchers’ Cumberland Sausages, Asda spicy bean burgers, and ‘light’ (lower fat) ice cream. 

“No problem,” was the reply.

Two words. Loaded with so much meaning. It wasn’t a problem. Because the school is on board with the importance of thinking ahead, and communicating with me about the potential meltdown minefield of food. They were going to sort, and even shop, to make sure my girl was included. 

“They can all have the light ice cream and be the same,” the T.A. told me, warming the already toasty cockles of my heart, which got another blast of heat when I picked up my girl from school a few hours later.

“Mum, mummy, I made some excellent choices today, the teacher said - really excellent.”

“Oh, what was that about?”

“We had a list of things to choose from for when we go to the pub, we have to be independent and choose what we want but we have to choose the right things that we are allowed and we have to choose them ourselves, and I chose low fat sausages and a bun and a salad and low fat ice cream and fruit, and a tomato juice to drink, and they said I had made very excellent choices, and I did, didn’t I?”

You did. You had advance team help, but yeah, you really did.

Song is Brother Jack McDuff - Hot Barbecue

Chilled

My daughter’s teacher had a quick chat with me yesterday, on a MOLF (Matter Of Life and Food)* 

*This is my own acronym. I’m not going to bother trademarking it.

MOLFs occur at school regularly, of course. Her special school unit has inventive and practical ways of learning, and some of these involve food, which is always an important Matter for someone who has Prader-Willi Syndrome and is consequently EFOF (Extremely Focused On Food)* 

*Note to self: enough of the acronyms. They're getting ruder.

One example of a school MOLF was the tasting of a selection of small pieces of fruit in science to learn about different flavours and how to describe them. Another involved putting small amounts of different puddings in a shot glass to create some form of dessert-based strata, to learn about layers in rock formation, or something. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It was all dull drawings of Oxbow lakes in my day...

Forewarned is forearmed, and staff are always careful to check with me about what my daughter is allowed to eat. She is on a strict low-fat diet and has a set amount of food each day at set times, so I need to know about any additional grub that may mean I need to make some menu adjustments.

Usually, anything they do consume is in small enough quantities for me to just make sure she has a particularly low-calorie afternoon snack to balance things out.

This latest MOLF is a little different, though: a trip out for lunch at Café Rouge. “We’re going to send a letter home, but we thought we’d pre-warn you,” her teacher explained. 

“That should be fine - she can just have that as her main meal of the day, and her packed lunch for tea, instead,” I said, making a mental note to keep reminding my daughter of this fact so that she will have the meal order switch-around clear in her head. “I’ll have a look at the menu...” I continued, but was interrupted by my excited girl.

“It’s OK, mum, I’ve already seen it, and I can have the pasta with tomato and courgette sauce, because that’s healthy and doesn’t have fries, and for afters I can have the fresh banana and chilled custard.”

I’ve just looked it up myself on the restaurant’s website. She’s right, you know. She got the  exact wording of the menu options she’d chosen. And picked the lowest of the low-fat choices herself. What could have been a long, drawn-out process of negotiation, explanation, compromise and mental preparation turned out to be pretty simple. 

Which left both her and me feeling like the custard: chilled. Dude.

Video is Squeeze - Cool For Cats